Han Shuna turned her head as she faced the vertical ice cliff of the abyss. A pale, ghostly haze coated her face. The distance between us neared the extreme limit of the Wolf-Eye flashlight's speed-of-light range. To see clearer, I spread my body flat at the edge of the ice cave and strained to lower the torch down through the crevasse. Though visibility was hazy, I could already perceive that the "woman" clinging to the ice wall had transcended humanity.

Ming Shi also shone his flashlight downward but froze in horror at sight of Han Shuna's face. His limbs suddenly went limp and the flashlight tumbled from his grasp, rolling into the glacier fissure. If not for Peter Huang grabbing him by the collar, he would have nearly plummeted into the icy depths with it.

Suddenly, the pale-faced Han Shuna startled at the falling flashlight and swiftly scuttled toward the darkness of the abyss, vanishing in an instant. We peered down at the fallen Wolf-Eye torch hoping to gauge the crevasse's depth. But all we saw was a tiny flickering dot growing smaller as it descended before being swallowed by absolute blackness. Both Fatso and I had encountered desert "bottomless demon holes" - this glacier abyss reminded us ominously of those.

At that moment, Inley Yang secured climbing rope around her waist with quick links and said to me, "We need to follow." Her determined stance suggested she intended to chase Han Shuna into the depths. A thought struck me instantly - Han Shuna's corpse had undergone some transformation. Though she fled into the abyss upon seeing us, that direction coincidentally aligned precisely with the subterranean Nine-Tier Hell Temple embedded in the glacier slope. Whether intentional or not remained unclear. If we didn't resolve this mystery soon, it could jeopardize tomorrow's excavation of the "Glacial Crystal Mummy."

We needed to locate Han Shuna before things escalated further. I immediately prepared my ropes as Inley Yang activated all our lighting sources and we rappelled down. The ice was treacherously slick with no purchase points for footholds. Our blue glowsticks and tactical lights refracted eerie, disorienting patterns off the mirror-like walls while total darkness swallowed everything else. After descending just dozens of meters, spatial orientation began dissolving.

We had to pause temporarily to reestablish our position. This narrow glacier trench seemed endless. "There's at least hundreds of meters below," Inley Yang said. The deepest layer might reach remnants of water veins from the Sea of Calamity. Ming Shi's flashlight disappeared into that submerged level when it fell, she explained while tossing down a glowstick. After prolonged wait until its blue light faded from view, we pressed our ears against the ice wall and faintly heard distant water sounds echoing upward.

Han Shuna was moving diagonally downward through the glacier. Our vertical descent meant catching her required lateral movement. We tested it - impossible on these slippery walls without tools. The only option remained using ice axes to chip purchase in the wall while shifting position, but immediately we noticed snowflakes of ice cascading down - signs the glacier might be fracturing.

The Longding Glacier occupied a unique low-altitude range, experiencing surface thaw periods for two months each year. Though its central strata maintained hundreds-of-meters-thick consistency, our timing was inauspicious - the tail end of thaw season overlapping with approaching cold front. This made it the most vulnerable period for the glacier's main body. With countless natural ice basins, sinkholes and fissures plus over a hundred Wheel-Order tombs hidden within, the glacier resembled nothing more than a beehive. While normally stable, September was historically its most prone to catastrophic collapse despite millennia of geological stability - this "Sea of Calamity" could still erupt with unforeseeable disasters at any moment.

Yet paradoxically, such instability proved advantageous for excavating the Nine-Tier Hell Temple buried beneath deeper ice layers. Attempting it after the cold front would be far more arduous.

Above us, Ming Shi and Fatso worriedly shouted for us to return up immediately - too dangerous!

Their shouts became problematic however - carried by wind currents down into our chamber. Inley Yang and I suddenly sensed violent tremors through the entire ice wall. We flashed warning signals with our torches urging them to cease shouting at the crevasse entrance lest an ice collapse bury us alive in this black glacial abyss.

Our progress along the walls was slower than anticipated, lateral movement impossible due to extreme darkness and complex terrain. With lost momentum in pursuit, Inley Yang helplessly shook her head toward me - we had no choice but to retreat for now and reconsider strategies.

We retracted our climbing ropes preparing to return upward. I swept my torch diagonally across the upper crevice signaling Fatso's group who understood immediately. They assisted as Inley Yang and I began ascending. Without footholds on the ice walls, each kick against it sent us spinning helplessly through midair.

As I turned, a woman suddenly emerged from the darkness clinging to an adjacent wall. Half her body hidden within a fissure, only partial form protruded - pale face with just two rows of teeth visible. By her hair and yellow (mountaineering jacket), it was unmistakably Han Shuna.

I had assumed she'd vanished into abyss depths. Yet here she remained nearby in an unremarkable crack, hiding until we gave up pursuit. Why then did she reappear now?

I tugged Inley Yang's arm and we halted instantly. She too saw Han Shuna emerging from the fissure with equal surprise. I had secured my twenty-five-meter Wolf-Eye flashlight on my wrist earlier - raising it now to illuminate directly toward her.

Even in this pitch-black glacial tomb, the Wolf-Eye's visibility barely extended twenty meters. This distance however perfectly illuminated the crack where Han Shuna crouched. We continued referring to "Han Shuna" for now though we had yet to determine what she truly was. She showed no reaction to our tactical flashlight beam - frozen in place with half-body protruding from the fissure.

Her face was a formless haze of white, two gaping rows of teeth visible but no discernible facial features. We couldn't tell if her expression conveyed anguish or rage as we remained locked in this standoff. My nerves were fraying however - whatever this thing was, it certainly wasn't human nor even stiff with rigor mortis. Whatever state she occupied, hostility was undeniable.

I unsheathed my 1911 pistol aiming to blow Han Shuna's head clean off before disengaging the safety when Inley Yang lightly tapped my shoulder from behind. "Don't fire," she warned, "it might trigger an ice wall collapse."

Before I could holster it, the faceless Han Shuna suddenly convulsed like electricity had surged through her body. She burst free of her fissure hiding spot, limbs splayed wide into a monstrous white lizard-like form, slithering toward me with several rapid movements.

Inley Yang and I realized the danger instantly though we still couldn't comprehend why Han Shuna's corpse transformed this way. But one truth was clear - contact meant certain peril. Without hesitation we gripped our carabiners and yanked down on the climbing ropes to ascend as quickly as possible, hoping to draw her onto the glacier surface.

Our ascent speed proved insufficient however - Han Shuna's ice-climbing velocity far exceeded ours. When less than five meters from the upper surface, her pale face could already reach Inley Yang's boots. Those above saw clearly - Fatso and Younger Brother ignored Ming Shi's protests to aim their rifles into the crevasse. Bullets struck Han Shuna's face.

I glanced downward just in time to see two large holes torn through her white visage. The force sent her body slamming downward meters before she hooked onto the wall, lifting her sightless face upward once more as those facial wounds began healing immediately. Gunfire indeed shook the glacier - shards of ice rained down around us.

Han Shuna apparently sought refuge from the falling debris and vanished into another fissure in an instant. Inley Yang and I scrambled up just as large chunks above collapsed sealing her hiding spot completely. Re-entering to search would be impossible now though who knew which other crevices she might emerge from next? Bullets clearly had no effect on this creature.

This blizzard night held far too many unimaginable events - but midnight had barely passed, daylight still hours away. With snowfall showing no signs of abating, sleep seemed out of the question tonight.

We retreated to our tents by the glacier blocking off the crevasse entrance for warmth after our nocturnal ordeal. Though exhausted from the night's exertions, none could find rest as we gathered discussing Han Shuna's fate. Peter Huang theorized, "She might have survived the fire - just severely injured and revived later in snow..."

Fatso scoffed, "Are you joking? We all saw her head missing a third! If that doesn't kill you then there are no dead people on Earth. The white stuff covering her face is probably fur - she's definitely turned into a Himalayan zombie!"

I suspected something more complex at work here - an unknown phenomenon we'd never encountered before. Inley Yang asked Xiang if she noticed anything unusual during the encounter, only to learn Xiang had been too terrified to even open her eyes.

We debated endlessly with no resolution until Younger Brother suddenly clapped his hands like a Tibetan monk delivering a sudden epiphany - an old habit from his youth spent gathering herbs with lamas. He claimed to have recalled something crucial about the situation:

"It's definitely the Snow Puffball!" he declared. "Two years ago fellow geologists on Mount Kehuang encountered this exact phenomenon at Moksha Cliff, but our area of Karakoram has never seen it before. The Snow Puffballs in Kunlun are even more terrifying than demons - their corpses fatten uncontrollably!"

As Younger Brother prepared to describe past incidents involving these creatures, he abruptly stopped mid-sentence. His expression froze along with Ming Shi, Xiang and Peter Huang all seated nearby, as they simultaneously stared transfixed at the canvas above our tent.

I spun around just in time to see two massive handprints pressing inward against the fabric surface, forming a giant circular void between them that resembled an enormous faceless human visage. Each print exceeded normal human proportions by double - something was clearly attempting to force its way through the material from outside. The size of those monstrous hands alone terrified me as the tent groaned under pressure, on the verge of collapse.