Book 5, Chapter 136: Regaining Consciousness
Chapter 136: Regaining Consciousness
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Following this earth-shattering roar, the ground began to audibly crack.
As if geysers were suddenly bursting forth from the ground, the surface of the Thousand Poisons Mountain began to explode as rocks hurtled through the air. A black wave began to spurt out from holes in the ground.
A wave of poison!
What a shocking, ferocious wave of poison!
The poison just surged out of the ground and into the sky, rapidly enveloping everything. The blue sky immediately turned black.
“Heavens!” Kelesda yelled with fright as he trembled.
Even Su Chen couldn’t help but reveal a trace of shock.
This was the kind of power that could only be described as earth-shattering!
Even a forbidden-level skill unleashed by a legendary Arcana Master wouldn’t have been this staggeringly powerful.
The floating figure from earlier that had unleashed the spear would probably have been melted into a puddle of slag when faced with such a powerful wave of poison. It was probably only strong enough to withstand two or three blows before collapsing.
In other words, the mere awakening of this Desolate Beast was more than comparable to dozens of forbidden techniques being unleashed all at once.
This explained why a single Desolate Beast required an entire alliance of Intelligent Race members to handle.
It was simply too powerful.
And if it took that much effort to quell a mere Desolate Beast, then Origin Beasts were out of the question.
Actually, under current circumstances, Desolate Beasts were scarier than Origin Beasts.
Origin Beasts were too hard to awaken, and they would die very soon after being awakened.
Desolate Beasts, despite being slightly weaker, also had a greater ability to adapt to their environment.
If they wanted to, a Desolate Beast was more than capable of wreaking some havoc once it awakened.
For this reason, the Intelligent Races had been forced to team up to deal with them, because they would have been wiped out otherwise.
Su Chen had managed to stimulate this Desolate Beast and awakened it. No one knew how long it would be awake for, but it was already obvious that Fate’s Hands w`as in trouble.
As the Desolate Beast flipped around underground, the entire mountain began to tremble.
The Thousand Poisons Mountain was like a blanket covering it. Since it was now awake, getting rid of the blanket was only natural. As for the tiny fleas on the blanket?
Who would care?
That “roar” was actually just an unhappy grumble from the Desolate Beast, as if it had been stung by a mosquito and awakened from its slumber.
Of course, its immediate reaction upon being woken was to smack that mosquito.
Even though its reaction was still a bit too slow, the attack still came.
Boom
A massive tentacle-shaped appendage shot out of the ground like a thick column before slamming down on where Su Chen and Kelesda were standing.
Su Chen and Kelesda simultaneously dodged out of the way.
It wasn’t hard to dodge. After all, the Desolate Beast’s movements were quite slow.
That wasn’t too strange.
After all, it was simply too large.
It was so large that its speed was actually inferior to that of a normal Intelligent Race, just like how humans were slower than mosquitos. Very rarely would a person be able to kill a mosquito in the air. Most of the time, they were killed while still in the process of sucking blood.
Kelesda and Su Chen didn’t really have a hard time avoiding that attack.
Even though this single attack generated a violent storm that blew around them, they were still relatively safe.
However, just because they were safe didn’t mean that the others would be.
Fate’s Hands headquarters were here, and lots of their members lived here as well.
Just the fog coming out of the ground was enough to kill countless of them.
Even though they had the special medicine, it wasn’t completely effective. There were a few poisons it could not cure. Formerly, those poisons had been quarantined in the restricted areas, so they would have been fine if they didn’t go into those areas.
Now, however, as the poisonous fog spread everywhere, no one knew exactly what kinds of poison they were dealing with now.
In the blink of an eye, countless Fate’s Hands members had turned into skeletons.
Those individuals were actually quite lucky. There were a few who didn’t die immediately due to the fog and actually became zombified, beginning to attack their former comrades. These zombies being controlled by the poison were poisonous themselves. Even simply coming into contact with them could be fatal, and there was no antidote for the poison.
Fate’s Hands’ headquarters were totally swallowed up by this wave of poison. No one knew how many experts and powerful individuals had died as a result.
“Bastard!” Kelesda’s heart ached so badly that he wanted to cry.
Everything he had built up over the years had been destroyed in an instant?
How could he not feel sorrowful?
He glared at Su Chen.
Su Chen shrugged. “I reminded you.”
Yes, he had reminded Kelesda, but Kelesda hadn’t taken him seriously.
At this point, it was already too late for him to regret anything.
There was no way for him to turn back. Kelesda stared angrily at Su Chen. “Since you have destroyed everything I have, then I can only destroy you!”
As he spoke, he reached out to grab at Su Chen.
In that moment, all he wanted to do was kill Su Chen!
The Desolate Beast had awakened, but the restricted area was destroyed as well. Su Chen had lost his terrain advantage, and Kelesda wouldn’t possibly let this opportunity to go to waste…… All he needed to do was avoid a few of the poisonous springs.
Su Chen, on the other hand, had no intention of fighting Kelesda. When faced with Kelesda’s attack, Su Chen’s figure flickered and reappeared inside one of the columns of poisonous fog. He actually allowed the poisonous fog to envelope him.
No poison could escape from his control!
With the lambskin scroll, Su Chen wasn’t afraid of this poison.
That was his greatest crutch.
Even without the forbidden area, the Desolate Beast was still around, and poisonous fog was pouring out from the ground everywhere. Kelesda could catch him as long as he wasn’t afraid of death.
When he saw that Su Chen was completely unafraid of the poison, Kelesda felt his scalp go numb.
His opponent was simply too much of a pain to deal with.
However, that didn’t mean that Kelesda was powerless. Just because Su Chen was hiding in the poisonous fog didn’t mean that Kelesda couldn’t force him out.
A legendary Arcana Technique rapidly began to take form.
This time, it was in the shape of a hammer made of lightning. It descended on Su Chen as soon as it was formed, the powerful aura of the hammer even forcing the poisonous fog back.
Su Chen teleported away with Whitetower Teleportation, reappearing amongst another column of poison.
With the poisonous fog present, Su Chen didn’t need to fight his opponent. All he needed to do was waste time.
The Desolate Beast was still in the process of coming out.
The ground began to tremble even more violently as chunks of rocks went airborne. The poisonous fog rose into the air and formed large clouds, covering the entire area and shrouding it in darkness.
The people living here were in serious trouble. Even with the antidote, they would have a hard time surviving this calamity.
A disaster like this probably had wiped out a majority of Fate’s Hands. Su Chen had helped Sky Country greatly.
However, Sky Country wouldn’t thank him for this. In fact, they would probably hate him more.
Because the Harpies were next in line.
The earth seemed to begin to open up beneath them.
Poisonous fog rushed into the air, forcing Kelesda to get out of the way again.
From his vantage point, he could see some kind of massive creature seemingly crawling out of the ground. Perhaps not long afterwards, the beast’s entire head would appear.
Even so, he was still unwilling to just let Su Chen go like that.
“Halcyon Wing Streak, you must die!” An enraged howl once again sounded out.
Su Chen didn’t hesitate to dodge yet again. Not only did he activate Whitetower Teleportation repeatedly, but he even used yet another blood clone. At this point, he had saved up quite a bit of blood, given that he had been repeatedly doing this for a few years.
In comparison, Kelesda was much less lucky.
The metallic domain he had tried to use to lock down Su Chen’s movements was impossible to use, as the Desolate Beast’s awakening had sent the Origin Energy nearby into a turmoil. Any restrictive domain that Kelesda tried to unleash would be destroyed in an instant by the Desolate Beast.
As such, he was hoping that Su Chen would be able to escape.
If Su Chen escaped, he would be outside the range of this turbulent Origin Energy, meaning that he would be able to once again restrict Su Chen’s movements and hopefully capture him.
However, Su Chen was making no effort to run. He just constantly used Whitetower Teleportation to run from one swathe of fog to the next. There was nothing Kelesda could do.
They were both actually trying to just delay for time.
Su Chen was delaying because, as long as Kelesda was unable to withstand the pressure and retreated, he would have an opportunity to escape.
Kelesda was delaying, waiting for Su Chen to escape and give him an opportunity.
At this moment, whoever was able to last to the very end would be the victor.
Neither of them wanted to give up, so they both continued to hold on.
Su Chen had the lambskin scroll and didn’t fear the poison, while Kelesda was incredibly powerful and was able to dodge the poison swirling around him.
They continued to delay and waste time, and it was a certainty that they wouldn’t be able to stay in this stalemate for much longer.
Because the Desolate Beast was about to make an appearance.
The cracks in the ground grew larger and larger, and a creature began to emerge from the abyss.
“Ba-dump! Ba-dump! Ba-dump!” A rhythmic beating noise sounded out, resonating in the hearts of both Su Chen and Kelesda. They both felt a rush of adrenaline wash over them.
That was the heartbeat of a Desolate Beast.
This heartbeat alone placed an incredible amount of pressure on anyone who heard it.
And this pressure was only increasing.
As the Desolate Beast surfaced, the pressure continued to skyrocket.
“AH!” One of the Fate’s Hands’ subordinates who had managed to avoid the poisonous tide suddenly tilted his head back and cried out before exploding into bits and pieces.
This pressure from the Desolate Beast had killed him.
Even Su Chen felt like the pressure coming from the massive creature before him was impossible to withstand.
He had a physique equivalent to that of a top-tier Totemic Warrior!
The might of this beast was obvious.
Even so, he refused to retreat.
He didn’t retreat, and Kelesda didn’t retreat. The two of them flew back and forth through the poisonous fog, one chasing after the other. They were playing a game of chicken with their lives on the line.
Whoever could endure longer would win!
The tip of the creature’s head broke the plane of the ground.
This massive head was greenish-blue in color, and even the head alone exuded a formless pressure that caused Su Chen to freeze for just a moment. He was unable to activate Whitetower Teleportation in that moment. Thankfully, Kelesda was being similarly affected and wasn’t able to capitalize on the opportunity.
It was all they could do to hold on.
Even so, an instant later, they both found themselves unable to hold on any longer.
The massive Desolate Beast tilted its head back and roared at the sky.
This single roar immediately caused Su Chen and Kelesda to lose control of their bodies, and they began to plummet towards the ground.