IWOL Chapter 99: Magic Gemstone

No one spoke for a long time. The only sound in the cave was the sound of dripping water. Victor was already up and about and was quietly treating Wang Que while preventing Domingo from seeing it.

Cui Zuojing took the gemstone out from his pocket. He couldn’t understand the Greek words behind the stone and poked Dong Zheng. “Do you understand this?”

Dong Zheng shook his head.

Seeing this, Cui Zuojing looked at Domingo and walked over to the man before Dong Zheng could say anything else. “There’s a word at the back of this gemstone. Do you know what it is?”

Domingo glanced down at Cui Zuojing and took the gemstone from his hand. Their two fingers brushed; Domingo’s hand was dry and cool.

“This is a spell.” Domingo glanced down at path, then he pointed to the symbol on the back of the gemstone and explained, “ιαωενλααεεητηιιιωοοοννννννωωωωωωωω means ‘It nothing, it nothing.’ νυνναεικωκικοκι is ‘Night owls.’ These two phrases often appear with Bes’ magic gemstone, which acts as a protective talisman.”

“Bes is an Egyptian deity, in charge of music, dance, humor and sex. During his life, it was said that he carried this kind of gemstone to protect people from evil.”

Wang Que couldn’t help but sighed. “You know so much.”

Domingo gave her a small smile. When facing the only girl here, he was always a gentleman.

Dong Linhai said, “In other words, the gem was used to suppress the corpses in the graveyard.”

Domingo answered, “Maybe.”

Cui Zuojing said, “That’s not important anymore. Anyway, the gemstone is in our hands now. But what can this thing do? The codex didn’t say anything about it.”

Dong Zheng said, “Let’s walk first and see. Anyway, it’s impossible for the box to give us something useless.”

After taking a short rest, the group continued to explore the cave, but this time Domingo was no longer at the front of the group leading.

With no one to lead the way, Dong Zheng, who had the best sense of direction, felt that they were walking in endless circles. Domingo followed the team quietly, and as if to refute the idea that he knew everything, he didn’t express any opinions at all.

Cui Zuojing followed the meandering and circuitous path and quickly became annoyed. The cave was dark and damp, and the blue light emitted by the nearby crystal was gradually making his eyes very dry and tired. He yawned and muttered softly, “When will this end?”

Domingo replied without thinking, “Almost. We just need to take two more intersections.”

Before his words fell, everyone turned their heads to look at him, eyes flashing with uncertainty.

Domingo paused, and said in a deep voice, “I have no reason to harm you, and you all want to clear the box as soon as possible, right?”

“I’ll believe you for the time being.” Cui Zuojing shrugged, held his sword, and continued to walk forward. Domingo didn’t seem too bad. What’s more, he also believed that if something went wrong, he was fully capable of dealing with him.

As Domingo said, after passing two forks, the cave passage came to an end in the form of a huge door.

Both sides of the double door were tightly closed. The moss-covered carving on them depicted an ugly, stout, and wide-faced figure, possibly a god.

There was an octagonal-shaped vacancy at the position of his belly button, as if something was meant to be placed there.

Cui Zuojing reached out and touched it. The texture of the door was not like stone or metal.

“This seems to be Bes?” He held the gemstone up to the depression and realized that it could fit perfectly.

Dong Zheng guessed that if things had developed according to the normal plot progression, they would enter the canyon and find another exit at the end of the cave passage. At that point, they would discover that they needed a gemstone in order to open the ancient gate. They would then have to return back to the canyon valley along the same path and retrieve the magic gemstone from the graveyard cross.

Domingo appeared like a plug-in, speeding up everything.

“After putting it in, something will happen,” Cui Zuojing speculated based on his years of experience in boxes. He waved his hand. “You all make mental preparations. I’m going to put it in.”

Dong Linhai immediately stood beside Wang Que protectively. Allen lowered his head to find Victor, and Lin Hangzhi took a deep breath, nodded, and prayed silently that he would not be unlucky this time and pass it to the others.

Dong Zheng and Domingo didn’t move. They stood at an angle behind Cui Zuojing one by one, guarding the left and right, secretly gathering strength.

Cui Zuojing’s fingertips rubbed the spell behind the gem, and under the gaze of the seven pairs of eyes, he placed the magic gemstone into the vacancy.

He took two steps back, quietly waiting for something to happen.

Bes’ eyes lit up, like two lamps illuminating the dim cave. The slowly flowing liquid in the magic gemstone suddenly swirled, forming a small vortex.

The dull sound of a mechanism came from underground, and even the ground began to shake unsteadily. Everyone held on to the wall of the cave to stabilize their body and stared at the magic door.

The mechanism sounded for a long time and seemed to spread out further and further away. Cui Zuojing couldn’t help but wonder if the base of the entire island was full of gears.

Victor was unusually disturbed. Cats were very sensitive to earthquakes and other natural events and could hear many sounds outside the range of human hearing. His ears were pressed flat on top of his head, his body laid prone, and his throat rumbled.

After waiting for about ten minutes, the vibration and the sound of gears finally stopped. The light in Bes’ eyes gradually extinguished, and the door slowly and heavily opened on both sides, revealing the world behind to everyone.

It was pitched black.

Dong Zheng aimed his flashlight into it, but the beam couldn’t penetrate the thick darkness.

“Should we enter this place?” Lin Hangzhi whispered. “I have a bad feeling…”

Cui Zuojing picked up a stone and threw it in. After hearing it hit the ground, he said, “There seems to be fog inside. Don’t go in rashly. Let’s wait and see if it will disperse.”

Domingo didn’t make any comments. A few seconds later, Victor and Wang Que shouted at the same time, “Oh no, run!”

But it was too late. The bug who’d conveyed the message to Wang Que in that darkness was immediately lost. A powerful suction erupted from the door, igniting like a hurricane, and tried to suck everyone inside!

Cui Zuojing instantly thrust his sword into the ground, firmly holding onto the sword handle to stabilize his body. Meanwhile, Dong Zheng had nothing to resist against the suction. He staggered a few steps forward and was swallowed into the darkness. But, as his body rushed past Cui Zuojing, the youth grabbed his hand.

The two were almost parallel to the ground, like carp streamers under a gust of wind. They could only rely on the sword to stay in place. Allen, Lin Hangzhi, Dong Linhai, and Wang Que all screamed and were swallowed. Even Domingo disappeared. Only Victor remained hiding behind a stone pillar, his body plastered to it.

But soon, the stalactite pillar made a loud, groaning sound and completely broke.

Victor let out a “Meow!” and sank into the darkness with half of the pillar.

Not good. The knife would break if they continued this way!

Cui Zuojing immediately activated his ability. Due to the hurricane’s suction, the quality Tank Sword cut a hideous hole in the ground. He finally pulled the knife out and was swallowed by the darkness together with Dong Zheng.

The moment their vision turned dark, the wind stopped.

Cui Zuojing held the sword with one hand, while the other hand tightly squeezed Dong Zheng’s hand. The two of them rolled on the ground for a long time and finally stopped when they hit a rocky wall.

Cui Zuojing ached from head to toe, and there was one place that was intact. Not only did he have to contend with his own injuries, but he’d even have to share Dong Zheng’s injuries.

In other words, if he and Dong Zheng suffered the same severity of injuries, his would be three times as bad as Dong Zheng’s.

Cui Zuojing: ……………

The youth grimaced and crawled to his feet. Dong Zheng’s flashlight had been lost somewhere along the way, and now the two of them could only stare at the darkness, unable to see anything.

Fortunately, they’d been holding hands tightly and could still feel each other’s presence.

Their surroundings were terribly quiet, and the extreme darkness made Cui Zuojing extremely uncomfortable. He groped around and sat next to Dong Zheng and leaned on the man. They nestled against each other, and this seemed to relieve some of the panic that was rapidly permeating in his heart.

“Open the mind link,” Cui Zuojing whispered.

After they came out of the Doll’s House, Dong Zheng solicited Cui Zuojing’s opinion and closed the spiritual link between them that could convey emotions, leaving only the part that allowed them to sense each other’s situation.

Cui Zuojing was afraid that the negative emotions in Dong Zheng’s heart due to the box would affect him, while Dong Zheng was afraid that his secret feelings, which he could not bring to light, would be noticed by Cui Zuojing.

Dong Zheng hesitated and took a deep breath. He could feel the youth’s body temperature through their clasped hands, and he tried his best to suppress the untimely thoughts in his mind.

“Okay.” He opened the spiritual link.

In the moment when the two souls become one, Cui Zuojing only felt a very strange emotion passing through his heart, but before he could catch it, it slipped away like a fish.

Cui Zuojing: ?

He frowned doubtfully, but he didn’t care too much. Dong Zheng’s existence greatly relieved his tension. Neither of them spoke anymore. Who knew if there was a sleeping monster lying dormant in the darkness? It would be better to be cautious, in case they happen to wake something up.

Cui Zuojing didn’t know where the Tang Sword’s scabbard was. He moved his lower body slightly, feeling out with his foot.

Hard stones.

He reached out with a hand and touched the other side of the stone wall.

It appeared that they were sucked into a narrow passageway, which was only one meter in width.

Cui Zuojing raised his hand, and it brushed against a stone above them.

Dong Zheng was also groping around. When he noticed that they were in a narrow gap with many large pieces of stone above them, forming an enclosed space that might collapse at any time, he made decisively determined that it would be better to leave.

He sank into his kernel world, trying to manipulate more data into the port representing his visual acuity.

There was a risk of overloading it, but at this moment, he didn’t care about it much.

This space was so small, and there might be invisible crises dormant in the dark. It was more important to increase his vision as soon as possible.

Due to the continuous influx of data, his vision gradually became sharper, allowing him to see with some difficulties the outline of the youth in front of him.

It worked.

Dong Zheng took a deep breath and continued to increase the flow of data.

His eyes began to ache dully, but he was finally able to clearly see their surroundings. Dong Zheng endured the pain and looked around for a long time. He saw an underground river at the end of the narrow passageway. There was a gigantic creature in the river, its body rising and falling with each breath.

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