King of Tomb Raiders

Chapter 61

"Feng, thank you!" At this moment, I didn't find his Japanese vocabulary annoying at all. On the contrary, I deeply felt that in the surging snake formation, we were the only ones who shared the same hatred for the enemy.

This is a battle between humans and snakes, and there are no longer any national or personal grudges involved.

"Let's go—" Using the steel cable as a guide, we used our light-footed leaping technique and reached the pool wall in a few bounds. Below us, vicious venomous snakes kept leaping up, their mouths agape, biting at the soles of our boots and the hems of our trousers.

"It's a pity I didn't get the gem. Feng, you know, in just a few more minutes, my Ruyi Hook could have pried the gem out completely. It's a shame I failed..." Tano said with frustration as he climbed up the edge of the pool.

Actually, this was already incredibly lucky. Thanks to Natura for providing the super anti-radiation suit, Tano's life was saved without serious injury. Otherwise, even if there were ten thousand more Tanos, they would have long since turned into bones under a snake's bite.

Next, we should go back to the camp to burn incense and pray to the gods, thanking them for giving us another life.

Back on the ground by the pool, after catching my breath, I realized how unbelievable my actions had been. If it weren't for the sudden urge to save people, I would have definitely chosen the convenient shortcut of returning to camp for help, instead of recklessly jumping into the pool full of venomous snakes.

Gu Ye busied himself tearing the venomous snakes off his body and throwing them into the pool one by one.

I smiled wryly and said, "Mr. Tanino, we should retreat. I don't want such a terrifying incident to happen again." Life can't always be accompanied by good luck. Taking a risk once is fine, but if it happens a second time, heaven may not give us another chance to come back unharmed.

Gu Ye tossed away the last snake, shrugging dismissively, "Feng, what's there to be afraid of? These advanced protective suits are far more powerful than the 'Golden Bell Cover' and 'Iron Cloth' of your Shaolin Temple in China. Those snakes can't hurt us at all. Wait, I want to try a second time. I must get them tonight..."

"Forget it! I just heard you scream loudly and thought there was something wrong with your protective suit. It really gave me a fright—"

Tani's expression suddenly changed, and he looked into the pool with lingering fear: "It seems that a huge... snake or some kind of monster once slithered past me... Feng, as far as you know, what is the longest possible size of a golden-thread viper?"

I carefully recalled the information I had previously read. Due to the rampant hunting by snake farmers in Bangladesh, adult golden-line vipers are becoming increasingly rare, and the currently documented number should be under six meters. However, I had just witnessed the back of a certain monster, and based on its appearance, it did indeed resemble a venomous snake magnified more than ten times.

“That monster was at least ten meters away—I’d rather I was just hallucinating!” Tanino said with a wry smile.

Vipers are not pythons, and it is already very rare for a viper to exceed four meters in length. As for the limit of ten meters, it is a super number that deserves to be recorded in the Guinness World Records.

I almost blurted out, "Impossible! There's no way you could find a viper that long in all of Bangladesh, unless... unless it's the result of some kind of mutation..."

Looking up at the square gap, Gu Ye murmured, filled with longing and confusion, "Impossible? Things have come to this point, what is impossible? Hmm?"

I was speechless, because the snakes in the pool before me were the result of extreme mutation. Their bodies could shrink, so who knew they couldn't expand infinitely? A report mentioned that the copper-armored crocodiles in the lower Nile River had been polluted by industrial wastewater from a highly toxic chemical plant in Egypt, and their size had exceeded the historical record by four times. There were even super-sized crocodiles with a length of 20 meters, which kept attacking passing wooden boats and yachts.

Therefore, in this unfathomably deep sea of snakes, it would be perfectly reasonable to find a viper that is over ten meters long.

In any case, we should withdraw.

The only gain tonight was discovering the secret above the tomb chamber. Next time I come, I might search along that square opening to see if there are any secret mechanisms.

Before leaving the tomb dejectedly, Tanino gazed longingly at the "Eye of the Moon" beneath the pool, still muttering to himself, "When I come back, I will definitely have you, I will definitely have you..."

We walked all the way to the end of the tunnel and stepped into the elevator. Gu Ye snapped out of his reverie, smiled, and thanked me: "Feng, you are the most outstanding, chivalrous, and courageous Chinese person I have ever met. Thank you so much! I owe you my life. You can ask me for anything, anytime, anywhere..."

This promise seems a bit presumptuous, but let it be. I have no interest in asking the Japanese for anything in return. Saving lives is purely out of humanitarian spirit and has nothing to do with monetary reward.

As the elevator slowly ascended, Gu Ye took off his helmet, tossed it at his feet, and let out a long sigh: "Let's relax a bit. The natural air on Earth is still the best..."

Indeed, while being huddled in such bulky protective suits ensures safety, it makes the body feel unbearably stuffy. Once you feel safe, you can't wear it for even a minute longer.

I also took off my helmet and reached out to unzip the zipper on my chest.

Part Six: The Divine Appearance Revealed

— Chapter 1 — Immortal —

When he went down the well, Tanino confidently declared that he would retrieve the "Eye of the Moon" and present it to Natura personally. He spoke so confidently, and now his return in such a sorry state will surely disappoint everyone in the camp. Fortunately, the Japanese are generally thick-skinned, and it's believed that Tanino will not be embarrassed by this.

I looked up at Gu Ye's face, and instead of blushing, it was shrouded in a faint blackness.

"Are you alright?" I sensed something was wrong, so I took a step forward, causing the elevator to sway sideways and slam hard against the cave wall.

"I..." When he opened his mouth, his gums, tongue, and upper and lower jaws all turned black.

This situation only occurs when one is poisoned by a highly potent toxin. I reached into my backpack at my waist and touched the small bag containing the antidote serum and syringes.

With a whoosh, a black venomous snake, about the thickness of a sausage and forty centimeters long, sprang from the back of Gu Ye's neck. Its mouth was wide open, its gleaming white fangs bared, defiantly flicking its tongue at me. I really have no idea where this thing was hidden and brought out—

Gu Ye groaned, gripping the steel cable on the side of the elevator with his left hand, the black aura on his face growing heavier. In just half a minute, the hair on the top of his head silently fell off and scattered onto the elevator floor.

The snake venom was so potent that it completely destroyed all of Gu Ye's skin cells in just half a minute after entering his bloodstream.

“I am… forever… immortal… forever immortal…” Gu Ye uttered this sentence with difficulty, as if it were nonsense, or even a joke—first, no one can live forever; second, the snake venom is so potent that if I cannot inject him with antivenom in time, he will be wiped off the face of the earth within ten minutes, which means “immediately die” rather than “forever immortal”.

The snake held its head high, staring at me with its eerie green eyes, its tail tip drooping on Gu Ye's shoulder, trembling incessantly.

I already had two small, three-inch-long syringes in my hand; in a critical moment, they would become my deadly hidden weapons.

The confrontation between man and snake is like a duel between martial arts masters, where life and death hang in the balance. If its launch speed is one-tenth of a second faster than my projectile speed, then the soldiers operating the elevator at the wellhead will see two completely blackened corpses standing upright inside the elevator.

“Never die...forever…” Gu Ye groaned, suddenly reaching out his right hand and slamming it into the snake’s vital spot. But the moment he struck, the snake had already bitten him three times on the neck, wrist, and back of the hand, its attack extremely fierce.

As I succeeded in my attack on the snake, the syringe in my hand also shot out with two whooshing sounds, piercing the snake's head.

The snake is dead, but Gu Ye is also nearly dead. His face and hands are shrouded in a terrifying black aura, and he may lose the ability to breathe completely in a few minutes.

I held his wrist and administered four intravenous serum injections in quick succession. His hands were ice-cold, and the pulses in both wrists were visibly pounding violently, at a rate definitely exceeding two hundred beats per minute.

The elevator continued to ascend, and those waiting for news in the camp could never have imagined the life-or-death struggle between humans and snakes that was about to unfold.

Helpless, I took out the remaining six syringes. Injecting a large dose of serum would be like drinking poison to quench thirst. Even if it could barely save his life, the foreign active bacteria in the serum would cause immeasurable and devastating damage to Gu Ye's nervous system.

“Feng… I won’t die… I won’t die, please… please don’t give me the injection… please watch over my body for twenty… twenty-four hours a day… please… don’t let anyone else move me… I… will… wake up…” He slumped in the corner of the elevator, his eyes radiating an eerie light.

I kicked the helmet off my feet in a fit of rage and yelled, "Mr. Tanino, wake up! Nobody lives forever! Nobody lives forever!"

Aside from traditional, ignorant myths about immortality, no one on Earth has ever been found to live for one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred years in a row. As long as one is "human," one will experience birth, aging, sickness, and death; one day in life, one will stop breathing, and all the organs of the body will cease functioning.

Gu Ye's lips twitched violently as he slowly turned his right elbow open, revealing a terrifying square hole in his protective suit between his wrist and elbow.

"This... was left behind by that giant serpent. Look... look... I'm definitely alright..."

The hole was about two centimeters square, penetrating the protective suit, and a small amount of black liquid was seeping from the edge of the hole—presumably venomous blood from the wound. However, how could a snake bite leave only a single tooth mark? At the very least, a venomous snake's incisors should be two side-by-side, right?

"Are you sure it's a big snake?" I pressed.

Tanino shook his head uncertainly: "Not necessarily, not necessarily, because its belly doesn't have... golden spots... The golden-lined viper would never live in groups with other snakes... I think its characteristics are more similar to... the 'God of Punishment'... the cobra..."

At that moment, our faces were only a foot apart, and the hot breath he exhaled carried a strange, sweet, and fishy smell.

"A cobra?" I chuckled, forgetting that Gu Ye was a dying man, and couldn't help but shout with laughter, "Are you kidding me? A one-toothed cobra over ten meters long—that's utter nonsense! Absurd, absurd, absurd..."

The probability of a ten-meter-long cobra appearing on Earth is probably no higher than the probability of bumping into a UFO. This highly venomous snake was once the greatest threat to human life on Earth in certain eras. Not only was it extremely venomous and aggressive, but its ability to withstand harsh environments was also more than ten times that of ordinary humans. It could often hide in rock caves, remaining inactive and without food for up to a month.

In Chinese folklore, snakes described as "flying on grass," "green bamboo whiskers," "falling in five steps," and "heartbreaking in seven steps" are so fearsome that even the most venomous snakes would slink away at the sight of a cobra, daring not to challenge this venomous creature.

The Creator is always fair, so He has never endowed such a highly venomous creature with an excessively large size. Otherwise, the fallacy predicted by extremist biologists that "within five hundred years, the Earth will be a paradise for cobras" would become an undeniable reality.

"You don't...believe me?" Gu Ye gasped for breath, struggling to take off his protective suit.

"Of course I don't believe it. I'd rather it be the king of a golden viper than admit that there are cobras that are ten meters long on Earth!" With my help, he finally managed to take off his protective suit with great difficulty. His palms looked as if they were coated with black lacquer, shiny in the black. His right arm was more than twice its normal size, as if it had been covered with several thick layers of plaster.

"Wind, please, protect my body for twenty-four hours. I will come back to life... I will give you a lot of money... and tell you many secrets that the future of the earth will soon come true..."

Japan, a small island nation that learned from China but could never learn the Chinese people's "magnanimity, tolerance, wisdom and simplicity," seems to have a population that only recognizes "money" and only understands "trading" and "equivalent exchange."

Perhaps Tani thought these promises would move me to willingly protect his body and wait for him to wake up—just as he thought he could enslave and drive me at will by promising to "borrow the 'Blue Heaven and Yellow Springs Sutra'" when Fujika disappeared.

I shook my head, trying my best to suppress the intense disgust I had just felt towards the so-called "Yamato people": "I won't take your money, but I promise you I'll stay by your side for 24 hours. But what about after 24 hours? Should we ask General Tina to send you and Fujika back to Japan together?"

A strange smile appeared on Gu Ye's face: "No need... I'll go back by myself, no one needs to see me off. Feng, you swear... you will protect me..." He straightened his back and clasped his hands on my right wrist.

I seriously suspect that he is deliberately stalling for time so that he can transfer the deadly poison he has been in to me through his breathing. Because at this moment, his hands are so cold, like the claws of some animals stored in an icehouse, the temperature of which has definitely dropped below freezing.

Fortunately, I know that snake venom is primarily transmitted through the fusion of blood.

"Promise me, you swear...you swear you promise..."

I angrily shook my hand and stood up abruptly: "Fine, I swear! I will protect Mr. Tanino's body 24 hours a day and prevent anyone from dismembering or cremating him, okay?"

At this moment, the elevator was less than five meters away from the wellhead, and I could hear the soldiers guarding the wellhead cheering with great joy.

"Okay, thank you..."

The elevator stopped at the shaft opening, and Gu Ye happened to be tilting his head, ceasing his last breath.

A few minutes later, the whites of his eyes were also affected by the poison gas, and his eyes turned into two black glass beads.

Upon discovering the completely blackened Gu Ye, the four soldiers guarding the derrick instinctively retreated abruptly, none daring to approach. Natura and Tina stood even further away, practically watching from the entrance of Gu Ye's large tent, without moving an inch.

No one spoke. No one felt sorry for Tano's death, and no one offered any words of comfort. I carried his body toward the tent where Fujika was kept.

At this moment, I no longer saw Tanino as a foreigner, especially not as a despicable Japanese. I only felt that he was my comrade, someone with whom I had fought bloody battles. Now that he was dead, I would do everything in my power to fulfill his dying wish. Guarding him for twenty-four hours a day wasn't too difficult, but as for his words about waking up, I could simply dismiss them as the delirium of someone poisoned.

Fujika remained in a comatose state, stiff and motionless.

Two soldiers carried in a bare cot and placed it against the other side of the tent, opposite Tengjia's cot.

I put Tani on the bed, thought for a moment, and then instructed the two soldiers: "Go and bring a blanket. Mr. Tani is tired and needs to rest."

I can't say more, and I don't want to use Gu Ye's sensational words to attract attention. Whether you believe it or not is my business, and my promise to protect him 24 hours a day was something I made to Gu Ye myself, it has nothing to do with anyone else. The world is cold and indifferent; once Gu Ye could no longer create wealth for Natura and Tina, they abandoned him without hesitation within seconds.

The first to come in was Suren, who asked hurriedly, "Brother Feng, how is the situation inside the pyramid? Is it very difficult to obtain the gems?"

Given her status, she would never care whether Gu Ye lived or died, and anyone could see that Gu Ye had been completely poisoned to death. His body should be cremated immediately to prevent further toxic contamination and the creation of new problems.

I sighed deeply: "There are many snakes surrounding the stone platform, making it seem difficult to obtain the gems in a short time. There is a square opening in the top of the tomb chamber. If possible, I will explore that level again; perhaps I will make new discoveries."

In the emergency of going down the well overnight, there wasn't enough recording equipment, so I could only give a brief verbal description of the snake trap to Suren. When she heard that I had impulsively jumped down to save people, Suren's expression changed drastically; she covered her mouth with her hand, her face pale.

That was indeed an action that was difficult for ordinary people to understand, especially considering that Tanino was Japanese.

"Suren, the progress of the excavation work doesn't seem optimistic at all. Is it worth all the manpower, resources, and effort we've put into obtaining the 'Eye of the Moon'? Is its appearance a blessing or a curse?" If such a gem with such strong radiation were to see the light of day again, wouldn't it cause great casualties among the camp's personnel if we're not careful?

Furthermore, assuming it is indeed the "super weapon" mentioned in the Japanese and Egyptian documents, then whether the Japanese or the Egyptians possess it, it could potentially be the trigger for World War III.

It is believed that James will never stop coveting and spying on the "Eye of Luna"—if there is only one country on Earth whose pursuit of "strategic weapons" is endless, then that country can only be the "United States of America".

They can pay astronomical sums to acquire this new weaponry, and they will stop at nothing to get it, resorting to any illegal, unconventional, or illegitimate means, just as they did with any high-sounding reason to extend their reach into Iraq in order to obtain the vast oil fields of the Middle East.

Suren was also helpless: "This matter is already beyond our control. Brother Feng, there's some more bad news—our friends in Cairo called; the Presidential Palace has been placed on full alert, ready to go to war with the military at any time. Last night, there was a city-wide curfew, and it's still in effect tonight. I have a feeling that fighting will break out in the camp as well. Brother Feng, you'd better carry weapons with you; you'll definitely need them..."

The dramatic shift in Egypt's political situation was truly unexpected, and the root of all this turmoil lies in the secrets of the Pyramid of Tsar and the whereabouts of that mysterious scripture. So, what would happen if one were to actually enter the tomb chamber above the snake maze?

I can see the golden light reflecting off that opening. Could it also contain a huge amount of gold? Bigger than that four-meter square gold ingot in the central burial chamber?

If we consider things from Natura's perspective, he would definitely do everything in his power to possess the gold.

I felt a bit tired, so I simply leaned against the headboard and sat on the floor.

Opposite them lay Fujika, lying quietly and motionless, helplessly detained there without Tina's orders. Now, to make matters worse, there's also Tanino, completely shrouded in black. The entire Japanese force has been wiped out. I wonder what Commander Watanabe Toshio will think? Shouldn't their coveting of the "Eye of the Moon" and the superweapon finally cease?

The "resurrection sand" touted by the dragon and Yelan has absolutely no effect. I guess it's just ordinary yellow sand from the desert, with no magic power other than the mystique attributed to it.

Suren stood in front of the cot, examining Gu Ye's wounds repeatedly, and finally shook his head with extreme regret.

Anyone who sees Gu Ye's current condition would be 100% certain that he is completely dead. In particular, his hands, wrists, neck, face, and ankles, which are exposed outside his clothes, have all become swollen and shiny with black. As for the horrific square wound that last appeared on his right arm, it has been covered by the black liquid that has flowed out.