I don't know how long it had passed.

In the dim cave, Yuan Ming struggled to open his eyes, feeling sour and painful, and subconsciously he wanted to rub them, but suddenly he felt an icy sensation around his neck.

"Don't move if you don't want to die." At this moment, a cold yet clear female voice rang out.

"Chen Wan... Senior Sister?" Yuan Ming called out hesitantly.

"I'll give you one chance to explain, what exactly is going on?" Chen Wan asked.

She still remembered chatting and eating barbecued meat with Kun Tu and others in the temple, and remembered she seemed very sleepy and had fallen asleep.

In her slumber, she seemed to have dreamt of fighting fierce beasts.

When she woke up, she found herself lying in the arms of the Fur Beast Slave, sleeping in this deep and dark cavern.

Yuan Ming blinked hard, his vision still blurry, and his head felt heavy.

"You were conspired against by Kun Tu and the others; they drugged the meat they gave you, and after you passed out, they tried to take advantage of you. I saved you," Yuan Ming organized his words and said.

"Why would you save me? We're neither relatives nor friends," Chen Wan obviously didn't believe him and moved the cold object in her hand slightly forward.

"They wanted to silence me as well; I had no other choice," Yuan Ming said.

Chen Wan frowned slightly upon hearing this.

She had always known that Kun Tu coveted her, and she had always been reluctant to be on the same team with him, but she had never thought that he would dare use such despicable methods against her.

"You're lying. Kun Tu can silence you, but can he also silence Ba Da and Yang Chan?" Chen Wan's expression was still icy, but her tone had relaxed slightly.

"Even an outsider like me can see that Yang Chan is jealous of you, and Ba Da covets you. They teamed up against you. Otherwise, where do you think the drug that knocked you out came from?" Yuan Ming scoffed and said.

Chen Wan's heart sank when she heard this.

"And the Fire Python that chased us in the caves later, do you think it was there to rescue you? It was aimed at silencing you," Yuan Ming continued to add.

Hearing this, Chen Wan quickly felt inside her sleeve, and finding that a Red Fire Bomb was indeed missing, she realized that it was not a dream but a real experience.

Despite being half-convinced of what Yuan Ming said, she still withdrew the dagger from behind Yuan Ming's neck.

Chen Wan rubbed her slightly sore brow, raised her hand, and a ball of firelight lit up in front of her.

The concentrated ball of fire hovered in mid-air, illuminating the surrounding darkness, and Yuan Ming could now see clearly that they were inside a huge Underground River cave.

The place was cold and damp all around, and from the ceiling above hung stalactites, dripping water with a "drip-drip" sound.

In front of him, Chen Wan in a red dress looked disheveled with dirt on her face and her clothes in disarray presenting a somewhat pitiful and vulnerable appearance that involuntarily provoked pity.

He only glanced at her once before hurriedly averting his gaze.

Chen Wan subconsciously tightened her clothes, but the outer garment torn by Kun Tu couldn't be restored.

Her gaze fell on Yuan Ming opposite her, and her brows furrowed slightly.

He was covered in scratches and bruises everywhere, although they were no longer bleeding but had dried into crusts. Still, they looked rather shocking.

"You're injured," Chen Wan said.

Yuan Ming then looked down at himself, noticing his clothes were worn through on his arms and legs, then turned to look over his shoulder.

As he moved, intense pain caused him to grimace.

A burning pain spread from his back, seemingly more severe than other injuries.

"Turn around, let me have a look," Chen Wan said upon seeing this.

Yuan Ming hesitated for a moment, but still turned his body, enduring the pain.

The moment Chen Wan saw Yuan Ming's back, her eyes widened in shock, and she couldn't help but cover her mouth.

The skin on his entire back was scorched black, and his shoulder blades were grotesquely exposed, indicating a very serious injury. Fоr а smооthеr rеаding еxpеriеnсе, visit

"How is he enduring such a severe injury?" Chen Wan couldn't help but wonder.

Looking at her own body, apart from disheveled clothes and some minor scrapes on her hands and feet, there were no other injuries, and she couldn't help thinking, "Did he sustain such severe injuries to protect me?"

Yuan Ming, unaware of her thoughts, asked doubtfully, "Are you done?"

"Your back is seriously burned and it's unlikely to heal quickly with just your body's energy. Don't move, let me... let me apply some medicine for you," Chen Wan suddenly came back to her senses, pausing slightly as she spoke.

"No need, I..." Yuan Ming instinctively wanted to refuse.

As he was about to turn back, he heard the stern voice from behind him say, "Don't move."

Yuan Ming was taken aback and really stopped moving.

Straight after, he heard the sound of a bottle stopper being pulled out from behind him, followed by a sharp burning pain on his spine that made him let out a low growl of pain.

"Er..."

Yuan Ming forcefully suppressed a low growl, the searing pain on his back lasted only three or four breaths before quickly turning into an oddly cold and refreshing sensation, which then began to feel slightly itchy.

He could feel the woman behind him moving carefully, sprinkling powder over each and every wound on his back.

At that moment, the fireball suspended midair suddenly extinguished, and Chen Wan's movements also stopped.

"The effect of the Jade Screen Powder is very fast, in at most half a day, your wounds will all have scabbed over, but it will still take three days for them to heal completely," Chen Wan's voice came through the darkness.

"Thank you," Yuan Ming expressed his gratitude.

He moved slightly and found the pain in his back had lessened a lot. He then pulled up the White Ape Beast Skin that was tied around his waist and draped it over his body.

In the darkness, neither of them spoke again, falling into silence for a time.

A moment later, Yuan Ming broke the silence and said, "We can't stay here for long. We need to find a way out."

As soon as he finished speaking, a fireball relit, whooshing upward and shooting into the high air, crashing against the dome of the underground cavern and sparking embers.

"Before you woke up, I had checked. We fell from a vertical shaft above, but the bend in the shaft has collapsed, making it impossible to return the way we came," Chen Wan said.

Yuan Ming looked up and struggled to his feet, stumbling a bit, and said, "Then we must find another way."

Afterward, he glanced around left and right.

"This place is a cave eroded by an underground river; during the flood season, it should be completely submerged by the river water. I've checked, and there are no exits on either side," Chen Wan sighed and said.

Upon hearing this, Yuan Ming walked forward about a dozen steps and indeed saw an Underground River stretched out in front, with gentle currents that gave no indication of its depth.

He reached out to touch it and felt a bone-chilling cold.

At this moment, Chen Wan also came over, glanced at it, and suddenly furrowed her brow, "The water level's risen, when I came to check earlier, the waterline hadn't reached here. How did it rise so much in just a short while?"

"Although it's not the flood season, the rain that fell yesterday was heavy, it's not surprising the water level in the Dark River would rise, just don't know by how much," Yuan Ming pondered.

With that, he walked back to the opposite stone wall and sized it up from top to bottom, his brows furrowing.

"What's wrong?" sensing something, Chen Wan asked.

"Look, there's a clear waterline mark on the stone wall, the upper part looks somewhat dry with moss growing on it, while the lower part is more moist and smooth, it seems this place has been frequently flooded recently," Yuan Ming said.

Chen Wan looked at the waterline about a yard high and her face involuntarily took on a slight change of color.

"If the water level continues to rise, it will flood this place sooner or later. We can't just sit and wait for death, we must find a way to escape," Yuan Ming continued.

"How can we escape, there's absolutely no way out here," Chen Wan said.

"If there's no way on land, we can take the underwater route, the Underground River will definitely have an exit," Yuan Ming looked at Chen Wan and said.

Chen Wan showed a troubled expression, hesitatingly said, "I... I can't swim."

"Then... I'll go down and explore the water first, you wait here for a moment," Yuan Ming was slightly taken aback before promptly saying.

After speaking, he removed the bronze longsword hanging from his waist and took off the White Ape Beast Skin he had donned, retrieving a black, rough-skinned Beast Skin from the torn clothes at his chest, and wrapped it around his body.

He walked to the river's edge, activated his Mana, and cast the Fur Cloak Technique.

Subsequently, the black Beast Skin wrapped around his body like a living creature, quickly covering all parts of his body and completing the transformation.

Now he was covered in black Beast Skin with large black bumps on his back that looked extremely tough, webbing grew between the fingers of his hands and toes as well, but his eyes drooped a lot.

The figure resembled that of a humanoid toad.

Chen Wan was startled by his sudden transformation and couldn't help but step back, distancing herself from him somewhat.

Yuan Ming moved his body, opened his mouth for a deep inhale, feeling a faint current of air in his chest, as if his abdominal cavity had expanded a lot. With a sudden push off the ground with his legs, he leapt up and plunged straight into the water.

A chilling cold engulfed him, causing Yuan Ming under the water to shiver involuntarily, and he quickly kicked his legs, diving underwater in a frog-like swim, moving with the flow of the river.

Splashes formed on the surface of the water, and soon calmed down, with Yuan Ming's figure disappearing.

Chen Wan stood on the shore, waiting silently.

However, time passed and there was no sign of activity from under the water, and Yuan Ming did not return.

Just then, a series of thunderous noises emanated from the cavern, rumbling, causing Chen Wan's heart to palpitate.

After the Fireball Technique extinguished, she immediately conjured another, illuminating her surroundings.

At that moment, she felt a sudden coolness at her feet, and looked down to find that the surface of the Dark River had risen again, seemingly faster than before.

Chen Wan hurriedly retreated, getting anxious and concerned in her heart.

But the more anxious she became, the more rapid the rumbling noises in the cavern grew, and the Dark River became turbulent in response.

Seeing the surging waves and the visibly faster flow of the Dark River, Chen Wan sensed something bad was about to happen, realizing that this was a sign of flash floods, and the water level would soon rise rapidly, submerging the entire cave.

But Yuan Ming had yet to reappear.