Chapter 155: The Sky Falls

"Let's move!"

Tang Long sighed. What was the use of spotting the "Death Aura"? Since they had to go in, they had no choice. Whoever set this trap had already anticipated this move. Seeing it was useless was pointless; only stopping and retreating would have mattered.

Stepping inside meant nine deaths and a single chance of survival!

For the members of the team trailing behind him, wealth was sought in peril. They were gambling their lives for this fortune—come out and eat meat, and if they died... their families would at least be provided for.

Either way, it was a gamble!

As they walked further inward, an icy chill distinctly heavier than the outside air began to seep into their bodies. This wasn't because the temperature inside the cave had dropped, but rather because the "Death Aura" was bathing them.

Even Tang Long was no exception. Once someone stepped inside, no one could escape it. Unless they went out afterward and found an enlightened, high-ranking monk to chant scriptures over them, this "Death Aura" clinging to their bodies wouldn't dissipate on its own for years—let alone nightmares at night, dying suddenly from all sorts of bizarre accidents would hardly be surprising.

After advancing another hundred meters or so, a massive carved stone gate resembling a temple materialized before them. On the plaque above it were inscribed several bold characters:

"Ancient God Temple!"

Tang Long and everyone else knew they had finally reached their destination.

"Is this the entrance to the Ancient God Temple?" Yang Wuchan asked.

Tang Long rolled his eyes and retorted irritably, "Your Yang family has been researching the 'Ancient God Temple' for decades, and you're asking me whether this is the entrance?"

"..." Yang Wuchan kept a straight face, cursing him inwardly. Damn your old man's hide, she had only asked a couple of questions, hadn't she?

Just last night... she had even served him, and yet he showed not an ounce of consideration!

What a despicable piece of work.

Tang Long had no mood to care about what was going on in Yang Wuchan's mind. No matter how he looked at the archway of this "Ancient God Temple," it gave off a distinctly unnatural feeling.

Yet, for a moment, he couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong with it!

Suddenly, Yang Wuchan spoke up, "Does anyone else feel like something is watching us?"

Something watching them?

Her words jarred Tang Long awake. Subconsciously, he glanced to the left and right of the archway, only to find that carved onto each side were... a pair of eyes!

No wonder he felt something was off.

"This... are these the eyes that keep appearing in your dreams?" Tang Long turned and asked Leopard Print.

Leopard Print hesitated for a moment. First, she nodded, but immediately shook her head afterward, "I'm not sure. It looks somewhat similar, but not entirely. I can't quite describe it!"

The pair of eyes on the gate tower were carved so subtly that without careful inspection, their existence was nearly impossible to spot. Combined with the entrance, they formed something resembling a giant "human face."

Tang Long suddenly chuckled, muttering to himself, "So it intends to swallow people whole. How interesting!"

Swallow people whole?

Once people stepped inside the Ancient God Temple, didn't that mean walking straight into someone's mouth? It was practically no different from being eaten alive!

"Let's go!"

Unable to decipher any further secrets from the archway, Tang Long led the group onward.

Crossing the threshold, the moment his heels touched the ground, he felt a soft, unreal sensation, as if the ground were made of cotton.

Shining his flashlight downward, however, he saw only solid stone, completely indistinguishable from the floor outside.

"Did you... feel that? Underfoot?" Yang Wuchan looked at Tang Long in surprise, asking softly.

"Underfoot?"

Tang Long grinned broadly and said, "What we're stepping on right now are corpses!"

Corpses underfoot?

Everyone hurriedly looked down, only to see ordinary stone flooring—where on earth were there any corpses?

Tang Long offered no explanation and took the lead, continuing forward. To see mountains not as mountains and waters not as waters, and eventually to see mountains as mountains and waters as waters once more—that was the true realm of mastery!

"Stop obsessing over your feet. Keep your eyes on the ceiling!" Tang Long reminded them.

With a foundation built on pagodas and blades suspended high above, the danger would temporarily not come from the ground, but from overhead!

Watch the ceiling?

Sweeping their flashlights upward, they found only impenetrable darkness where nothing could be seen.

Could anything that remained hidden in plain sight truly be called dangerous?

Tang Long didn't keep his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Instead, his ears twitched slightly upward, and he frowned. He heard a sound akin to fine sand or tiny insects crawling, yet he couldn't pinpoint where it originated—it sounded as though it were coming from right above their heads, yet simultaneously from beneath their feet.

"Everyone, stay alert! Move!"

Wielding their flashlights, they pushed further inward. Crossing the doorway felt like stepping into an ancient monastery, where one relic pagoda after another grew increasingly dense across a vast plaza.

"Have you ever been here before?"

Tang Long asked softly over his shoulder to Leopard Print.

Leopard Print shook her head. "No, never. I remember the last time I came, these things weren't here. It was just a massive grand hall!"

A grand hall?

Wasn't this the same place?

Suddenly, Tang Long looked up toward the sky. It remained pitch black, as if the beam of the high-intensity flashlight couldn't even reach the ceiling. Did this place have no roof at all?

Or perhaps...

Before Tang Long could voice his question, the ground beneath them suddenly heaved and rolled, as if something were swelling upward from below, making it impossible to stand steadily.

"There's something under the floor!" Yang Wuchan cried out in alarm.

Staring at Tang Long, she demanded, "Didn't you just say the danger wouldn't come from the ground?"

Tang Long rolled his eyes and snapped irritably, "And I also said you were a sow, but what are you standing there gaping for? Run! Run forward!"

He reached out, grabbed Yang Wuchan as she stumbled and nearly fell, and dragged her forward. All around them stood stone relic pagodas, each roughly two meters in diameter and three meters high. While the ground trembled and these pagodas seemed to shift, they remained structurally stable, without any vertical up-and-down undulations.

"Watch the ceiling!"

Massive stone pillars, each two meters in diameter, began raining down from the sky like a torrential downpour, crashing down with thunderous impacts.

Holy crap.

So ferocious?

Splat.

Someone failed to dodge in time and was instantly crushed beneath a falling monolith, flattened completely into a "pancake." No exaggeration—literally a pancake.

At this point, Tang Long couldn't afford to worry about those too far behind; he could only look after the few people closest to him. Team members who had run too far ahead or fallen too far behind were left to their own luck.

"Watch out!"

A massive boulder plummeted from above, hurtling directly toward Leopard Print. Tang Long lunged forward, shoving her out of the way, but by the time he tried to dodge the falling monolith himself, it was already too late.

Tang Long's brow furrowed. He squatted slightly, dug his soles into the ground, and exerted explosive force, launching his body forward like a charging truck.

Boom!

With a muffled crash—faster than thought—the massive boulder, which was meant to crush Bao Hu, was violently deflected several yards away by Tang Long's impact. One had to realize that these elongated monoliths didn't weigh just a few hundred catties; each one weighed several tons.

Having deflected the boulder, Tang Long glanced at the scattered rocks littering the ground around them and shouted a warning, "Stand next to the fallen boulders! Don't run around blindly!"

Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that the boulders falling in any given spot appeared in odd numbers—meaning only a single block fell in each designated space. Once that block dropped, no second one would fall onto the exact same spot overhead.

After two or three minutes, the ground finally stopped rolling, and the boulders ceased raining from the ceiling. As the dust settled, the calm returned as if nothing had ever happened.

"Are you alright?" Tang Long asked, looking at Yang Wuchan and the others who were pressed tightly against the fallen boulders and stone pagodas.

The gaps were barely wide enough for a single person to stand in, making any movement extremely difficult.

The sudden, naturally falling boulders had directly crushed three team members, leaving virtually no hope for any of them.