Hao Ren knew that when it came to Lily, common sense usually took a back seat. When he thought she was a werewolf, she barked. When he thought she was brave, she flinched. When he felt she would babble nonsense, she became poetic. When he felt she was poetic, she was nagging like a child.
But nothing amazed him like the way the MDT did. The memory of the walking dead girl in the virtual world of Zorm was still fresh in his mind.
Hao Ren petted Lily’s on her head and walked to the front of the group. “Be careful of the magma and steam. The sun has just set. Heat is still trapped underneath. Getting hit by the spouts would be as good as falling into a steel furnace.”
He was mainly talking to Lily and Vivian. He was not worried for Y’zaks and his daughter; after all, the two demons treated lava pool as their bath tube.
Vivian looked at the golden light at the horizon. She smacked herself on the cheeks. “I don’t like sunlight… especially the one on this planet,” she said.
“Battie, as a vampire, you are the alpha and the omega!” Lily was dancing back and forth around Vivian. “I mean normal vampires would be already half-dead under the sun, but amazingly you are standing here and falling with the planet into the sun. Now you can brag about that back home.”
Vivian waved her hand weakly as she did not want to bicker with Lily. “I just want to get things done and head home before the sun rises again.”
Hao Ren yanked out a palm-sized device, silvery crystal plate like a tablet computer. A hologram was showing a navigation map that the Petrachelys had rendered using its onboard radar. It was a disturbing image. The ground beneath their feet was not stable. It was a scum-like, high-melting point, and lightweight rock of only a few meters thick. There were a dozen magmatic flows underneath. The structure was not stable. It was fragile. Collapses and spouts could happen at any time.
“The crack is right ahead,” Hao Ren said, pointing to a black ‘hill’ several hundred meters ahead. “Radar shows there is an opening, shaft-like cave underneath. The existence of such a stable passage in this place was astounding. It’s probably not a naturally formed place.”
“The ground is soft,” Lily used her tail to balance herself. “I think it’s a magma lake below…”
The small expedition team trod very carefully on the scorched land with the guidance of the navigation map. It was worse than hell. It was not wholly dark on the dark side; the crust had not yet cooled down, cracks still glowed red inside while magma was flowing on the surface. New cracks were appearing from where high-pressure steam spouted like a fountain, some of which could even reach dozens of kilometers high in the air.
Lily clung to Hao Ren; hands grabbed his armed. She was scared of the steam spout. “Mr. Landlord, I will protect you!”
But her tail was between her legs. Hao Ren would have believed her if not the giveaway.
“Beware of the sudden cracks appearing,” Y’zaks warned. “I will lead in front.”
Yes, the planet was falling towards the sun, and the condition was worse than the demon world, but Y’zaks did not flinch; he was the strongest in the team. He went ahead of Hao Ren and walked in front of the team. Y’lisabet leaped to keep up with her papa. The papa and daughter were chattering, “Papa, isn’t the red hill in our hometown same as this one?””Not really. The one in our hometown is much cooler than this one…”
Y’lisabet trod a few steps ahead; the ground under her feet suddenly rose up. “Watch out!” Hao Ren called out.
But it was too late. The surface burst open as powerful steam spouted violently from into the air like a gas pillar. Y’lisabet had gone.
Lily screamed in shock. She looked up at the sky, but it was dark, she could see nothing. She became nervous. “Would she be okay?”
“She will be fine. Maybe suffering a little shock at most,” Y’zaks appeared very calm. He smiled as he squinted at the direction where his daughter was supposed to have gone. “While she is much much weaker than the other demons, this heat is not going to hurt her a bit. Oh, look! There she is—coming down.”
Before Y’zaks’ voice trailed off, the little toothy reappeared and was falling out of the sky. Y’lisabet was yelling through the comm. “Catch me! Catch me!”
They held their hands together forming a human safety net. But the little girl accurately fell outside the net.
“Ouch…” Y’lisabet dusted her butt and got to her feet. “Where were you guys looking at…?”
Hao Ren looked at the little demon, surprised. “Can’t you fly? Don’t higher demons fly?”
“I’m not a grown-up yet, no wings,” Y’lisabet jumped back up to her papa. “While in the air, I saw the entrance! Behind that hill!” she said.
With the help of the navigation map and Y’lisabet, they found the said fissure.
It was a neat, almost perfectly circular opening. A downward shaft was perpendicular to the ground, right in the center of a crater; from the look of it, something should have been covering the opening.
It could be an installation like a door, but it had long gone.
“It was burned beyond recognition. But I’m sure there used to be an artificial structure here,” Vivian said as she leaned forward and glanced down at the shaft. “I can see the ground underneath; it’s solid down there. Want to go down?”
“Like we have a choice,” Hao Ren quipped. “My shield is the toughest. I will go in first. Move on my signal.”
Vivian suddenly stopped Hao Ren as she summoned a tiny bat. “There may be danger down there. Let the bat check it out first…”
Before the bat could take off, it had withered and turned into a dried bat. Vivian quickly tucked it away embarrassingly.
“Sorry, I didn’t have a life-support collar for the bat,” Hao Ren smiled. He threw a probe with a camera into the shaft. It was clear. He leaped inside.
Hao Ren made a hard landing. The ground underneath was hot but still solid. He scanned the surroundings as he got to his feet. The place looked like a subway intersection.
He was right in the middle of an intersection where three dark tunnels met. The tubes might lead to somewhere.
He clicked the comm. “Clear. It looks like an underground bunker. We might have found the refuge.”
Everyone descended. Looking at the ever-extending tunnels of darkness, Lily was wide-eyed. “This place has not melted yet?”
“It looks unnatural. Look at these walls; it is high-tech metallurgy,” Hao Ren said, pointing at the walls that had blackened and twisted but were obviously of strong composite material. “But they are not going to hold up for long. The planet is falling apart and about reaching the tipping point. We need to be fast.”
Vivian frowned as she stared at the three tunnels. “Which way should we go? Or should we split up?”
“Don’t split up. There may be more forks ahead, we won’t be able to cover all them,” Hao Ren shook his head. “Radar shows that there are still more caves deeper underground, the refuge might be down here. As long as these tunnels are not blocked, they would be able to reach it. Let’s follow the navigation.”