Mysterious Country 1: Mist-Shrouded Champa,Volume 6: Chapter 9: The Burning Sky

Sima Hui and the others took refuge in a sturdy corner of the great hall. Looking upward, they saw the ancient city had split into a V shape and was gradually crumbling apart. Within the gaping, wide fissures, countless black serpent-like plants were revealed, all embedded in the walls like a spiderweb. By now, the main root system of the Udumbara had been ignited by the methane, and flames rapidly spread upward, destroying the cocoon-like covering that concealed the underground caverns. The net of fire enveloped the Golden Spider City, as if the entire sky were burning.

That Udumbara plant, reaching from earth to sky, had grown from the rock layers encasing the city body. The Golden Spider City had eight compound eye-like caves above and below, from which root systems and spore-shaped umbrellas extended, covering the entire underground cavern. Its countless flower crowns continuously produced dense fog, forming a nearly closed, self-sustaining ecosystem that isolated all outside life except for cold-blooded reptiles, sufficient to ensure that any invaders attempting to glimpse the King of Champa’s secrets would never return.

Though the Udumbara itself feared neither water nor fire, and could swiftly regenerate even after being destroyed by chemical defoliants, its only vulnerable point, the main root system, was always protected by the thick city walls. But at this moment it had not yet fully recovered, and the methane explosion surging into the ancient city from underground was destroying this plant barrier from the inside out. The Udumbara’s root systems extending in all directions broke and withered one by one. The city body also developed multiple cracks, and broken bricks and stones fell in succession.

This unfathomably deep Savage Mountain rift valley had originally formed because the water veins within the mountain body had dried up, causing the ground to collapse. Who could have imagined that seemingly weak water currents could erode and carve the interior of the rock mountain into such vast and magnificent caverns? Now there was heavy rain above and raging fire below. The Udumbara suffered simultaneous water invasion and fire attack. The dense fog around it gradually dissipated, and the flying serpents called “Chi Zhui” that dwelled in the mist, devouring life, all scattered and fled. The fierce wind and rain outside the mountain still had not stopped. After the cocoon suspended in midair was burned away, the vast rain mist fell again from above. The Golden Spider City, continuously cracking and tilting during its collapse, slowly sank into the bottomless abyss beneath the mud. It seemed that the secrets and glory of the Champa dynasty, buried in darkness and having endured thousands of years without seeing daylight, were about to enter eternal silence.

At this moment, from the cracked ground within the hall, large quantities of black water gurgled upward. The groundwater was bone-chillingly cold. It turned out that after the water veins had dried up in ancient times, except for a few underground springs, the underground rivers, deep pools, and submerged currents stretching for hundreds of miles deep within the caverns had all been sealed by mud and methane. The fierce wind and rain outside the mountain caused the fluctuating underground water veins to reappear, and after the methane explosion blasted open the mud, boundless groundwater rose up, swallowing the cavern floor in moments. The water surged and churned, creating tremendous roaring sounds from the air currents within the rift valley.

Sima Hui and the others were already exhausted, and most of them were injured. They knew that falling into the water would mean certain death, so they were forced to climb along the broken walls toward higher ground. Watching the black water surge and churn toward them from below, while their heads were covered by rolling smoke and raging fire, their ears seemed deaf to all sound. This world-destroying scene in the rift valley occurred in mere moments. Everyone’s faces turned ashen with fear, all thinking that this time they truly could not escape even with wings.

Then A Cui grabbed Sima Hui and made him look above. Following A Cui’s finger, Sima Hui saw in the flickering firelight a dark, heavy shadow protruding diagonally from the city top, its shape resembling a great bird. Sima Hui’s despair suddenly stirred: “That looks like an airplane.”

The Mosquito special transport plane carrying the seismic bomb had already been destroyed, leaving not even wreckage behind. So what they saw now must be the Black Snake II special transport plane that the British expedition team had boarded. Perhaps it had fallen from the cocoon and landed inside the ancient city. The underground cavern was pitch black everywhere; if not for the fierce burning of the Udumbara in midair, they could never have discovered its presence.

Everyone remembered that the cabin of this Mosquito plane contained many supplies prepared by the British expedition team, including two motorized assault rubber boats. If they could rush to retrieve the rubber rafts from the transport plane wreckage before the ancient city was swallowed by the flood, they might still seize a glimmer of hope in this desperate situation.

Sima Hui’s spirits lifted immediately. He gestured upward to the other three, then dodged falling stones and ancient vines trailing flames, rapidly climbing up the stone wall. He was the first to scramble into the battered Mosquito wreckage, finding the assault boats in the cargo hold. The agile Yu Feiyan followed close behind. The two of them grabbed a bundle of signal flares and illumination rounds, then strained with all their might to drag the rubber raft out of the cabin.

By now the groundwater was rising faster and faster. Above, only thick smoke and ashes rolled back and forth in midair, mixed with countless flickering sparks. Sima Hui knew that Luo Da She Tou and A Cui, who had fallen behind, must be in a dangerous situation. So without time to catch his breath, he immediately inflated the rubber boat. Using the signal flare’s light, he spotted where the two were located, then pushed the rubber boat into the water with all his strength.

Sima Hui and Yu Feiyan jumped onto the rubber boat in succession, pulling Luo Da She Tou and A Cui out of the water. Almost simultaneously, the vast black water had already covered the entire Golden Spider City, and the British expedition team’s Mosquito special transport plane was also submerged by the turbulent currents, disappearing from sight in an instant. The rubber assault boat was swept into the whirlpool raised by the rushing water. All around was a world of darkness. Though clearly on the water’s surface, they could hear no sound of flowing water at all, which made people feel even more terrified. Everyone knew that if Sima Hui had been half a step slower, those who fell into the water first would have been carried by the swift current into the dark abyss, never to be found again. Now having survived disaster, they shuddered to think of it, and also feared the evil ahead. Each gasped for breath, their hearts pounding wildly, letting the rubber assault boat drift and rock with the current, too exhausted to pay any further attention.

In this chaotic darkness, no one knew how much time had passed when they suddenly felt a tremor beneath them and heard rumbling thunder in their ears. It turned out the rubber boat, drifting with the current, had seemingly entered a rapidly flowing water channel. Sima Hui knew they must have been swept by the flood into a fissure at the edge of the underground valley. The plant roots growing in the Savage Mountain had proliferated over years and months, and under the effects of tension, had caused the mountain body to fracture, creating this precipitous and unique terrain. Though they could not distinguish north from south at this moment, the water surged violently and rapidly. If the assault boat were swept against the cliff walls and overturned, everyone would fall into the water and become fish food. Sima Hui hurriedly raised a signal flare, signaling Yu Feiyan to hold the rubber raft from behind. Yu Feiyan had repeatedly followed ships on maritime operations, experiencing the danger of capsizing and drowning in raging waves. She was familiar with boats and water, and with her controlling the assault boat, they could avoid having the raft overturned on the spot by the surging, swift currents.

The rubber assault boat had a fixed-seat searchlight mounted on its side. Luo Da She Tou turned on the searchlight and shone the beam forward. They discovered that the towering mountain walls on both sides of the cavern suddenly rose straight up, covered with vines as thick as ancient trees. Between the river channels, cold mist drifted ethereal, and the water flow was extremely rapid. The four people steered the assault boat through the pitch-black water mist, continuously avoiding plant debris and turns in the river channel, repeatedly encountering hair-raising dangers. The rubber raft was like a leaf in the wind, tossed and spinning with the current. Yu Feiyan, positioned at the stern, was exerting all her strength to stabilize the center of gravity when she suddenly felt a black shadow slice across the water beside her, fast as an arrow. She hurriedly shrank back to dodge, but was slightly too slow, and her clothes were already torn by a gash. She could not help but cry out in alarm. In the chaotic darkness, she had not clearly seen what exactly was moving in the water, and hurriedly told Sima Hui and Luo Da She Tou to shine the searchlight toward the rear.

Everyone turned to look with the light. They saw the river water upstream rising and falling, and countless sharp, jagged bones were crashing toward them. At this shock, their faces also involuntarily changed. It turned out that the Savage Mountain’s crust was fragile. When the weather remained unchanged year-round, it was still manageable, but under the sustained assault of fierce wind and rain, those already shattered mountain bodies could hardly withstand it. The mountain fissure passed near the cave cluster where wild elephants had been buried. The turbulent water currents had destroyed large sections of rock layers on both sides, exposing many caves hidden deep within the mountain belly. The mudslides had swept all the piled mountain-like fossilized teeth and bones into the river channel.

Those countless elephant bones and tusks, sharp as swords and halberds, once floating to the water’s surface, immediately became sharp “torpedoes,” like countless bamboo spears and wooden stakes sharpened by fast blades, rushing downstream at astonishing speed. The speed of those elephant skeletons drifting in the water far exceeded that of the assault boat. If a single sharp tusk pierced the boat’s body, it would puncture the thick rubber skin. Once the raft’s air leaked out, the people riding on it would all fall into the river. Even if they fortunately did not drown, they would be strung into sugar-coated haws by the subsequent impact of teeth and bones.

Watching the water surge like chasing wind and catching lightning, unstoppable, there was no way to stop the raft. In his desperation, Sima Hui grabbed the Uzi submachine gun slung across Yu Feiyan’s body and continuously fired at the water behind them, attempting to shatter the elephant skeletons at a slightly farther distance. Luo Da She Tou and A Cui also grabbed the wooden paddles equipped in the boat, risking to lean half their bodies out of the rubber boat, using the paddles to desperately beat back the floating elephant bones that drifted near.

Yu Feiyan alone could no longer effectively control the assault boat’s course, but the other three were also all in a frantic scramble, so where was there any room to assist? Having fallen to such a state, they could only let things take their natural course. At this point the terrain became even narrower, with sheer cliff walls hanging like sky on both sides and only a thread of floating waves between them. And in that rushing torrent, a complete, enormous giant elephant skeleton was crashing directly down, a pair of long, sharp tusks protruding above the water surface.

Sima Hui saw the situation was dire and quickly raised the submachine gun, firing continuously amid the violent tossing and rocking, intending to shatter that giant elephant skeleton before it overturned the raft. He saw strings of bullets fly like streaming fireflies in the cold rain and mist, but the bones floating on the water were extremely hard, and in the violently rocking rubber boat, the gun muzzle had lost its accuracy, serving no purpose. That elephant skeleton still surged forward with unstoppable momentum, carried by the swift current.

Then they suddenly felt a violent jolt beneath them, nearly throwing everyone into the air with a single rise and fall. The rear of the raft seemed to be struck by some enormous aquatic creature, nearly capsizing. Sima Hui fixed his eyes and saw waves surging behind the rubber boat, and two crocodiles emerged with splashing water. They too had been swept here by the mountain flood. Though they thrashed their heads and tails with all their might, they were still helplessly caught by the swift current. Finally struggling to poke their bodies above the water surface, they happened to block directly in front of the elephant skeleton.

This wild elephant skeleton’s bones and teeth were no less than long spears and great halberds. It suddenly collided squarely with one of the giant crocodiles. Several sharp bone spikes protruding in front instantly pierced through the crocodile’s body. This giant crocodile had thick, tough skin and a body several meters long, weighing no less than thousands of pounds. But struck by the elephant skeleton, it merely twisted a few times before dying.

Though the elephant skeleton shattered from the tremendous impact force, the dead crocodile’s body was pierced through by a single tusk. It floated belly-up in the water, blood gushing out like a spring, swept up by the turbulent, swift current, and crashed into the rear of the assault boat. That razor-sharp wild elephant tusk actually pinned the crocodile corpse and the rubber raft together in a skewer.

The rubber air chambers on the front, rear, and both sides of the assault boat used a closed self-inflating design, so damage to one of them was not a serious problem. But dragged down by the dead crocodile’s corpse, their speed immediately decreased, and the raft spun in circles on the water surface, continuously sinking. Sima Hui and the others lay on the raft, seeing a white, bony mass floating on the water surface, all tusk fragments and bones drifting down from upstream, like countless stray arrows and torpedoes, piercing through the rolling torrent and rapidly approaching from behind the rubber raft.

Seeing the critical situation, Sima Hui hurriedly worked with Luo Da She Tou and A Cui, exerting all their strength to push the dead crocodile off into the water. Yu Feiyan also risked turning the assault boat’s motor to full power. Under the high-speed rotation and propulsion of the propeller blades, the rubber boat shot forward through the swift current like the wind.

Riding on the high-speed assault boat, they finally put some distance between themselves and the elephant skeletons drifting downstream. Seeing the terrain gradually open up and the water flow tending toward calm, their tense nerves had not yet fully relaxed when the assault boat crashed into a patch of black mist-like smoke, and visibility immediately dropped to the limit.

Sima Hui hurriedly told Yu Feiyan to turn the assault boat around and leave this pitch-black dense fog as quickly as possible. But it was too late. The rubber boat turned back and went for quite a while, yet the environment showed no change whatsoever. The surrounding space was utterly silent, and the water surface was filled with a death-like stillness, as if the entire world consisted only of boundless depth and silence.

In this suffocating quiet, everyone felt an ominous premonition. Could this ghostly, sinister deep mountain cavern truly contain the King of Champa’s terrifying curse? Whoever dared to spy upon the secrets of the Golden Spider City, the shadow of death would descend upon their head. Remembering this, Sima Hui could not help but feel somewhat unnerved. He knew that the longer they were trapped in the fog, the more dangerous it became. He told Luo Da She Tou to turn the searchlight, trying to find some reference points for orientation. But A Cui suddenly stopped everyone and said: “There is no direction here at all. We can never get out.”

Yu Feiyan listened in puzzled confusion: “What are you saying? Why can’t we get out?”

A Cui’s expression turned ghastly pale: “Because here is already… the end.”

The End of The Lost Kingdom I: The Hidden Champa