The sapphire fluid capsule touched down upon the surface of the underground magma lake with a soft, floating squish.
It didn’t sink into the fiery depths, nor did its outer jelly burst into steam. Instead, the twenty-foot azure sphere bobbed gently atop the blazing bright orange waves like an unsinkable glass buoy resting on a sunset sea.
Inside the capsule, Gu Qingfeng, Tie Shan, Land-mapper Lu-Lu, and Xiao Long stepped to the curved outer edge walls, their breath catching in their chests as they took in the staggering, terrifying majesty of the underground world.
They had dropped into the Molten Basalt Caverns. A huge underground vault stretching over five miles in every direction, suspended ten thousand feet beneath the scorched crust of the continent.
Above their heads, a vaulted black glass ceiling soared hundreds of feet into the smoky gloom, supported by massive pillars of stone-hard black dark rock as thick as ancient castle towers. Hanging from the black glass vault were thousands of huge, crystal-clear stalactites. It glowed with the deep, sullen crimson of raw ruby and fire-quartz. White-hot gas bubbled to the surface of the lake below. Each time, dancing ribbons of orange and violet light flickered across the glassy ceiling like a netherworld aurora.
