I sighed, looking down at the Shen hatchling nestled in my arms.

In reality, how I wished some things weren't illusions—like how wonderful it would be if I could truly master magic.

At that moment, a question suddenly struck me: why had the hallucinations stopped?

The Shen wasn't dead, and the illusory body of Fengli Daxian was still present, yet the illusions had simply ceased, everything reverting to how it was before the hallucinations began.

After thinking it over, I considered that perhaps Fengli Daxian stopped all the illusions because he feared we might be entranced by them again, allowing us a safe exit.

Realizing this, a sense of urgency washed over me. I quickly hoisted Daxiong onto my back and urged Nie Chuan, "Let's go, we need to get out of here quickly."

Nie Chuan didn't say much, simply picking up Xie Yuting and following close behind.

Surrounding the ruins was a forest that wasn't particularly dense.

The trees here weren't exceptionally robust, but their shapes were all quite peculiar. The fallen leaves on the ground weren't deep, but the humidity was intense; stepping down sent up yellow water pooling from the earth.

Carrying Daxiong, I moved forward one heavy step after another, making progress difficult.

This type of forest terrain usually only occurs near bodies of water.

For instance, wetlands beside a lake, which are submerged for a long period of the year.

Trees struggle to absorb sufficient nutrients while submerged, preventing them from growing thick.

Furthermore, the branches tend to grow low, close to the water surface, to avoid being soaked, resulting in their odd shapes.

Trees that thrive in water like this are mostly willows and cypresses.

I glanced around casually and confirmed that these trees were indeed those two species.

Moreover, near the base of every tree, I discovered a ring of green aquatic parasitic plants.

Beneath that ring of residue, the root section of the tree remained damp.

This indicated that not long ago, this entire area was a marsh.

The two of us moved forward silently, heading toward what we hoped was the correct direction.

The forest was utterly quiet, and since neither of us spoke, the only sound was the breathing of the four of us.

Logically, given this geology and humidity, I should have quickly become too exhausted to walk.

But later I realized the reason we could keep moving was that we were traversing a downward slope.

The gradient wasn't particularly noticeable, which is why we hadn't realized it.

However, when I looked at the trees alongside us, I saw that the high-water marks were significantly elevated.

I surmised that perhaps we were walking toward the bottom of a dried-up lake, though these lakes generally aren't very deep. I calculated the distance: getting across the lakebed and then climbing a short upward slope should bring us to Lei Yun Seng's residence.

Previously, we deduced that the top of the Dragon Tower at Lei Yun Seng's residence was likely a helipad.

If we could find that helipad, we could escape to safety.

With this thought, I redoubled my focus, held my breath, and continued pushing forward with effort.

But to my surprise, the farther we walked, the sparser the trees became, and the steeper the downward slope grew.

At this point, Nie Chuan, who was behind me, stopped and asked, "Damn, do you feel how hot the ground is?"

I stopped too and looked down.

The famous brand hiking boots I wore were already riddled with holes, my toes poking out the front.

Since half of my foot was sunk into the mud, I could distinctly feel that the soil here was somewhat warm.

Frowning in thought, I told Nie Chuan, "There might be a hot spring here, very common in Japan. Don't worry about it."

Nie Chuan considered this, then reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead, saying nothing further.

In fact, we had been walking for about half an hour by this point, and we were utterly exhausted.

But I knew I couldn't let Daxiong down to rest now.

Because once I put him down, I wouldn't know if I could manage to lift him back up later.

We had to reach the opposite shore of the lake in one continuous push. With even the slightest relaxation, given our current physical state, Nie Chuan and I would likely collapse just like Daxiong and Xie Yuting.

Moreover, both Daxiong and Xie Yuting were seriously injured. Daxiong was conscious before we entered the Bronze Gate, but now he was in a state of deep coma; without immediate medical attention, no one could say if he would survive the night.

With that in mind, I stopped overthinking and pushed forward.

Nie Chuan followed behind me like a robot, maintaining a steady, unhurried pace, his eyes looking somewhat vacant.

I knew he was fighting his own internal battle and could collapse at any moment.

So, I stopped talking and kept walking with my head down.

After another ten minutes or so of walking, I suddenly saw that the trees had completely disappeared ahead, replaced instead by piles of scattered stones.

These stones had very unique shapes; each one was a flat slab, like a broken biscuit, jutting outwards in a radial pattern.

And beneath the cover of these jumbled rocks, a plume of thin smoke was rising not far ahead.

"That might be an intermittent hot spring geyser up ahead, similar to those in Yellowstone National Park in the US. Look at this topography; it's quite strange," I said to Nie Chuan, pointing ahead with excitement, as a researcher.

Nie Chuan’s gaze remained mostly vacant.

He stared blankly for a long moment before saying, "The ground is getting hotter... I have a bad feeling about this."

Hearing him, I looked down at my feet and realized that, at some point, my insteps had been submerged in a stream of clear water.

The temperature of that clear water was probably around forty degrees Celsius, slightly steaming.

Within my line of sight, I saw the water level was slowly rising.

"The lake water is rising again..." A flicker of panic seized me.

There were no trees here, the elevation was low, and if the water rose to its normal level, we would drown.

Fortunately, the water wasn't rising very fast, so we weren't in immediate mortal danger.

But trying to walk back now would be just as deadly.

Nie Chuan clearly grasped this too and said to me, "Those scattered rocks—see if any are large enough. Let’s get onto a rock to rest for a while, and when the water level rises, we can just swim to the other side."

I knew what he meant. Although we could both swim, our energy was almost entirely depleted; the possibility of swimming across while dragging two people was virtually zero. But staying put meant drowning soon, so we needed to rest on higher ground.

I strongly agreed with Nie Chuan's idea, as I truly didn't want to backtrack.

As we spoke, the scalding water had already reached my ankles.

So, Nie Chuan and I exchanged no more words and headed toward the cluster of stones.

As we approached the rock formation, we noticed that the outermost jutting slabs were the tallest, some exceeding ten meters.

The closer we got to the center, the lower the slabs jutted up.

I recognized this terrain as somewhat peculiar but had no time to study it further. Instead, Nie Chuan and I found the nearest slab and began climbing.

The slab angled up from the ground at about thirty degrees, so climbing wasn't difficult, and we quickly reached the top.

Nie Chuan and I carefully placed Daxiong and Xie Yuting onto the slab, then stretched our cramped muscles and stood up.

Standing on top of this slab, we realized the extent of this bizarre terrain was vast, stretching beyond sight.

The topography dipped lower toward the center, and about five kilometers away, there was an open area—likely where the underground hot spring erupted.

After observing for a while, Nie Chuan asked me, "What does this terrain look like to you?"

I shrugged and replied, "A giant frying pan?"

Nie Chuan shot me a silent look, clearly displeased with my attempt at joking now.

After a silence, he finally said, "It looks like terrain where a meteor has crashed."

Hearing him say that sent a jolt through me. He was absolutely right; this is precisely the kind of formation created when a meteorite strikes the ground.

Could it be that a meteorite had fallen here in the past?

I knelt down to examine the structure of the stone slab.

To my astonishment, I found the fracture marks on the slab looked surprisingly fresh, and there were still remnants of severed tree roots attached, the roots appearing as fresh as if they had just been dug from the earth.

Nie Chuan noticed this too, furrowing his brow slightly, and remarked to me, "It seems this meteorite crashed here quite recently."

Because the previous locations we visited—Heizhugou and Lop Nur—were both connected to meteorite impacts, I paid close attention to this detail.

However, the meteorites at those sites had fallen for millennia; this one felt like a very recent arrival.

"00017..." This number suddenly flashed in my mind, and for some reason, I felt a terrible premonition.

Just as the thought occurred, a gurgling sound, like water boiling, erupted around us.

When we looked back down at the ground, we saw that the lake water hadn't just risen; its temperature seemed to be increasing, actually bubbling like boiling water.

Waves of steam billowed up from the lake, carrying a suffocating smell of sulfur that enveloped us.

I was aghast, exclaiming, "This is bad; we might be steamed alive now!"

Nie Chuan looked equally frantic, muttering to himself, "What do we do? If we aren't drowned, we'll be boiled to death."

I countered, "It’s a good thing your decision just now was wise; otherwise, we would already be scalded to death."

Nie Chuan looked dejected and replied, "What does that matter? We're going to die anyway. What's the difference between dying early and dying late?"

As we were speaking, we suddenly heard what sounded distinctly like a sigh.

The sound was very close to me, making me instinctively flinch and break out in a cold sweat.

Nie Chuan asked what was wrong, and I whispered, "It feels like someone is breathing on the back of my neck..."

Just as Nie Chuan was about to dismiss it as impossible, there was a splash in the water, and a black object shot up!