Chapter 13: Escape
When Qiuqiu and Pippi just retreated to the eaves of the palace, the rumbling sound kept coming, and when they looked up, the protective cover of the palace had disappeared silently, and the semi-rocky land on the protective cover had already been divided and split in the process of the earthquake.
Because it is nearly five or six hundred meters above the surface, and Phoenix Mountain Park is a shallow area, the land here is close to lithification. The cat and the mouse saw that the ground in front of the palace was constantly falling rocks and clods, and in the blink of an eye, they blocked the front of the palace. They ran into the palace in a panic, and a rock nearly six or seven square meters and a few zhang thick suddenly fell from the top of the palace eaves, and the eaves collapsed in an instant behind them, and the cats and mice did not have time to rejoice that they had passed by death, and they swept into the palace as quickly as a gust of wind to seek refuge.
Their ears were full of rumbling sounds, almost piercing their eardrums, and what frightened them even more was the continuous sound of heavy objects smashing from the top of the palace, like cannons, knocks, booms, like the sound of drums. They shrank in a corner of the palace tremblingly, listening in horror to the movement outside, but fortunately the palace was so strong that although the weight and pressure on the roof of the palace were constantly increasing, it was like a most trustworthy giant, supporting this piece of heaven and earth, without any signs of collapse and rupture.
Suddenly, the floor of the palace began to shake and shake, in fact, except for the shallow surface, the floor of the palace remained intact because of the protective cover, but the bottom of it had long been cracked. Now, without the protection of the protective shield, the foundation of the palace has cracked, and it has undoubtedly dealt a huge blow to this steely giant. Ball Ball and Pipsqueak heard the tooth-aching grinding of the dome, and they were so frightened that they almost wanted to close their eyes, but they had to guard against the possibility of falling something and hitting themselves. A few days after the earthquake, the underworld began its belated show again.
At this time, the palace was completely dark, and after a long time, the slope of the ground caused the ball and Pippi to roll from this corner of the main hall to the opposite side, but in the center of the palace was mixed with something, and touched the texture, it was the altar cloth,
Somehow, the altar cloth had shrunk to the size of a handkerchief, and Ball Ball and Pipsqueak each grabbed one end of the altar cloth, and the two little ones rolled down to the opposite wall together, rolling into a pile because of the connection of the altar cloth.
In the completely dark underground world, although cats can see at night, in complete darkness, the photoreceptor cells in the retina cannot catch any light at all, so they cannot produce vision. Completely blind, cats are at a loss, and rats rely on their sensitive sense of smell and tentacles to move at night, but there are accidents and risks everywhere here and now, and rats are also at a loss. The two little ones threw away the barriers between races, leaned against the corner, leaned on each other, faced the last moment together, and deep down, they also felt very lucky, at least in this apocalypse, to have a companion to face together.
In this world without day and night, I don't know how long it took, maybe more than ten hours, maybe a day, finally there was a small crack on one side of the dome, this dome could be supported for a long time when there were no cracks, but there was this fragile crack, the whole collapsed in an instant, accompanied by a rumbling sound, the inside of the palace clicked and cracked together, almost in the blink of an eye, the dome shattered, the palace ground slammed continuously, and the beams and stone pillars also collapsed, Listening to the sound of the wind smashing down, it came towards the two of them.
Although the cat and the mouse almost collapsed in the face of such a catastrophe, but the real danger descended, but both appeared extremely flexible, after all, after a few days of refining the Gollum magic skill, the two little guys' sense of hearing, smell, reaction and sensitivity have not only doubled, they are vigorous and flexible to avoid the smashed beams, in the increasingly narrow space to flip and jump, spread and move, but also seem to be at ease, the two little guys are extremely clever, try to choose an empty space, try not to be separated from each other, in this case, When the two parties are together, there will also be psychological comfort, and they will not collapse immediately and bearably. Perhaps this is due to their small size, and on two occasions they were separated by the beams, but they were able to find the narrow holes between the beams and the rocks in the ground to squeeze through and reunite with each other.
It seemed that in just a few minutes, the ground stopped shaking, and there was no more smashing on it, and the cats and mice were trapped in the golden triangle of life erected by the beams and corners of the house, and the range of activity was reduced to one meter, and they circled around the range of this meter, sniffing, sniffing, grabbing, and picking, but the surrounding area was tightly blocked, and there was no hole to drill out. They had no choice but to stop and continue to explore the way out, although they no longer needed to dodge, and their bodies did not need to collapse all the time, but their hearts seemed heavier, and they could no longer do anything to save themselves.
The listless cat and mouse lay in the corner, hunger and exhaustion let them fall into a deep sleep, the kitten purred again, the purring magic is indeed strange, without ingesting any energy, it calmed the soul of the cat and the mouse, so that they are refreshed after waking up every time, and also massaged their body skin and bones, flesh and blood, internal organs, so that they are full of vitality all the time, but inevitably, the two little guys have lost a lot of weight.
I don't know how long it has passed, and they have spent their sleep and waking up like this. Suddenly, the ears of the sleeping ball moved, and it seemed to hear a rumbling sound coming from above its head, as if some creature was rushing towards it at a uniform speed, and the ball was so surprised that it turned over in its sleep, and Pipsqueak next to it was also awakened, from the breath, they felt that there was a round hot metal thing spinning past the ball and into the ground, for a while, the metal probe was still spinning and extending around the ball, and there was no end in sight. At this moment, judging by the sound coming from the underground, it seemed that the drilling speed of the underground had stopped, and the scorching metal monster stretched out a small probe to grab a handful of soil, and quickly retracted upwards.
Although they couldn't see each other in the dark, Qiuqiu and Pipsqueak still glanced at each other in surprise, and there was hope if there was change, and after about half an hour, the metal probe had accelerated back to the ground, and there seemed to be a little light entering, and Qiuqiu's keen eyes were strengthened several times over, and a small circular hole above, just a few centimeters in diameter. It probed the hole in surprise, just enough for its body to pass by, a little more than enough, thanks to the influence of the Gollum magic in the past few days, it had slimmed down. It meowed in surprise and told the little mouse about the situation, and the two little ones understood. They climb up from the hole one after the other, the little mouse is in front, the kitten is behind, the two little guys are masters of climbing and jumping, they are like martial arts heroes, flying eaves and walking on the wall, jumping over the ridge, as long as it is a place where it can take its claws, the cat can walk on the ground, and for the little mouse, even on the vertical wall, it can also move freely.