Book 8: Chapter 25: Underground Game
Book 8: Chapter 25: Underground Game
The green-pupiled young lady still didn’t reply to any of Lin Xi’s questions.
The turbid air that had just started to calm down began to surge intensely again. Following a muffled groan, her body tore through the air before her, arriving before Lin Xi like an arrow that left a bowstring.
Lin Xi didn’t sense the powerful soul force and the raging majestic aura from before, he knew that the other party’s injuries already couldn’t allow her to further use soul force. However, the sound of air being pierced through gave Lin Xi the most direct observation that even if it was only her physical strength, it was still extremely terrifying for him.
Personally experiencing the physical strength of a high level cultivator, this was naturally a rare experience for Lin Xi as well.
Almost every single muscle in his body instantly began to tremble, his eyes staring rigidly at the shadow in this green-pupiled young lady’s hands that continued to rush at him rapidly.
Chi!
The Daybreak Longsword in his hands hacked out with astonishing speed, hacking at the shadow in that green-pupiled young lady’s hand with incredible precision.
An explosive dang noise erupted, sparks flying in all directions.
What was in this green-pupiled young lady’s hands was a bright moon-like ring.
Lin Xi released a muffled groan, a bone splitting sound could be heard from his fingers and wrist.
He didn’t forcefully persist. The Daybreak Longsword flew backwards. At the same time, his left hand also brandished out, the emerald green dagger in his hand, while his entire body was still shaking slightly, he hacked towards this bright moon-like ring.
The emerald green dagger was still blasted aside, the bright moon-like ring continuing forward. However, Lin Xi who was falling backwards suddenly tumbled backwards even more, looking like he lost his balance.
The ring in the green-pupiled young lady’s hands didn’t land on Lin Xi’s chest, instead not hitting anything.
The green-pupiled young lady coughed furiously a few times, releasing another mouthful of blood.
She didn’t know Lin Xi’s evasive movements came from Green Luan Twenty-Four Forms and constant balance training, nor did she know that Lin Xi’s dual bladed attack came from Chen Feirong’s sword skills, but she could sense that the transfer of soul force, the sword skill used to wear down her ring, as well as evasive movements were all extremely fine.
She never expected a cultivator who still hadn’t broken through into the Soul Master level to have this type of fighting strength.
“You cannot kill me.”
Just from this strike alone, Lin Xi’s arms were already shaking slightly, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. However, his bright eyes instead carried an expression of confidence. He looked into the furious eyes of this green-pupiled young lady and the blood by her mouth, seriously shaking his head and saying, “Your cultivation level is far above mine, so you should understand even clearer than me that without the support of soul force, your strength will rapidly deplete. Moreover, the injuries in your body need even more soul force, requiring you to not make any intense movements… If you weren’t injured to this extent, normally, just a single finger should be enough to easily kill me, but now, you cannot.”
When she heard Lin Xi’s words, a streak of blood flowed down this green-pupiled young lady’s lips.
She tightly bit down on her lips, biting through them.
Lin Xi took half a step back, inwardly on guard.
However, what left him a bit stunned was that this pretty green-pupiled young lady whose expression became filled with even more anger and sadness instead tightly bit down on her own lips, not saying a word, quickly withdrawing backwards.
Lin Xi immediately followed her in shock.
The green-pupiled young lady stopped at the center of the hay at the center of the cave.
Lin Xi remained twenty steps from this green-pupiled young lady. The green-pupiled young lady suddenly turned around. Lin Xi immediately froze, on guard.
However, she didn’t take action.
Lin Xi remained where he was with even greater shock. He saw that behind the green-pupiled young lady, a small half of that beetle’s body already made its way out. What made him shiver inwardly was that the legs these beetles revealed were all like giant sickle blades, as if they were even tougher than the shells on their bodies, flickering with metallic radiance.
A light crack sounded.
Another egg cracked open. Immediately afterwards, what sounded wasn’t actually the sound of eggshells being eaten.
Lin Xi immediately felt like he was really stupid.
These eggs obviously wouldn’t appear out of nothing without a good cause, they were naturally laid by this type of beetle. A bug that could produce such a large egg, their body was naturally even larger, it definitely wouldn’t be like when he first saw these eggs, subconsciously thinking that these beetles were already big enough… that even if they didn’t grow anymore, they would still be extremely terrifying.
“You want to wait until these fiend beasts hatch to face me?” Lin Xi couldn’t help but ask.
The green-pupiled young lady also felt like Lin Xi was quite stupid. Since they were enemies, why did she have to reply to his question? Moreover, she also didn’t know that Lin Xi only came here for the Lightning Pythons, instead thinking that Yunqin’s military weren’t led astray by her methods, instead locking down on her true hiding place with astonishing speed, already starting to carry out a fine sweep of this region. In her opinion, for this young Yunqin low level cultivator to not immediately leave to issue a report, instead wasting time here, this was the stupidest thing.
Together with how she recalled so many cave barbarians sacrificed their lives for her, and only then could she flee and hide here with great difficulty, but was still discovered, her heart became even more ice-cold, the pain from her injuries even greater, so there was no way she would say anything to this Yunqin cultivator.
That was why she only looked at Lin Xi in an ice-cold and furious manner, filled with killing intent, not uttering a single word.
Lin Xi who didn’t receive any reply could only stare at those large eggs with apprehension.
He saw that these eggshells were extremely great nutrients for these young bugs. At first, the chewing wasn’t that fast, but now, the first beetle who already reached out a small half of its body became stronger and stronger the more it ate, its eating speed already rather shocking. With almost every breath of time, several palm-sized eggshell fragments would already be eaten.
Most likely because it was about time for them to hatch, the other three eggs also released crack, crack, crack noises one after the other.
“Just what kind of beetles are these?”
Lin Xi watched these beetles’ bodies grow at a visible speed. The eggshell around the bug who hatched first completely cracked apart… it was seemingly bursting from its body that already grew beyond what the eggshell could handle.
This type of beetle didn’t seem to have any intention of breaking out, just that its body was growing so quickly. Beneath its bright and clean round stone-like body were eight saw blade legs that looked more and more astonishing.
However, what left him even more shocked was that this beetle seemed extremely docile, not expressing much towards the green-pupiled young lady, also treating him like air. Moreover, when it ate the broken eggshells, it also began to eat the clumps of thick hay underneath.
The other four beetles that hatched a bit later seemed to have sensed that their food was being seized by someone, so the speed at which they ate the eggshells also clearly became faster.
The green-pupiled young lady suddenly moved, walking up to the hay pile, picking more than ten pieces of thick eggshell. Then, she moved sideways, using her gaze to stop Lin Xi’s movements.
The five giant beetles completely ignored the green-pupiled young lady during this process.
Lin Xi swallowed his saliva, unable to help but rub his stomach.
Outside, the Black Garlic Cane’s juices already filled his stomach and the extremely nasty taste controlled his appetite. Previously, he didn’t feel hungry at all, but the reason why he couldn’t help but make these fine movements now was because these giant beetles were too good at eating, ate a bit too fast.
After eating a larger half of their eggshells, these five giant beetles’ speed of eating really could only be described as wind sweeping away scattered clouds. Whenever a giant beetle began to eat hay, it was as if seventeen or eighteen people continuously picked up the hay with forks, tossing it into their mouths.
Unknowingly, these five giant beetles’ bodies already grew to at least the size of a mature man.
…
The amount of hay was quickly dropping.
“Could it be that eating like this won’t make you full to the point of bursting?”
Suddenly, while watching these giant beetles whose bodies were still continuously growing, looking at the eight extremely strong sawtooth blade legs, and then thinking about the giant lizard that he previously killed, Lin Xi who had just muttered a bit to himself released a rushed low cry of alarm, “Those giant lizards… they relied on these giant beetles’ digging to move underground?”
“This place was the place where you guys bred these giant beetles? … it is because this was originally where Lightning Pythons existed, so Yunqin army normally wouldn’t enter. Only by raising this type of giant beetle here would they be safer.”
The scene in this cave mysteriously became strange and interesting.
Lin Xi jabbered on and on to this green-pupiled young lady like Xuanzang, while the green-pupiled young lady was like Son Wukong in the presence of Gunayin, really wishing to strangle Lin Xi to death, but couldn’t, only able to watch Lin Xi with greater anger.[1]
A stench began to spread through this cave.
After the five giant beetles ate all of the hay, they began excretion, releasing a stench. Chunks of black stone-like excrement were released. Lin Xi finally stopped talking, holding his breath.
The green-pupiled young lady’s expression became even colder. She slowly walked up to these giant beetles that were already several times her size, extending her hand to stroke the head of one of these giant beetles, placing an eggshell towards this giant beetle’s mouth.
This giant beetle immediately swallowed this eggshell in an extremely fast manner.
The green pupiled young lady produced another piece. The five giant beetles quickly gathered with a speed that completely didn’t match the size of their bodies, even Lin Xi was able to sense the longing from these giant beetles.
However, the green-pupiled young lady didn’t withdraw her hands, jumping onto the head of the giant beetle in front of her. Then, she held this eggshell, reaching her hand towards a cave wall in front of her.
This giant beetle raised its head with all of its strength, but just couldn’t reach the eggshell in her hands, nor did it know how to throw the green-pupiled young lady off. Instead, its eight powerful long legs continuously brandished about, moving straight forward.
The eight long legs quickly cut into the earth.
Large amounts of earth were dug out by this giant beetle like tofu , left behind.
The green-pupiled young lady leaned down slightly on this giant beetle’s body to avoid being hit by the earth that was dug out. At the same time, she also moved the eggshell in her hands closer to this giant beetle’s head.
As if drawn to the light, this giant beetle and the four giant beetles behind it followed the green-pupiled young lady’s fingers, quickly and excitedly moving forward.
A giant passage began to quickly extend underground.
Lin Xi didn’t hesitate, jumping onto the back of a beetle, watching as the surrounding earth flew past his head with extremely great speed, this feeling nerve-wracking and exciting.
1. Xuanzang is a Tang Dynasty buddhist monk and translator. Guanyin is the Bodhisattva of compassion