Chapter 800 - 540: Hydra’s Last Hiding Place

Chapter 800: Chapter 540: Hydra’s Last Hiding Place

Time passed, second by second.

A dead silence hung over the square.

Not even the wind stirred.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Suddenly.

Mage Delin’s eyes snapped open!

A sharp glint flashed through his murky eyes!

"Found it."

He uttered two words.

Wendel’s spirits lifted.

"Where is it?"

Mage Delin didn’t answer right away. Instead, he turned and looked toward the far end of the square, at a section of ruins that had collapsed most severely.

Behind those ruins was a massive cliff face that rose all the way to the luminous membrane of the Barrier above.

"Follow me."

Mage Delin strode off in that direction.

The other three immediately followed.

They crossed the vast square, circling around the broken statue.

The closer they got to the ruined buildings, the more Raylo could feel an overwhelming aura of desolation and antiquity wash over him.

Giant stone pillars lay scattered on the ground, each one so thick it would take more than a dozen people to encircle it.

The fractured walls still emanated faint fluctuations of energy.

The four of them soon arrived before the collapsed ruins.

This place looked like the remains of a Divine Hall, but now only rubble and broken walls were left.

Mage Delin didn’t pause, leading them directly into the wreckage.

Underfoot was uneven rubble. Every step produced a CRUNCH that sounded exceptionally jarring in the dead silence.

They passed through a devastated hall and finally stopped before a cliff face several hundred meters high.

In a corner where the cliff met the ground, there was an inconspicuous cave entrance.

The entrance was only about twice a man’s height and pitch-black, with wisps of bone-chilling air seeping out.

"We’re going in."

Mage Delin was the first to enter the cave.

A damp, cold, and faintly metallic scent instantly washed over them.

Raylo frowned and followed close behind.

Wendel and Morpheus entered one after the other.

The moment they stepped into the cave, the brilliant, star-sea-like sky of the outside world vanished completely.

All around them, a darkness so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face descended.

And with it, a bone-deep chill.

Mage Wendel raised his hand and waved.

A fist-sized, orange-red Fireball materialized in midair, brightly illuminating the entire cave passage.

It was a downward-sloping ramp.

The tunnel walls were exceptionally damp, covered in blackish-green moss. Droplets of water continuously seeped from the rock, hitting the ground with a "DRIP... DRIP..." sound.

"The spatial structure here is stable, but the energy flow is strange. It seems... to be converging on a single point."

Mage Morpheus said.

Mage Delin, walking at the very front, didn’t slow his pace.

"Stay close."

The four of them followed the damp slope, descending deeper and deeper underground.

Deeper.

And deeper.

The tunnel seemed to have no end.

The air grew colder and colder.

Raylo felt his thoughts turning sluggish.

He had to circulate the Fighting Spirit within his body to resist the pervasive chill.

After walking for about ten-odd minutes.

Mage Delin, who was leading the way, finally stopped.

The tunnel had come to an end.

Before them lay an immense underground cavern.

The cavern’s ceiling was too high to be seen. In its center was a vast subterranean lake.

The water was black as ink and without a single ripple, like a giant black mirror lying silently in the depths of the earth.

An even denser chill, mixed with water vapor, rose from the lake’s surface.

"The target... is over there."

Mage Delin’s voice echoed in the vast cavern.

He raised his hand and pointed to the very center of the black lake.

Raylo focused his gaze.

In the middle of the lake, he could faintly make out a small island, about a hundred meters in diameter.

The island was barren, with no vegetation, only black reefs.

And in the very center of the island stood a silent object.

The object was oval-shaped and pure white, its surface seemingly marked with natural patterns.

It was an egg, a full three to four meters high—absolutely enormous!

A Snake Egg... the size of a Dragon Egg.

It stood there silently on the Lake Heart Island, its pure white shell reflecting a soft, eerie halo of light.

"It’s too dark."

Mage Wendel grumbled in dissatisfaction.

He raised his hand, and the fist-sized, orange-red Fireball in his palm instantly expanded!

WHOOSH!

The Fireball shot from his hand, soaring straight up until it hovered nearly a hundred meters high in the cavern’s upper reaches.

Like a man-made Little Sun, it radiated intense light and heat, instantly illuminating the entire massive underground cavern as if it were day!

Only now could Raylo truly see the full extent of this place.

It was a space far larger than he could have imagined.

The ceiling was immensely high, its top unseen. It seemed to connect to the space of the Divine Hall ruins above, but the light couldn’t penetrate that far, leaving only a deep darkness.

The surrounding rock walls were a blackish-green, a color born from eons of erosion by water vapor, and were covered in slippery moss and unknown fungi.

And below them, this vast underground lake was even larger than Raylo had imagined.

The water was black as ink. Even the intense light from the "Little Sun" Mage Wendel had created couldn’t penetrate it in the slightest, failing to reveal what lay beneath the surface.

When the light hit the lake’s surface, it seemed to be devoured by some invisible force.

Only the small black island in the center of the lake, and the giant Snake Egg upon it, were clearly visible to everyone.

"Over the lake... there’s another Barrier."