To evade the "Crystal Tremor" that could kill unseen within the "Great Dark Sky Thunder Mountain," I shoved aside the countless mummified corpses piled beneath the crossbeam, using them as stepping stones to pave the path toward the altar. At first, the others were hesitant. Firstly, the desiccated bodies, their faces marred by two large, vacant black holes, were utterly gruesome. Within those empty shells, once brimming with flesh and blood, were living people who, in their final moments facing death, had been frozen in expressions of struggle and agony. Secondly, they worried the layer of corpses wouldn't be thick enough to offset the "Crystal Tremor," or that the makeshift path wouldn't be stable enough to bear our weight.

But eventually, the instinct for survival eclipsed all else. There was no room for delicacy. Except for Ah Xiang, whose stamina flagged and who lacked a right hand, the rest of us threw ourselves into moving bodies with desperate energy. Even Uncle Ming stopped trying to be clever and exerted himself fully, for we all understood that this path paved with mummies was the sole passage back from hell to the living world. The desiccated bodies, having likely undergone special treatment by the priests of E-luo Sea City after death, were completely dehydrated and surprisingly light. Even so, the four of us were drenched in sweat from exertion.

In no time, the corpses were piled high, almost reaching the entrance of the altar cavern. Seeing that just a few dozen more bodies would complete the final stretch, a surge of relief washed over me. If these mummies, whose eyes had been gouged out for sacrifice, hadn't been dumped just beneath the crossbeam in such vast numbers, escaping the water would have been nearly impossible. We would have either drowned or been shaken to dust by the spectral energy emanating from the mineral deposits.

But misfortune never travels alone. Fatty and Uncle Ming were hooking bodies from beneath the crossbeam and passing them up. Irley Yang and I were stacking the corpses they handed us further ahead. As we all busied ourselves, a strange sound echoed from above. We all froze. It sounded like immense pressure being exerted within the crystalline structure, though the darkness prevented us from seeing the situation overhead. We only heard the dense sounds of crushing and fracturing from the crystal veins above, like a silent, massive dragon roaring as it slid from west to east, causing the surrounding crystals to hum and tremble.

The crystals within the cavern seemed innocuous when viewed from the side, but the crystalline columns growing downward from the ceiling were either sharp cones or angular prisms. These countless crystal veins hung overhead like thickets of suspended, razor-sharp spears and halberds. If one were to fall, its own weight combined with the height would be equivalent to a heavy sword or giant spear cleaving down from the sky. Hearing the massive cracking of the crystal veins above sent a wave of panic through us all.

In that momentary lapse of attention, our vision blurred. Dozens of meters away, something fell like a meteor—a natural crystal spire. The instant it detached from the dome and plummeted, it regained its dazzling luster. The sharp crystal cone pierced the air with a mournful shriek, driving straight down into the ground. After a thunderous crash, the crystal’s faint luminescence was swallowed once more by the darkness.

The sound of the crystal spike hitting the earth snapped us out of our shock. The dull thunder emanating from the "Great Dark Sky Thunder Mountain" had been the accumulation of the Crystal Tremor's energy; the crystal layer in the altar cavern could no longer bear the strain. It had begun to shatter and crack. A dense curtain of crystal spikes would soon descend. Outside, there was no safe place to hide except within the belly of the Jade Mountain, yet without the corpses to cushion us, setting foot outside meant certain death.

At that moment, we were trapped between fleeing and staying put. Instinct screamed to run and hide, but the falling spikes descended without pattern. Running meant running straight into danger, and there was no time to see clearly before dodging; the sharp crystals moved like meteors and lightning.

After the first spike detached from the vein overhead, cold light flickered again from the darkness above, and several starlike, icy beams plunged down. Some fell far from us, but one trajectory was aimed directly over Fatty’s head. I saw it just as it happened, but before I could shout a warning, the white beam whistled down. It landed in front of Fatty. The pile of corpses beneath him could not support the crystal slab, which was half the size of a table, thin and sharp as a guillotine blade. The razor-edged crystal struck the corpse pile, passed through without stopping, and sank silently into the mound, vanishing.

But from across the way, I noticed something was off with Fatty’s face—his smile seemed unnaturally distorted. I couldn't place it immediately. Seeing he seemed physically unharmed, I turned to call for Irley Yang to duck, when I suddenly realized the problem. Fatty’s nose tip was turning bright red, oozing blood, which then began to flow freely. A large chunk of flesh had been cleanly sliced from his nose. Fortunately, the corpse pile was sloped, and his body leaned forward for balance; had he been on flat ground at that angle, part of his stomach might have been severed too, leaving him disemboweled. He hadn't felt the pain until the blood erupted, prompting him to yell and roll down onto a lower pile of corpses, knocking Uncle Ming down behind him.

I took half a step forward, intending to rush over and help, when another multifaceted crystal plunged down less than half a meter in front of me. It pinned the four layers of corpses on the crossbeam like a candied hawthorn skewer, its four-or-five-meter-long pointed tail blocking the way. The booming thunder from above grew more incessant, and the crystal drops increased. Thankfully, the cavern was vast and deep, so the impacts were scattered from east to west, without any discernible pattern. Although the danger was acute, I noticed a precursor: the crystal veins above the impending impact zone would start to crackle continuously. As long as one kept one's head steady, there was a chance to dodge, but I knew this was merely the scattered warm-up. If this trend continued, soon it would resemble a volley of ten thousand arrows, leaving no safe footing on the ground.

I watched Fatty scramble up from the lower corpse pile, blood streaming down his face, clutching his nose and cursing that his future fortune had been ruined by the disfigurement. I quickly called to Uncle Ming and Ah Xiang, telling them to find some turtle shell from Fatty’s pack and apply it to the wound—that stuff was excellent for staunching blood. Uncle Ming dared not feign cleverness any longer; he pulled Ah Xiang and Fatty into a sheltered corner beneath the crossbeam to tend to Fatty’s injury.

Seeing their hiding spot was quite secure, I signaled Irley Yang to join them for a temporary reprieve. Irley Yang, however, noted the sudden intensity of the crystal clusters in the cavern. If a larger section of the layer collapsed, not even the corpse piles under the crossbeam, let alone the interior of the Jade Mountain, would be safe. The only solution was to immediately place the "Phoenix Gall" and the "Crystal Eye" containing the Ghost Mother's memories onto the altar to halt the collapse of the "Great Dark Sky Thunder Mountain."

There was no time for lengthy explanations. Irley Yang was already very close to the altar pool. She had to take the risk. I tossed her the satchel containing the ritual objects. She caught it, shoved a few nearby corpses forward to act as shields, and positioned herself ten meters from the two eye-socket-like pools. I assumed she intended to throw the eyes directly into the altar from there. But the two pools were small, naturally formed features—the "Dragon Marrow" spoken of in Feng Shui, from which all vital and mortal exchanges of the branching dragon veins originated. Though I trusted Irley Yang wouldn't take unnecessary risks and must have had a plan, this crucial moment meant everything, and I couldn't help but sweat for her.

Irley Yang did not act from such a distance, clearly lacking absolute certainty. First, she used her Wolf Eye flashlight to illuminate the pools. Then, she pushed a few more corpses forward. Just then, a crystal fell from above, striking a stone statue near her with a crash. Crystal dust and fragments sprayed out. The crystal stone fell from the crossbeam, and the statue swayed before collapsing heavily onto the ground, blocking Irley Yang’s path forward.

From behind, completely forgetting the danger of falling crystals around me, I watched Irley Yang’s every move with intense tension. She paused by the fallen statue, gazing at the pools. Her back rose and fell as she seemed to take several deep breaths. Amidst the roar overhead, which sounded like a torrential downpour, Irley Yang remained completely focused. Following the ritual guidance indicated by the wall murals, she tossed the "Phoenix Gall" and the "Crystal Eye" into their corresponding pools. The "Phoenix Gall" and the "Ghost Eye" represented the two forms of energy in the Ghost Cave world, while the two eye-shaped pools in the Dragon Core were the nexus point of Yin and Yang, life and death, within the concept of "Heaven and Man as One"—the intersection of the Xuan and the Hu in the supposed "Holographic Universe Theory." The energies of life and death at the terminus of the dragon veins converged here like twin whirlpools. Opposing energies could materialize the substances of the Ghost Cave, fixing them in our world, thus severing the connection to the imaginary space where the Ghost Cave resided. This would stop the gradual draining of our blood pigment, the curse of the Ghost Cave, though the brand of being a sacrifice to the Ghost Cave would remain until death.

Most secrets of these ancient religions are difficult to comprehend, and coupled with guesswork, would this even work? Facing the moment of truth, I still felt utterly uncertain. Watching Irley Yang finally drop the "Phoenix Gall" and the "Ghost Eye" into the pools, I felt no relief or ease, only an indescribable sense of anticlimax. We had paid too heavy a price for this instant. Irley Yang turned to look at me, perhaps trembling slightly from the prior tension. At that moment, the black mist surging through the cavern crystals began to recede. The vicinity slowly regained its cold luminescence; the crystal layers stopped vibrating, although many crystal spikes that might still fall remained precariously suspended high above.

The sudden transition from dense noise to silence left me slightly disoriented. I wiped the cold sweat dripping from my brow and said to Irley Yang, "Is it finally over? We made it to the end, survived the darkness before dawn. After a lifetime of bad luck, we're finally seeing a glimmer of victory."

Irley Yang’s perpetually melancholic expression began to dissipate, much like the black mist in the crystal layers. Though tears glistened in her eyes, they were tears of profound relief. "Yes, we’ve finally pulled through. Thank God I met you; I truly don't know how I would have faced all this otherwise. Now we need to figure out how to get home…"

She was cut short by gunfire from beneath the crossbeam, mixed with the shouts of Fatty and Uncle Ming. A sinking feeling hit me; what new trouble had erupted? Irley Yang’s face paled. Bad. Did we get the ritual wrong? Is there another complication?

We didn't pause to consider further. Drawing our weapons, we found we no longer needed to tread carefully over the corpses. We sprinted toward the body pile under the crossbeam. Just as we reached the edge of the mound, something felt immediately wrong. A transparent, ice-shard-like thing shot across the dark purple mass of corpses, moving like clear crystal that had suddenly come alive. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but on closer inspection, there was indeed a transparent shape rapidly approaching us. We couldn't make out its form, only that it was somewhat flat and elongated, moving with incredible speed. I immediately raised my 1911 and fired. But after the shot, nothing remained on the corpse pile; the ghost-like entity vanished in an instant.

Irley Yang and I asked each other in unison, "What was that thing we just saw?" Then, I felt a slight disturbance behind me. With no time to turn, I threw myself to the ground. I felt a sensation like being slashed by a dozen razor blades across my back shoulder. A piece of my clothing was torn away. My vision blurred again as an indistinct, transparent mass zipped past from back to front. We could see it on the corpses, but as soon as it neared the crystals, it evaporated without a sound.

These blurry, transparent things moved extremely fast, and there was more than one. Two or three more appeared to our side. Since they were indistinct, aiming was difficult, and our bullets were limited; we couldn't afford to fire recklessly. For now, we had to retreat backward. Perhaps we could target them where the terrain narrowed on the crossbeam.

Irley Yang and I retreated the way we came, back toward the altar entrance at the end of the stone stalk. The gunfire from Fatty and Uncle Ming’s direction had stopped. We didn’t know if they had run into trouble, but we were trapped here. Anxiety mounted. Irley Yang suddenly urged me to shoot upwards at the ceiling.

It turned out that over a dozen blurry, transparent objects had followed us onto the crossbeam. Their shape was vaguely serpentine, or perhaps fish-like. I immediately understood Irley Yang’s intention: she wanted me to shoot at the crystals overhead. Without hesitation, I raised my rifle and fired at the crystal veins above. The impact caused several already loosened hexagonal crystal columns to break loose. After a few heavy crashes of crystal striking the ground, only large patches of dark blood remained, and we still couldn't identify what the creatures were. Furthermore, those few shots triggered a chain reaction: a massive shower of crystals fell near the tunnel entrance, completely blocking our path back.

But that was the least of our worries now. Hearing Fatty call out from below, I answered. Seeing nothing moving to the left or right, we found a way to circle down to them. Fatty had tape plastered over his nose, and large patches of blood still stained his face. Uncle Ming and Ah Xiang were with him.

Fatty and the others had encountered a situation similar to ours, though Ah Xiang had spotted the creatures first, giving them an earlier warning. Ironically, their gunfire had saved Irley Yang and me, as we were completely unprepared and hadn't realized the danger until after the fact. Now, thinking back, we’d been incredibly lucky; we’d survived monumental perils only to nearly capsize in a shallow ditch. But what exactly were those things?

Fatty, his voice muffled by the tape over his nose, pointed a rifle butt at a bloody, mangled mess on the ground. He had smashed a few to death. "It looked like some kind of... fish," he grumbled, kicking the remains. "But it also looked a bit like a person. Tell me, is this a man or a fish?"

I found this strange. "Like a man and like a fish? It’s either a monstrous fish or a monstrous person, or maybe a mermaid. Why did it look so blurry and transparent?" Filled with questions, I knelt to examine the thing Fatty had beaten. Covered in blood, its form was now discernible: over a meter long, with a flat head—I couldn't tell if that was from the beating or its natural shape. Its body was thick in the middle, tapering to a thin tail, and it was covered in translucent, icy scales that emitted a faint, dim glow. If not for the blood, it would have been almost invisible in the cavern's strange light. When I touched the ice-like scales, my finger was immediately cut, the edge sharper than a blade. It had no legs, but two fin-like appendages that strangely resembled human arms, complete with hands, looking no different from normal human hands, only disproportionately small—even including the arm length, the entire structure was only the size of a normal human palm.

I scrutinized it several times and told the group, "This thing looks somewhat like a giant salamander. Could it be that rare Amphibian Light-Extinguishing Salamander? Legend says that creature possesses the anomaly of extinguishing lights. It’s very rare, about the size of a common infant, feeding on small snakes and shrimp. Powerful officials and nobles used to keep one alive in jade or glass basins. They would extinguish all the lamps in their manor at night to showcase this rarity—a display far more extravagant than a luminous pearl. However, they never survived long; captive specimens lived at most a few dozen days. Afterward, they carried potent residual resentment, and unless you had something to anchor the house, ordinary people wouldn't dare keep one. But I never heard of them directly attacking people."

Irley Yang shook her head, saying it didn't quite match. She used her 'Paratrooper Knife' to pry open the creature's wide mouth. We all gasped at the sight. The creature had no tongue; its mouth was lined entirely with backward-pointing bone barbs and hundreds of dense, fleshy suckers. It was clearly sustained by sucking out vital fluids.

Irley Yang speculated, "Perhaps these things drained the bodies of the slaves used for sacrifice after their eyes were removed. I wonder if this blood sacrifice was part of the ritual to appease the Ghost Cave..."

Uncle Ming interjected, "This thing truly does look like the Light-Extinguishing Salamander. I dealt in two specimens a few years ago, though both were preserved specimens. An Indian bought them later. I never did see what their mouths looked like."

I looked up at Uncle Ming. "Uncle Ming, you didn't just flee for your own life just now. It seems our help wasn't wasted. Your moral compass has improved. I saw your soul moving from darkness toward light at that moment." With the major crisis past, I felt myself relaxing and was about to tease Uncle Ming a bit, but before I finished speaking, I realized that only Fatty and Irley Yang remained. Someone was missing—Ah Xiang was nowhere in sight. I quickly stood up and looked around. The corpses in this area had been moved up to the crossbeam, exposing the crystal layer beneath in many places. On the ground, there was a trail of bloody footprints.