"So, where is the entrance?" Sun Hang asked.
Nuer untied the sled attached to his feet and began to walk aimlessly on the sand dunes. With each step, his legs sank into the sand a few inches. Soon, the sand had reached past his knees, and walking became extremely difficult.
But in the next second, Nuer’s body was instantly swallowed by the dune, disappearing from Sun Hang’s sight.
"Is this the entrance?"
Sun Hang didn’t hesitate much and immediately followed.
At the spot where Nuer vanished, the "buoyancy" provided by the sand particles underfoot was almost negligible. Sun Hang felt a void beneath his feet, and his whole body fell into a very smooth tunnel, sliding rapidly towards the depths of the earth.
After sliding nearly five hundred meters, Sun Hang could feel that he seemed to touch a very tough membrane. But this membrane didn’t bounce Sun Hang back; instead, as soon as Sun Hang made contact, it began to liquefy—like a combination of a speed bump and a filter, allowing Sun Hang to pass through it while filtering out the sand dragged down, significantly slowing his descent speed.
With the original sliding speed, if it were an ordinary person, directly hitting the ground might not kill, but it would likely result in a high-level paraplegia. However, with this membrane, the safety level of this high-speed tunnel increased by several degrees.
"According to available information, this passage is most likely the filter cavity of the Sinking Sand Giant Worm." The main brain’s voice echoed in Sun Hang’s ear, "You just passed through the filtering membrane inside the filter cavity. This organ can identify gravel and food and liquefy food to pass through. Normally, when the Sinking Sand Giant Worm dies, this organ should also wither, but for some unknown reason, it still retains its original energy supply."
"Could it be that the Sinking Sand Giant Worm is not completely dead?" Sun Hang wondered, but soon he rejected this idea—after entering the filter cavity, he didn’t sense any memetic presence, meaning the anomalous meme within the Sinking Sand Giant Worm’s body had completely collapsed. By anomalous standards, it was indeed dead beyond doubt.
"So, below is the digestive organ of the Sinking Sand Giant Worm?"
Before the main brain could reply, Sun Hang found himself landing, and Nuer, who entered the filter cavity before him, was standing not far away, holding a stone that emitted a faint glow.
Sun Hang looked around and found himself in an irregularly shaped hall, whose inner wall patterns looked like a wilted giant stomach pouch.
And at the top of this hall, there were many filter cavities connecting to the outside world.
"Fortunately... didn’t bump into anyone else." Nuer indicated for Sun Hang to lie down as soon as he emerged, "I’ll take you to a place to hide later. Don’t come out. If someone bumps into us..."
"What will happen?"
"They will definitely report to the Priest!" Nuer’s expression was a bit nervous, "The Priest will have us all killed!"
"Why don’t we strike first and kill the Priest." Sun Hang pulled out a handgun, pulled the slide, and the mechanism emitted a crisp mechanical sound.
"No... no!"
"Nuer, there’s something I need to tell you. The moment you decided to bring me here, you became a traitor to your settlement." Sun Hang said, "Now you have only two choices: one is to completely sever yourself from your original identity and life, and after I handle everything here, I will fulfill my previous promises. The second choice is to be a bystander; whether the contact between me and the Priest ends in death or peaceful communication, all depends on the Priest’s attitude... Of course, I won’t tell him it was you who brought me in. If you’re lucky, you might continue your original life..."
"I... I..." Nuer hesitated for a long time, finally gritting his teeth, "What do you want me to do?"
"Take me to your Priest."
Nuer took a deep breath, reached into his pack to feel the remaining compressed biscuits, then nodded forcefully, "Alright!"
...
The space inside the Sinking Sand Giant Worm was far more extensive than Sun Hang imagined. Its carcass hadn’t shrunk from death but was much larger than those that had appeared in video records or those Sun Hang had seen with his own eyes before.
The main brain explained that the Sinking Sand Giant Worm remains used as refuges by the Desert Sea natives were often the longest-lived individuals—the size of the Sinking Sand Giant Worm increased with age, and those whose lifespans had ended reached the maximum size limit.
Nuer led Sun Hang through maze-like tunnels and multiple caverns connected by countless passages for nearly half an hour. The luminous stones embedded in the ground and walls gradually increased—without needing an explanation from Nuer, Sun Hang knew they were nearing the Desert Sea natives’ living area.