Darkness. Tight, absolute, and suffocating. The roars of the Alpha were a distant, angry ghost behind him, swallowed by tons of solid rock. For a moment, the only sound in the universe was the frantic hammering of his own heart and his own ragged, desperate breathing.
He was alive. Somehow.
He leaned his full weight against the cold, damp wall of the fissure, his legs trembling as the adrenaline began to recede, leaving a profound, bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. He took in shuddering gulps of the thin, dusty air. The corrupted egg in his arms felt like a lead weight, a trophy from a battle that was terrifyingly incomplete. The Rock Vole, pressed close to his side in the narrow space, let out a low, worried chirp.
"I'm okay, little guy," Lin Ke whispered, his voice hoarse. "We're okay."
He flicked on his flashlight, the beam a pathetic little sword against the oppressive dark. The passage was just as he'd hoped: too narrow for the monster to follow. The only way out was forward. Or rather, down. This wasn't just a crack; it was the gullet of the mountain, and he had no choice but to let it swallow him whole.
"Well," he said with a grimace, a sliver of his usual dry resolve returning. "Let's see where this rabbit hole goes."
He secured the precious egg in his pack, cushioning it with a care usually reserved for a newborn. With the Rock Vole leading the way, its small form a comfort in the oppressive dark, they began their claustrophobic descent. It was a nightmare of twisting, turning tunnels, the rock scraping at his shoulders and pack, the sense of the mountain's immense weight pressing in on him. The warm, humid Jamaican night he'd left behind felt like a distant, impossible paradise.
After what felt like a lifetime of being buried alive, something changed. The air, which had been stale and musty, now tasted clean and cool. It smelled of petrichor—the scent of rain on dry earth. The Gene Editor, which had been silent, suddenly pinged. The oppressive, corrupt "static" that had filled his senses vanished, replaced by a pure, powerful energy signature that felt startlingly familiar. His mind made the connection in a flash—it was a 92% match for the Earth Gene Essence he had used to heal his Rock Vole. What is that doing down here? The exhaustion that had been creeping into his bones was burned away by a surge of pure, scientific curiosity. "Faster, little guy," he urged.
The downward slope finally leveled out, and the narrow tunnel opened abruptly into a vast, hidden space. Lin Ke stepped out of the fissure and simply stopped, his breath catching in his throat. His flashlight beam played across a scene of such breathtaking, subterranean beauty that it felt like a hallucination.
He was standing in a massive grotto. The ceiling soared a hundred feet above him, a glittering cathedral of crystal-like stalactites. The air was cool and pure. A small, serene pool of crystal-clear water sat in the center of the cavern, fed by a tiny waterfall that trickled down the far wall, its gentle sound a serene music in the profound silence. The entire cavern was lit by a soft, ethereal green glow, emanating from clusters of phosphorescent moss that grew in vibrant patches around the pool.
And jutting out from the earth among the moss, like perfectly formed sculptures, were dozens of glowing, amber-colored crystals. They pulsed with a gentle, steady light, the source of the pure, earthy energy his Editor had detected.
He didn't need to guess. As his light hit them, the Gene Editor's interface was already displaying the analysis in brilliant, golden overlays. He saw their crystalline structure, the potent, stable energy they radiated, and an intuitive download of knowledge flooded his mind. Target Identified: Earthheart Crystal. A rare, naturally formed concentration of pure Earth-attribute genetic energy. A Grade-B material used in high-level gene repair and as a primary catalyst for the evolution of elite Rock-type battle pets.
Lin Ke let out a long, slow breath of pure, unadulterated astonishment.
He had run for his life from a corrupted monster. He had been buried alive inside a mountain. And he had, completely by accident, stumbled into a treasure trove. He came to the Blackstone Wilderness to hunt for a poison to awaken one pet, and instead, he'd found a secret garden of evolution for his other. This one hidden grotto held more potential value than all his championship prize money combined.
He started to laugh. It was a quiet, giddy, half-hysterical sound that echoed in the beautiful, impossible cavern. The perilous journey had just paid out beyond his wildest dreams. But as the laughter subsided, a sobering thought cut through the elation. He had found paradise, but he was still trapped. The only way he knew how to get out was the way he came in, and the dragon was still waiting upstairs.