Sail Shadows in the Sea of ​​Fog

Chapter 171 The Still-burning Furnace

At the end of the tunnel dug out by the digging beetle, the beetle's horn tip pierced the observation hole connecting to the outside hub, and began spraying large amounts of grayish-white foam that rapidly expanded and solidified into rock at extremely high pressure.

Amidst the busy work of the excavating beetles, the extensive transportation hub outside was gradually blocked by rocks formed from the expanding and solidifying foam, and everyone breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Once Yun Lan had blocked the tunnel next door, where there might be ferocious beasts, she didn't even need Cheng Lang's command. She had already steered the tunneling beetle to turn and begin digging towards the tunnel's transportation hub. After breaking through the last layer of rock wall, she went straight towards the first door.

Although the silver door could keep out the undead and perhaps some weapons, it couldn't stop Yun Lan, who wasn't very good at operating the digging beetle—especially when she mistakenly pulled up a lever that looked like an accelerator instead of a parking lever.

With a dull thud, the digging beetle easily used its massive horns, powerful enough to break through rock, to knock the heavy silver metal door away.

On the other side of this door, instead of a tunnel, there was a warehouse-like space. Instead of storing anything valuable, it was filled with steel arrows, which made up half of the space.

"Block the entrances and exits of this room with foam," Cheng Lang decisively ordered.

Upon hearing this, Yun Lan, who was worried that she had damaged the digging beetle, immediately manipulated the giant beetle to spray out grayish-white foam, completely blocking the entrance and exit of the room.

"The back door."

"If the beetle is alright, let's open the door like this," Cheng Lang said. "We're in a hurry, let's go rescue Fan Hart first."

"Watch me! Hold on tight!"

Yun Lan immediately pulled each control lever, controlling the giant metal beetle to begin retreating.

"Yun Lan, you'd better not do anything stupid."

Having already realized something was wrong, Yun Ji spoke first: This expired princess has a history of offenses!

"What did you say?! I can't hear you!" Yun Lan shouted back, while forcefully pulling up a lever.

"Om-"

With a low, rumbling wingbeat, the burrowing beetle charged toward the gate marked by Xiao Bao.

With each impact, the newly solidified foam rock shattered, and the metal door hidden at the innermost part was easily lifted off by the huge horn as Yun Lan pulled the brake lever, revealing the long and spacious tunnel inside.

Unlike before, this tunnel had two tracks on the floor and two on the ceiling, both completely free of rust.

"Let's go take a look at the tunnel where Xiaobao disappeared first," Cheng Lang said.

Upon hearing this, Yun Lan cautiously manipulated the digging beetle to spray foam again to temporarily seal the tunnel in front of her. Then, she used the same method to open the door to the room where the undead Xiao Bao had been captured and locked up.

Behind this door was another room, much more spacious than the one where the steel arrows were kept. However, this room contained metal cages that were only the size of backpacks.

And those cages were filled with the dead, each one of them desperately curling up!
"Xiao Bao is over there!"

Yun Lan immediately noticed Xiao Bao, who was locked in a cage; he was in the outermost cage.

"Look over there!" Yun Ji pointed to a corner outside the observation window.

Following the direction the other person was pointing, Cheng Lang, Yun Lan, and even Ya Fu Suo and Shen Ba who had surrounded them from behind, all stared wide-eyed. In the corner of the wall, there was a dark hole that was only slightly larger than the cage.

Before their very eyes, a long, frightening arm emerged from the hole, grabbed a cage, and dragged it into the hole.

"Use foam to try and trap its hands," Cheng Lang ordered. "No, just seal that hole temporarily."

"Look at me!"

Yun Lan immediately manipulated the beetle's horns to spray foam towards the dark hole, and screams of terror and anger immediately came from inside.

Using her horns, Yun Ji roughly smashed the cage that imprisoned the undead Xiao Bao. Seeing that Xiao Bao hadn't been killed but instead floated out and reformed into human form, she sighed with disappointment and let him float into the carriage, where he obediently sat in his seat in the far corner.

What about those undead?

Yun Lan roused herself and asked amidst the faintly audible angry screams.

"They look like undead orcs and elves."

Before Cheng Lang could speak, Yun Ji said, "Have Xiao Bao grab any undead and ask him."

"Xiao Bao"

Yun Lan immediately issued the order, "Go and capture the undead elf that has been here the longest."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Bao immediately floated out of the digging beetle again, roughly prying open one cage after another that seemed to be made of silver. After a short while, he floated back carrying the nearest cage and hung it on the beetle's horn.

Before Xiao Bao could retreat completely, Yun Lan slammed the horn onto the floor again, easily opening the cage.

Even the little treasure, who was disliked by the expired princess, immediately and dutifully floated up, first removing the cage stuck in the corner and throwing it aside, then bringing back the spirit that seemed unable to stretch its body because it had been locked in the cage for too long.

"Let me do it"

As Yun Ji spoke, she drew her dagger and pierced her fingertip, sprinkling a few drops of blood onto the undead. Following her, everyone except Yun Lan heard the whispers of the elven undead.

According to the elf, he entered the Dwarf Mountain from Ganquan Village for love, but after walking for a long time in the Dwarf Mountain, he finally got lost, unable to find the way forward or back.

He starved to death in the tunnels of Dwarf Mountain, and then his spirit was brought back by a spider-like monster and imprisoned in a cage in a daze.

He didn't know how long he had been locked up here; all he knew was that every now and then, other cages containing the dead would be brought in.

The undead in those cages included elves, dark elves, and orcs of various races.

The only thing that remained unchanged was that they all entered the Dwarf Mountain for love, and they all got lost and starved to death in the maze of tunnels, only to be brought back and piled up here by a spider-like monster.

The change came not long ago when a window appeared in the wall of the room. An arm would occasionally reach in and grab a cage, but even the spirit had no idea what was behind that window.

"What should we do?" Yun Ji asked.

"What did he say?" Yun Lan asked blankly, unable to hear the whispers of the elves and the dead.

"Yafso, translate for your captain."

Cheng Lang waved his hand and then said, "While she's translating, let's go after Fan Hart first."

"What about the other doors?"

As Yun Lan maneuvered the burrowing beetle toward the tunnel where Fan Hart had been taken, she asked, "And what about the other undead?"

"Wait a minute, let's go find Fan Hart first, he'll give us the answer." Cheng Lang said, pointing to the spirit that had been brought back. "Don't let him get away."

"Xiao Bao, keep an eye on him."

Before Yun Lan could finish speaking, Xiao Bao reached out and grabbed the elven undead's wrist, then stared intently at him, almost face to face. The elven undead wasn't much better; it just stood there obediently, motionless, vividly demonstrating what it meant to stare at each other with wide eyes.

Although the two undead were somewhat comical, this did not stop Yun Lan from maneuvering the digging beetle into the tracked tunnel, nor did it stop Yafso from translating the crucial information she had just gleaned from the undead's whispers.

Not long after maneuvering the beetle along the tunnel, an unexpected situation appeared directly in front of them: the ferocious beast from before!
"Spray foam!"

Cheng Lang and Yun Ji gave the warning in unison, and Yun Lan pressed down on one of the control levers just as their warning was about to be given.

"Ding!"

With a crisp sound, a steel arrow pierced through the observation window of the digging beetle, then through the crew compartment in its abdomen, and finally embedded itself in the inside of its elytra, which were covered with inscriptions.

This warning arrow also carried an uncompromising killing intent, but at the same time, the high-pressure foam had already been sprayed onto the ferocious beast!
Amidst the piercing screams, the ferocious beast raised its crossbow and began to fire, but Yun Lan shouted for her to lie down and pressed the forward lever all the way down!
"Boom!"

With a dull thud, a dense barrage of steel arrows pierced the burrowing beetle's body, turning it almost into a hedgehog.

But it was also in this impact, accompanied by a noticeable jolt, that the thick horns violently rammed the ferocious beast, whose entire body was covered in foam, away.

With the ferocious beast flying away, the burrowing beetle was no longer a deadly threat, and Cheng Lang and the others were finally able to stand up again.

Through the shattered window, everyone could clearly see that at the corner of the tunnel ahead, the crab-shaped beast with the upper body of an elf was lying on its side on the ground.

Because the foam covering his entire body was expanding more and more exaggeratedly, he could no longer straighten his body—his crossbow had been encased in rock and turned into a hammer.

His disheveled appearance was just like that of a turtle that had been flipped over.

"Never mind it, keep moving forward."

Cheng Lang urged, eager to find Fan Hart and get the truth out of him!
With its face studded with steel arrows, the digging beetle, under Yun Lan's control, sped past the ferocious beast and continued forward, finally stopping in front of a heavy gate.

This door was also made of silver, or rather, even the tunnel behind it, which was a hundred meters away from the door, was made of silver.

Could these tunnels be used for mining silver? A wild guess popped into everyone's mind.

"Yun Lan, don't let the digging beetle waste its energy."

Yun Ji warned her first that this door was probably not one it could break open.

"Block the tunnel behind first," Cheng Lang said.

Upon hearing this, Yun Lan skillfully pulled a control lever, and immediately, a large amount of foam sprayed out from the tail of the digging beetle, easily blocking the tunnel.

Once the foam had completely solidified, the digging beetle's metallic elytra slowly opened, and the group of people came out one after another, carrying oil lamps.

With the help of the reflections from the metal walls on both sides, as well as the floor and ceiling, the room was bright enough despite having only a few oil lamps.

"There seems to be a keyhole on that door!"

Yavso was the first to speak, "The key! Didn't we find a set of keys inside that skeleton's stomach at the beginning? Could that be the key to opening this door?"

"Let Xiaobao give it a try," Yun Lan suggested, offering what sounded like the safest solution.

“I might agree if it were anywhere else, but this is Dwarf Mountain.”

As Cheng Lang spoke, he walked towards the door. "Even if they immediately had Xiao Bao betray us and start attacking us, I wouldn't be surprised at all."

Upon hearing this, everyone except Cheng Lang couldn't help but glance at the two undead still staring at each other inside the beetle.

"What if that door..."

Before Yun Ji could finish speaking, Cheng Lang issued a second order, "Yun Lan, you control the beetle and be ready to charge at any time. Also, have Xiao Bao take that undead to the other side of the rock."

"it is good"

Yun Lan immediately agreed, ordering Xiao Bao to stay away while she crawled into the beetle enclosure.

"If anything goes wrong, take both of them back into the beetle."

Cheng Lang gave Yun Ji a final instruction. He had already reached the metal door at the end of the tunnel, where, at about waist height, there was indeed a keyhole only the thickness of a little finger.

Cheng Lang tried inserting the key from the chain and turned it gently. Inside the door, there were also sounds of the mechanism clicking and clacking.

Finally, when the key could no longer be turned, the metal door, large enough for the digging beetle to enter, began to slowly slide to one side.

He quickly pulled the key out of the lock, then cautiously took a few steps back, peering through the widening crack in the door to observe the situation inside.

Behind this thick metal door, which is over a meter thick, lies a spherical space filled with scaffolding!

These dense scaffolding structures form intricate corridors, bridges, and even passageways.

Beneath this scaffolding was a huge furnace that had almost been extinguished.

“Look there,” Yun Ji pointed to an area bathed in the glow of the hearth fire.

Following the direction the other person was pointing, Cheng Lang couldn't help but frown.

It was a huge glass tube, at least four or five meters in diameter and seven or eight meters long.

This huge glass tube is filled with two liquids, blue and red, that are constantly churning but can never completely mix together.

At one end of the glass tube, there was a strange-looking humanoid figure.
No, it's not humanoid; it's a metal mechanical construct shaped like the ferocious beast we just saw in the tunnel.

This metal mechanical creation has a crab-like lower body and an elf-like upper body.

Even the upper body seemed to be detachable and replaceable, because they could clearly see that there were upper bodies of elves, orcs, and even siren not far away.

But whether it's their upper or lower body, they each have a glass ball in different places.

At this point, Fan Hart, who had been divided into more than a dozen parts, was locked in those glass balls in different categories.

Just as they were getting a clear look at everything, a monster with long arms, one of which seemed to be stuck somewhere, tore off the stuck arm with a shriek. It then stumbled over to the mechanical construct and slammed a button down hard.

"Bang!"

With a loud bang, a huge echo reverberated repeatedly in the spherical space, and the red and blue liquid in the huge glass tube was injected into the mechanical creation's body at a speed that left them no time to do anything.

"call!"

For a moment, the fire in the furnace seemed to become much stronger.

(End of this chapter)