Font Size:
After exiting the cave, Yang Fan pondered for a moment and began scanning the rock wall for something.
Utilizing his exceptional vision, Yang Fan quickly spotted a thin rope hanging high on the cliff wall.
This rope was all too familiar to Yang Fan; it was the same rope used to lower him down.
“The rope is still here. Liu Qi and the others shouldn’t have left.”
Yang Fan knew well that if Liu Qi and the others had departed, they wouldn’t have left this rope behind.
However, what was peculiar was that the end of the rope was about ten meters above the ground!
While the cliff wasn’t perfectly smooth, it was quite even, indicating that the former owner of the Qilin Lair had meticulously decorated their palace.
The cliff wall lacked handholds, making it challenging for an average person to climb ten meters high without any assistance.
Even if Liu Qi and the others had exceptional physical abilities, it would be difficult for them to directly grab the rope, especially considering any potential emergencies.
Leaving such a distance could complicate emergency escapes.
Why didn’t they extend the rope further? Was there a shortage of stored Iron Spider Silk?
After some thought, Yang Fan dismissed this speculation.
He distinctly remembered that the rope was cut only after reaching the bottom, indicating that the Iron Spider Silk in Liu Qi’s possession was sufficient to reach the depths of the abyss.
Since it wasn’t a matter of insufficient materials, the answer became quite clear.
Liu Qi was preventing Yang Fan from using the rope to escape!
With only three people who could potentially use the rope to escape, Liu Qi and Zhang Jie must have devised alternate methods to quickly climb the rope, reserving the height to prevent Yang Fan from fleeing.
If Yang Fan could reach the rope, he might even have the chance to tamper with it, a possibility Liu Qi undoubtedly sought to avoid.
“Quite meticulous thinking! Anticipating that I might come to inspect the rope?” Yang Fan snorted coldly.
Looking at the rope hanging high above, Yang Fan hesitated for a moment.
It seemed he now had an additional choice: finding a way to reach the rope, getting ahead of Liu Qi and the others back up to the cliff, and waiting for them to fall into their own trap.
However, Yang Fan quickly dismissed this idea.
For one, he couldn’t immediately figure out how to reach the high rope.
Moreover, his primary goal was to find the Crimson Qilin Fruit, not to go after Liu Qi.
If Liu Qi and his companions didn’t obtain the Crimson Qilin Fruit, or worse, met their end below, what good would it do for him to return to the cliff early?
Liu Qi likely doesn’t know about Yang Fan’s current physical condition, which has almost reached the level of an average person, and he probably still assumes Yang Fan’s left leg is injured.
Even so, leaving such a height gap indicates Liu Qi is meticulous in his planning and extremely cautious.
Looking up at the rope above, Yang Fan could only shake his head. He couldn’t afford to spend a significant amount of time and energy solving the puzzle of the rope.
“Liu Qi has already headed to the central area ahead of me. I can’t delay any longer; it seems I have to act on instinct!” With that, Yang Fan turned and headed towards the center of the abyss.
Having spent two days in the abyss, Yang Fan’s vision had adapted better to the dark environment.
Though the space was filled with darkness, Yang Fan could still see about ten meters ahead.
Previously, Yang Fan estimated the abyss’s radius to be around fifty meters, which wasn’t excessively far.
However, the closer he got, the higher the likelihood of encountering danger, and with a visibility range of only ten meters, safety couldn’t be guaranteed.
Moving towards the central area meant Yang Fan had no known cover or protection ahead. For safety, he chose to crawl on the ground, keeping all his senses fully alert, progressing cautiously and stopping periodically to observe the surroundings.
“Strange, I’ve crawled about ten meters towards the central area, but the scent of beasts hasn’t intensified. Instead, the scent of the Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines is becoming clearer!”
“The scent of the Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines has now overtaken other scents, making it difficult to locate the exotic beast by smell alone!”
Having had close encounters with the Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vine’s branches, Yang Fan was very familiar with this scent.
As this scent intensified, it masked almost all other scents.
The scent of the exotic beast was now overshadowed, let alone Liu Qi and Zhang Jie. Yang Fan couldn’t locate the two based on smell.
With all potential threats possibly concentrated in the central area, the closer he got, the more concentrated the danger became. Yang Fan needed to be even more cautious as he approached the center.
After crawling slowly for about twenty meters, Yang Fan feared that at any moment, some exotic beast might leap out and tear him apart.
Yet, no exotic beast appeared. Instead, Yang Fan noticed a massive spherical shadow ahead!
“What is that?” Yang Fan widened his eyes, afraid he might be seeing things.
Upon closer inspection, Yang Fan realized that about ten meters away from him, the entire area was covered with Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines.
Numerous Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines intertwined on the ground, exceptionally thick, several times thicker than those in the chambers. In the darkness, they resembled massive pythons coiled around.
In the central area, some roots intertwined and climbed, creating this spherical space.
Yang Fan crawled up to the nearest vine and examined it closely.
Indeed, it was a Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines.
However, what puzzled him was that the Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines in the Caves would emit a rhythmic green light, yet these vines before him showed no such phenomenon, appearing lifeless.
Yang Fan’s gaze followed these thick branches in search… perhaps not branches but roots, as they were thicker and more robust.
Yang Fan discovered why they didn’t emit light.
They had all been severed!
“These are dead roots… I wonder who could have cut the roots of the Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines. Could it be that Qilin?”
Since these roots had been severed and lacked the green sap within, Yang Fan touched one and found no response.
“These jumbled roots could serve as hiding spots.”
With many dead roots around, varying in height, Yang Fan finally found some cover to conceal himself.
Standing up, he leaned against one of the dead roots and cautiously approached the central spherical structure.
Peering through the gaps between the tangled dead roots on the outer perimeter of the sphere, Yang Fan glimpsed deeper inside, where numerous vine roots were present.
However, these inner vine roots differed from the outer dead roots. They emitted a faint, rhythmic light blue fluorescence, lighter than Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines in the chambers.
The faint blue glow was mostly obscured by the outer vine roots, and any remaining dim light was swallowed by the surrounding darkness, to the extent that Yang Fan hadn’t noticed any light here in the past two days.
Yang Fan noticed that each time these inner vine roots pulsed, there was no dark energy emanating but rather a wave of refreshing fragrance.
Despite pulsating similarly, the rhythmic movements of these vine roots gave off a sense of purity and freshness.
“These vine roots here haven’t been contaminated?!” Yang Fan widened his eyes.
He found it perplexing why the same Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines plant had over three hundred tainted branches while the root area remained uncontaminated!
“Wait!”
Frowning, Yang Fan seemed to have a thought.
What if the contamination spread from the branches towards the center?!
This could explain why the branches were tainted but the root area remained clean.
There was something that could confirm Yang Fan’s conjecture.
When completing the first stage of the dual objective, he simply found a branch and considered it done.
If the contamination spread outward from the center of the roots, then locating the root center should be the true completion of the first stage!
Realizing this, Yang Fan continued observing the Mo Luo Qian Shou’s root system.
Seeing through two layers of vine roots was no easy feat for an ordinary person, but luckily, Yang Fan’s vision had slightly improved over the past few days, allowing him to see a bit.
His gaze passed through the roots emitting light blue fluorescence. In the innermost part, several tender shoots grew upwards from all sides, converging at the top, forming another sphere.
He couldn’t see the interior of that space, but he could discern a faint orange glow within the inner sphere, dimly brightening with each pulse.
At the sight of that red glow, Yang Fan’s heart raced.
The Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vine’s sap was ink-green, tainted Qilin Fruit emitted green fluorescence, and even the untainted vine roots emitted a light blue glow.
That orange glow likely represented the coveted Crimson Qilin Fruit!
The second stage of the dual objective was now before him, causing Yang Fan’s breath to quicken.
However, Yang Fan refrained from acting impulsively.
Firstly, the whereabouts of Liu Qi and Zhang Jie remained unknown. Since Yang Fan hadn’t encountered any exotic beasts yet, the chances were high that Liu Qi and Zhang Jie were still alive. Even though he hadn’t seen them, Yang Fan was certain they were within this mere hundred-square-meter area!
They might even be hiding behind another nearby vine root!
Secondly, while the scent of the exotic beast was faint, it definitely existed. Without spotting the beast, Yang Fan didn’t dare to reveal himself casually.
Most importantly, this place was too peculiar. Why were the surrounding vines dead? Were there other dangers within the space enveloped by the vine roots? These uncertainties made caution imperative.
The Crimson Qilin Fruit was enveloped by three layers of vine roots, making it challenging to acquire.
Yang Fan couldn’t act recklessly at this point!
“Let’s see if there are any changes first.” Yang Fan chose to remain still.
After waiting for about ten minutes, the Demon Lotus Thousand Hands vines finally showed some signs of change.