"Are you spacing out?" Jill Young yelled in my ear. "Push, now!"
Max Easton snapped to attention and turned around, seeing Jill Young pointing at a massive slab of rock. The slab was a bit of a distance from the Magnetite Cliff, but it was easily the biggest one in the area.
"You mean..." Max looked at the slab, then at Jill Young, eyes wide in disbelief. "Are you saying we should..."
"Quit wasting time!" Jill Young kicked the edge of the slab, making it tremble as the smaller stones around it slid away. "Push! Put your back into it! We need to get this slab moving and surf across!"
Watching Jill Young bend down and push with all her strength, Max Easton gritted his teeth, grabbed the other side of the slab, muscles bulging as he pushed.
The red ant swarm was getting closer, and the slab felt as heavy as a car with the handbrake on. Jill Young was way stronger than Max Easton, so the slab started to twist and slide, but it was tough to move forward.
"Put your back into it!" Jill Young yelled, totally exasperated.
"Damn it, move forward!" Max Easton shouted, using every ounce of strength, his bones cracking loudly.
The red ant tide was closing in fast.
Twenty meters to go—the slab finally started to move!
Fifteen meters—the slab began to move forward, knocking aside the smaller rocks blocking its path.
Ten meters—the slab picked up speed, crunching forward like an icebreaker smashing through the Arctic ice.
Five meters—the surrounding slabs grew smaller and smaller, leaving almost nowhere to step.
Stumbling and straining, Jill Young gritted her teeth while Max Easton's face flushed. With one final push, the massive slab slid off the Magnetite Cliff like a ship leaving port. Behind them, the red carnivorous ants crowded together, so many that some were pushed off the slabs, falling like a crimson waterfall.
Ants can't scream, but Max Easton could almost hear their vicious, frustrated screeches.
Watching the surging red edge, Jill Young and Max Easton exchanged glances and both let out a sigh, collapsing exhausted onto the rock.
Jill Young pulled out a fruit and ate it in a few bites. The effort of pushing the slab had sent her blood surging, giving her a slight breakthrough in the Titan Spirit Method.
"You know, I think I could become a novelist someday," Max Easton chuckled. "Underground spaces, ancient worlds, wolves, sheep, leopards, oceans, monster fish, Thunderneck Leviathan, storms, and man-eating flowers—plus these floating rocks. I have to write my story down. Damn, I'll be the king of the novel world!"
"Let's talk about that after we survive," Jill Young said, checking their direction and pulling a crossbow bolt from her Pocket Vault. "You didn't push hard enough before, so our course is a bit off."
Jill Young tied a rope to the bolt and fired it. She wasn't great with bows, but anything with a trigger she could handle. The bolt landed solidly in the dirt on the opposite cliff, and Max Easton tugged the rope, panting as he corrected their course.
The soil on the opposite cliff was loose, so the bolts kept pulling free. Jill Young had to fire again and again. On her last shot, the crossbow broke with a snap and couldn't be used anymore.
"This is what they call quality? This is what they call good for forest hunting? It's only been a few days!" Jill Young cursed the swindler. After some effort, the slab's course was corrected. Ten minutes later, they landed on the opposite side and headed toward the light.
As they moved forward, the green-lit magnetite cave ended, and the two crawled into a tunnel about the size of the previous bug hole. This tunnel was short and bug-free. Soon, a burst of light greeted them as they emerged from the cave.
Shielding his eyes from the blazing light, Max Easton finally looked up. He'd seen plenty on this journey, but the sight before him left him speechless, like he'd just seen God.
After a long moment, his eyes finally moved. He took a huge, shuddering breath and then screamed at the top of his lungs: "Ahhh—!!"
"What are you screaming about?" Jill Young slapped the back of his head.
"Look, look!" Max Easton stammered, glancing between Jill Young and the scene ahead, like a spring-loaded toy. "I can't be dreaming, right? No way I could see something like this. I must be asleep, right? If I pinch myself, it shouldn't hurt?" As he spoke, Max reached to pinch Jill Young's cheek.
Jill Young frowned and kicked Max Easton, sending him rolling down the dirt slope. Max landed with a thud, clutching his aching back. "Still not gentle, and it hurts. Guess I'm not dreaming. But," he said, shaking his head in disbelief, "it's still incredible, just incredible!"
What they saw, glittering in the blazing light, was a gigantic Sunspire Pyramid!
Not the Egyptian kind, but a South American step-pyramid. Four sloping sides, a steep staircase in front. From Jill Young and Max Easton's angle, the Sunspire Pyramid looked mysterious and solemn, radiating an ancient aura.
"Enough with the drama, get up." For Jill Young, a pyramid—or even a spaceship—was no big deal. She checked the temperature and frowned: "It's getting hotter, probably forty degrees now. If we don't find a way out soon, we'll suffocate before this place collapses."
"No, no, how can you say that? Don't you realize what this pyramid means?" Max Easton jumped up, eyes blazing. "This is an incredible wonder!"
He babbled, gesturing wildly. "This space formed in ancient times, with Thunderneck Leviathan, so it's probably the Cretaceous, or Jurassic, maybe even Triassic! That's hundreds of millions of years! And humans? Even tracing back to apes, it's only a few million years. Millions versus hundreds of millions—it's unimaginable!"
"But look at this Sunspire Pyramid—it's been here all along!" Max Easton ran up the steps, touching the carvings and reliefs. "No way bugs built this! The stairs are sized just for me!"
Jill Young followed up the steps. After ages, the stone surface had turned sandy, and each heavy step left a shallow print.
Max Easton paced nervously, muttering like a student who can't answer a test. "How did this Sunspire Pyramid get here? Ancient apes living here, evolving into humans and building a civilization like the Maya?—Impossible! Ancient people randomly ended up here and built a pyramid?—Nonsense! Or a geological event sent a surface pyramid underground and merged it with the ancient space?—Ridiculous! None of it makes sense!"
"Maybe aliens, or a super ancient civilization?" Jill Young chimed in. "Didn't someone say they found a 400-million-year-old human footprint fossil?"
"Yeah, a super ancient civilization!" At the top, Max Easton dashed inside the Sunspire Pyramid, yelling, "If I take a statue, a tile, even a brick from here, I'll win a Nobel Prize! Nobel Prize—ah!!"
Hearing the scream from inside, Jill Young rushed over. "What happened?" she shouted.
A d-dead body! Max Easton stared, pointing inside. "There's a dead body in there!" (Can you guess who died?)