Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 573 - 573 Ninety-two

573: Ninety-two.

Trace 573: Ninety-two.

Trace Above Scorching Gorge, the calls gradually faded away.

If the flow of time remained unchanged, Lu Li had less than 10 minutes left, 600 seconds of action time.

However, the demons might not give him that much time.

The pain on the back of his hand was becoming clearer, signaling that the demon that left a burn mark was drawing nearer.

Hopefully this stone tower had something to do with Richard.

Lu Li thought and proceeded in the direction the stone tower pointed.

Dozens of meters later, the second stone tower emerged within the twisted air, its apex firmly pointing in a certain direction.

“151…

152…

153…”

The gorge was so barren that only rocks and gravel filled it.

Starting from the third stone tower, the terrain began to change, a hazy black mountain range appeared in the distance, with dark red magma like veins spreading across the surface of the mountains.

Around the 240th second, Anna’s second call echoed in the sky.

At the 341st second, Lu Li found the fifth stone tower, its apex pointing ahead.

What it pointed to, a dozen meters away, was a river of magma that stretched across.

Lu Li slightly turned his head, his gaze falling on a trio of demons hovering a dozen meters away.

Drawn by the aura of Lu Li’s soul, they came one after the other, maintaining their distance and not daring to come closer.

And Lu Li had no intention of wasting his time on them.

Moving his gaze away, the river of lava a dozen meters wide in front of him was not impossible to cross—many rocks the size of half a palm protruded from the surface of the magma, extending from the shore to the other side.

Clearly, these too were placed by someone.

The stones in the river were many, already worn, broken, charred, or baked into a fiery red, like charcoal on fire.

Although scorching hot, they were better than wading through the magma.

Lu Li approached the river, picked up a sufficiently large rock from the shore, and threw it into the magma stream.

The magma exploded, but couldn’t reach Lu Li, who had already stepped aside.

In the next half-minute, Lu Li threw a few more rocks, creating more stepping points within ten meters of the shore, but the remaining meters close to the other side remained out of reach.

During the transport, the three inferior demons continued to loiter nearby, coveting a look over here.

If time allowed, Lu Li could have paved the entire river of magma and walked across at ease.

But the increasingly intense heat on the back of his hand reminded Lu Li that crisis was pressing on.

Gripping his patched hat, Lu Li stepped onto the first rock.

The viscous magma flowed slowly by his feet, bubbling up, and bursting, releasing an instant burst of high temperature.

Up close, Lu Li’s soul started to feel the unbearable heat.

It also meant that even Lu Li’s vibrant vitality would dissipate instantly if he fell into the magma.

Lu Li walked calmly through the densest meters of rocks, the stones ahead began to thin out.

Agitated growls came from behind; the three demons encircled the shore, blocked by the magma.

He ignored what was behind him and moved on steadily and quickly to the middle section of the magma, where the heat was even more intense.

The air, twisted with the smell of sulfur, blurred his vision, making Lu Li feel the illusion that his soul was sweating.

The stones he had thrown earlier ended here; moving forward, only those burning, blackened, crack-covered dark red stones remained.

The distance to the other shore, less than ten meters away, was like a chasm.

Hesitation was utterly meaningless, Lu Li stepped onto the first burning stone, without a pause, moved toward the second dark stone half a meter away.

But as Lu Li stepped onto a cracked stone less than three meters from the opposite shore, a corner of the rock broke off and sank into the magma.

“`

His foot had barely retracted when Lu Li, pressing down on the rock, struggled to keep his balance, teetering backwards—

A coarse, ethereal palm gently pressed against Lu Li’s back.

The arm had so little strength it was almost negligible, but it was enough to lend assistance to Lu Li when he was unable to stay balanced, so that he did not fall backwards.

Having stabilized, Lu Li quickly leaped over the remaining three rocks and finally stepped onto the stony beach on the opposite shore.

Looking back, he saw that the fractured rock had already broken apart and was enveloped by surging lava.

The palm that had supported him just moments ago was certainly not an illusion.

Recalling Lady Merlin’s words about encountering old acquaintances in hell, such as enemies…

it seemed that those were not the only ones he would meet.

Turning away, Lu Li looked ahead.

About a dozen meters away, the sixth stone tower stood beside a gargantuan boulder.

“452…

453…

454…”

He hoped the stone tower was not far from his destination.

Following the direction of the sixth stone tower to find the seventh, Lu Li arrived at the edge of a crater several hundred meters in diameter.

The land was a charred carbonized black, as if the base of this volcano, flowing with magma, had once been struck by something akin to a meteorite.

Lu Li discovered some isolated footprints at the edge of the crater and, without hesitation, slid into the crater, moving towards the center in the direction indicated by the stone towers.

The air inside the crater was cooler than outside, at least the scorched earth was no longer searing hot, and there was no more distorted air rising.

Like the mist being wiped from a glass pane, Lu Li’s vision grew increasingly clear, and he could see the center of the crater a hundred meters away—a boulder standing more than a dozen meters tall, as well as a bonfire that rose beside it, and the silhouette of a person in front of the fire.

…

This was Richard’s thirteenth “day” since arriving in hell—what Richard believed to be the thirteenth day.

There is no night in hell, the sky is forever shrouded in a dark red hue, engulfed by a flame-like glow.

Thus, after each sleep, Richard would scratch a mark on the bottom of this meteorite with a sharpened stone chip.

Because the first night he spent in hell, suffering from insomnia, was also counted by Richard as a day.

Richard was quite lucky that when his consciousness returned, he was lying by the bank of a river of lava, not at the bottom of it.

The vague realisation that “this place is hell” in his mind prevented Richard from indulging in wild conjecture, as he remembered jumping into the abyss, where the Ancient God that lay dormant there had no reason to spare his soul.

Nonetheless, having found himself in hell, Richard lingered by the river for some time, waiting for the fabled demons to come and claim his soul—he wouldn’t admit that it was fear that made his legs weak.

Perhaps demons were just fabrications by those who had never descended into hell, for Richard saw no living thing except himself.

He began to explore the surroundings and discovered this meteorite crater at the base of the mountains.

This relatively cooler spot, with its soft, charred earth, made the meteorite crater a comfortable base camp for Richard.

From there, he ventured outward.

Exploring the surroundings of the crater, the other side of the magma.

To Richard’s horror, he began to feel hunger on the third day, and the temperature around him seemed to grow even hotter, more unbearable.

Then Richard saw demons.

And then Richard no longer concerned himself with the worry for food.

Richard didn’t know how other people felt when they arrived in hell, but he was feeling quite alright.

After all, this was how he had always lived, and from a certain perspective, his life was even worse than now—at least in hell it wasn’t cold, nor was there worry for food.

Although the taste of that thing was truly indescribable.

“`