One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

Chapter 362 Bao'er's Treatment Method

Nie Lingfeng looked around.

They had fallen from above, and returning the way they came was clearly impossible—the hole above their heads was at least forty or fifty meters above the ground, the rock walls were smooth as a mirror, and there was nothing to climb. All around were frozen waters and rock walls, stretching as far as the eye could see.

The only passage seems to be...

His gaze fell on the area behind the hole in the rock wall, which had been corroded by the gray shadows.

There, beneath the ice, a dark, downward-sloping opening could be vaguely seen. The opening was about two people wide, with irregular edges, as if it had been bitten out by something. But upon closer inspection, traces of human intervention could be seen on the edges of the opening—several rusted steel bars protruded from the concrete, and there was also a crooked metal door frame.

It appears to be the entrance to some kind of large drainage pipe or man-made passage.

Previously hidden by rock walls and shadows, it is now faintly visible due to the ice cover and light refraction.

"There seems to be a road there."

Nie Lingfeng pointed to the cave entrance.

Everyone looked over.

Sure enough, at the junction of the ice and the rock wall, there was an irregularly shaped circular opening more than three meters in diameter. It was dark and deep inside, and its destination was unknown. There were signs of human intervention at the edge of the opening—the rusted remains of a metal fence leaned crookedly against the cave wall, and some dark green things that looked like moss or rotting fabric were hanging on the iron bars of the fence.

"That...that seems to be a backup passage leading to the deep wastewater treatment plant and...the sample destruction area."

Bald Bear, enduring the pain in his leg, glanced at it, his voice trembling.

"The place where parliament handles failed experiments and toxic waste...it's probably even more dangerous inside!"

"It's more dangerous to stay here."

Nie Lingfeng glanced at the increasingly dense cracks in the ice beneath his feet. The cracks in the ice were widening rapidly, and in some places, water had begun to seep in—not meltwater, but groundwater gushing up from the cracks in the ice beneath, icy cold and emitting white steam.

Then I looked around at the various subtle sounds that were beginning to stir again in the darkness—the rustling of insects, the soft scratching of scales against the rock walls, and the low breathing of something I didn't know. Those things that had been scared away by the ice were gathering again, waiting for the ice to melt.

He made a decision.

"Go that way. Wang Ye, lead the way. Chen Duo, be wary of poisons and bacteria. Chu Lan, Ling Yu, protect the flanks. Bao'er, cover the rear. Bald Bear, show the way."

"I...I broke my leg..."

Bald Bear looked down at his leg, which had been roughly "corrected" by Feng Baobao, with a mournful expression. His leg was still swollen and the skin was purple, but at least the bone was back in place. He tried to move it, wincing in pain, and a cold sweat instantly broke out on his forehead.

Feng Baobao walked over.

She glanced at his twisted leg, her face expressionless, as if she were looking at a stick that needed fixing.

Without saying a word, he lifted his foot—

They stomped hard on the spot where his leg was broken.

"Ouch--!!!"

Bald Bear let out a scream that sounded inhuman. The sound was so sharp, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, that it echoed back and forth in the cave, making everyone's ears ring.

"Click."

A sharp, teeth-grinding crack.

Feng Baobao actually used brute force to straighten his dislocated leg bone! She placed one foot on the fixed position of his thigh, grasped his calf with both hands, and twisted it like wringing a towel—the bone snapped back into place with a "crack". The movement was swift and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.

Then she picked up two relatively straight wooden sticks from the ground—probably fragments of stalactites that had fallen earlier, long and thin with smooth surfaces—and tore off strips of cloth from the bald bear's tattered clothes, quickly making a simple fixation for him.

The whole process took less than ten seconds.

"Okay, you can walk now."

Feng Baobao clapped her hands, looking very professional. She even patted Bald Bear on the shoulder, as if to say, "You're welcome."

Bald Bear was in so much pain that he was covered in sweat, his face was deathly pale, and his lips were covered in bloody bite marks. He was panting heavily, his chest heaving violently like an engine about to fall apart.

But after trying, although his leg was still in excruciating pain—the pain felt like someone was sawing his bones—he could at least bear some weight. He used the makeshift crutch to support himself, stood up shakily, and tried to take two steps. Although he limped, he could indeed walk.

The way he looked at Feng Baobao was like he was looking at a monster.

This woman... has ridiculously strong strength—she can break stalactites with her bare hands and use them as sticks—and she's incredibly ruthless, giving no one time to react.

"Walk!"

There is no time to waste.

Nie Lingfeng took the lead, stepping across the cracked ice surface as he sped towards the dark cave entrance. His figure glided across the ice, his clothes fluttering, without making a sound, like a leaf blown by the wind.

The crowd followed closely behind.

Zhang Chulan's lightning illuminated the way ahead, white arcs of electricity leaping around him and dispelling the darkness. Daoist Wang Ye's Qimen Dunjia formation unfolded beneath his feet, the illusory image of the Eight Trigrams appearing on the ice surface, scanning everything in front of him—the ground, the walls, the ceiling, the air itself.

Chen Duo walked in the middle, holding Xiao Yun in her arms. The Gu worms on her shoulder had already dispersed, crawling silently in the darkness, acting as extra scouts. Zhang Lingyu walked to her side and slightly behind, black and white energy flowing across his body, always on guard.

Feng Baobao walked at the very back, her knife already drawn, a thin layer of white frost clinging to the blade, reflecting a cold light in the darkness. She retreated silently, scanning the darkness behind her, like a leopard poised to pounce.

Near the cave entrance.

A stronger, more nauseating stench of decay, mixed with the acrid smell of chemicals, assaulted the senses. It smelled as if something had been rotting there for a long time, then soaked in formaldehyde, and finally left to dry in the sun—sweet, foul, pungent, and disgusting, the various odors blended together to create an indescribable, nauseating stench.

The cave entrance sloped downwards, the floor was slippery and covered with sticky, strangely colored stains. Some of these stains were dark red, like dried blood; some were yellowish-green, like pus; and some were black, like tar. They were layered on top of each other, forming a thick carpet on the floor of the cave entrance, like a colorful, rotting rug.

The cave walls were made of rough concrete, poured irregularly, and covered with pits left by air bubbles. They were littered with the remains of various pipes and wires—thumb-thick cables protruding from the walls, their copper cores exposed and blackened by oxidation; arm-thick steel pipes, rusted and dripping an unknown liquid from their breaks; and many more illegible warning signs and numbers, the black paint peeling off, leaving only a few barely legible Russian words.

Nie Lingfeng was the first to step into the cave.

The flashlight beam shone into the depths. The beam cut a white path through the darkness, illuminating the road ahead for more than ten meters.

The passage is very long.

The flashlight beam shone at the end of the passage, revealing only a deeper darkness from which there was no end in sight.

It winds downwards, like a staircase leading to hell.

As Xiaoyun, whom he was holding, entered the cave, her body tensed up again.

Her small hands gripped his clothes tightly, her knuckles turning white. Her face was buried in his chest, not daring to look even closer, her whole body trembling slightly.

"Stay close, watch your feet and head."

Nie Lingfeng gave the order in a deep voice and stepped into the depths of the passage.

A cold, damp, and dangerous aura, like a tangible tide, surged from the depths of the passage. It was thicker, heavier, and colder than the air outside. Like an invisible hand, it slowly reached out to each person, caressing their faces, their necks, their backs, as if selecting prey.

Slowly swallowing them up.

The frozen world behind me grew farther and farther away, smaller and smaller in my sight.

The darkness before them grew ever larger and deeper.

Shortly after their figures disappeared into the passage—

Platform edge.

The cracked ice surface finally shattered with a deafening roar!

"Boom—crash—!"

The ice layer shattered like a piece of glass smashed by a hammer, instantly breaking into countless fragments that flew in all directions. The ice shards struck the rock wall with a crackling sound, then bounced back into the water, creating ripples.

An indescribable, terrifying head, covered in thick, grayish-white keratin, covered in tumors and bone spurs, with only a single, enormous mouth filled with spiraling teeth, slowly emerged from the ice and water.

Its skin was grayish-white, like a corpse that had been soaking for a long time. Its surface was covered with large and small tumors and bone spurs; some tumors bulged out like tumors, while others bone spurs protruded from the skin like nails. Its head had no eyes—or rather, where there were eyes, there were only two deep, sunken pits, and the eye sockets were empty.

It only has one mouth.

A huge mouth that takes up two-thirds of the entire head.

Its mouth was filled with spirally arranged sharp teeth, circle after circle, from the outside in, like a precisely designed meat grinder. The teeth varied in size and length, some like daggers, some like needles, and some like saws. They were arranged in an interlocking pattern, biting each other, and even when the mouth was closed, the teeth would peek out from between the lips.

Those eyes, devoid of pupils and only filled with a murky, dark red, glanced blankly in the direction of the cave entrance where Nie Lingfeng and the others had disappeared.

What did it see? Nobody knows. Did it see anything? Nobody knows either.

It simply "looked" in that direction, motionless, as if listening, as if smelling, as if perceiving the world in a way that humans cannot understand.

Then--

It let out a low, chaotic roar filled with endless hunger.

The sound didn't come from a throat, but from the depths of that enormous, tooth-filled mouth. It was deep, like thunder from underground, or like something weeping. The sound echoed through the cave, growing louder and deeper, so much so that the water surface trembled slightly.

Then, it slowly sank into the water.

The greyish-white head slowly sank into the water, first the chin, then the mouth, then the nose—if it had a nose—and finally the top of its head. Only ripples and a few pieces of ice floes it had smashed remained on the surface.

All that remained was a huge hole in the ice and rippling waves.

Deep inside the cave.

More shadows were writhing. These shadows weren't still; they were moving slowly and continuously. Some were on the rock walls, some underwater, and some in the darkness overhead. They varied in size and shape, but they all shared one thing in common—they were all moving in the same direction.

Heading in the direction where Nie Lingfeng and the others disappeared.

More "eyes" lit up in the darkness.

Some were red, like two lumps of charcoal; some were yellow, like two oil lamps; some were green, like two fireflies. They emerged from the darkness, flickering, blinking, and gazing at the dark entrance to the passage.

A game between hunter and prey.

In this forgotten abyss of hell.

just began.