Chapter 423 - 303: The Sanctuary
The makeshift bridge was ready. At Leo Joyce’s command, the group began to cross one by one.
The people from Southreach were at the front.
The logs were laid securely, and the top surfaces had been smoothed flat. They walked across at a good pace without any incident.
The ground below remained still. It looked like things would be resolved smoothly.
After a few people had crossed, it was soon Paige Summers’s group’s turn.
But that was when the trouble started.
Marcus Monroe was no longer carrying Paige Summers but was holding her hand, forcing them to walk sideways. Behind her, Rhonda Rhodes held her other hand as if he too were afraid she might fall.
Ben followed behind Rhonda Rhodes.
This arrangement clearly slowed them down.
There were still quite a few people behind them, and they were naturally getting impatient.
At a time like this, no one wanted to linger on the log bridge. They wanted to cross as quickly as possible to avoid falling to their deaths, where not even their bones would be left.
At first, no one said anything, but by the time they reached the halfway point, murmurs of complaint began to rise.
The shouts to hurry up grew more frequent. Paige Summers kept looking back, a deeply unsettled expression on her face. This made her lose focus. Somehow, her foot slipped, and she fell off the side of the log.
It all happened so suddenly that Marcus Monroe and Rhonda Rhodes had no time to react and were both dragged down with her.
Ben, however, reacted quickly enough to grab one of Rhonda Rhodes’s arms.
But since the bridge wasn’t very high, the three of them were already sinking into the ground. If Ben held on, he would only end up being dragged down with them.
Not only that, but Ben’s other hand was still gripping the bridge...
It all happened in an instant. When the others realized what was happening and saw Ben using the bridge for leverage, the faces of those both in front of and behind him changed drastically.
’Is he trying to pull us all down with them?!’
’That can’t happen!’
Immediately, a man behind Ben made a split-second decision and shot several Water Arrows at his arm!
’If he wants to save his arm,’ he thought, ’he’ll have to let go of the bridge.’
And Ben did just that. He gave the man a detached glance and then let go, jumping down himself.
By then, the legs of Paige Summers and her companions had already been swallowed by the terrifying earthen trap.
Their backs were to the crowd. Marcus Monroe and Rhonda Rhodes didn’t look back, but Paige Summers did. She turned with a terrified expression, yet the look she gave Ben held a different meaning.
’He really is different now,’ she thought. ’I didn’t have time to tell him about the plan, but after his initial confusion, he immediately figured out what to do... Is Ben capable of it? Or rather, is he slowly recovering his truly human way of thinking?’
As she thought this, she squeezed the hand Marcus Monroe was holding with a little extra force.
The Superpower User who had launched the Water Arrows saw that they had no intention of attacking him and, figuring the four were about to be swallowed by the earth, breathed a small sigh of relief. But he never expected that Ben, whose back was to him, would suddenly arch backward like a bolt of lightning. In a flash, Ben’s arm twisted around, his hand grabbing the man’s ankle and flinging him off the bridge...
Just as he had done to Ben, someone else was ready to do the same to him.
As he was about to crash into another Superpower User, that person didn’t hesitate to strike him away with the flat of their blade.
A CRACK of breaking bones echoed from the tunnel.
The man’s spine was shattered. His body slammed into the wall and slid to the ground, where he was swallowed by the strange earth in a matter of minutes.
Lying sideways on the ground, he disappeared even faster than Ben and the others...
Then, one by one, Paige Summers and her three companions silently vanished into the earth as well.
Only then did the Superpower Users on the bridge let out a collective, complicated sigh of relief.
Some believed that Ben’s group had been decent enough not to try and take everyone down with them. Otherwise, they’d had plenty of time to destroy the bridge before they were completely swallowed.
Others, while relieved, couldn’t help but find the four of them a bit strange. They didn’t look like novices, so how could their reactions have been so slow? How could a young woman pull down two grown men? If they hadn’t seen how treacherous the ground was with their own eyes, they would have suspected it was all an act!
Leo Joyce, for one, harbored a great deal of suspicion.
But regardless, he didn’t believe they could have survived that, so his suspicions eventually faded.
But in this world, there are things that are not impossible, merely unimagined.
As shadows flickered past their eyes, Paige Summers and Marcus Monroe weren’t nearing death as everyone assumed. Instead, they were hurtling through the earth itself. It was only then that the two of them truly understood just how inconceivable a Cultivator’s Power was to this world!
Just a few talismans allowed them to travel freely through the earth and even provided them with enough air to breathe... Truly, these were methods beyond the comprehension of mortals!
The idea, of course, had come from Rhonda Rhodes, the provider of the talismans. The goal wasn’t just to escape Leo Joyce’s group; it was because he had sensed something else deep beneath this patch of ground.
Supported by his Earth Escape Talismans, the four of them descended smoothly to a place deeper underground.
The pressure on Paige Summers’s body suddenly vanished, and her vision brightened.
Who would have thought that deep underground, there could be a layered space like this, a hidden sanctuary?
They were standing on solid ground. Overhead, where there should have been more earth, was a thin white mist that kept the space from feeling oppressive at all.
A sweet fragrance filled the air all around them.
Dotted all around were pink peach trees, all in perfect bloom.
The trees were spaced perfectly—not too crowded, yet not so far apart as to feel sparse—leaving just enough room for two people to walk side by side.
As far as the eye could see, there was an endless expanse of flowering peach branches.
Paige Summers took a deep breath.
Even she found it all too incredible.
Marcus Monroe and Ben scanned their surroundings, their expressions wary and guarded.
The situation was simply too bizarre.
Rhonda Rhodes had only told them to jump, that there was something profound below, but he hadn’t had the chance to explain what that something was.
So Paige Summers couldn’t help but look toward him.
When she did, she saw that the look on Rhonda Rhodes’s face was grim.
This was the first time she had seen such a clear expression from the Cultivator, who usually remained so aloof and seemingly untouched by the mortal world, despite having arrived in it.
"What is it?" Paige Summers asked.
Rhonda Rhodes gritted his teeth and said in a suppressed voice, "This is the territory of an Evil Cultivator from another world!"
Paige Summers froze, instantly understanding what he meant.
’There’s... a third person who crossed over!’
’And an Evil Cultivator, at that!’
After what had happened with Sean Raines, Paige Summers knew that Rhonda Rhodes had already relaxed his standards for what constituted an Evil Cultivator. So, if he was calling this person an Evil Cultivator, they were most likely truly evil.
’An Evil Cultivator... to create such a grand domain, their Power must be considerable.’
’Rhonda Rhodes must not be confident he can deal with this person. That’s why he looks so grim.’
Paige Summers concluded.