Chapter 133: Ancient Ruins (Part II)

"It actually got crushed to death..."

Xie Nainai stood up from the crevice, looking at the toad with a hint of surprise.

"Come on, let's go take a look."

As Qin Fei braced his hands against the ground to pull himself out of the fissure, he discovered that his legs were being held fast by something.

"Why can't I pull my legs out?"

"Hey! Me neither..."

It wasn't just Qin Fei; Xie Nainai seemed to be in the same predicament. Her legs, from the knees down, were completely immobilized as well.

Qin Fei looked down at his feet. His lower legs were shrouded in a mass of black shadow. He surmised that this shadow was the reason he couldn't move his legs even an inch. Strangely, only he and Xie Nainai seemed to be affected; the Caesar Pig and Big Nose appeared perfectly fine.

"Everything was fine a moment ago, but the moment that obelisk fell, we couldn't climb out anymore..." Xie Nainai complained.

Judging by her words, she believed the obelisk was the culprit. Qin Fei glanced toward the distant obelisk, lost in thought, before quickly refuting her. "Not necessarily. It's possible we were already trapped and you just didn't notice."

Qin Fei and Xie Nainai had hidden in the crevice quite early to escape the Toad King's pursuit. It was entirely possible they had been snared by the shadows beneath them since the very beginning.

As they discussed this, a chorus of whispers gradually began to fill Qin Fei's ears. Furthermore, he noticed that the colors of the surrounding environment were becoming distorted and dim. His heart jolted—these were the symptoms of a plummeting Sanity level.

It seemed the shadow beneath them didn't just trap people; it also had the ability to drain their sanity. As Qin Fei's sanity dropped, the illusory, translucent shadow monsters around him grew more numerous. Worse, as his sanity sank further, those monsters began to transition from phantoms into tangible entities.

Qin Fei was already unsure if he could defeat these creatures, let alone while trapped and unable to move. Anxiety began to take hold.

He had to escape this crevice immediately. The longer he stayed, the more dangerous the situation would become. He turned to look at Xie Nainai; she was suffering from the same symptoms, though it appeared to be hitting her harder. Between the cacophonous whispers and the recurring headaches, she was no longer able to communicate coherently.

Enduring the throbbing pain in his head, Qin Fei forced himself to concentrate. The shadows under them couldn't have appeared out of thin air; there had to be a connection to the crevice itself. He leaned down, using the red light emanating from the fissure to observe closely.

He discovered small, translucent stones embedded along the sides of the crack. The red light he had seen earlier was radiating from these very stones. The strangest part was that they had shifted from a light red to an eerie, dark crimson. As he watched, one stone deepened in color until it became a sinister, dark purple.

Simultaneously, a pitch-black shadow began to seep out of the stone like a droplet of ink.

A wave of panic washed over Qin Fei. As the shadow emerged, it expanded rapidly, taking the form of a boar-like monster. Being composed of shadow, it had no distinct facial features—only a rough, dark silhouette.

Qin Fei immediately pulled his Tentacle Spike from his backpack. The moment the shadow boar appeared, it lunged and bit his right arm.

Pain!

There was no wound and no blood, but a piercing, agonizing sensation surged from his arm through his entire body. Suddenly, he could no longer feel his right arm at all.

He didn't wait to be slaughtered. While under attack, he swung his spike with all his might, striking the shadow boar. Qin Fei's greatest advantage was his raw strength, and the Tentacle Spike was no ordinary weapon.

At the cost of his arm's sensation, he managed to strike the shadow boar with such force that it dissipated into thin air on the spot. After it died, it collapsed into a palm-sized mass of shadow that fell to the ground.

But this didn't mean he was safe. The shadow on the ground began to writhe and pulsate; it looked as if it were about to reform. At the same time, another stone nearby shifted from deep crimson to purple-black, and a dark shadow began to seep from it.

This meant Qin Fei was about to face two shadow monsters. He had barely struggled against one; two would surely be a death sentence.

*I cannot let that shadow on the ground reform into a monster!*

He grabbed the mass of shadow near him and tried to shove it into his backpack. With a thought, the shadow was successfully stored in his inventory.

[Nightmare Fuel: An item produced after the death of a Nightmare creature, used to craft various magical tools.]

*It really is Nightmare Fuel!*

As an essential material for crafting magical items in the world of *Don't Starve*, Qin Fei recognized it instantly, though he hadn't been entirely sure until the system confirmed his theory.

When the light from these stones turned from red to dark purple, a shadow would emerge. These stones weren't merely lamps for illumination; they were likely devices designed to produce Nightmare Fuel. Connecting this to the abandoned village, it was highly probable that the villagers had created these devices in the crevice specifically to harvest the fuel.

Nightmare Fuel only dropped when killing Nightmare creatures and was incredibly precious. It wasn't surprising that they would resort to artificial harvesting.