The last image seared into Steven's sight was the dark-red fissure, a gaping wound that tore with unnatural speed across the rock face. From this ominous chasm, a horrific mass of tentacles, wreathed in umbral flames and slick with an unholy ooze, clawed their way forth. Deep within his consciousness, Cecil, his AI companion, his ever-present shadow, emitted a faint, desperate keen. It was no longer clear speech or a stream of data, but more like a lonely comet disintegrating at the death of a star, scattering a billion infinitesimal, indecipherable fragments of thought. These fragments, like wayward fireflies in the deep cosmos, dispersed through his chaotic senses, finally succumbing to an ultimate overload, fading into an utter, echoing silence.
His neural link, implanted in his brain and protected by technology he'd once thought invulnerable, now felt like a shard of blackened crystal struck by divine retribution. His connection to it flickered, intermittent, a storm of static and meaningless, chaotic bursts of light assaulting his mind. He could almost feel the core, once a symbol of wondrous, alien artifice, physically degrading, melting. An unprecedented agony, mixed with the phantom sensation of his very soul being rent from his being, made him want to scream, but no sound could escape his lips.
An endless darkness, cold and vast as a primeval tsunami, laced with a malice from dimensions unknown, instantly devoured all his awareness. He felt his spirit seized by an unseen, icy hand, forcibly torn from the warmth of his body and cast into a chilling, eternal void – a place devoid of light, of sound, of even the concept of time, offering only an infinite fall into an absolute, numbing cold.
At the very instant Steven's consciousness plunged into oblivion, it was as if the entire tangible world cried out under an unbearable burden. Within the Kunlun Mountain Range, that ancient spine of the East, revered as the ancestor of all mountains, the dwelling place of gods, something terrible, something that had slumbered for untold eons in its unplumbed, telluric heart, seemed to stir, slowly opening eyes sealed shut for millennia.
The Kunlun Sacred Grotto, the Feng clan's last sanctuary, a vast mountain-belly cavern venerable since the age of ancient legends, now began to tremble violently, without a shred of warning. The grotto roof, layers of rock harder than bedrock and a hundred thick, buckled under an irresistible force, as if the mythical Pan Gu, the world-creator, once again swung his wrathful, giant axe; or as if the ancient Thunder God, in his fury, had driven the crushing weight of ten thousand thunders from the nine heavens to roll across the mountain peaks, producing a dull, teeth-jarring, heart-stopping roar.
Countless massive stalactites – some so colossal that several of the tribe's strongest warriors, straining together, could barely budge them, their tips pearled with dewdrops like jade of a thousand winters – now snapped like the fangs of dying behemoths. With air-tearing shrieks and the weight of mountains, they crashed onto the gravel-strewn grotto floor, kicking up a choking, sky-filling cloud of dust and stone shrapnel. The natural stone pillars that supported the grotto's dome, ancient as the mountain itself, now showed fine, spidery cracks on their rough surfaces, like those seen on ancient oracle bones scorched in a diviner's fire. They groaned under the violent tremors, deep, bone-visible fissures spreading rapidly across them like malevolent serpents, as if, in the next instant, they would collapse entirely, burying everything within the cave alive.
The strange fungi and luminous mosses that clung to the cave walls, drawing faint sustenance from the earth's aether to produce their ghostly, phosphorescent glow, now seemed to recoil in terror. Their light pulsed erratically, flickering between brightness and shadow like countless agitated spectral eyes, illuminating the chaos within. Some of the more superstitious tribe members even cried out, swearing they saw the fleeting shadows of demons – things usually confined to their nightmares, long pinned beneath the mountain – flitting amongst the quaking rock faces, adding another layer of doom to the unfolding panic.
Om… Om… Rumble…
From the grotto's deepest recesses, that mysterious region forbidden by tribal ancestors, said to connect the very lifeblood of Mother Earth with the celestial tracks of the nine heavens, there suddenly erupted a series of roars. It was as if some colossal beast of the primordial wilderness (could it be an ancient, earth-shaping behemoth from the dawn of creation, slumbering at Kunlun's roots, with mountains for bones and rivers for blood, now tormented and thrashing in its sleep?!) was bellowing in agony. The sound also resembled a sky-supporting divine mountain (Mount Buzhou?! The thought, a terrifying legend of a toppled celestial pillar and a tilting world from Huaxia myth, flashed like lightning through Steven's fading, fragmented consciousness) once again facing an apocalyptic collapse. The sound was low, suffocating, yet it carried a strange, soul-piercing magic, as if it could directly shake the foundations of the mind, sending a cold, primal dread deep into the marrow of all who heard it.
"The Earth Dragon turns! Mother Earth is wroth!" "Run! The cave is collapsing! It's a heavenly punishment! The ancient demons are clawing their way up from below!"
The Feng tribespeople, ripped from their dreams by the sudden, violent shaking of the earth and the terrifying echoes from the grotto's depths, were instantly plunged into a vortex of absolute chaos and terror. Children's sobs tore through the air, women's screams were sharp with despair, and the shouts of men were a jumble of fear and helpless confusion. These sounds, amplified by the vast, echoing chamber, wove together into a cacophony of doom, as if the final cataclysm foretold in legend had indeed arrived, poised to swallow even this last refuge. Some tribe members, blind with panic, stumbled and sent piles of firewood and pottery crashing, while many more simply huddled together, trembling uncontrollably, uttering futile pleas to the totem spirits they revered. The air grew thick with the choking taste of dust, the sharp, acrid tang of violently shattered rock, and an even more unsettling, cloyingly sweet stench – as if of volcanic brimstone and a thousand years of carrion decay – drifting faintly from the direction of the fissure, assaulting their lungs.
Xuanyuan Hao and a few of the most vigilant elite warriors, who had been on watch, sprang from their cold animal-hide pallets like fire-startled leopards at the very first tremor. Xuanyuan Hao's eyes were sharp as lightning. In that instant, he even felt a distinct 'throb,' an 'anguished cry' transmitted from the earth beneath his feet, originating from an immense depth. It was as if ancient Kunlun itself sensed an unprecedented, mortal threat and was issuing a painful warning in its own unique way. He forcefully suppressed the roiling qi and blood, the trepidation that threatened to overwhelm him, like a young lion, king of its domain, aroused to fury. He sucked in a sharp breath, pressed his tongue to his palate, his chest and abdomen swelling, then let out a low, yet incredibly penetrating roar, an ancient tribal vocal technique known as the "Lion-Tiger Soul-Quell Roar": "All of you, be still! Do not run blindly! Gather on the central rise! Women and children inwards, warriors outwards! Any man who can still move, light the reserve torches and tinder bundles, if you can find any means to make fire!"
His voice seemed to carry an innate, extraordinary power to calm the heart, like a great, steadying boulder dropped into a storm-tossed lake, or like the first clap of spring thunder scattering an all-pervasive fog. The surrounding throngs, who had been scattering in all directions like headless flies in their absolute terror, were miraculously somewhat pacified by this command, which sounded unnaturally clear and steady amidst the dire emergency. Like drowning men grasping at a life-saving reed, they subconsciously obeyed, instinctively beginning to move towards the relatively open, slightly elevated area in the grotto's center, seeking a sliver of safety in collective strength. A few experienced old warriors also began to spontaneously assist Xuanyuan Hao, organizing the panicked crowd, and shielding the women, children, and elderly in their midst; their movements, though perhaps a little slow, possessed the aged calm of ancient, weathered stones.
Xuanyuan Hao's eyes, still gleaming brightly in the gloom like the clearest stars in a moonless night sky, rapidly scanned the chaotic grotto. With an intimate familiarity of every rock and hidden passage in this area, and an extraordinary intuition honed in countless life-or-death hunts against ferocious beasts and in repelling incursions from hostile tribes, he almost instantly identified the direction of the most violent tremors and the most erratically surging energy – it was precisely that massive cavern, discovered only that day, adorned with the mysterious mural depicting Pan Gu creating the heavens and earth! That was also the last place where the enigmatic outsider, Steven, who was so full of perplexing words and actions, had disappeared!
At that very moment, an aged elder, his hair and beard white as snow, a man entrusted with safeguarding the tribe's ancient legends, his face a roadmap of deep wrinkles, each line seemingly chronicling an ancient tribal sorrow or triumph, stretched out a trembling finger. He pointed towards the mural cavern, from which dust and small stones were continuously dislodging, and from which the faint, sickening sound of tearing rock could be heard. His voice, quavering with an all-consuming, unspeakable fear, rose in a horrified cry: "Impossible… This… Can it be… the Divine Lock of Pan Gu… that which guards Kunlun's heart, suppressing the endless inauspiciousness and ancient taboos below… has it… cracked?!" This cry of absolute terror, laced with a despair that could seemingly suffocate all hope, arced through the slightly calmed crowd, like a boulder dropped into a still lake, once again sending ripples of agitated fear across their faces.
Xuanyuan Hao's heart clenched violently! The Divine Lock of Pan Gu! That was one of the most sacred, core secrets of the Kunlun holy land, passed down through tribal generations! Legend held that after Pan Gu, the great god, created the heavens and earth, he exhausted his strength and perished. His body transformed into mountains, rivers, and all living things, while his indomitable will became an invisible "Divine Lock," deeply rooted in the telluric core of Mount Kunlun, suppressing countless terrifying demons and inauspicious entities from the Age of Chaos, sealed there at the dawn of creation. If the Divine Lock of Pan Gu truly showed a crack… the consequences were simply unthinkable! The tribe's ancient records, inscribed in the most obscure symbols, had depicted the calamity such a loosening might bring – a cataclysm of toppling heavens and rending earth, where all life withered, demons returned to plague the mortal realm, and the world itself would dissolve back into primordial chaos! The elder's cry, at this moment, undoubtedly dragged this most terrifying of nightmares into the stark light of reality.
"Shi Yi! Cong Cong!" Xuanyuan Hao's face instantly became a mask of absolute gravity. He barked the names of two of his most agile young warriors, those primarily responsible for the tribe's scouting and tracking missions. They were the tribe's finest scout pair: Shi Yi, true to his name, possessed a temperament as steady and unyielding as mountain rock; when tracking prey, he could merge with the earth itself, moving without a whisper of sound, and it was said he could decipher the passage of any creature within the past three days from the faintest of traces, his eyes sharper than a hawk's. Cong Cong, on the other hand, was as swift and elusive as a phantom in the forest depths; his running speed, legend had it, could not be matched even by the "Fei," the most nimble, six-limbed abominable beast of the mountains, and he was entrusted with carrying the tribe's most urgent messages. "You two, immediately organize all warriors still capable of fighting! At any cost, protect the tribespeople and escort them safely to the central high ground, especially the elderly, the children, and the wounded! Without my command, no one is to leave the high ground unauthorized! The rest of you, grab your weapons, and follow me!"
Before his words had even faded, Xuanyuan Hao snatched up his spear, which had been leaning against the nearby stone wall. It was a three-edged, razor-sharp weapon, painstakingly crafted by the tribe's most skilled artisan over several months from a single, flawless piece of rare obsidian, a stone occasionally mined from within the millennial glaciers of Kunlun's extreme-cold ice fields. Its tip, even in the grotto's dim, wavering phosphorescence, gleamed with a heart-stopping, soul-freezing icy glint. The sturdy shaft was tightly wound with several strands of tough leather cords, tanned from the sinews of some powerful, ferocious beast, to increase grip and stability in the heat of fierce combat. He issued a gruff command to the other few elite tribal warriors beside him, who were similarly armed with heavy-backed stone axes, sharp bone lances, and massive bone clubs studded with fearsome wolf teeth. His eyes flashed with an unyielding, do-or-die resolve as he took the lead, charging like a mountain tiger descending upon its prey, swiftly towards the mural cavern, from which violent energy pulses and a thick, inauspicious aura continuously emanated. His ten bravest warriors followed close behind, their faces a mixture of terror and grim determination to protect their home, their faith in Xuanyuan Hao's unshakeable leadership absolute.
An unprecedentedly strong, ominous premonition rose in Xuanyuan Hao's heart. The mysterious, ancient mural depicting the Huaxia people's creation myths; the bizarrely behaving, incomprehensible outsider, Steven, who seemed to wield some unknown power unheard of by the tribe… all of this, all of it, could not possibly be mere coincidence! He could even vaguely sense an aura of absolute evil, entirely different from any ferocious beast he had ever encountered, even distinct from any legendary demon or malevolent spirit recorded in tribal lore – an evil more pure, more ancient, and more capable of sending shivers deep into the very soul. It was seeping, like a living, venomous mist, filament by filament, from the direction of that mural cavern. That aura was cold and cloying, as if the Abyss itself was slowly prying open its all-consuming, greedy maw right there. He had to see what was happening; even if a mountain of blades or a sea of fire lay ahead, he had to stop that inauspicious source! He tightened his grip on his spear, and the cold, solid feel of its shaft gave him a sliver of courage against the encroaching unknown.