King of Tomb Raiders

Chapter 60

"OK! Bless me one last time—" He was checking the use of the Ruyi Hook, pressing the mechanism in his palm. The five fingers of the hook opened and closed nimbly, constantly making a crisp "snap" sound.

"Feng, to be honest, if it were you in charge, what would you do?" Gu Ye asked again.

"Same as you, nothing new," I answered honestly. When tomb raiding techniques reach a bottleneck, all the masters' thinking, methods, and tools are almost identical, and there are no more surprising new tricks.

Gu Ye sighed again: "My elder brother once said that there was a Chinese man he admired most. He was a born tomb raiding genius; no other tomb raider on Earth could compare to him—"

Who is he? Do you know him?

"'King of Tomb Raiders', Yang Tian—I'm not so fortunate to know him, but his name has spread throughout Japan."

Gu Ye mentioned his "elder brother" several times, but it's unclear what kind of figure he was. It seems that the historical materials collected about Gu Ye do not mention such a mysterious person.

"I'm about to begin, wind—"

Gu Ye slid down the stone platform, this time dramatically plunging half his body into the pile of snakes. Perhaps after the earlier test, he had enough confidence in the anti-radiation suit.

I have indeed been to Snake Island before, and there are indeed many snakes on the island. Almost every step I took, I would see or step on at least twenty different kinds of venomous snakes and pythons. But the danger there was nothing compared to what I'm experiencing now. The entire pool is a dark mass of venomous snakes scrambling for position; it's practically a world of pure venomous snakes.

"Be careful, you're getting too deep..." I had to warn you.

Ignoring my question, Gu Ye chanted the Nine Syllable Mantra, focusing intently on manipulating the Ruyi Hook. The clicking sound of the hook tightening mingled with the hissing sound of a mountain collapsing and a tsunami crashing down.

He held on for three minutes, then suddenly shouted, "Okay, I think it's loosened up, haha..."

I could no longer see his body clearly; at least three layers of venomous snakes were coiled around him, and I couldn't even see the soles of his shoes. Several snakes were even strangely winding their way up the steel cable—if there were something to climb on, they could very well have crawled out of the pool and into the tunnel outside.

"Come on, come on... come on..." Tanino shouted exaggeratedly and excitedly.

I hope he succeeds on his first try, and then we can retreat and completely seal off the Turkic Pyramid, letting those venomous snakes live and die in the tomb forever.

Part 5: The Cave of Ten Thousand Snakes

— Chapter 11 - A Life-or-Death Struggle in the Sea of Snakes —

More snakes crawled up the steel cable along the valley's body and quickly climbed to the top.

I really should have brought a camera to capture this bizarre scene. From the outside, it's impossible to tell what state Tanino is in, suspended on the steel cable. All I can see is a strange oval sphere wrapped in a venomous snake.

"Is that alright, Mr. Tanino? It's too dangerous. I suggest you retreat for now!"

He had been in the snake pit for more than six minutes. If he were not careful, the venomous snakes could bite through his oxygen tubes, and he would likely be doomed.

"Not yet, but it'll be finished soon—"

He had only uttered three characters of the idiom, and before he could even finish the last character "成" (chéng), a cracking sound came from the roof where the steel nails had struck.

"No, no, no..." I shouted three times in a row. When I first entered the tomb, I was already worried that the roof, which had no pillars to support it, was in danger of collapsing and cracking at any moment. The cracking sound I just heard was undoubtedly a sign that a part of the roof was about to break and fall.

"What's wrong?" Gu Ye asked in a muffled voice.

With a hiss, the steel cable wrapped with venomous snakes broke off from the roof. Gu Ye cried out "Ah!" and fell straight down without any warning, landing on top of the snake formation.

It wasn't just the steel cable that broke off, but a large section of the roof, about two meters square, that came crashing down.

"Get out of the way—" The two-meter square and two-meter thick boulder was crashing down on the stone platform. If Gu Ye didn't dodge, he would likely be crushed into a pulp.

Gu Ye, who had fallen into the snake formation, didn't need to dodge at all. He had already been pulled to another location by the rolling snakes, at least five meters away from the stone platform.

With a soft thud, the boulder crashed into the pile of snakes, producing a strange, muffled sound that must have killed hundreds of venomous snakes.

My throat began to dry violently. I looked up at the square gap that had suddenly appeared, and one, ten, fifty, a hundred... snakes surged out and tugged down, as if a rain of venomous snakes was falling from the sky.

"Prophecy... prophecy... the prophecy of the dragon..." I tried to pinch my throat with my hands, but through the thick protective suit, I couldn't touch my neck at all.

"Heavens! It's the 'Heavenly Serpent' written by a dragon, a swarm of serpents falling from the sky..."

I didn't know what to say. I just felt my throat constricting and spasming, and I unconsciously let out one strange roar after another. More and more snakes rushed out of the hole and fell in, merging into the huge snake formation.

I stood alone by the pool, bent over, yelling as I watched this strange "rain," like a nightmare from which I would never wake up.

“Lin, Bing, Dou, Zhe, Jie, Zhen, Lie, Zai, Qian—” That was the last roar that Gu Ye let out.

Time seemed to stand still. By the time I had screamed until my throat was dry and my voice was hoarse, my mind gradually cleared. The fallen boulder and the valley were gone, and the snake formation in the pool had risen at least half a meter higher, forming a pile of snakes more than two meters high in the center of the stone platform.

I took off my helmet and slammed it to the ground, breathing in the pungent, poisonous air of the tomb. Then, with all my might, I shouted, "Mr. Tanino... Mr. Tanino..."

The tomb was so empty that my hoarse and weak voice sounded even thinner.

The snakes fell at a slower pace, and after a few more minutes, no more venomous snakes crawled out of the hole.

From where I stood, I could see golden light emanating from the cave entrance; all other views were blocked, and I could see nothing else.

Tanino is dead—

My only option is to return to camp, report back, and tell anyone who covets the "Eye of the Moon" to simply forget about that ominous gem...

The venomous snakes that had been hovering above the stone platform gradually parted to the left and right, and the white light emanating from the gemstone shone resolutely, seemingly unstoppable by anything. After the snakes dispersed, a circular space with a diameter of one meter and a height of nearly two meters was formed above the gemstone.

After being repeatedly shot by the light, the snakes learned their lesson and began to flee, making way for the stone platform.

Zoologists have verified that snakes possess a kind of sentience, and the more venomous a snake, the stronger its cognitive abilities. The avoidance behavior of these Bengal golden-lined vipers vividly illustrates this point.

Suddenly, Gu Ye's milky white protective suit appeared six meters away from the edge of the pool on my side, but he was upside down, with only his two thighs showing, and he was strangely kicking and thrashing on the surface of the snake formation.

Without almost any hesitation, I rolled on the spot, grabbed the helmet and put it on my head, pulled the steel cable with my other hand, and leaped forward, diving down into the snake formation. This action was entirely my instinctive reaction—"Save people, save people quickly!" There was no longer any distinction between Chinese and Japanese; I had only one thought: to rescue Tani.

A dark mass of snakes swarmed towards me, making me dizzy. I blindly closed my eyes and, relying solely on my senses, flipped myself over in mid-air, landing on my toes atop the snakes.

It felt like stepping onto an extremely high-quality spring mattress; the slippery snake-like bodies were incredibly elastic, allowing me to easily use the momentum for somersaults. The Chinese Taoist art of lightness and agility emphasizes stability, practicality, elegance, and composure. Although it lacks flashy movements and gimmicks, with diligent practice, one can naturally reach the level of "walking on duckweed and flying over grass."

If my master, who taught me qinggong (lightness skill) back then, could have imagined that one day I would be using our school's qinggong to fly over the heads of thousands of venomous snakes, he would be so astonished that he would be dizzy.

The snake formation rose and fell like waves, and in an instant, Gu Ye's body disappeared again. My legs were now wrapped by more than a dozen venomous snakes, feeling as heavy as two medium-sized sandbags, and I was falling straight down.

"Guye—" I raised my arms and roared, then pushed off heavily with my toes and took flight.

In this situation, the only place to stop and rest was the stone platform in the middle of the pool, the place where the "Eye of the Moon Goddess" was embedded. The boulder falling from above, although it hit the stone platform vertically, was cushioned by the snake formation and quickly rolled into the pile of snakes.

With two quick leaps, my right foot was already on the stone platform. My eyes met the white light emanating from the gemstone, and I immediately felt as if I were being pierced by a thousand silver needles. Every hair on my body stood on end. This sensation was very similar to iron filings being controlled by a magnet, involuntarily lunging forward.

Even though I was wearing protective clothing, the thought of the first soldier who was pierced by a gem and turned into a cicada shell still made me feel apprehensive. I focused my energy and stood firmly on my stance.

At this moment, I was standing in a pile of snakes up to my waist. The snakes were only frightened by the white light, but their raised heads were still pointed at my helmet, and their tongues flicked in and out, making a terrifying hissing sound.

If this is a nightmare, then it is the most terrifying nightmare on Earth. Being surrounded by so many hungry venomous snakes, even if you are wearing a protective suit that is as solid as a rock and can withstand their bites, the visual and auditory experience still makes your stomach churn.

At this point, if I put aside the matter of Tano being trapped, I could take advantage of the situation and seize the gem first.

I took a step forward, drew my tactical knife from my belt, and crouched down. The closer I got, the stronger the magnetic force emanating from the gem became, as if I were facing a giant air intake fan; I had to exert all my strength just to barely keep my balance.

I am not a practitioner of Shingon Buddhism, so I naturally do not need to recite any nine-syllable mantra. However, when I extended my right hand, the intense white light seemed to intensify by more than ten times, forcing me to close my eyes and, based on a fleeting feeling, hand over the knife.

In the most extreme case, I could simply use a knife to slowly pry open the rock inlaid with the gem until it falls out. Previously, Tanino had already loosened the gem, so the remaining work wouldn't be too much.

With a snap, the knife touched the gemstone.

I took a deep breath, turned the handle, and tentatively inserted the knife into the inlaid part of the gemstone.

Without the protection of the white light, if the snakes rolled over, I would be overwhelmed by their venom like Tanino. Therefore, I don't have much time, especially since I have a strong premonition that once the gemstone is removed from the stone platform, it will lose its luminous power.

The gemstone was indeed loose, and the tip of the knife seemed to have penetrated a little.

I was overjoyed. Although I didn't covet the "Eye of the Moon Goddess," having it would at least show that I had entered the world of tomb raiding and would no longer be looked down upon.

Everyone needs to prove themselves, and I am no exception. The "Eye of the Moon" is an opportunity that God has arranged for me.

Suddenly, everything went black as something slapped me hard across the face, sending me tumbling backward like a whirlwind into the snake pit. My head buzzed, I was so dizzy I couldn't see anything clearly, and a strange, sweet, fishy taste filled my mouth, while two streams of hot liquid trickled from my nose.

Fortunately, the protective suit prevented the hungry venomous snakes from becoming even more frenzied after smelling the blood.

I didn't understand what had just hit me, but as I flew backward, I saw what was inside the two-meter square gap above me—the first thing I noticed was a golden ceiling. If the top was also a large tomb chamber ten meters high, then the arched dome of that tomb chamber would be entirely golden.

There was a huge, golden chair right next to the gap. All four legs of the chair were gleaming; it must have been cast in gold.

In the imperial palaces of ancient China, the dragon throne was cast in gold, and only the emperor could sit on it; no one else could even touch it. Intuitively, I felt that what I saw was a strange dragon throne. In the tombs of pharaohs, the dragon throne was naturally the pharaoh's exclusive seat.

So, now that the dragon throne has been discovered, the Pharaoh's treasure should be found soon, right?

In the midst of the chaos, I also discovered that after passing through the gap, the dome of the tomb chamber was inlaid with many stars—silver stars embedded in the golden sky, as if the night sky had suddenly merged with the brilliance of the summer sun.

That strange imagery created a bizarre and enormous impact on my mind, because I remembered seeing such a lifelike starry sky when I entered Sahan's secret chamber deep underground in Villa No. 13 of the Scalpel.

“Sahan claims to be a worshipper of the great god Tuli Khan. Is there any necessary connection between the two star systems?” I murmured to myself, and before I knew it, I was already deeply engulfed by the swirling snake formation.

I couldn't see anything at all. Even though I immediately turned on the headlamp on top of my helmet, all I could see were black snakes of varying thickness, writhing, shifting, and tumbling. The snakes coiled around my legs kept pulling me deeper into the water, like ghostly seaweed trying to kill a drowning person.

Unable to determine the depth of the snake formation, although the previously known height of the stone platform was six meters, and the snake formation submerged the platform by more than one meter—but the original stone slab floor of the pool has collapsed, I suspect that the vast space below the bottom of the pool is filled with this group of mutated Bengal golden-line vipers.

"Where did these damned things come from...?" The tactical knife in my hand had long since disappeared without a trace. I swung my arms as if swimming to stop myself from being swept into the bottomless abyss.

Fortunately, I jumped down holding onto the steel cable, and I had already locked one end of the cable to my waist buckle during the descent. Unless the pulling force of the snake swarm was greater than the fixed end of the cable by the pool, I could still barely use the cable to pull myself back to the surface of the snake formation and escape this terrifying sea of snakes.

"What just hit me? It looked like the tail of some huge animal?" The nosebleed and lip bleeding slowly stopped, but the strong smell of his own blood inside the sealed helmet was by no means pleasant.

"Lin, Bing, Dou, Zhe, Jie, Zhen, Lie, Zai, Qian..."

I heard Tano's nine-syllable mantra again, but the voice and momentum had weakened to the point of being barely alive.

"Mr. Tanino—where are you? Tell me your location! Tell me your location..." My situation should be slightly better than his; at least I was in the snake formation for a shorter time and was less harmed by the poison gas.

Even inside a tightly sealed protective suit with a sufficient oxygen supply, preventing suffocation at any time, the ventilation system is open to the outside environment and will inevitably be affected by toxic gases to some extent. Conservatively estimated, if one remains in a densely packed, writhing snake enclosure for more than half an hour, the toxic gases will inevitably penetrate the respiratory system of the protective suit.

I even have worse ideas—when an organism's body mutates, its behavioral characteristics will inevitably change as well, making it impossible to categorize them using normal biological models. Therefore, I suspect that these golden-lined vipers, mysteriously living inside the pyramids, must possess even stronger venom and aggression.

Our top priority is for Tanino and me to get back to the ground as soon as possible.

"Nine o'clock... I'm at nine o'clock..." Being able to pinpoint the exact location is enough to prove that Tanino's thinking is quite normal.

I am currently at the three o'clock position, and the two of us are separated by the stone platform. If we want to jump over to save the person, we will have to go around the stone platform.

"I'm here to save you, don't panic!" Fortunately, the Taoist internal energy I practiced could push a person's physical abilities to their limit for a short time. It was the most mysterious skill from the era of cold weapons, known as the "Heavenly Demon Disintegration Technique." In our school, it had another name: the "Weapon Disintegration Technique."

I bit my tongue, and as warm blood gushed out from it, filling my throat with a hot sensation, the muscles in my arms suddenly swelled automatically. A surge of wild, turbulent power erupted from my dantian, reaching the top of my head and down to the Yongquan acupoint on the soles of my feet, rapidly spreading throughout my limbs and bones.

This was my first time using the "Disintegration Technique," and my control over this skill was not yet proficient. I used my arms to grip the steel cable and quickly climbed upwards. After my hands flipped nine times, I was back on the surface of the snake formation. I looked up and let out a long howl, my heart filled with a bewildering and exhilarating feeling of "seeing the light of day again and being resurrected from the dead."

"I'm... Ah? What's that?" Gu Ye exclaimed. Then I saw the group of snakes at the nine o'clock position flip to both sides, like a submarine cutting through the waves before surfacing. A dark back was revealed, then disappeared in a flash, like a large, unpredictable fish in the deep sea.

Fish live in the ocean and would never appear in a snake pit.

I choked on my blood and coughed heavily twice. The smell of blood inside my helmet became even stronger. Gu Ye let out a scream, as if he had been severely injured by the snake formation. However, his feet were already protruding from the surface of the snake formation, about eight meters away from me.

Like a master surfer on the Qiantang River tide, I leaped with the rise and fall of the snake formation, landing precisely on the stone platform. Ignoring the gems beneath my feet and the golden dome above, I used the momentum to somersault, performing a perfect "fish leap forward with a 360-degree twist"—a difficult gymnastic move—and landed beside Gu Ye. I grabbed his foot and pulled him free from the snakes' clutches.

We glanced at each other and suddenly burst into laughter.

To survive such a series of misfortunes is a blessing in itself. However, what's truly laughable is that we each saw at least forty or fifty venomous snakes coiled around us, making for a more professional-looking photograph than that of an Indian snake charmer.