Chapter 87: The Secret Beneath the Cliff (Third Update, Subscription Request)

Xiyan spun around and was met by a gigantic mantis. Its size was the same as the spider’s.

“What in the world are these things...”

“It’s spotted us. Run!”

Qingyan seized Xiyan’s hand, and the two of them once again fled along the same route they had taken from the spider. Once more they ran into that uncanny looping maze, yet the mantis, like the spider before it, failed to notice them and wandered off into the distance.

Xiyan dismounted from the unicorn, utterly speechless. These monsters did not seem to look back, and they could leave this strange abyss while he and Qingyan could not. Why was that?

“What a wretched place!” Qingyan said irritably, kicking a stone at her feet. It flew into the cliff face and struck one of the black panes.

The sound of the black pane shattering was like glass breaking. When it split apart, a person was inside.

Qingyan had been looking down, so she had not noticed, but Xiyan had been watching their surroundings the whole time and saw the entire thing.

He walked up to the broken pane. The person inside was wrapped all over in white threads, which looked sticky to the touch. The one bound by them had not died, but had fallen into a deep sleep.

“Qingyan, come take a look!” Xiyan immediately waved her over.

At the sound of his voice, Qingyan hurried over. When she saw what was inside the black pane, she frowned. “What is this? It’s kind of disgusting...”

No matter how formidable Qingyan was, she was still a girl, and when there was no fighting, she was just an ordinary young woman at heart.

“It looks like some kind of silk spun by an animal. Could it be that giant spider?” Xiyan guessed.

“Maybe. Is this person still alive? They look rather healthy, actually.” Qingyan eyed the thread-bound figure with obvious distaste.

She was not disgusted by the person, but by the sticky threads.

“They’re alive, but asleep. Look at their expression; they don’t seem to be in pain. If anything, they look a little content.” Xiyan stroked his chin.

“If there’s one in this black pane, there should be others!” Xiyan went to the remaining black panes and, with his Lightwood Sword, shattered them.

The first, the second, the third...

Almost every black pane held someone. Some were swathed in viscous threads, some were encased in a transparent cocoon, and some simply lay there quietly within the black space.

Only a very small number of the panes were empty.

“This...”

Xiyan stood beneath the cliff and stared up at the wall of rock. There were actually hundreds of black panes containing people on just this one side of the cliff, and that was only one face of it. The panes on the other side had not even been opened yet.

“I think I... understand what’s going on...” Qingyan was speaking when she opened her control panel.

“Grant Xiyan permission to view my bulletin board section.” The moment Qingyan’s cool voice fell, a mechanical female voice sounded.

“Do you confirm granting part of your permissions to Xiyan?”

“Yes,” Qingyan replied.

Then Xiyan found that he could see Qingyan’s control panel.

“What... is this?” Xiyan looked at Qingyan in confusion.

Qingyan, meanwhile, looked at him with clear disdain. “The control panel is the greatest tool any survivor has. But you don’t seem to know how to use it very well.”

Xiyan twitched the corner of his mouth. He really did not use the control panel much—partly because he was not used to it, and partly because it had never occurred to him. He simply kept forgetting to make use of it.

Still, being so bluntly called out by Qingyan made him a little sad.

As for the voice system, he truly had no idea. Since when could the control panel be operated by voice?

“Hey, what are you daydreaming about? Come look!” Qingyan urged impatiently.

She had already opened the public board, and because she had given Xiyan permission, he could see it too.

Xiyan felt that Qingyan’s public board seemed different from his.

It had far more sections than his—twice as many, in fact.

“Yours... seems different from mine...”

“Of course it does. What level are you? Have you reached level sixty-six yet? Can you unlock the shop? Can you compare with me?” Qingyan said proudly.

“...”

Xiyan wanted very much to argue, but he realized he did not really have the grounds to do so, because what Qingyan said was true.

So the public board unlocked different abilities and sections according to the user’s level? That was truly... outrageous. They were not even starting from the same line.

But anger aside, now that Qingyan had granted him permission, he was certainly going to take a proper look.

Qingyan extended her hand and swiped across the transparent public board before her. The contents flashed by rapidly in front of her eyes, and at last she stopped on one item.

Public Board:

Level 70 Information Zone:

Bai Ke: The latest news from the Eighth Survival Land. It is true that you will not die beneath the cliff, but you will be kept captive by the enormous creatures living below it. In the end, you will become a new generation of those giant beings, completely lose all memory of being human, and turn into creatures that act only by instinct.

These giant beings kill one another, and in the end a single “king” emerges. This “king” will be taken to the service area of the Eighth and studied to determine why this happens.

This is the latest news I have obtained from the Eighth Survival Land. I just rescued my friend.

If any of you have a friend who has accidentally been caught by one of these giant creatures, remember this: you must save them while the giant creatures are away. Otherwise, you will be caught too, and by then it will truly be hopeless.

Bai Ke! It was actually Bai Ke! He was a survivor above level seventy? And wasn’t he supposed to have been captured? Back then, the people from the Third Survival Land had been storming in with great fanfare to seize Bai Ke.

It seemed Bai Ke’s identity was not simple at all.

“See? Do you understand now?” Qingyan interrupted Xiyan’s thoughts.

Xiyan nodded. “Let’s act now. I’m sure Qu Ya and Lin Shuang are here too. While those creatures are away, let’s find them.”

“Fine. I’ll handle this side; you take the other. We’ll smash the black panes together,” Qingyan said.

“Good.”

As soon as they made their decision, the two of them split up at once. There were many black panes beneath the cliff, and in the midst of smashing them open, they encountered the giant creatures again.

As before, with Little Gold’s help and by using the looping maze, they successfully shook off those giant beings.

“Lin Shuang is in this one!” Qingyan was the first to find the black pane containing Lin Shuang.

At the sound of her voice, Xiyan rushed over at once, and there he saw Lin Shuang, tightly wrapped in white threads within the black pane.