The Three Realms Thief Chapter 68

He was energetic!

Xu Yuan breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the little boy finally cheer up.

In such a place, if the two of them couldn’t work together, once something went wrong, the consequences would be as miserable as they could be.

Xu Yuan continued to climb down, gripping the mud with both hands.

This was even more difficult than climbing the city wall.

Because the mud was softer, it could easily crumble and fall.

He had to constantly make sure that his climbing points were stable.

If there was no stable place, he had to use Gold Spirit power to cover the mud and create a stable spot.

Xu Yuan reacted quickly, with the Agility +4 attribute granted by the emblem and the boost from Gold Spirit power. Even so, he almost slipped several times.

He had one scare after another, and cold sweat broke out again and again.

Half an hour later.

“Maybe we should climb up. We can’t see the bottom down there, and it’s so dangerous.”

The little boy couldn’t help but say.

Xu Yuan shook his head, ate a Spirit Replenishment Pill and a Vigor Restoration Pill, and then whispered, “I’ve calculated it, with the pills, my stamina and spiritual power are enough. If not, we can rest halfway.”

The little boy looked up at him.

He saw that Xu Yuan was completely engrossed, focused and absorbed, even his breathing had a fixed rhythm.

—He had to find a result!

“Okay, let’s continue. Be careful. It’s okay if you slip.” the little boy said.

“Mm.”

Xu Yuan continued to climb down.

About twenty minutes later.

He stopped.

A rotten, foul smell rose from the darkness below.

Along with it came the faint cries of billions.

The darkness was filled with painful groans and wails.

Null and warmth-less fires occasionally shot up into the void, illuminating the darkness, then quickly fading.

This made both of them nervous.

“Maybe—forget it—we probably can’t handle it.”

The little boy said.

Before she finished speaking, she suddenly felt drops of warm water on her cheeks.

One was Xu Yuan’s sweat.

That was understandable, he was working hard.

But why was he shaking?

In just a few breaths.

Xu Yuan’s body returned to calm.

In the darkness.

His voice was dry and low: “I don’t know why, but I felt a little hot just now, so I sweated.”

“Why did you feel hot?” the little boy asked subconsciously.

“Perhaps I climbed for a long time and my body warmed up.” Xu Yuan said.

That was not the reason.

“Let’s go,” the little boy said immediately, “we’ve climbed far enough. I don’t blame you, Xu Yuan, you tried your best, let’s go back!”

“It’s just the beginning.” Xu Yuan looked down.

The little boy was stunned.

She slowly turned her head and looked down into the depths of the darkness with Xu Yuan.

Then she saw the scene—

Across layers of mud.

Deeper down.

Corpse after corpse was stuck together, forming a solid foundation.

Viewed from above.

The bodies were dense and endless.

Boundless bodies replaced the mud, becoming the new “foundation.”

They upheld the entire city!

Bone-chilling cold air surged up from below, turning into a gale that almost blew Xu Yuan away.

He had to plunge his hands deep into the mud to stabilize himself.

After the wind passed.

He moved.

He pulled his hands out of the mud and continued to climb down, taking a deep breath as he climbed, whispering, “I don’t know if you’ve ever played games, the kind that only existed on computers, but you can also play them on phones now.”

“I’ve played mobile mini-games,” the little boy said.

Xu Yuan continued to climb down.

“Is it fun? What kind of games do you like?” he asked.

“I don’t like playing games,” the little boy said.

“Why not?” Xu Yuan asked.

“My family says playing games is a waste of time, but my time is very tight, and I have many useful things to do,” the little boy said.

“That’s a shame.” Xu Yuan expressed regret.

At this moment.

The two had reached the junction of the mud and the corpse pile.

Xu Yuan paused, carefully observing the bodies, and found that they were tightly intertwined, forming a relatively stable structure.

He slowly reached out, grabbed the ankle of an adult male corpse, and shook it vigorously.

Very stable.

It could bear weight.

Only then did he reach out with his other hand, move downwards, and then grabbed the neck of another female corpse.

He pulled hard.

It wouldn’t budge!

Good.

This was reassuring.

It was just too dark all around, too many bodies, and too quiet.

Would a child the little boy’s age experience such a thing and be traumatized?

Xu Yuan cleared his throat and said, “When I was little, I liked to squat by an anthill alone, break off a bit of leftover steamed bun, and throw it on the ground.”

He waited for a breath.

“Why, out of pity for them?” the little boy’s voice came.

“No.”

Xu Yuan began to climb down.

He left the mud layer and crawled through the pile of corpses.

“You know what? Ants become really interesting when they find a steamed bun—it’s like a major event, and they send a lot of ants to carry the bun.”

“Then I’d voice each ant—”

“Wow, so much food, I need to go home and tell my wife.”

“Me too, I’ll go back and tell my brothers.”

“Now we have enough food for winter, maybe we can have a bonfire party?”

He imitated various voices with different tones, while using his hands and feet to find gaps in the corpses, then “stuck” his hands or feet in.

As he climbed, Xu Yuan breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Ignoring the corpses—

This was more stable than climbing through the mud just now.

As he climbed, he mentally drew his waist pouch.

A pill fell out, he held it in his mouth, chewed a few times, and swallowed it.

Vigor Restoration Pill.

A higher-grade pill, good for replenishing stamina.

This was still found in Zhao Afei’s desk drawer.

“Xu Yuan.”

“Hmm?”

“Ants don’t have wives.”

“—Well, I was pretty dumb when I was little, couldn’t think of those things.”

“By the way, Xu Yuan.”

“Hmm?”

“You just said people don’t live to fail, so why do people live?” the little boy asked.

Xu Yuan laughed.

“Climb down,” he said.

Perhaps he was gradually getting used to climbing through the pile of corpses.

Or perhaps the little boy’s reaction completely eased his worries.

His climbing speed grew faster and more skilled.

A few minutes later.

Xu Yuan had just grabbed the arm of a corpse when it suddenly broke.

Xu Yuan reacted extremely quickly, grabbing the hair of another corpse, barely stopping himself mid-air from falling into the endless darkness.

He broke out in a cold sweat.

The two agreed to rest for a few minutes to calm down before continuing.

“These bodies must have been buried,”

The little boy said suddenly.

“How do you figure that?” Xu Yuan asked.

“The border town is bitterly cold, and the people worship fire. Funeral attire is still red and yellow.”

“Their clothing is the usual funeral attire used for years in the border year—this funeral attire hasn’t changed for many years and is different from other regions.”

The little boy explained.

Xu Yuan was silent for a moment.

Since they were all buried in the ground.

Who brought them out and made them into a foundation here?

Who?

—It couldn’t be that these corpses did it voluntarily, could it?

Another ten minutes passed.

Darkness permeated everything around them, and the fear brought by the corpses was swallowed by exhaustion.

Neither of them spoke anymore.

At a certain moment.

Xu Yuan paused, panting, to rest briefly.

He wedged his feet between the bodies of a fat man and a thin man, then took out a pair of headphones, put one on himself, and gave the other to the little boy.

“?” the little boy.

“On the highway, if you feel tired, just crank up some energetic music, and you’ll feel better,” Xu Yuan explained.

“—” the little boy.

She looked up; endless corpses.

She looked down; endless corpses.

—You call this driving?

Soft music played in the headphones, and a woman slowly sang, “When I sang with you for the first time, I was so nervous I didn’t know where to put my hands;”

“You, oh you, so good at disguising, one day you’ll break my heart;”

The little boy pouted.

To actually like such decadent music, really.

After listening to a few songs.

Xu Yuan turned off the music and started climbing again.

This time.

His breathing grew heavier.

—Though there were intermittent breaks, he couldn’t completely relax.

The heavy loss of stamina eventually made his body feel tired.

After about seven or eight more minutes of climbing.

Xu Yuan suddenly slowed down.

He let out a long, silent sigh, wedged his legs into the pile of corpses, then rolled up his sleeves and wiped the sweat from his head with his arm.

“What’s wrong?” the little boy asked.

“Listen to me, you’re a great kid,” Xu Yuan said.

“?” the little boy.

Xu Yuan’s voice softened, like the whispered murmur of a gentle breeze, as if afraid to disturb something: “You can face so many corpses without fear, and still go deep into this profound abyss. You are the bravest child I have ever seen, so—”

“Please don’t scream, okay?”

The little boy realized something.

Meeting Xu Yuan’s gaze, she nodded vigorously, and then—

Looked down.

Below.

At the end of the pile of corpses, something new appeared.

It was an unimaginably enormous monster.

Darkness pooled around it, like mist, or like undulating waves, shrouding its entire being.

Xu Yuan and the little boy looked down together, but they couldn’t make out its outline or face at all, only vaguely seeing that it opened its mouth, extended its head from the depths of the darkness, and stuck out its tongue.

In this boundless dark abyss.

The monster’s outstretched tongue was extremely vast, almost as large as the entire pile of corpses.

So, with this tongue, it propped up the pile of corpses and also the entire border city, preventing the city from falling into darkness.

The little boy started sweating.

She sweated just like Xu Yuan, trembling uncontrollably, muttering unconsciously, “Oh my God—what is this—”

Xu Yuan also silently looked down.

The little boy suddenly grabbed him and said urgently, “I understand! It’s using some extremely powerful spell to isolate the entire border city in this boundless darkness.”

“It’s casting an extremely powerful isolation spell!”

“While it’s too busy to notice us, hurry—”

Halfway through her sentence, Xu Yuan had already started climbing back up.

His speed was much faster than when he came down.

—Undoubtedly, that monster was not a life form from the human world.

It should be something like a demon.

There was no special, foul, fiery mixed sensation.

Xu Yuan also confirmed that he didn’t need to pretend “not to see.”

But—it was too terrifying.

He had never imagined that such a thing existed!

✿ T Tκan✿ ￠ ○