Di film, terbakar lava digambarkan lambat dan menyiksa—orang yang terkena lava perlahan terserap masuk seperti ditarik pasir hisap. Kenyataannya jauh berbeda.
Lava itu kental dan berat. Terhimpit ribuan ton lava terasa sepadat terhimpit dinding. Tentu saja dinding ini menyala, udaranya menyala, tanahnya menyala, pada dasarnya segala hal selain Lex sendiri menyala.
Jimat pelindungnya aktif, dan terjepit di antara lava dan puing, Lex tetap tak terluka—untuk sekarang. Bertindak atas naluri, Lex cepat meraih ranselnya, membukanya, mencari biji ek yang diberikan Karom.
Sekilas semua biji ek tampak sama, padahal punya banyak kegunaan. Yang sudah ia pakai cuma untuk menyembunyikan 'aroma' khususnya dari Goli, tapi ada yang lain juga. Sebagian untuk dihancurkan begitu ia masuk tambang spirit, sebagian lagi akan menembus tanah dan membawanya jauh ke bawah.
Begitu menemukan biji ek itu, ia mengulur tangan meraih Barry agar keduanya kabur bersama. Saat itulah, di bawah beban puing dan amukan lava yang membakar, jimatnya padam.
Yang Lex rasakan berikutnya terlalu ekstrem untuk diukur dan terlalu beragam untuk disebut nyeri. Tekanan pada tubuhnya begitu mendadak dan begitu besar sampai ia benar-benar merasa diremas hingga mati. Namun pikirannya tak punya waktu atau kapasitas untuk berpikir seperti 'aku mati' atau bahkan 'sakit'.
Bukan proses lambat—dalam sepersejuta detik saat tubuhnya mulai diremas mati, lava bukan hanya membakar baju, kulit, rambut, dan ototnya, tapi bongkahan logam kecil di lava yang belum sepenuhnya meleleh mulai menempel ke tubuhnya, seperti dilas menyatu.
Tak ada rencana, tak ada pikiran, tak ada jalan keluar, hanya orkestra ekstrem yang menghantam Lex. Tak terlihat lewat nyala lava, tapi sepotong tengkoraknya yang terbuka sempat berkilau sekejap, dan satu kata yang dulu terukir di tengkoraknya menghilang. Lebih dari itu, seandainya pikirannya sadar, ia akan sadar punggungnya mulai terasa dingin, dan bahkan suhu lava turun drastis.
Tapi semua itu tak berarti, sebab di saat tunggal ketika Lex merasakan kehancuran mendekati tubuh dan pikirannya, biji ek di tangannya juga hancur.
Lapisan kayu tipis menutupi kulit Lex, dan sekaligus Barry yang dipegangnya, membentuk cangkang kayu sebelum mulai menarik mereka ke bawah tanah. Panas lava dan tekanan tanah seolah tak berpengaruh pada lapisan kayu yang tampak rapuh itu—malah memperkuatnya. Bukankah akar mana pun tak takut menembus tanah, dan akar mana pun menyerap sumber daya tanah sebagai pupuk bagi dirinya sendiri?
Di depan kekuatan Trelop, lava tak lebih dari genangan pupuk yang memadat.
Keduanya terus bergerak makin dalam ke lava, tapi Lex sudah pingsan, jadi ia tak tahu. Justru Barry yang terbakar parah dan terluka mulai sadar dirinya tak lagi kesakitan. Bingung dan linglung, ia tak tahu apa yang terjadi, tapi ia tahu ada sesuatu yang bergerak.
Aman sekarang, atau setidaknya terlepas dari semua nyeri itu, Barry membiarkan pikirannya mengembara sambil membiarkan tubuhnya perlahan pulih. Beberapa saat kemudian, mereka melewati lava, dan cangkang kayu itu kini menggali batu dan tanah, terus membawa mereka makin dalam. Akhirnya, bukannya tanah, mereka menggali ke sebuah gua dan keduanya jatuh bebas sampai tercebur ke kolam jernih yang sejuk. Seakan merasakan tugasnya selesai, cangkang kayu itu terbuka, membiarkan cairan sejuk menyusup dan membasuh kedua tubuh yang terbakar.
Ini tentu saja air spirit. Meski tak punya sifat magis yang bisa menyembuhkan secara ajaib, air spirit menutrisi tubuh mereka dan memberi energi untuk pulih. Barry, yang sudah agak sadar, cepat terbangun oleh rasa sejuk menyegarkan yang memandikan tubuhnya. Sesaat ia larut dalam rasa menenangkan tanpa akhir, sampai ia ingat apa yang terjadi dan tersentak bangun.
Kegelapan gua tak jadi masalah—penglihatannya tajam bahkan dalam gelap, dan untungnya matanya tak rusak. Butuh sekejap baginya untuk sadar mereka menemukan sumur Spirit, dan ekstasi membanjiri pikirannya yang babak belur, lalu secepat itu berubah panik.
Air spirit sangat menutrisi baginya karena ia di alam Golden core, tapi bagi Lex yang masih di Qi training, itu racun! Kultivator Qi training sama sekali tak boleh membiarkan energi spirit berkonsentrasi tinggi masuk ke tubuh, sebab mereka masih hanya berurusan dengan helai-helai energi—Qi.
Ia meraih tubuh Lex yang tak sadarkan diri dan cepat melompat keluar kolam, lalu memeriksanya dengan hati-hati, siap menghadapi kemungkinan terburuk. Namun entah bagaimana, Lex tampak baik-baik saja. Yah, sebaik mungkin setelah seluruh tubuhnya terbakar dan terkubur. Ia menunjukkan tanda-tanda keracunan energi, dan meski tubuhnya penuh luka bakar parah dari atas sampai bawah, napasnya normal dan tampaknya tak sekarat.
Belum sepenuhnya lega, Barry memutuskan memeriksa kondisi Lex menyeluruh untuk memastikan anak itu baik-baik saja. Meski ia tak yakin bagaimana mereka kabur, ia tahu pasti itu bukan karena perbuatannya, dan ia juga tak percaya ada Tuhan yang memberkati mereka sehingga bisa selamat secara ajaib. Berarti jelas hanya Lex—ia pasti melakukan sesuatu atau memakai harta karun yang membuat mereka bertahan hidup.
Sayangnya, walau Lex tampaknya tak sekarat, kondisinya sebaliknya tak bisa disebut baik dengan ukuran apa pun. Ia luka bakar parah di setiap bagian tubuhnya, kecuali sepetak kecil di punggungnya yang entah bagaimana selamat, dan beberapa bagian tubuhnya bahkan terbakar sampai ke tulang.
Sejujurnya, Barry tak tahu bagaimana Lex masih hidup dalam kondisi begitu. Meski ia sendiri dalam kondisi serupa, setidaknya ia punya kultivasi untuk menopangnya. Lex punya apa?
Tapi walau itu pertanyaan bagus dalam situasi lain, setelah memastikan Lex baik-baik saja, Barry mengalihkan perhatian ke gua.
Mereka akhirnya mencapai sumur spirit, tapi ia belum melihat dua Druk yang tersisa. Di mana mereka?
In movies, being burnt by lava was a slow and agonizing process where the person exposed to the lava was slowly absorbed into it as if he were being pulled into quicksand. The truth of it was quite different.
Lava was thick and heavy, and being pressed against literally thousands of tons of it felt just about as solid as being pressed against a wall. Of course, this wall was on fire, and the air was on fire and the ground was on fire and basically everything other than Lex himself was on fire.
His protective talisman had turned on, and sandwiched between the lava and debris, Lex remained unhurt, even if only for now. Acting on instinct alone, Lex quickly pulled up his backpack and quickly opened it to find the acorns given to him by Karom.
While at a glance, all the acorns looked the same, they all actually served many purposes. The only one he had used so far was to hide his special ‘scent’ from Goli, but there were others in here, as well. Some of them were meant to be crushed by Lex once he was inside a spirit mine, while others would drill down and bring him deep underground.
As soon as he found the acorn, he reached out to grab Barry so that the two of them could escape together. That was when, under the combined weight of the debris and the burning fury of the lava, his talisman extinguished.
What Lex felt next was too extreme to be quantified and too varied to be called pain. The pressure on his body was so sudden and so immense that he physically felt himself being squeezed to death. Yet, his mind did not have the time or the capacity to think thoughts such as ‘I’m dead’ or even ‘this hurts’.
It was not a slow process, in the millionth of a second that it took for his body to start being squeezed to death, the lava not only burnt his clothes, his skin, his hair, his muscles, but the small metallic chunks in the lava that had not fully melted started to attach to his body, as if welded together.
There was no plan, no thoughts, no escape, only an orchestra of extremes that bombarded Lex. It was indistinguishable through the glow of the lava, but a piece of his exposed skull shone for a brief moment, and a single word that had been carved into his skull long ago disappeared. Furthermore, had his mind been coherent, he would have realized that his back started to feel cool, and even the temperature of the lava dropped drastically.
But none of that mattered, for the single moment in which Lex felt annihilation close in on his body and mind, the acorns in his hand were also crushed.
A thin, wooden layer covered Lex’s skin, and in extension Barry, who Lex was holding onto, formed a wooden shell before it started to pull them underground. The heat of the lava and the pressure of the ground seemed to do nothing to the frail-looking layer of wood, and if anything, seemed to strengthen it further. After all, which root was afraid of digging through the dirt, and which root did not strip the ground of its resources to act as fertilizer for itself?
In front of the power of a Trelop, the lava was nothing more than a consolidated pool of fertilizer.
The duo kept moving deeper into the lava, but Lex had already fainted, so he had no idea. Instead, it was the severely burnt and wounded Barry who gained the awareness that he was no longer in pain. Confused and disoriented, he could not tell what had happened, but he could tell that something seemed to be moving.
Safe now, or at least saved from all that pain, Barry let his mind wander as he allowed his body to slowly heal. Sometime later, they had moved right through the lava, and the wooden shell was now digging through rock and dirt, continuously bringing them deeper underground. Eventually, instead of ground, they dug into a cavern and the duo went into a freefall until they were dropped into a clear, cool pool. As if sensing its task complete, the wooden shell broke open, letting the cool liquid rush in and wash the burnt duo.
This was, of course, spirit water. While it did not have magical, mystical properties that could miraculously heal them, the spirit water nourished their bodies and provided them with the energy to heal. Barry, who was already somewhat conscious, was quickly roused by the cooling, refreshing feeling bathing his body. For a moment, he lost himself in the endless soothing feeling, until he remembered what had happened to him and jolted up.
The darkness of the cavern was not a problem for him, for he had excellent vision even in the dark and fortunately, his eyes had not been damaged. It took but a moment for him to realize they had discovered the Spirit well and ecstasy flooded his battered mind before it converted to panic just as quickly.
Spirit water was extremely nourishing to him for he was in the Golden core realm, but for Lex, who was still in Qi training, it was naught but poison! Qi training cultivators absolutely could not allow a high concentration of spirit energy to enter their body, as they were still only dealing with individual strands of energy – Qi.
He grabbed Lex’s unconscious body and quickly jumped out of the pool before carefully examining him, ready to expect the worst. Somehow, though, Lex seemed to be alright. Well, about as alright as one could be after having their entire body burnt and buried. He was exhibiting signs of energy poisoning, and though his body was covered in severe burns from top to bottom, he was breathing normally and did not seem to be dying.
Not completely relieved, Barry decided to check Lex’s condition thoroughly to ensure the boy was alright. Although he was not sure how they escaped, he knew for a fact that it wasn’t due to anything he did, nor did he believe in some God blessing them and allowing them to miraculously survive. That obviously only left Lex – he must have done something or used some treasure that allowed them to survive.
Unfortunately, while Lex did not seem to be dying, his condition otherwise could not be called good by any measure. He had severe burns on every part of his body, except a small patch on his back that somehow survived, and some parts of his body had even burned directly to the bone.
To be frank, Barry had no idea how Lex was even alive in this condition. While he himself was in a similar state, at least he had his cultivation to support him. What did Lex have?
But while this may have been a good question in another situation, after making sure Lex was alright, Barry turned his attention to the cavern.
They had finally reached the spirit well, but he had not yet seen the remaining two Druks. Where were they?
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