Chapter 3761: Little Bull
Chapter 3761: Little Bull
A few minutes later during the search, Xiao Yin suddenly paused in her tracks.
The black serpent raised her head and flicked her tongue several times, tasting the air carefully. A strange expression appeared in her eyes as she turned toward the distance.
"I found something." Xiao Yin spoke.
Lin Mu immediately stopped and looked at her.
"What is it?" he asked.
Xiao Yin flicked her tongue again before slowly slithering forward.
"A scent." She replied. "It’s very faint. I can’t tell exactly what it is, but it’s different from everything else down here."
Hearing that, Lin Mu’s interest was piqued. The bottom of the ravine had appeared utterly barren thus far. Other than a few scattered shrubs and patches of moss clinging stubbornly to the rocks, there was little of note. Finding any clue at all was already a pleasant surprise.
The group followed Xiao Yin as she tracked the scent. Since the traces were incredibly weak, she had to stop repeatedly to confirm the direction. Several times she nearly lost it entirely before finding another faint trace and continuing onward.
A few minutes later, they finally arrived at a strange location.
The ground ahead suddenly dipped inward.
Lin Mu looked down and found a crater.
It was roughly five meters wide and several meters deep. The edges were uneven and jagged, as if something had struck the ground with tremendous force.
Xiao Yang tilted his head.
"A rock fell from above?" he guessed.
Lin Mu looked upward.
The ravine walls towered high overhead, stretching into darkness so distant that even his eyes could barely make out a ledge halfway to the top. It certainly seemed possible that a large boulder had broken loose and fallen all the way down.
Yet something felt wrong.
’If a rock had fallen, where was it?’ Lin Mu wondered.
He examined the crater carefully and found no fragments. There were no shattered stones, no debris, and no obvious remains of whatever might have created the impact. The crater simply existed.
His brows furrowed.
"Let’s keep looking."
The twins nodded and continued searching.
Before long they found another crater.
Then another.
And another.
The farther they traveled, the more craters they discovered scattered across the floor of the ravine. Some were shallow depressions while others were considerably deeper. They varied in size and shape, yet all appeared strangely similar.
The scent Xiao Yin had detected lingered around every single one.
Now even Lin Mu found the situation odd.
"There are too many." Xiao Yang muttered.
Lin Mu agreed.
A single impact could be explained away. Several dozen scattered across the area were an entirely different matter. Eventually they arrived before the largest crater yet. It was nearly ten meters deep.
The surrounding earth had been compressed so heavily that the rock itself appeared fractured.
Xiao Yin stopped beside it and flicked her tongue repeatedly.
"The scent is strongest here." She said. "Whatever left it spent a lot of time around these craters."
Lin Mu crouched near the edge while studying the marks.
The more he looked, the more familiar they appeared.
A realization slowly formed in his mind.
These did not resemble the impact marks of falling rocks. They looked more like the aftermath of repeated landings. As if something had fallen from above again and again. Lin Mu slowly stood before extending his immortal sense upward.
This time he focused entirely on the ravine walls.
A moment later his eyes narrowed.
"There."
He had found something.
Several irregular openings could be seen high above.
At first glance they appeared to be natural alcoves carved into the cliff face by wind and erosion.
Yet the closer Lin Mu inspected them, the stranger they seemed. Their shapes were wrong, the walls were too smooth and the edges possessed patterns that did not resemble natural weathering.
Instead they looked familiar... Very familiar.
Lin Mu had personally created countless similar marks before.
"They aren’t natural." Lin Mu spoke quietly.
The twins looked at him curiously.
"What are they?" Xiao Yang asked.
Lin Mu pointed upward. "Someone made them."
The twins blinked. "Someone?"
Lin Mu nodded.
"They look like handholds."
His gaze sharpened.
"Someone punched into the cliff wall to create them."
Lin Mu had made such caves and handholds many times before, and so had Cattaleya. Most notably during their search for Mantleheim as they hid between the fragments of the world where it was located.
The realization caused all three of them to pause. If that was true, then someone had repeatedly attempted to climb out of the ravine. Lin Mu’s eyes drifted back toward the countless craters below.
Then he looked up at the endless cliff face stretching tens of kilometers toward the distant sky.
A picture was slowly beginning to form in his mind.
Someone had fallen into the ravine and somehow survived the fall. Then they had tried to climb out but failed. They tried again, and again and again. Each failed attempt had ended with another impact against the ravine floor.
The craters were not random.
They were evidence of countless falls.
"Let’s continue." Lin Mu said.
His figure rose into the air as he began following the trail of alcoves upward. The twins hurried after him as one alcove after another passed by them. Some were shallow, while others were deeper.
Yet all of them bore traces of tremendous physical force.
Whoever had created them possessed astonishing strength. Perhaps not on the level of Cattaleya or a body cultivator at the Immortal realm, but someone far too strong to be a common mortal.
Several minutes later, Lin Mu finally stopped.
Among the many alcoves he found one that differed from the others. It was larger and deeper. But unlike the rest, it was actually a cave. The opening extended several meters into the cliff face before ending in a small chamber.
Lin Mu’s immortal sense swept through it.
Then he froze.
The twins noticed his reaction immediately.
"Master?" Xiao Yin asked.
Lin Mu stared silently into the darkness.
Inside the cave lay a motionless figure, a corpse.
And when Lin Mu looked at the corpses face, he realized who it was.
"Little Bull?"