The tribe members, however, showed unmistakable signs of relief, their weary faces softening slightly.
This was clearly a place of deep significance, of safety.
This was their "Sacred Cave"—a hidden sanctuary deep within the Kunlun Mountains of this world.
The calm young leader gestured, and the tribe began to file into the cave in a practiced, orderly fashion.
Steven hesitated at the rear. Mason shot him a threatening glare and jerked his axe towards the entrance.
Taking a deep breath (and immediately regretting it as the cave's dank, complex odor hit him), Steven reluctantly followed, stepping across the threshold into the profound darkness.
The shift was instantaneous and jarring. First, the plummeting temperature, like stepping from a sweltering jungle greenhouse into a deep, mid-winter cellar;
goosebumps erupted on his exposed skin. Then, the light vanished utterly, the dim forest twilight outside completely extinguished, leaving only a thick, cloying blackness that felt heavy, almost liquid.
Finally, the soundscape transformed: the jungle's cacophony ceased, replaced by an unnerving silence broken only by the amplified echo of dripping water from some unseen height far above, and the unsettlingly loud sound of their own ragged breathing reverberating within a vast, unseen space – a space easily large enough to accommodate a small arena.
As his eyes strained, aided by the NeuraSync chip's struggling low-light enhancement protocols, Steven began to make out his surroundings.
He was inside a colossal natural cavern, its scale defying easy comprehension.
The vaulted ceiling soared into absolute darkness overhead, lost to sight.
The walls were rough, uneven, a chaotic landscape of bizarre stalactites dripping like wax from monstrous candles, massive columns reaching floor to ceiling, and layered curtains of flowstone resembling frozen waterfalls.
Faintly visible in the deeper recesses were strange mineral veins striping the rock, sparkling with an inner light of jade-green or blood-red.
And sometimes, from those deeper fissures, came faint, elusive echoes – like stone grinding against stone far below, or the drawn-out sigh of some immense, slumbering entity, whispers that made even the tribespeople shy away from those darker passages.
The air itself was a suffocating cocktail of odors: the cold, metallic tang of ancient, unlit stone;
the musty decay of perpetually damp earth; the sharp ammonia of sweat and accumulated waste from hundreds of living beings;
and underlying it all, the faint, coppery scent of stale blood, likely from the Paoxiao carcasses now being dragged further inside.
"Oh my god…" A wave of dizziness washed over Steven.
This place, their sanctuary, felt even more hostile to life than the monster-infested jungle camp.
"Cecil, scan… no, don't scan. Just… estimate the size? Roughly?"
"Based on acoustic reverberation patterns and peripheral visual field mapping," Cecil's voice reported, still calm but maybe a fraction slower, processing the alien environment, "current primary chamber estimated dimensions: approximately three hundred meters length, one hundred fifty meters width, average ceiling height exceeding fifty meters. Internal structure appears highly complex with multiple intersecting passages and levels indicated. Air circulation is severely limited. Atmospheric humidity approaching saturation point. Ambient temperature estimated at ten to twelve degrees Celsius."
Steven looked towards the cave's center. The tribe members were already gathering on a large, relatively flat, slightly raised section of stone floor.
With practiced efficiency, they arranged the wounded in the most sheltered spot, while others huddled tightly around them, forming a living barrier against the penetrating cold, layers of bodies and worn hides overlapping.
Elders and children disappeared into the core of the human cluster, visible only as indistinct, shifting silhouettes.
He watched the mass shiver collectively, like a colony of emperor penguins bracing against an Antarctic gale.
It was then that the full, horrifying realization struck him, hitting him with the force of a physical blow.
He scanned the vast, dark expanse again, searching desperately, but finding nothing.
In this entire immense cavern, sheltering hundreds of human beings… there was not one single spark of fire.
No central bonfire. No flickering torches. Not even a single smoldering ember pile.
Darkness.
Absolute, profound, unrelieved darkness, broken only by the faint, ghostly luminescence of those strange patches of moss or fungi clinging to distant walls like cold, uncaring stars.
"No… No fire?" Steven stood frozen, the words a choked whisper.
This single fact felt more devastating, more fundamentally wrong, than the monsters, the violence, the sheer alienness of it all.
"They… they actually live like this? Without fire? How is that even possible? How do they survive the nights? The cold? How do they… eat?"
As if on cue, the grim reality of dinner arrived shortly after.
It was, depressingly, the familiar menu: chunks of bloody, raw Paoxiao meat hacked from the carcasses, and scoops of a viscous, suspiciously colored paste made from pulverized roots.
Steven stared at the offering placed before him on the bare rock, his stomach clenching in revolt.
"No… I actually… I can't…"
Just then, a figure approached and squatted down beside him. Not Mason. Not the calm leader.
It was the girl from the clearing, the one who had tried to speak her name.
She wore the same simple tunic of hides and fibers, her arms bare, her skin the color of healthy earth.
A single pin carved from bone held back her somewhat tangled dark hair.
Dust and grime still smudged her face, but couldn't entirely mask her clear, well-defined features or the startling brightness of her curious eyes.
She tilted her head, regarding Steven intently. Then she pointed at the untouched food before him, pointed to her own mouth, made a small chewing motion, and wrinkled her nose slightly, a clear expression: Yeah, this stuff is pretty bad.
Reaching into the simple leather pouch at her waist, she drew out a small handful of fresh, deep purple berries.
She placed them carefully on the rock in front of Steven, then offered him a small, tentative, but undeniably friendly smile.
Steven stared. This was… the second genuinely unprompted act of kindness he'd received since landing in this prehistoric hell dimension?
Both from the same girl? God, this girl… she just walks right up? Doesn't she know about personal space?
Or maybe… maybe that's just not a thing here? This directness… it's so… primitive…
The girl seemed utterly unafraid of him, the clear-eyed gaze direct and searching.
She pointed a finger at her own chest, and repeated the same clear, crisp syllables she'd used before, the sound strange yet melodic in the echoing cavern.
"Cecil? Translation attempt?" Steven thought, more out of habit than hope.
"Received… Parsing acoustic input… Syllable pattern analysis yields potential match: 'Tī… nà'…" Cecil's voice flickered, still laden with static but noticeably smoother than before.
"Cross-referencing limited cultural linguistic database… Hypothesis: Phonetic sequence likely corresponds to individual designation 'Tīnà'. Confidence level: 68%."
Tīnà… Steven looked from the simple offering of berries on the cold stone floor to the girl's bright, expectant eyes.
A tiny flicker of warmth ignited somewhere in the frozen landscape of his despair.
Was this… a genuine glimmer of light in the oppressive darkness?
Or just the beginning of a whole new set of complications?