irley Yang told me, "The objects nearby for reference, including the plants and insects, as well as the abundance of ancient tree fossils, are all abnormally large, which is why I wondered if there was something mysterious about this gourd-shaped cave that caused the bodies of those who entered to gradually shrink."

The matter sounded utterly unbelievable, and as we were currently drifting and bobbing in the boundless underground water, it was hard to confirm immediately. I said to irley Yang, "Even if our bodies could shrink, could our clothes and shoes shrink along with us? I think it's because the environment here is special, which is why the entire ecosystem is larger than the outside world."

However, what I said lacked any real certainty. This cave truly resembled the red gourd in the Mountain God Temple—small at the mouth, large in the belly, and trumpet-curved. As we moved deeper, the cave walls gradually widened, and there were no traces of artificial construction; it was entirely naturally formed. Perhaps this was a relic older than the Tomb of King Xian. The locals might have treated the gourd-shaped cave as sacred ground, hence the gourd statue enshrined in the Mountain God Temple. As for whether this cave actually possesses any peculiar traits, it was hard to say, given that we were completely in the dark right now, with our visible range limited to about twenty meters. Changes to ourselves or the slightly more distant environment would be difficult to notice.

The nearby insects were all much larger than normal, especially the fossils of trees from the Paleozoic era, which were terrifyingly huge. Tree after tree, with branches and claws extended, breached the water surface, intertwining with the drooping vines above, resembling the monstrous claws of old dragons.

I thought I should find some plant-like objects to use as a reference point to confirm whether our bodies were indeed shrinking after entering this gourd-shaped cave. If so, we couldn't proceed further; we would have to retreat the way we came first and then figure things out.

However, the thickness of those old vines was almost comparable to the human body. There were vines this thick in the jungle outside, so they couldn't be used as a reference. The most direct method currently was to dive into the water and check the size of the nearby aquatic plants. Algae have their own unique properties and their size doesn't vary much due to environmental changes; they are almost the same regardless of the setting.

But the moment I recalled the female corpse that suddenly appeared and then suddenly vanished underwater, like a phantom, I felt a prickle of fear. I had no choice but to clip the safety lock onto the buoyancy compensator, signal to Fatty and irley Yang not to move forward for the time being, and wait until I explored the situation underwater before deciding anything else.

I lowered the diving mask on my mountaineering helmet and forced myself into the gloomy depths. Even underwater, the tactical spotlight on the helmet should have a visible range of fifteen meters. However, the groundwater here was full of impurities—lots of plankton, microorganisms, and aquatic flora—reducing the visual range to its limit, less than five meters.

The water was deep, and I couldn't touch the bottom. I felt it wasn't time to use oxygen yet; relying only on my swimming ability, I held my breath and continued swimming downward. Through the diving mask, the underwater world was even hazier. In the darkness, I vaguely saw a large, dark mass floating slowly on the bottom. Due to the lack of light, I could only tell the object was about the size of a wheel; I couldn't clearly make out if it was an aquatic animal or some kind of water plant.

At this moment, the dark mass at the bottom drifted closer to me. I thought fish wouldn't have such a shape; it must be some kind of aquatic plant. Could it be waterweeds tangled together, forming such a large mass? If even the waterweeds were this big, we were really in deep trouble.

Thinking this, I reached out toward the pitch-black object, intending to grab a handful and examine it up close to see if it was indeed a large clump of waterweeds. Who knew, the moment I extended my hand, the thing suddenly darted forward, shooting diagonally toward the water surface above, stopping about one or two meters below the surface, lying there silently.

As the wheel-sized object moved at the bottom, I had already clearly seen that it was not a large clump of waterweeds. The thing looked round when coiled up, and when it propelled itself, it extended two arched hind legs and forelimbs. It was tangled with a lot of waterweeds. It turned out to be a giant red-backed toad. Moreover, there seemed to be more than one of them nearby; quite a few had gathered about a meter below the surface. In the pitch-black underwater, it was hard to tell exactly how many such large toads there were, or if there was anything even bigger.

How could there be such huge toads? Startled, I almost swallowed a mouthful of groundwater. Feeling that I couldn't hold my breath much longer, I lost the will to dive to the bottom to look for algae and quickly swam up, breaking the surface. The moment my head cleared the water, I quickly took a deep breath and said to Fatty and irley Yang, "There's something under the water. We need to get out of here quickly. Let's climb onto that large fossilized tree lying on its side first."

On the surface of the underground cavern water here lay the fossils of an entire ancient forest. Some of the large tree fossils had collapsed and broken due to natural causes. Those fallen fossilized trees were spanned across surrounding fossils instead of sinking to the bottom, forming natural stone bridges within the dense fossilized forest.

Not far ahead of us, there was exactly such an old fossilized trunk lying across the water, wedged between other fossils, with many branches still intact on the trunk.

The three of us quickly put the weapons we had just taken out back into their waterproof bags and swiftly swam toward the fallen fossilized tree. When we got close, irley Yang reached out first to grab a branch of the fossilized tree. Fatty and I supported her feet, helping irley Yang climb onto the body of the fallen fossilized tree first. Then I followed suit. I lowered the climbing rope for Fatty. Fatty, who was still in the water, rapidly vented the air from his buoyancy compensator and secured his backpack to himself with the climbing rope. I pulled and hauled, finally getting Fatty onto the tree trunk, and finally, we hoisted the equipment backpack up.

My feet touched stone, and I felt a slight sense of security, but the three of us dared not relax. We quickly took out our weapons from the waterproof bags again. Fatty asked me, "Li Xiangyang alone scared you this much; what exactly was in the water?"

irley Yang also asked me, "Did you see that female corpse submerged at the bottom?"

I pointed to that patch of water and said, "There was no Li Xiangyang, and no female corpse. There were huge toads in the water—toads as big as cartwheels, and the smallest ones were the size of a basin. Damn it, the bumpy parts on their backs have many poison glands. We absolutely cannot come into contact with them, or if we get poisoned, it will be one hundred and twenty percent dangerous."

irley Yang raised her wolf-eye flashlight and swept the beam over the water surface where we had just been stationed. It was quiet now, with only the ripples caused by our quick swim. Nothing special was visible beneath the dark water surface. irley Yang glanced at it a couple of times, then turned to me and said, "I often used toads during experiments. I remember this kind of animal usually hides in damp soil, under stones, or in grass during the day, and only comes out to move around at dusk and night. Why would they be in water this deep? Did you misread the situation?"

I shook my head, "To be honest, this is the first time I've seen toads this big, but I absolutely did not misread them. I think your bookish approach might not apply here. I was no more than three meters away from that giant toad underwater and saw it very clearly. They were all floating not far from the surface, and I don't know what they were doing. I was worried it might be detrimental to us, which is why I told you both to climb up here quickly. Regardless, let's figure things out first. I have a feeling that some parts of this fossilized forest submerged by underground water are not quite right."

Fatty suddenly made a shushing gesture, asking us to look not far ahead. In that area where swarms of gnats gathered, countless gnat-like insects were emitting a harsh buzzing noise, "zzzzzz..." That spot was extremely close to where we had landed, clearly visible even under the beam of the wolf-eye flashlight. Because those insect walls of gnats had no eyes, they were not attracted to the wolf-eye light and were still buzzing around the densest areas of plant roots like headless flies.

irley Yang whispered to us, "The density of the surface vegetation causes a lack of nutrients and water, so the roots extending downward are desperately growing to directly access this underground water. Those flying insects... they seem to be gathering there to lay eggs."

When I dove underwater earlier, I found quite a few large fish. These fish were different from the blind fish that had always lived underground; they had eyes. This indicated that although this underground water flowed through the underground cavern, it was clear water connected to the outside world.

However, the environment here was too unique; the plants and insects formed independent ecosystems. If there was clear water connected to the outside, we should be able to follow the current and reach the vicinity of the main tomb of King Xian.

The urgent priority now was to figure out whether the human body gradually shrinks the deeper we go into this large cave resembling a gourd, or if the ever-increasing space deeper inside due to the gourd-shaped cave's unique trumpet-like topography, coupled with the large plants and insects growing in this special environment, was causing us to have an illusion that we were shrinking.

Suddenly, there was a sharp splash on the water surface. Long tongues, several feet long, shot out from under the water with lightning speed toward the large gnats on the surface. With one sweep, a tongue wrapped around ten gnats, and immediately, countless large mouths surfaced, swallowing the gnats caught by the blood-red tongues. It turned out that the large toads floating beneath the water waited for the opportune moment, then leaped out one after another to prey on the large clusters of gnats gathered together.

At that moment, the water surface in front of the fossilized tree descended into chaos. As the toad mouths opened and closed, countless gnats lost their lives. Each of those strange toads was astonishingly large, their eyes like two red lamps; they were so numerous it was impossible to count how many there were.

The three of us lay flat on the fallen fossilized tree. Seeing the bumpy poison glands on the backs of those large toads, we felt utterly disgusted and really didn't want to look anymore. We could only press our bodies against the tree as low as possible, temporarily keeping our heads down to avoid looking at the scene on the water surface, hoping that the toads would soon eat their fill and disperse so we could get back into the water and move on, quickly leaving this strange cave before dawn to reach our final destination.

When I lowered my head, I noticed many fine sand holes on the body of the fossilized tree. Having been soaked in water for millions of years, the flowing water had eroded countless sand holes in this tree, and I feared it might break under the weight of the three of us.

So, I turned off the wolf-eye flashlight in my hand and switched on the more energy-efficient spotlight on my mountaineering helmet. Then, I signaled to irley Yang and Fatty, gestured to them, and led them toward a relatively flat stone platform on the left side.

This stone platform on the left was very solid and stable, and its area was quite large, more than enough for the three of us. Amidst this dense fossilized forest of crisscrossing branches, this square stone platform seemed somewhat different—it was quite regular and square, clearly showing traces of artificial carving. However, its surface and surrounding areas were covered with vines, and quite a bit of wet moss had grown.

I said to irley Yang and Fatty, "I wonder if this place is a relic left from the construction of King Xian's tomb. If so, what was its purpose? Could it be related to the female corpse we saw underwater?"

Fatty said, "Even the bluntest eye can tell this is an artificially constructed stone platform. Didn't we previously see a burial trench filled with ivory? This place is probably also where precious burial objects were placed." As he spoke, he drew his entrenching tool and began scraping away the wet moss and plants on the platform, trying to see if there was a hidden compartment underneath for storing artifacts.

Seeing that Fatty was already working recklessly, irley Yang and I could only help him by providing light. The large toads not far away were still voraciously devouring gnats, causing loud splashing sounds on the water. It seemed unlikely they would finish anytime soon.

Fatty worked with lightning speed and soon cleared almost half of the stone platform. There were no mechanisms or stone caskets beneath, but rather layer upon layer of reliefs, complex in composition and containing a wealth of information. Yet, with just one glance, anyone could tell that these reliefs recorded some kind of ancient secret sacrificial ritual—one we had never seen before, extremely bizarre and filled with mystery. This ritual was performed inside this gourd, and this stone platform was a special altar.