# 193
**Chapter 193: The Earth Dragon Turns**
In the dim, chaotic jungle, a figure sprinted while carrying a small mummy on his back.
Not far behind him, a storm of silver mist and blades was rapidly closing in. Zhuang Qi, going all out, was like an unstoppable sweeper—wherever he passed, not a blade of grass remained.
Under the pursuit of such a top-tier tracker and a River Realm expert, Lin Qiye had almost no chance of escaping his hunting range.
At the same time, in the jungle not far to Lin Qiye’s flank, the shadows of trees were swaying violently, as if something was rapidly approaching.
A second River Realm expert!
Lin Qiye sensed the overwhelming killing intent from the side, and his heart sank. If it were just one River Realm tracker, he could still rely on [Starry Night Dancer], [Umbral God’s Ruins], and the little mummy to hold his ground. But if two appeared at once… he had almost no chance of survival.
“Mumu!”
Lin Qiye shouted, and the little mummy instantly understood. It twisted around and fired two rockets toward the enemy approaching from the side.
Boom—!!
A burst of flames bloomed nearby. In the blinding light, a silver figure emerged unscathed from the inferno, leaping between the trees like a beast. It suddenly lunged, its fingers extending into ten sharp blades, slashing toward Lin Qiye!
Lin Qiye’s right hand, resting on the hilt of his blade, suddenly tightened, and a sharp glint flashed in his eyes!
Clang—!!
A Straight Blade was drawn. He spun around mid-run and slashed directly at the silver beast’s claws!
At the same time, the little mummy didn’t idle. Its body rapidly grew a meter taller, flipping Lin Qiye onto its back and continuing to run forward along his original path.
Clang—!
On the mummy’s back, blade and claw collided violently. The kinetic force of the silver beast was transmitted through its claws to Lin Qiye and the mummy, sending them flying!
The little mummy flailed its hands in the air, then landed headfirst with a thud. It dazedly got up, just in time for Lin Qiye to flip gracefully through the air like a butterfly and land steadily on the ground.
He scooped up the still-dazed mummy and resumed sprinting.
The hand gripping the Straight Blade was slightly numb. That silver beast’s strength was terrifying. Even with the boost from [Starry Night Dancer], he was far inferior in raw power.
“A Forbidden Ruins that transforms the body into metal and allows free shape-shifting?” Lin Qiye recalled the scene of the metal beast smashing through the rockets and its hands morphing into blades, forming a preliminary hypothesis.
If the enemy could turn into metal, then Mumu’s firepower suppression would be nearly useless. The two pursuers behind him—one specialized in mist-blade slaughter, the other in solo combat—complemented each other almost perfectly, with no obvious weaknesses.
As Instructor Hong had said, these weren’t the weakened River Realm mysteries from training exercises. These were real, full-strength River Realm experts! Only now did Lin Qiye truly understand the massive gap between the Pond Realm and the River Realm.
And there were two of them!
Looks like I’ll have to ask Nyx in the asylum for help…
Just as Lin Qiye was about to project his consciousness into the psychiatric hospital, the earth suddenly began to violently shake. Lin Qiye skidded to a halt, and behind him, Zhuang Qi and the silver beast did the same.
“An earthquake?” Zhuang Qi exclaimed in surprise.
It wasn’t that he had never seen an earthquake, but the intensity of this one was simply too great…
Under the stunned gazes of the three, the nearby mountain began to tilt dramatically, as if it were about to topple over entirely. Massive boulders tumbled down like meteors, crashing into the surrounding ground.
Not just that one—every mountain, forest, and stream in the area began to tilt, more and more steeply!
The peak Lin Qiye stood on was no exception.
“What the hell!?” Zhuang Qi’s swirling mist of blades re-condensed into a hunting knife. He grabbed a nearby tree with one hand, staring in shock.
Lin Qiye, carrying the little mummy, nimbly leapt onto a nearly vertical tree trunk and looked up. A strange, flame-red hue was spreading across the sky…
The scene before them was simply too bizarre—it was as if half of Mount Jinnan had flipped upside down!
This was no mere earthquake!
Just as that thought flashed through Lin Qiye’s mind, the surroundings suddenly went dark. Gravity seemed to malfunction, shifting in every direction.
Then came a powerful sensation of weightlessness!
Lin Qiye and Mumu tumbled from the tree trunk, plummeting rapidly through the darkness. At some point, the scorching air turned cool, as if they had entered an entirely different world.
Amid the disorientation, gravity returned. Lin Qiye swiftly adjusted his posture mid-air, and the mummy in his arms rapidly expanded, wrapping him in a protective embrace.
Thud—!!
After more than ten seconds of falling, they finally hit the ground. The mummy’s huge form landed with a tremendous crash, but Lin Qiye inside was completely unharmed.
The mummy quickly shrank, rolled on the ground, sprang up, and excitedly gestured at Lin Qiye.
“This isn’t an amusement-park roller coaster. No second ride for you…” Lin Qiye said helplessly.
In the darkness, Lin Qiye extended his mental perception to its limit, carefully sensing the surroundings.
“An underground cavern?” He frowned.
He sent his mental power upward, trying to confirm whether they were underground. Even at its maximum range of a hundred meters, all he sensed was endless layers of soil…
We’re more than a hundred meters below the surface? How did that happen?
Lin Qiye clearly remembered the bizarre scene before the fall—the earth flipping, gravity going haywire… but how had they ended up in this strange underground cavern?
Was this still Mount Jinnan?
Suppressing his doubts, Lin Qiye hesitated for a moment, then chose not to explore immediately. Instead, he projected his consciousness into the psychiatric hospital in his mind…
…
“East Wind!”
“One-Bamboo.”
“Three-Bamboo.”
“Pon… Pon!”
Lin Qiye walked into the activity room to see Nyx, Merlin, Li Yifei, and A Zhu seated around a square table covered in mahjong tiles, while the Rubik’s Cube quietly shuffled another set off to the side.
A Zhu, clutching a Three-Bamboo tile, asked timidly, “C-can I pon?”