# 356
**Chapter 356 – Rift in the Earth**
A letter?
I believe your ghost!!
Li Deyang tore his gaze away from the corpses strewn across the ground and looked Lin Qiye in the eye, taking a deep breath. “You’re Night Watch too?”
Lin Qiye gave a helpless shrug. “Yes.”
“Which unit?”
“No unit.”
“……”
Li Deyang stared at Lin Qiye, as if trying to read something in his eyes, then shook his head firmly. “Impossible. Every Night Watch has a unit code—even the special teams have their own numbers.”
Lin Qiye wore the expression of someone who’d expected this. He waved a hand in resignation.
“We just don’t. Believe it or not, we really are Night Watch. We’re here to solve the giant-ant mystery for your Team 332.”
Li Deyang froze.
The fact that Lin Qiye could rattle off their obscure unit number stunned him—few people knew it. Still, that alone didn’t prove anything, yet inwardly he was already half-convinced.
Lin Qiye didn’t waste more words. He walked straight to the hill of corpses Mu Mu and A Zhu had piled up.
Ever since the Cangnan incident he hadn’t used dimensional-summon magic; locked in the Purification Chamber, he’d had no sacrificial materials. Until now, Mu Mu had remained his only summon.
With a windfall of “River”-level ant corpses, he meant to seize the chance and contract a new creature.
After sending Mu Mu and A Zhu back, he crouched, dipped a leaf in ant blood, and began drawing a huge dimensional array around the mound.
An Qingyu, Baili Pangpang, Cao Yuan and Li Deyang watched, puzzled.
“Hey, Old Cao, what’s Qiye doing?” Baili Pangpang whispered.
Cao Yuan frowned. “Looks like some kind of formation.”
“Since when does Qiye know this stuff?”
Cao Yuan glanced at him. “That’s why they call him a freak.”
An Qingyu stood silently, grey light flickering in his eyes as he analyzed the array. His brows knit tighter, yet his gaze grew brighter.
Li Deyang’s mind raced. The eerie scene looked to him like some dark sacrificial rite; he began to suspect these four were Believers or Church of the Ancient Gods impostors.
A few minutes later Lin Qiye tossed the leaf aside and surveyed the finished circle—every line intersected perfectly, a huge geometric mandala.
“Good enough.” He bit his finger, smeared blood on one corner, then fed spiritual power into each node. The green-blood pattern began to glow.
Standing within the light, Lin Qiye closed his eyes and reached across dimensions…
Ten minutes later the glow faded and the ant-mound had vanished.
He opened his eyes, delighted.
Contract complete!
He scuffed the remaining lines with his foot so no future hiker would turn it into another demon-cult forest legend.
Gear repacked, they followed the soldier-ant’s directions. Accepting their strength, Li Deyang stopped resisting and tagged along, curious about their real goal.
Ahead, the vast fog-border loomed larger.
Since entering the forest they had pressed toward the depths—toward Great Xia’s frontier—and now stood at the edge of the mist. Up close the fog’s oppressive weight dwarfed them.
“We’re here.” Guided by the ant, Lin Qiye halted before a crack in the earth.
A long fissure ran along the fog-border for several kilometers, only two or three meters wide, yet its walls plunged into black nothingness.
Lin Qiye crouched and shone a torch downward—no bottom visible, only abyssal dark.
“Never heard of a rift like this,” Li Deyang muttered.
An Qingyu adjusted his glasses, studying the walls. “Soil analysis says it formed within the last two years. Doesn’t look like natural tectonics.”
“Not natural?” Lin Qiye pondered. “Whatever the cause, the ant’s reaction points down there. Terrain’s narrow—could favor them. Stay sharp.”
Baili Pangpang pulled out rappelling gear; he and Cao Yuan set anchors—child’s play after training-camp drills. An Qingyu needed no rope; lizard genes let him climb vertical stone faster than they could descend.
Lin Qiye turned to Li Deyang. “Wait up here.”
Li Deyang frowned. “I’m coming.”
“You’re too weak. If we fight we can’t cover you.”
Li Deyang’s face stiffened, but he shook his head stubbornly. “I’m still a Night Watch captain. My Forbidden Ruins shine in tight quarters like this.”