2343 Refugees Below the Ground

Li Yao quickly rose and said solemnly, “I’m going to take a good at what her so-called ‘beliefs’ are!”

Led by Li Jialing, Li Yao pushed the door and went out. It was not until then that he discovered he had been in the middle of a stalagmite that was as thick as a tree.

The stalagmite was at least twenty meters in diameter. Many caves and rooms had been dug out in the middle. There wasn’t even a flight of helical stairs outside that could be used to move from inside the tree to the ground.

Looking downward from the stairs, Li Yao noticed that he was at least dozens of meters away from the ground. But due to the hazy mist on the ground, it was impossible to tell the accurate height.

There naturally could not be mist in an underground world. Li Jialing told Li Yao that they were the powder from the fungi. The bizarre-looking fungi, mushrooms, and wriggling mosses were the main plants in the underground world.

Raising his head and looking above, on the top of the rocks that were about hundreds of meters high, dozens of small suns were hanging lethargically. Li Yao estimated that they were some sort of manmade illumination rune arrays that could output light steadily. But even the best steadiness would’ve been worn out after thousands of years. Right now, those “small suns” seemed to have been riddled with holes because of the bites of worms. Not only was their light little to none, but there were also mottled spots on the surface, making them look like glistening pies that had gone moldy.

Under the illumination of the dim light, and enshrouded in the flying powder of the fungi, the entire 10,084th district was drowned in a vague, ever-rolling mist, which further added to its mysteriousness.

The construction of the underground town was even more unrestrained and creative than the cities on the surface of the planet. Right next to every stalactite was a tunnel, expanding the traces of the civilization in the middle of the rocks wherever possible. Like vines that were spreading out as much as they could, they occupied all the available spaces.

The magnificent stone pillar that Li Yao was on had at least dozens of peers standing nearby. They constituted the main body of the town.

The stone pillars were connected by thick chains.

Li Yao saw that many locals, who were in gray capes, were riding a certain enormous, two-legged lizard, whose skin was dark red, while they bounced agilely among the chains. The claws of those two-legged lizards were similar to the claws of the birds, allowing them to grasp the chains easily or even to hang themselves on the chains and swing forward for dozens of meters. It was not unusual for them to jump from one stone pillar to another one with only a few swings.

As the people moved between the stone pillars, the chains were shaken by the Red Lizards nonstop in clinking noises, which, together with the oinks that were coming over from all directions, made up the main sound of the 10,084th district.

Li Jialing told Li Yao that the Red Lizards were likely to be the products of genetic modifications. Although they seemed hideous and aggressive, they were actually more docile than cows and horses, and they were the best help for the locals to move around.

As for the oinks that were coming over from all directions, that was the rock worms devouring their food. This was a town that lived on husbandry, and raising rock worms was the livelihood for most people. Rock worms, in fact, did not look like worms but were fair and fat creatures like piglets. They were also animals that had been genetically refined. Their digestion system had been particularly strengthened, allowing them to feed on rocks, mosses, and fungi. They could absorb the nutrition of the lousy fodder as much as possible and transform it into fat and proteins edible for human beings. Therefore, they were the main food that was very popular in the underground world.

Around this tectonic belt, the five-digit towns such as the 10,084th district mostly regarded raising rock worms as their main business. Most of the rock worms were not eaten by themselves but shipped to the four-digit towns up above in exchange for energy and other industrial products so that the residents who had been forgotten by the surface of the planet could keep the last spark of civilization shining.

Li Yao roamed in the town and observed the stalagmite, the chains, and the streets in great detail. He felt that the town, which seemed medieval, was filled with contradictions.

The stone pillar that he came from was not a natural product. It seemed that a very developed civilization erected hollow iron cylinders below the ground first and then piled materials, such as liquid metals or concretes, on them. That was the only way to ensure that the “stone pillars” that were dozens of meters wide and hundreds of meters tall had enough hardness.

Besides the rugged streets and tunnels, cutting the mosses and vines layer by layer, Li Yao could see the wires that had been carefully arranged to connect all the stone pillars. It should be some sort of large system of the Spiritual Nexus, but Li Yao could tell that it had been abandoned for a long time because he could not sense the least reaction of spiritual energy from the dense wires.

In many places, after ripping off the mosses, Li Yao could see the rusty metal wall, and after Li Yao erased the rust with great efforts, he saw the surface that was as smooth as a mirror, the seams that were as thin as hair, and square, huge words.

Some of the words were warnings, such as “Rune Array Inside. Do Not Enter”. Some were the designations of troops, such as “The 33rd Legion of Production and Construction”. Even more words had already been entirely corroded. Li Yao’s slightest breath had turned them into powder, dispersing everywhere.

Narrowing his eyes, Li Yao found the longest seam and scratched it with his index finger from up to down. He felt that it was smooth without the least hindrance. Had he not been sensing it carefully, he could have barely noticed the seam.

The seam joined two iron plates that were at least dozens of square meters. After years of thermal reactions, stress changes, and tectonic movements, they were still so flawless. It was indicative enough of how developed the civilization that built the town was at the beginning.

“This place must’ve been a very advanced underground shelter at first, right?”

Li Yao slapped off the mosses and mud in his hands and continued to observe the structure. The 10,084th district was brimming with a sense of contradiction. It felt like a tunnel of time that had jumbled the entirely opposite features—advanced and underdeveloped, civilizational and primitive, artificial and natural—into the same place.

Perhaps the seemingly messy “vines” were actually the most advanced energy wires in the past. What appeared to be stalactites were the defense rune arrays that had been dusted for a long time. The super crystal processors that used to control the entire underground shelter had only an empty shell left after thousands of years, and they were now kicked by the naughty kids who had forgotten the glories of the past as footballs.

“Probably.”

Li Jialing said, “Sister Long’s theory is similar to Brother Yao’s. A long, long time ago, this place was indeed a very advanced shelter or an underground base.”

Li Yao curled his finger and knocked on the iron plate. Listening to the heavy echo, he asked, “Then, how did it become like this?”

Li Jialing said, “Sister Long gave me two examples. The first example is the tectonic faults. As time goes by, the more ancient a creature or a civilization is, the more likely it will be to be buried by mud and fall to the depths of the ground.

“If the planet is cut open, revealing the faults that look like different layers of a cake, it will be easy to notice that the fossils in the upper layers are of recent ages and those buried deep represent ancient creatures and civilizations.”

Li Yao nodded his head. “It’s very easy to understand. What else?”

“Then, there is the ocean.”

Li Jialing said, “The immeasurable ocean is itself a cubic ecological circle from top to down according to the sunlight, temperature, saltiness, density, and pressure. In fact, the ecological systems in different layers are independent of each other. The fish living in the shallow water will perhaps never submerge to the bottom of the ocean thousands of meters deep for their entire life, and the gigantic squids living thousands of meters deep never long for the warmth of the sunlight either. Although they are all aquatic creatures, the upper level and the lower level are already two independent worlds that never get in touch with each other.”

Li Yao asked, “What do the two examples suggest?”

“According to Sister Long, different classes have, in fact, been branched gradually during the hundred thousand years of mankind’s civilization. Human beings living in different levels are like fossils formed in different ages or ocean creatures living at different depths. They are already people of different worlds. Even if they are not classified as ‘true human beings’ or ‘hominoids’, their differences cannot be overlooked. Ignoring it will not solve the problem.”

Li Jialing said, “Ever since the age of the ancient Cultivators forty thousand years ago, the strong have never stopped exploiting the weak for one day or even for one second. The weak who could not resist the strong could only escape.

“Some of the weak people ran to the rugged and barren mountains, and some went to the underground world and escaped even deeper as the strong laid their hands into the underground world.

“At first, the escape was scattered, spontaneous, and unorganized.

“Forty thousand years ago, at the beginning of the Great Dark Age, when demons took over the leadership of the universe and replaced the human beings, the human beings who did not want to accede to the demons’ reign were the first main force to immigrate to the underground world.

“Ten thousand years ago, when the demons’ tyranny was overthrown, human beings launched the bloody, revengeful slaughters against the demons. Filled with the hatred and fury that had been accumulated for thirty thousand years, they swore to kill every last demon in the universe. Therefore, a second massive escape to the underground world began, except that the runners this time were demons.

“Good days did not last. When the Star Ocean Imperium established by human beings had only endured a thousand years, it was already faced with the cruelest civil war that almost consumed every Sector. The human beings who used to fight against demons together in the past went against each other and became sworn enemies. Then, the third massive escape came.

“The ten thousand years that followed were the bloody years of chaotic battles in the universe. A critical place like the Empyreal Terminus Sector was certainly a center of the battles that the generals fought over. It was not strange at all that the people who lost their homes escaped to the underground world.

“The refugees, generations after generations, are the main part of the underground residents, who regard the shelters, military bases, and magical equipment warehouses built by different species and different forces of various ages as their new homes. This is exactly the origin of most of the underground towns.

“Naturally, the residents who escape to the underground world later always live on the shallower parts, and those who escaped here earlier, would naturally be pushed by the latecomers and could only go down even further and gradually sink into the depths of the planet, such as this town here.”

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