Chapter 155: Pain

Moving less than five meters along the cave, Fang Nian found the answer. He noticed numerous iron rings embedded in the cave walls, distributed one by one along the rock face. They appeared designed for people to step on to pass through, which presumably was the way forward.

Having found the path ahead, Fang Nian turned back to inform Jia Xu and the others. Then, using waterproof cloth bags, he began helping everyone cross the five-meter gap, attaching them to the wall. Afterward, he climbed up onto the wall himself, and the party proceeded forward by stepping on the rings.

Before long, they had traveled over 200 meters, yet the path ahead remained endless. Surprisingly, even though the light had receded into the distance and was nearly vanishing, the interior of the cave was not dark at all; rather, it was even brighter than before.

Seeing this, Jia Xu glanced at the wall and suddenly realized with a nod, "The reason there is still light in this cave is probably because of this luminescent moss. Look at the wall, it is covered everywhere with this glowing moss. Although we cannot see it flashing brightly, if you look closely, it is not hard to see that there is indeed light within it."

Everyone nodded. Since there was light, they bothered no further with illumination. Zhang Liao extinguished the torch, tucked it behind his waist, and the group continued to push forward.

Yet, after walking for a long time, Fang Nian and the others found no exit. The path only grew longer, stretching out to the point of inducing irritation. Fang Nian raised his brows slightly, sensing a trace of terror. Faced with such a situation, he constantly felt something was amiss.

At that moment, Fang Nian suddenly felt a massive shadow glide beneath his feet. The shadow swam under him like a giant black fish, seemingly searching for the optimal attacking position.

Fang Nian was alarmed. He could not tell whether this creature was the creation of the hunting ground's architect or related to the monsters he had previously encountered in *Doomsday Train*.

Before he had time to think, Fang Nian turned around to warn the people behind him to hurry forward. But before he could speak, the giant fish suddenly leaped out of the river channel. It looked to be over ten meters long, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a creature Fang Nian had seen in ancient texts.

"Could this be a—coelacanth?"

Coelacanth is a collective term for certain lobed-finned osteichthyan fishes of the order Coelacanthiformes. Closely related but extinct species of the suborder Rhipidistia are considered ancestors of terrestrial vertebrates. In some classification systems, coelacanths and rhipidistians are both classified under different orders within the subclass Crossopterygii.

Coelacanths first appeared and evolved 377 million years ago, existing in great abundance on Earth at that time. Fossils of coelacanths have been found from the late Permian period (295 million years ago) to the early Cretaceous period (144 million years ago).

Like other similar fish, the coelacanth has a low degree of ossification, exhibiting a general tendency to leave the early freshwater environment and transition to a marine lifestyle. Long believed to have gone extinct around 60 million years ago, a living specimen—a coelacanth—was caught with a net off the coast of southern Africa in 1938.

Following a bounty reward, a second specimen was captured in the Comoro Islands in 1952, with several more subsequently caught in the region. It was later discovered that these fish were already familiar to the islanders, who salted and sun-dried their meat for consumption and used their coarse scales as abrasives.

"This special kind of fish should have gone extinct hundreds of millions of years ago. Moreover, coelacanths are marine fish—why would one appear here? This is river water; how could they survive without salt? And how did it grow to be so huge?"

However, Fang Nian suddenly thought of the mutated nymphs he had encountered earlier. Thinking along those lines, the appearance of a coelacanth here was not entirely strange.

Yet these thoughts merely flashed through Fang Nian's mind. A moment later, he saw the fish leap up and swallow Cai Wenji, who was hanging on the wall, whole in a single gulp.

Fang Nian was horrified. In his panic and haste, he drew the dagger at his waist, preparing to jump down and fight the giant fish to the death. But before he could leap, the fish swam toward the depths with one of Cai Wenji's legs, vanishing in an instant.

Fang Nian never expected such a fish to be so agile. Now that it had entered the riverbed, not even a celestial deity could save Cai Wenji.

Fang Nian's mind spun with dizziness, his thoughts seeming to stall for a fraction of a second, unable to comprehend the current situation. Yet one thing was certain: Cai Wenji was undoubtedly dead. Fang Nian did not believe the giant fish had grabbed her just to play.

However, the ordeal was apparently not over. The giant fish did not leave. After digesting Cai Wenji, it returned, leaped once more, and dragged Chen Deng into the water.

Shocked and with no time to spare for thought, Fang Nian shouted back to the remaining survivors, "Run! We cannot stay here any longer!"

With that, he took the lead and moved forward, occasionally glancing back to check on Jia Xu and the others who were following.

Soon, however, Fang Nian realized that all their efforts were futile. Trying to outpace a coelacanth under such conditions was the most useless form of resistance. Within mere minutes, Jia Xu and the others behind him were successively dragged into the water by the coelacanth and vanished without a trace.

Fang Nian's body spasmed. He had never imagined that the team he had worked so hard to build would vanish entirely in such a short span of time, every single one of them perishing in the jaws of a single fish.

Terror gripped Fang Nian. This was the first time he had felt such a sensation since entering the hunting ground.

Before long, however, Fang Nian sensed something was wrong. Everything felt far too sudden; he needed to calm himself.

With this thought, to shock his system, Fang Nian began to tense his body, stretching his muscles to an unprecedented degree.

Just as he reached the limit of his endurance, Fang Nian suddenly relaxed his body.

At that exact instant, Fang Nian perceived a subtle difference, as if another version of Fang Nian had emerged.

Capitalizing on this momentum, Fang Nian clenched his fists tightly, digging his fingernails into his flesh. Instantly, an indescribable wave of pain swept over his entire body, and he felt as though his physical form had been hollowed out.

Then, in a flash, everything before his eyes grew illusory, began to twist, and dissolved until he could no longer distinguish any object.

Finally, the entire scene shattered like a pane of glass with a loud bang, completely dissolving into pure nothingness.

Fang Nian gasped for breath, his physical sensations returning. Aside from the pain in his palms, he could feel only a throbbing ache in his head.

After about two minutes, Fang Nian recovered and found himself still clinging to the wall, though the sense of reality was entirely different from before.