This Big Wolf really deserves his reputation as a professional explorer—his skills in underground exploration leave Max Easton in the dust. In his diary, he kept detailed notes on the surrounding terrain and landscape. Most importantly, he seems to have discovered a way out of here.
"Look, it says here: if you head east from the Sunspire Pyramid, you'll hit a stretch of sand dunes. Go further east, there's a fissure, and inside that fissure runs an underground river. Follow the river for a few hundred meters and you'll reach..." Max Easton looked up, his face lighting up with excitement: "A volcanic conduit! That's our ticket out!"
"A volcanic conduit? Like the one you fell down?" Jill Young frowned. "Isn't that still a two-thousand-kilometer climb?"
"No, no, no, not at all! He wrote down an escape method—there's a hidden river in the rock layers near the volcanic conduit. If we divert the river water into the conduit and let it meet the magma, the water will instantly vaporize and create a massive updraft. We can ride that updraft straight to the surface!" Max Easton slapped the diary excitedly. "Big Wolf really was a genius!"
"Really?" Jill Young pointed at the corpse in the hall. "Then why is this genius now a dried-up mummy?"
"Because he didn't have erupting volcanic magma back then, but we do!" Max Easton was practically dancing with joy. "We're smack in the middle of a world-shattering geological shift, but that also means we've got the only chance to escape! He got here first and had to sit on his gold and wait to die, but we can take everything and return to the world above. That's what I call good timing! We're the real lucky ones! Let's go, let's go, let's move out!"
With that, Max Easton eagerly hefted the golden orb on his chest and got ready to leave. Jill Young finished off the last fruit, wiped her mouth, and pointed at Big Wolf's dried corpse. "The guy did help us out—should we bury him or something?"
"He's just a dead guy, leave him be, let him rot out here. Let's go!" Max Easton was already getting carried away with excitement.
"Where I come from, you'd better watch out—he might just crawl up and strangle you." Jill Young grabbed Big Wolf's leg and tossed his corpse onto the gold pedestal. She posed him for a goofy selfie, flashing a peace sign, and patted his shoulder: "Buddy, you can stay here with the gold. You should be pretty satisfied."
The Sunspire Pyramid isn't a standalone building—there's a whole complex of structures to the east, all with a distinct Maya vibe. As they made their way through, Max Easton was howling in awe, while Jill Young flipped through Big Wolf's diary to see if they'd missed anything.
Compared to Max Easton, who was loaded down with gear, Jill Young was definitely traveling light.
After flipping through the diary for a bit, Jill Young spotted something odd: "The last page has a spot that's been marked over and over, circled with a pen. What does it say?"
"Oh, that," Max Easton glanced at it. "It says there's some kind of creature living on the sand dunes, and you have to be extra careful. But the name of the thing is covered in blood, can't make it out."
Jill Young's forehead creased with worry—classic horror movie suspense clue, what was up with this?
"Relax, relax, it's probably just Big Wolf being clueless. Man-Eater Bloom, giant bugs, carnivorous ants, Magnetite Cliff—we've seen it all! Ordinary weird creatures don't faze me anymore!" After passing through the hall of this super-ancient civilization, the two reached the city gate of the whole complex. Outside was the sand dune described in the diary. Max Easton strode out onto the dune with all the swagger of a fearless hero: "See? There's absolutely nothing out of the ordi—"
Max Easton's voice cut off abruptly.
It wasn't the first time he'd been struck speechless—this goofball always short-circuits when something happens. But seeing his constipated, sweaty face, Jill Young rushed up the dune, took a look outside, and instantly understood his expression. Because even she had to take a deep breath and shudder.
The rolling sand dunes outside were littered with bleached bones. The sheer number was one thing, but the real shock was the size—these skeletons sprawled across the yellow sandstone were gigantic! Just eyeballing it, each one was over twenty meters long, and even though the skulls were ancient, you could still make out those massive, razor-sharp teeth.
Just looking at the bones, you could imagine how terrifying these creatures must've been when they were alive and kicking.
"Uh, thick legs, short arms, that body shape and those teeth..." Max Easton seemed to recognize the species, swallowed hard, and said to Jill Young: "Th-these are Tyrannosaurus Rex!"
"Shh, quiet." Jill Young warned Max Easton in a low voice, pointing to a patch of ground beside the dune. At first glance, it looked ordinary—same color and texture as the surrounding sandstone. But on closer inspection, you could see that the big rock was subtly rising and falling.
Max Easton rubbed his eyes and looked again, finally catching on—it was actually a Tyrannosaurus Rex, napping on the ground, its body massive and limbs thick. Maybe, after generations of natural selection, its skin had evolved to match the color of the sandstone.
"That camouflage—how did you even spot it?" Max Easton whispered, giving Jill Young a big thumbs-up.
"Save the commentary and watch your step—move!" Jill Young took the lead, heading down the dune and circling away from the Tyrannosaurus Rex. No one knew how well this prehistoric beast slept, so both of them moved as quietly as possible. Jill kept a sharp eye on their surroundings, just in case that weirdly-shaped rock up ahead turned out to be another T-Rex.
Carefully making their way forward, the two managed not to run into a second T-Rex and reached the area full of giant bones. Moving among these massive skeletons made them feel tiny. The ribs of a single Tyrannosaurus Rex were so huge that, together, they formed a tunnel the pair could walk through.
This chapter isn't over yet ^.^—click next page to keep reading!
Jill Young reached out and pressed her right hand to one of the bones, trying to sense something. After a moment, she shook her head and let go. She'd hoped for a miracle, but these old bones were far too decayed—there was no essence left in them.
"Hey, slow down! I can't keep up!" Max Easton puffed along, chest out, belly jiggling. Driven by pure greed, he'd loaded himself down with gold—at least forty or fifty kilos, by the look of it. That's like hauling seven or eight big dumbbells around. Good thing Jill Young's clothes were sturdy enough not to rip apart.
Max Easton's own weight, plus all that gold, meant that when he stepped on a T-Rex skeleton, the ancient bones snapped with a loud crack, splintering into pieces.
Jill Young glared at him: "Lighten up with your hands and feet—and keep your mouth shut!"
"Relax, we're a few hundred meters away from that big guy. T-Rex has a decent sense of smell, but its hearing isn't great—it can't hear us." Max Easton grinned, whispering, "Plus, we're downwind. Unless it wakes up and spots us directly, we're fine!"
Jill Young immediately shook her head. "Here's how it goes: every time you confidently say something good is gonna happen, disaster strikes. So zip your jinx mouth and just walk."
"Alright, alright," Max Easton shrugged and caught up to Jill Young, panting. Nothing happened along the way, and as they got further from the T-Rex, their odds of survival kept going up.
But Max Easton just couldn't help himself, so a moment later he piped up: "You know, in the T-Rex family, that sleeping one is actually small. If it's not bad genes, it's gotta be malnutrition. Look at this barren landscape—has it ever had a decent meal? For it, we might be a rare gourmet treat!"
Just as he was talking, the ground beneath their feet started to tremble. The shaking grew stronger, soon feeling like a magnitude five or six earthquake. Jill Young had felt an aftershock before, and this dizzying sensation was exactly the same.
Crack! The massive T-Rex skeletons shook. Some of the oldest bones couldn't stand it and came crashing down, shattering. The air currents instantly turned chaotic, no longer flowing in any one direction. Jill Young and Max Easton exchanged glances, and Max's eyes went wide: "Looks like the big quake is just about here."
"Didn't your theory say we had another day?"
"I'm just a geologist, not a professional seismologist! And in earthquake prediction, being off by thirty to fifty days is normal—I'm only off by one! The earthquake bureau folks should be jealous!" Max Easton panicked, ready to run. "No more arguing, let's get moving!"
"Wait!" Jill Young grabbed Max Easton and ducked behind a T-Rex skull. Peeking out, she saw that the T-Rex a few hundred meters away was already awake. The animal's instincts told it disaster was coming, but with nowhere to go, it just paced around in agitation.
"Good thing you noticed early. It didn't spot us, so we should be okay. Otherwise, we'd be dealing with a T-Rex in crisis mode!" Max Easton still found time to crack a joke.
"Wait, that's not right." Jill Young's expression turned serious. The wind whipped her long hair, and the platinum strands pointed in a direction that was no longer east. "We're not downwind anymore..."
As soon as Jill said that, the T-Rex caught a scent. Its nose twitched, and then it threw its head back and let out a deafening roar—ROAR!!
The colossal roar carried the awe of a prehistoric apex predator and the hysteria of doomsday. When it finished, the T-Rex whipped its head around, amber eyes locked onto them, sending a chill down Jill Young's spine.
"If I make it out alive today, I swear I'll pay attention to personal hygiene—three showers a day!" Max Easton bolted. (Just found out I’ve been nominated as a lead singer for the choir—well, one of the candidates. Tomorrow’s a full day of rehearsal. I was hoping for a break! Turns out my voice is pretty good~ So, today’s two chapters are a bit longer than usual—together, they’re like three regular chapters. Consider it a little bonus~)