Chapter 422: Crystal Graveyard

Hu Li came out of the gate with a chicken leg in each hand, grinning from ear to ear.

Then, without a second thought, she handed one of the chicken legs to Yu Sheng. “Benefactor, eat a chicken leg!”

After eating her fill, Hu Li was clearly in a good mood.

Yu Sheng casually took the chicken leg and started gnawing on it. He then turned his head and pointed at the “main excavation pit” not far away. “Engineer Sun’s people are digging down right now. Go help them once you’re done eating.”

“Oh.”

Hu Li happily responded, then quickly devoured the remaining half chicken leg, meat and bones included. She took a few steps forward, crouched down, and in the blink of an eye transformed into a huge silver-white spirit fox. With a cheerful trot, she ran over to the edge of the excavation pit.

Thanks to the efforts of the construction workers, the main excavation pit had already been expanded considerably. Hu Li’s massive form could now jump right in and start digging. At the freshly uncovered bottom of the pit, large swaths of crystalline structures could be seen.

Inactive “crystal branches” crisscrossed through the rock and soil, tangled together like some enormous root system. Even though the workers had expanded the pit several times in all directions, they still hadn’t found the “source” of those crystal branches. The deeper they dug, the higher the proportion of crystalline material became, and deeper still, there seemed to be a much sturdier “trunk” structure far larger than the shallow parts.

Engineer Sun was curious about Yu Sheng’s persistent and seemingly purposeful excavation instructions. “What exactly are we digging for? Are we trying to dig out all the crystalline structures under this whole crater?”

“No,” Yu Sheng slowly shook his head. “I’m looking for its ‘heart.’”

Engineer Sun’s expression changed instantly. “...Heart?!”

“This is a massive living organism. In the previous battle, I used... some methods to understand its structure. There should be some large cavities beneath this thing, housing its core. Actually, I don’t know whether I should call it a ‘heart,’ since it’s not a normal ‘creature,’ but there’s definitely a large crystal in the central cavity that is the most important part of its body.”

Engineer Sun listened, stunned. Beside him, Xu Jiali murmured thoughtfully, “This reminds me of when I dug out a bug nest on Taronium-7 back in the day… Damn, just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.”

Meanwhile, Irene, who was sitting on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, hadn’t spoken much until now (which was rare for her). She suddenly piped up, “How come such a huge chunk of stuff has been buried in this pit for a thousand years and no one ever found it?”

Hearing Irene’s mutter, Yu Sheng frowned slightly and nodded gently.

“Right, I’ve been thinking about that too—it’s a bit off.”

His gaze swept across the surroundings.

Those pale, eerie crystal clusters were not completely buried deep underground. By the time they arrived, a considerable portion of those clusters were already exposed on the surface. The underground “branch” structures were directly connected to the surface clusters, and their shallow parts weren’t buried very deep. Even without digging, some exploration methods should have been able to detect the massive “anomaly” hidden beneath this crater.

A thousand years ago, Yunqingzi fell here. An ancient powerhouse suddenly dying at the border couldn’t have been a trivial matter in the Feather Star Domain. From the subsequent handling and records, it seemed that the Taixu Lingshu indeed took the matter seriously and sent people here to carry out a thorough clean-up. However, in the intelligence provided by Xuance, there was no mention at all of the crystal structures buried beneath this battlefield ruin.

...Was it because these crystals had been in a dormant state, so the officials at the time dismissed them as harmless “residual minerals”? Or was it because the crystals hadn’t yet broken through the surface back then, and only over the course of a thousand years had they gradually “grown” to this scale?

Either way, there was a huge sense of wrongness behind this.

Weishu-3 was extremely remote and desolate. It was normal for no one to visit for centuries. But even if the Taixu Lingshu had forgotten this backwater, what about Shuji, which was right next door?

This place was right under Shuji’s nose—didn’t Shuji’s “Star Guardian” inspect this place every year when they patrolled the surrounding subsidiary planets?

While Yu Sheng was racking his brains, the construction workers at the main excavation pit withdrew, people and equipment alike.

Because Hu Li was making too much noise digging, they couldn’t stay nearby...

The huge nine-tailed spirit fox had plunged her entire body into the expanded excavation pit, head down, digging frantically without lifting her head. She was recklessly flinging her paws, tossing dirt, rocks, and broken crystals out of the pit. Within a radius of several dozen meters, sand and stones flew everywhere. For a moment, not even the machines could match her efficiency...

But just as she was digging with great enthusiasm, Yu Sheng suddenly heard a muffled cracking sound from the bottom of the pit.

Before he could react, he saw the fox girl’s body suddenly sink downward. With a “woof,” the giant spirit fox vanished from everyone’s sight in an instant.

“Holy crap!”

Yu Sheng broke out in a cold sweat and immediately sprinted toward the excavation pit.

A hole had broken open in the bottom of the pit—as if the structure that had been supporting the “dome” of some underground cavern had collapsed. Below the large hole was a dim, spacious underground cavity. Vaguely, one could see many faintly glowing crystalline substances covering its depths, and in the darkness, a silver-white figure could be faintly discerned.

Irene, lying on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, craned her neck and shouted down, “Dumb fox, are you okay!”

Hu Li’s voice quickly came from below, sounding quite spirited. “I’m fine, but I got a scare! It suddenly collapsed! Benefactor, it’s really spacious down here!”

Yu Sheng turned and exchanged glances with Irene and Luna.

“Let’s go down and take a look,” he called out to the large pit. “Send a tail up!”

As soon as he spoke, a burst of flames rose from below the pit, and then a large silver-white tail flew up, floating in front of Yu Sheng.

Engineer Sun stared in stunned disbelief. Lingdang, who was following behind Xu Jiali, jumped back several times the moment she saw a fox tail flying up. This “Gyplo girl,” who had seemed indifferent to her surroundings all along, now had her eyes wide open, showing great wariness and a strong urge to hiss at the flame-spewing fox tail. After holding it in for a long time, she finally stammered to Xu Jiali, “Boss, th-this is seriously creepy, meow!”

Xu Jiali’s expression was also a bit dazed, but having dealt with Yu Sheng many times, she quickly recovered and comforted her “attendant.” “It’s okay, things around Yu Sheng are basically all creepy. You’ll get used to it.”

Yu Sheng was long accustomed to the people around him making a big fuss over these trivial details. He didn’t mind it. He simply hoisted Irene onto his shoulder, climbed onto the fox tail, and nodded to Engineer Sun. “The situation down there is unknown. Engineer Sun, you and your people stay up here. We’ll go down and check it out.”

“I’ll go down with you,” Xu Jiali stepped forward. “Lingdang and I have experience with this kind of mission.”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment. “Alright then… Do you want a tail too?”

“No, no,” Xu Jiali quickly waved her hands. “My gear can do short-range flight, and Lingdang knows how to fly on her own.”

Yu Sheng nodded without further comment, and rode the fox tail down toward the bottom of the pit. Beside him, Luna stepped forward into thin air, her body turning into a series of flickering shadows that shuttled between darkness and reality as she followed.

Xu Jiali watched this with a subtle expression, then turned and waved to Engineer Sun. The thrusters of her power armor roared to life, and she leaped off the edge of the pit.

Lingdang was still staring wide-eyed at the creepy sight of Yu Sheng riding a fox tail. She reacted a beat too late and quickly chased after him. “Boss, wait for me, meow!”

Before her words faded, the mechanical sphere in her hand floated away, and her entire body rose lightly into the air, quickly catching up with Xu Jiali.

The group soon passed through the large hole Hu Li had dug.

The surroundings grew progressively darker. As their eyes gradually adjusted, Yu Sheng began to make out the astonishing structure below. He first saw a huge intersection like a “crossroads.” The vast underground space was dotted with numerous cave entrances leading to other areas. Everywhere in this underground structure, there were crystalline substances of various sizes: clusters in rock crevices, vein-like structures crisscrossing like enormous roots, or pillars supporting the entire cavern...

Crystals were everywhere, filling this boundless underground world like bones, flesh, and organs.

The fox tail slowly descended. At the center of this “crystal cave,” Yu Sheng saw Hu Li, who had fallen in earlier.

She had already returned to human form, sitting on a large rock, holding a new chicken leg and gnawing on it while waiting for Yu Sheng. She looked quite at ease.

“Benefactor!” Seeing Yu Sheng come down, Hu Li immediately greeted him happily.

Yu Sheng cheerfully ruffled her fox head. After confirming that she was fine, he turned his attention to the surroundings.

His gaze fell upon the ubiquitous crystals, and he couldn’t help frowning.

Irene, sitting on his shoulder, visibly shrank back. Yu Sheng could even feel the little doll’s entire body tensing up.

“The atmosphere here… makes me very uncomfortable,” Irene muttered. “Ugh… it’s like crawling inside some thing’s corpse, a… ‘stench.’”

Yu Sheng didn’t speak. He silently heightened his vigilance, and based on the faint connection in his heart, he began searching for the core structure within this maze forged from crystal.

He narrowed his eyes slightly.

The vast and intricate crystalline world flashed in his mind like faintly glowing bones in the darkness.

“This way.”

(End of this chapter)