Despite their shock, Jarod and Galan were intimidated by the strength of Lin Lei and Dilia's group, so they acted extremely friendly.
"Hey, Galan, you two must've been in the Amethyst Mountain Range for quite a while, huh?" Bei Bei asked with a grin. Galan and Jarod exchanged a glance, helplessness flickering in both their eyes.
Galan sighed. "That's right. We've been here a very, very long time. At least over a hundred million years."
"A hundred million years?" Lin Lei and the others were stunned.
One hundred million!
It rolled off the tongue easily enough, but it was an absurdly staggering number. Lin Lei had lived barely over a hundred years so far — nowhere close to a hundred million.
Jarod said bitterly, "Back then, Galan and I both got caught in a 'Mist Tide' and were swept into the Amethyst Mountain Range against our will. That day, the Amethyst beasts went wild and killed a lot of people, but we somehow survived. I was a mid-level god back then, and Galan was still a low-level god… After all these years, we've both reached the high-level god realm. Because so much time has passed, we've long since stopped keeping count. But it's definitely well over a hundred million years by now."
Lin Lei was inwardly shaken. Growing from a low-level god to a high-level god normally required an enormous amount of time for ordinary people.
"Didn't you ever think about getting out?" Lin Lei asked, looking at them gravely. "Could it be that this Amethyst Mountain Range really is like the legends say — once you enter, you can never leave?"
When he'd first heard that at the edge of the Mist Sea, Lin Lei had only half believed it. In his view, those amethyst gatherers had never even entered the depths of the Amethyst Mountain Range, so how could they possibly know what conditions were like for those who had? Even now that he'd entered it himself, Lin Lei still clung to a sliver of hope — a belief that there was still a chance to leave.
"That's right. Once you're in, you can't get out," Jarod confirmed without hesitation.
"Truly impossible to leave?" Lin Lei was taken aback.
Was he going to be trapped here forever?
Dilia glanced at Lin Lei, knowing he'd always wanted to return to the Netherblue Prefecture to meet the ancestors of the Baruch Family. She asked, "Jarod, how can you be so certain? The Amethyst Mountain Range is enormous — there must have been a great many people here. Hasn't a single one ever gotten out?"
Galan, the brown-haired woman, tried to comfort them. "I know it's hard to accept, but that's simply the truth."
"First of all, the gravitational pull in the Amethyst Mountain Range is immense," Galan explained. "An ordinary high-level god simply can't resist it."
Dilia and Lin Lei nodded slightly. Dilia was a high-level god, yet even she couldn't overcome the gravity. Lin Lei's body was incredibly tough, but he couldn't fly outward against it either.
Galan continued, "The Amethyst Mountain Range has existed for so long. Among all the people who were trapped here over the ages, many reached extremely high levels of power — estimated to be comparable to five-star or six-star demons, or even higher. There was once a powerful high-level god who actually managed to fly outward against the gravity."
Lin Lei's brow furrowed.
"He could resist the gravity, but once he reached that area filled with strange wind sounds, it affected him and made his head spin. He could stay conscious, but he hovered there in midair for decades without finding any way out!" Galan said.
Bei Bei exclaimed, "Decades? In that place that scrambles your brain?"
"Yes, but that area is far more than a simple maze. It affects even the soul. There's no flying out of it," Galan said, shaking her head.
Lin Lei's heart tightened. If even a powerhouse who could resist the gravitational pull couldn't escape, what hope did he have?
Jarod added with puzzlement, "And here's the strange part — after that powerhouse gave up and returned to the Amethyst Mountain Range, he disappeared not long after, completely without a trace."
"Disappeared without a trace?" The four of them were shocked.
Galan nodded. "That's right. It wasn't just him. Afterward, every single powerhouse who reached an extremely high level would suddenly vanish. Nobody knows whether they died, escaped, or something else happened." Galan and Jarod both looked genuinely confused.
Lin Lei frowned. A powerhouse who had reached the six-star level — possibly even seven-star — had tried to leave on his own and failed. That kind of person couldn't have simply escaped under his own power.
"Whether they died, left, or were taken over, there must be some kind of force pulling the strings behind the scenes," Lin Lei thought to himself.
He gazed around at the Amethyst Mountain Range. He had always felt that this place was deeply peculiar. 'Soul Essence' was the most important element of a person's soul, yet this mountain range produced 'amethyst' in abundance — a mineral that was essentially crystallized soul essence. It was almost inconceivable.
Then there was the perpetual white fog, the eerie wind sounds, the terrifying gravity…
And those caves that alternately sucked in and spat out matter at random intervals!
All of it filled Lin Lei with wariness.
"Galan, Jarod," Bei Bei suddenly pointed toward a distant crater. "See those amethysts being spewed out over there? What's the deal with that cave in the crater? It erupts for a while, then stops, then starts sucking things back in. What's going on?"
"Don't go near that place," Galan warned quickly. "We call that an 'Amethyst Hellhole.' There are 108 of them throughout the entire Amethyst Mountain Range."
"A hundred and eight?!" Bei Bei's eyes went wide. "This weird place has that many of them?"
Galan nodded rapidly. "Yes. These Amethyst Hellholes are the source of the amethyst eruptions. Normally they do spew some out, but in much smaller quantities — nothing like what you saw today. And when a Hellhole stops erupting, whatever you do, don't get greedy and wade into the crater to grab amethyst."
"Got it," Bei Bei snorted. "I already watched four people get sucked straight into that cave. Poor Zhan Jin…" A hint of sadness crossed his eyes.
"Someone got sucked in?" Jarod exclaimed in surprise, then said, "Whoever got pulled in was definitely a newcomer who didn't know the rules. These Amethyst Hellholes cycle through three phases: 'eruption,' 'pause,' and 'suction.' Eruption lasts the longest, pause is the shortest, and suction is somewhere in between. The pause phase isn't only brief — each pause lasts a different amount of time. There's absolutely no way to predict it. Nobody in their right mind would jump in knowing the danger."
Lin Lei and the others nodded. They'd witnessed it firsthand — the eruption phase was indeed the longest, while the pause only lasted a few seconds.
"To gather amethyst actually isn't that hard," Galan said with a faint smile. "During the brief pause, you use an 'elemental clone' or an elemental hand to snatch a handful."
Lin Lei suddenly understood. Right — for example, he could deploy the 'Earth Elemental' to form a long arm and grab a bunch. Even if the suction suddenly activated, the loss would be minimal.
"Zhan Jin and the others really…" Lin Lei sighed inwardly. But back then they'd known nothing about these Amethyst Hellholes. When they saw the eruption stop, they'd been overjoyed and rushed in to collect the amethyst.
"Haha… What's the point of collecting amethyst anyway?" Jarod scoffed, shaking his head. "No matter how much amethyst you gather in the Amethyst Mountain Range, it's all wasted. We can't get out… and amethyst can't be exchanged for ink stones or azure stones."
Lin Lei and the other three were momentarily stunned.
"True. If we can't leave, what good are more amethysts in this place?" Olvia agreed, shaking his head.
For powerhouses like Lin Lei and Olvia — people who refused to settle for mediocrity and thrived on challenge — being forced to remain in one place forever with no way out was nothing short of torture.
A faint mountain breeze drifted past.
Lin Lei and the other three, along with Jarod and Galan, rested together on the slope of a mountain peak.