Chapter Sixty-Four: Beneath the Cliff

"Thank you!"

Naruoger was genuinely surprised. Just a moment ago, he had been intent on killing Li Pingyang, yet now, despite all that had happened, Li Pingyang had saved him, bearing no grudges. This moved him deeply, and his gratitude was sincere.

"This isn’t the time for that—let’s get out of here first."

Li Pingyang swung his sword relentlessly, shattering the stone men as they closed in. But the more he fought, the more perplexed he became: the number of stone men seemed to multiply. They were several times larger than himself, and no matter how many he destroyed, the fragments would always reassemble and the creatures would rise again. They needed to find a way to eliminate them completely, or this would never end.

Naruoger, his leg wounded, sat on the ground and fired arrow after arrow. Each time a feathered shaft pierced a stone man’s head, its massive body would collapse into a heap of rubble, only to re-form moments later.

Li Pingyang noticed a cave to their right and decided they should seek shelter there. If they kept fighting like this, they would eventually exhaust themselves, while the stone men seemed to possess limitless, tireless energy and would wear them down.

Attacking as they retreated, the two finally made it into the cave. The stone men were too large to enter; they could only force their upper bodies inside, spitting rocks at the pair. Li Pingyang shattered each flying stone, but as he stepped back, his foot suddenly found only air—there was no ground behind him.

A cliff!

He turned to see a sheer drop behind him, so deep that the bottom was swallowed in darkness. Stones dislodged by his foot tumbled into the abyss below. Naruoger, his hearing sharper than most, caught the faint splash of the stones hitting water far beneath them.

"There’s a pond below!"

Naruoger relayed what he’d heard. Li Pingyang dispatched another stone man with a sweep of his sword and turned to ask if he was certain. Naruoger nodded without hesitation. Trusting him, Li Pingyang met his gaze, and together they leaped into the void.

For a moment, there was only the sensation of falling. Then, they plunged into water. Sure enough, a deep pool lay beneath the cliff.

The water was murky and thick with countless plankton-like creatures, their bodies white and filament-thin, mysterious beings that scattered in alarm at the intruders, vanishing into the cracks of a massive submerged boulder.

Li Pingyang opened his eyes wide in the gloom and realized, to his dismay, that Naruoger was not a strong swimmer—he was sinking fast. A couple of frantic kicks brought Li Pingyang over. He slapped Naruoger’s face, but the man didn’t respond; during their fall, he’d struck his head on a rock and was now sinking headfirst.

Li Pingyang grabbed his leg and, with considerable effort, began to haul him toward the surface—no easy feat, for the man from Tubo was shockingly heavy. After what felt like an eternity, Li Pingyang broke the surface, gasping for air, and continued to drag Naruoger to safety.

Soon, he managed to pull him ashore. Naruoger had swallowed a great deal of filthy water; his stomach bulged, and water dribbled continuously from his lips while his eyes remained shut tight.

"Forgive me!"

Li Pingyang rubbed his hands together and began pounding on Naruoger’s stomach, forcing the water out. With a final punch, Naruoger jerked upright, spewing a torrent of water into Li Pingyang’s face before collapsing back onto the ground. A threadlike creature, disturbed by the ordeal, wriggled out from his mouth, unable to bear the stench.

Pinching his nose with one hand, Li Pingyang lifted the creature with his sword for a closer look. It had no eyes, only a large, round head, and a mouth lined with tiny, razor-sharp teeth gnawing at the edge of the blade. Its body resembled a tailed jellyfish—an oddity indeed.

A sudden chill swept through, and Li Pingyang sneezed. His wet clothes clung coldly to his skin. Searching his pockets, he found his fire striker, only to discover it was waterlogged and useless. With a sigh of frustration, he tossed it into the pond.

Yet, curiously, there was a patch of faint light where he sat—enough, at least, to see by. Another gust of cold wind made his teeth chatter. He stripped off his wet clothes and set off, searching for anything dry to start a fire.

Inside a small alcove, he found some dry branches and a charred stick, as if someone had used it before. The cave bore traces of former inhabitants; the walls were covered in odd carvings—twisted symbols that were neither script nor letters, indecipherable as if reading the language of another world. After a while, Li Pingyang gave up trying to make sense of them. Were it not for the charred stick, he might have believed these markings the work of extraterrestrials.

Besides the enigmatic symbols, there were only some blackened ashes and scraps of rotten clothing, exuding a stench of mold even from a distance. Stifling his disgust, Li Pingyang searched through them, but found nothing of value.

Arms full of branches, he returned and sat down, a sudden inspiration bringing a smile to his lips. He remembered: didn’t he have the fire dragon wrapped around his body? Why not borrow some of its flame to warm himself?

Without hesitation, he sat cross-legged, calming his thoughts in meditation. When the moment felt right, he opened his eyes—now blazing red. A fire dragon spiraled around his form. Grinning, he held a branch to its body, borrowing a spark.

The fire, visible only to him, could do him no harm, but he wasn’t sure if it would catch. He had to try. The moment the branch touched the dragon, it flared to life. Ecstatic, Li Pingyang shielded the flame from the wind and lit his bundle of dry grass.

The fire grew and spread. He added the charred log, then threaded his clothes onto a long branch, propping them beside the blaze to dry. While Naruoger remained unconscious, he did the same for his clothes, and, using the fire dragon’s healing power, channeled a little inner energy into the wounds to aid his recovery.

Above them, all was quiet. The stone men, finding their intruders gone, returned to the rocks and merged once more with the landscape.

Who knew what hour it was outside? If they didn’t make it out of the forest before nightfall, would anyone come looking for them? Would they be found here?

Li Pingyang’s stomach growled. There was nothing to eat down here; all he could do was imagine food in his mind. With a sigh, he laced his hands behind his head and lay back comfortably. If he slept, at least he wouldn’t feel hungry.

Perhaps he was simply too exhausted—he fell asleep almost at once, and soon Naruoger’s snores joined his.

No one noticed that, in the pond before them, a massive stone suddenly shifted...