Monster Paradise

“I’ll pick this one.”

Lin Huang spent over half an hour before finally deciding on a battleground that he felt was suitable. He immediately felt much happier.

After that, he stepped through the Gate of All Realms.

It was almost an hour or so later before his communicator finally vibrated again.

Lin Huang clicked into the communication page and saw that it was Buried Heaven who had sent the video call request.

The corners of his mouth quirked up slightly, and he clicked on the answer button.

As soon as the video call connected, the red-haired man and the others immediately appeared in the projected image.

. 

The few of them sat around a long table, but Lin Huang did not see Buried Heaven. He was most likely on the other side of the table.

“Good evening, Mr. Lin Huang,” red-haired Scarlet Fox greeted with a smile.

In truth, he was rather confused right now, just like everyone else present. They had thought that Lin Huang most likely would not answer the call. They certainly had not expected him to pick up before the first ring.

As Nine Snake watched the projection of a clearly relaxed Lin Huang, his own expression was obviously rather stiff.

Now that he was seeing Lin Huang for himself, he, too, felt that the other’s ease of manner was not faked.

“It’s noon over here,” Lin Huang responded with a smile, then asked, “Is everyone there?”

“Of course. All nine of us are here.” As he nodded, Scarlet Fox shifted the camera angle slightly to include all nine people in the conference room in the shot.

“You can make good on your promise now, can’t you?” Scarlet Fox asked with a smile. However, up until now, he still did not think that Lin Huang would truthfully disclose his coordinates.

Silver had begun trying to locate Lin Huang as soon as the video call connected.

“Of course. But before that, I need all of you to promise me something.” Lin Huang swept a glance over the nine people in the shot.

Scarlet Fox glanced at Nine Snake when he heard that.

“Go ahead,” Nine Snake said expressionlessly.

“I hope that all nine of you will come together without leaving anyone behind.” Lin Huang stared at Nine Snake, smiling. “Can you do that?”

Nine Snake stared back at Lin Huang and fell silent for a moment before responding, “Very well.”

“In that case, I’ll tell you my coordinates now. Please make careful note of it since I’ll only say it once,” Lin Huang emphasized, smiling. “The Ten Thousand Bug Maze in the Queen Mother Star Zone…”

“Are you messing with us?” Nine Snake’s eyes were cold.

Way before coming here, they had gathered information on this great world, including information from star maps. They had noted down some key landmark regions as well.

The Queen Mother Star Zone was the core star zone of the Bug Tribe’s territory. What was known as the Ten Thousand Bug Maze was actually the Bug Tribe mother hive in this great world. Practically all the Queen Mothers lived there.

By giving this location, Lin Huang clearly intended to make use of the Bug Tribe’s advantage in numbers to deal with his opponents.

Nine Snake was not the only one who thought this; almost all of the investigators at the scene did so as well.

However, right at this point, Lin Huang switched the camera angle to the other side.

Very soon, Nine Snake and the rest saw that Lin Huang was really in a hive.

“I’m definitely not kidding.” Lin Huang switched the camera angle back, smiling as he looked at Nine Snake and the rest.

“Do you think that will stop us ?” Nine Snake remained expressionless.

“I just thought it would be more fun if I chose this place,” Lin Huang answered with a smile.

“I’ll be here for one hour waiting for you. If you don’t make it here within that hour, I’m very sorry, but we’ll have to meet again next time. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t really like meeting tardy dates.

“The countdown starts…” Lin Huang extended his hand and tapped open the timer. He raised his brows at Nine Snake and the rest and pressed the timer button without hesitation. “Now!”

The minute he finished speaking, the video projection in Death Sickle’s conference room instantly vanished.

Only Nine Snake and the others were left, staring at each other.

“What a nasty character.”

Scarlet Fox could not help growling in disgust.

Nine Snake looked at Silver right away. “Have you locked down his coordinates?”

Silver projected the star map at once. A set of red coordinates was blinking on it. The location was right in the Bug Tribe’s territory in the Queen Mother Star Zone.

“So he’s really in the Queen Mother Star Zone!” Scarlet Fox’s eyes widened, and he immediately pulled himself together. “This fellow definitely intends to take advantage of the Bug Tribe’s numbers to drain our Odyl.”

Nine Snake looked grim. He turned his head and looked at Buried Heaven. “Get out.”

Buried Heaven stood up and left without hesitation after hearing this.

Although this was Death Sickle’s territory, he felt no sense of security in this conference room.

He was also aware that the affairs of these investigators were not things that he could listen in on. As soon as he heard anything that he should not be privy to, there would only be one end for him—death!

Nine Snake only spoke after he saw Buried Heaven leaving and closing the conference room door.

“I don’t think this affair is as simple as it seems…”

As soon as he said this, everyone in the conference room looked at him.

“He didn’t seem like he was pretending to be at ease. I think there are two possibilities.

“The first is that he doesn’t fear death. Therefore, it doesn’t matter how many of us are here or how powerful we are—it doesn’t bother him at all.

“The other possibility is that he genuinely has a trump card to go up against us. What’s more, he’s very confident that he can kill all of us with it. That’s why he requested that all nine of us show up there, without leaving anyone behind.

“He might be trying to confuse us by choosing the hive for a showdown so he can conceal his true objective.

“Of course, there’s another possibility, which is that he needs the help of the Bug Tribe to unleash the trump card’s effects.”

“Should we change the meeting point, then?” Scarlet Fox asked immediately, “Or else we can just wait for an hour and let him suggest a change of location.”

“He’s not going to let the advantage fall into our hands, so he most certainly won’t agree to our meeting point suggestions.” Nine Snake shook his head, “As for waiting for an hour—if we really do that, I suspect he’ll use even more vicious methods to take revenge. It’s highly likely he might instantly go incommunicado rather than picking another location like we want.

“Our position would be even more passive then. After all, as investigators, our time in this great world is limited.”

“So, what do we do now?” Scarlet Fox asked again.

“We get to the coordinates he’s given as soon as possible.” Nine Snake’s murderous intent flared up instantly. “After that, we join forces to consolidate a battle formation and kill him at once! We won’t give him a chance to attack at all!”

Clearly, he had come up with a strategy. No matter what Lin Huang had up his sleeve, things would be fine as long as they disposed of him fast enough—before he had sufficient time to initiate whatever he had in store.

After all, Lin Huang was someone who was not even lord-level yet. Even if he possessed methods that could kill upper-rank Lords, it was highly unlikely that he would be able to pull them off instantly. He probably needed a certain amount of time to prepare.

Nine Snake and the rest did not have any inkling at all that Lin Huang had already elevated to become a Lord.

“Are all of us really going to go?” Scarlet Fox frowned slightly.

He felt that if Lin Huang truly did possess methods of killing them instantly, they would be going straight to their deaths if all of them went.

“The more people, the more powerful the battle formation,” Nine Snake gave his opinion, “The power of a battle formation created by all nine of us is comparable to that of an ultimate-rank Lord. Even if he does manage to initiate whatever special methods he has, we should be able to handle him.”

Scarlet Fox did not raise any further objections after hearing that.

“Silver, plan the route. We’ll get there as fast as possible!”