Chapter 700: Mountain Secrets

A dazzling streak of fire tore across the sky—but it didn't look like the fortress torpedoes or orbital landing pods that had been dropping from low orbit before.

It shimmered with an eerie, magnificent deep blue, and as it descended, trails of light streamed from it. The energy spilling outward ignited the atmosphere, even disturbing the high-altitude storm turbulence. A massive ring of fire rapidly expanded around the glow, like a red lotus blooming in the heavens.

Was that a space bomb? A secret weapon from the Borderlands? Or a new type of landing pod breaking through the atmosphere?

"...Fox?!"

The black-robed priest let out a cry filled with fear and shock. Then, terrifying heat and pressure descended upon every member of the Inquisition.

Some of the quicker ones had already started fleeing into the distance. Those who realized escape was impossible raised shields in advance. The helpless ones could only scream and curse. Meanwhile, the priest in the sage's robe stood high above, his face ashen and heavy. As the lotus of destruction fell from the sky, he suddenly raised his right hand. His entire body radiated holy brilliance, expanding violently like a blazing sun. In that light, he transformed into a majestic "sacred icon" carved from marble, a crown of thorns blazing and crackling above his head.

Like the ancient demigods of Algerad legend who held up the stars, he raised a massive barrier with a solemn and resolute posture, shouting, "Behold the realm of the..."

Then the descending great fox smashed him—shield and all—straight into the ground.

A burst of blue flame rose among the mountains. The massive flames took the shape of a fox's tail, slowly blooming like an open flower in the ensuing shockwave. The earth shook, rocks flew, and the ground burned in foxfire. Scorched gravel was swept high into the air by the powerful blast, falling like a rain of fire onto the mountain's foot.

The priests on the defensive line no longer needed to worry about their shield generators.

After a long while, the "fox-tailed fire lotus" that bloomed on the mountain finally began to dissipate.

Yu Sheng, holding Eileen in his arms, stood with Luna on a massive rock inside the impact zone that hadn't been melted. He looked up at the vixen girl whose head was buried headfirst in the ground.

The little puppet's speech came out in stutters: "I-I-I, my head's buzzing, buzz-buzzing..."

Luna nodded beside her. "Mm, yeah."

"C-type buckle, you-you-you're really taking the lazy way out. My tongue's all num-numb. A +1 just to put my—"

Yu Sheng couldn't stand it anymore. He grabbed Eileen's head and shook it left and right. With a soft click, he snapped the little puppet's half-detached neck back into place.

The little thing's face lit up with surprise. "Hey, I'm fixed!"

Yu Sheng had only recently discovered the properties of Eileen's original body—whether her head was attached to her body or removed, she could function normally. The only problem was when the connection was loose, then she would stutter, like a dual-mode keyboard plugged into a cheap cable, with Bluetooth and wired connections fighting over which hemisphere of the brain to use.

Once recovered, the little puppet immediately started rambling again. "I'm not following that silly fox on orbital drops anymore. She said the protective spiritual energy would keep us from getting hurt when we hit the ground. Then why's my brain still buzzing? And seriously, silly fox, you didn't slow down at all the whole way, and you were carrying people too..."

The great fox, whose head was buried in the ground, kicked her legs hard and let out a muffled voice from the semi-molten rock pile: "Teacher never taught me how to decelerate... Besides, orbital bombardment is a killing technique. If I slowed down, how would I kill the enemy!"

"Speaking of killing enemies, I think I vaguely saw a bunch of cultists down here when we fell," Yu Sheng said, as if reminded, looking around. "...Not a single one left now."

"Don't know, didn't notice," the fox girl buried in the ground said dully. "But I think I hit something kinda hard when I landed. Crunchy."

"Forget about crunchy for now," Yu Sheng said, his eye twitching. He looked up at the fox girl stuck in the earth. "You're stuck again. How long will it take this time? We've got business—do I need to open a portal and borrow a couple of mining explosives from Engineer Sun to get you out?"

"No need, no need!" Hu Li immediately started wagging her tail vigorously, then began kicking and thrashing with all four legs. "I've got experience this time! I adjusted my posture on the way down. Wait a moment, I'll pull myself out~"

As she spoke, a series of creaking, grinding sounds of rock fracturing came from the rubble pile. The moment Yu Sheng heard it, he quickly grabbed Eileen and ran away. Luna turned and followed close behind.

The three had only run about a dozen meters when they heard a series of loud cracks and rumbles behind them. The great vixen tilted to one side, found purchase on the ground with all four legs, and pulled her head out with a mighty yank.

Immediately, there was another round of flying sand and rolling rocks. Yu Sheng was lucky he was agile and reacted fast—he only got hit four times. And it wasn't that he dodged the rest; it was that the rocks in the sky ran out.

He turned around. Hu Li stood on the ground, grinning stupidly at him with bared teeth.

Yu Sheng's temper evaporated on the spot.

"The coordinates Bai Liqing marked should be around here," he said, pulling out his phone and looking at the coordinate map. "The energy signature is inside this mountain. The entrance should be nearby."

By now, the unified fleet had occupied multiple orbital layers of the planet and released a large number of battlefield support satellites. Navigation signals from space could now provide assistance to ground forces, but without more precise surface information, these navigation feeds could only offer latitude-longitude data and general directions.

The great vixen lumbered over with earth-shaking steps, lowered her head, and crossed her eyes to stare at the tiny phone screen in Yu Sheng's hand.

"Benefactor," she said. "My divine sense just swept this area. There's a gap in the mountain nearby—probably blown open by the orbital bombardment earlier. There seems to be something underneath the gap."

"Mm."

Yu Sheng nodded. But just as he was about to move, he suddenly noticed that Luna, standing beside him, seemed to be spacing out, not following.

"Luna?" he asked, puzzled. "Something wrong?"

Luna didn't answer immediately. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, remaining motionless for several seconds, as if she was carefully sensing something, or like she had heard a sound only she could hear.

It wasn't until Yu Sheng asked again that Luna seemed to snap out of a dream and abruptly looked up.

"I... heard sounds," she said haltingly. "Many sounds, down here. I... I remember the 'Sanctuary.' I think I've... been to this place before."

Eileen couldn't hold back halfway through. "Hey, C-type buckle, the way you talk, all stammering, it's gonna drive me crazy!"

Yu Sheng's expression shifted rapidly a few times. He turned and exchanged glances with Hu Li.

A dozen minutes later, following the direction Hu Li had sensed with her divine sense, Yu Sheng and his group found the gap on the nearby hillside.

The earlier orbital bombardment had caused a landslide that destroyed the thick rock layers, tearing through multiple layers of heavy alloy armor inside. This exposed a corner of some large-scale facility originally hidden inside the mountain.

"This place below looks like a factory? Or maybe an energy facility," Yu Sheng said. His group was hidden behind a large rock nearby, looking at the ragged hole still billowing thick smoke. "Doesn't look like a temple anyway. The style is different from the other places."

Through the wide crack in the mountain, Yu Sheng could clearly see a tilted, broken corridor below. One wall of the corridor had also been torn open. Deeper inside, there were intricate pipes and transport systems, as well as a huge structure that looked like a reactor.

The vixen girl had now transformed back into human form. She rested her chin on Yu Sheng's shoulder, poking her head out to look outside. She sniffed. "I don't sense anyone for now."

"Careful going in," Yu Sheng said, waving his hand. He turned back to look at Luna. "If you sense anything wrong, or if you remember something, tell me immediately. If there's no time to speak, pull me into the Soul Wilderness."

Luna quickly nodded. "Mm, okay."

The group slipped out from behind the large rock. Taking advantage of the nearby dust and smoke, and using the concealment spell Hu Li had cast, they cautiously crawled into the gap.

The mountain had collapsed and fractured, rubble piled up in twisted heaps. There was almost nowhere to step inside the gap, let alone any path. Deeper in, there were places where pipes had broken, sparks flying from walls and ceilings. The remaining lighting system flickered unsteadily, powered by backup energy lines, casting dim, shifting shadows in the ruins.

After managing to get past this difficult-to-walk stretch, Yu Sheng and his group finally stepped into the tilted, broken corridor. They had barely taken a few steps when they saw several bodies lying scattered on the floor.

"Should be the Inquisition cultists originally stationed here," Yu Sheng said, going over to check. "Killed by the shockwave."

"Might have died when the orbital bombardment hit. Everything's a mess now. The people stationed in this facility probably don't even know there's a hole here," Eileen said, peeking and then looking around. "This creepy place looks huge. They must have hollowed out the whole mountain."

Yu Sheng nodded lightly. Just then, he suddenly felt a stir in his heart.

It seemed like a somewhat familiar aura had brushed past nearby, causing a slight fluctuation in his blood connection.

Subconsciously, he looked in the direction his instincts pointed. Out of the corner of his eye, he only saw a quickly fading white figure. The shadow dissipated so fast it was like an illusion.

Eileen noticed his reaction: "What? Yu Sheng, what did you see?"

"A white shadow, but I didn't see clearly," Yu Sheng said, frowning. He didn't simply dismiss what had flashed at the edge of his vision as an illusion. "Let's be careful. There might be something incredible hidden here—if this place is really connected to the secrets deep in the planet, then what we're facing might not be ordinary cultists."

The little puppet blinked. "R-right..."

And the next second, as if to prove Yu Sheng's words, a sound of steady, heavy footsteps suddenly came from the end of the corridor!