Chapter 571: I'm Envious of the Imperial Censors
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
As Lin Huang moved along the direction of the white arrow which was invisible to the others, it was still flickering at a distance of fewer than 20 meters away from him.
He maintained the regular speed and flew for more than half an hour. Lin Huang and the four of them behind him found it odd that they did not see any living beings over the distance of hundreds of meters. The five of them heard nothing else aside from the whistling sound produced from the friction between the air and their clothes. Not even a single buzz from the worms or a single chirp from the birds could be heard. It was as if they were in a deadly still world.
"Do you guys feel that the ruins are horrifying?" Li Lang asked Lin Huang and the rest.
"We haven't encountered any living beings so far. It's unusually quiet." Yi Zheng's voice was soon heard.
"Could the resources have been depleted? If so, no treasure can be found in the ruins," Yi Yeyu expressed her opinion.
"It can't be. If the resources have been depleted, the ruins will collapse, but the ruins are still operating as usual. However, it's bizarre that there are no traces of living beings." Leng Yuexin frowned.
"Don't overthink it. We've arrived at our first destination." After flying for more than half an hour, Lin Huang could finally see the final location pointed by the navigation arrow at a distance of more than 700 kilometers away from the entrance, and he quickly landed.
The other four of them felt it was strange but still, they followed after Lin Huang and landed.
After descending, Yi Yeyu and the rest then discovered that there was an entrance to the underground.
Lin Huang and the four of them landed at a distance less than ten meters away from the entrance to the cave. Right at that moment, Lin Huang could see that the white arrow had disappeared.
"You have crazy excellent eyesight to discover the cave at such a height!" Li Lang laughed as he said.
"I have a monster skill that's somewhat similar to the ocular skill," Lin Huang simply came up with an excuse as to hide the fact that he was using a Treasure Card.
"Let's go in and have a look!" Yi Zheng was eager to take the lead. However, he was stopped by Lin Huang.
"Wait a moment!" Lin Huang summoned Bloody.
Bloody turned into a purple, scaleless small snake and twisted around Lin Huang's left arm. It looked like a harmless animal in an anime. As it blinked its pair of big eyes, Yi Yeyu and Leng Yuexin were attracted to it.
"It's so cute!" Yi Yeyu felt like touching it.
"Bloody, have a look at the situation inside the cave," Lin Huang instructed.
More than ten dots of purple lights were released from the surface of Bloody's body and dispersed towards the entrance of the cave.
When Yi Yeyu was about to grab one of them when Yi Zheng grabbed her wrist, shaking his head. Yi Yeyu thought that Yi Zheng wanted to stop her from bothering them. In fact, Yi Zheng vaguely felt that the dots of purple light were intimidating.
Leng Yuexin could feel that as well. Her eyes flashed with a trace of uncertainty, shifting her focus towards the little beast that twisted around Lin Huang's arm.
"Lin Huang, what's Bloody's combat level?" Li Lang was familiar with Bloody as he and Yi Yeyu had witnessed Bloody's investigating skill before at the Volcanic Hell.
"Its combat level is higher than yours." Lin Huang did not give a direct reply. Instead, he just answered with a cryptic smile.
"How could it be? My crimson flame-level Life Fire is filled. I'm going to proceed to blue flame-level." Li Lang found it unbelievable.
"Is it a gold flame-level?" Yi Zheng guessed. The level of the monster would definitely not be lower than his as he could feel that the monster was intimidating.
Lin Huang nodded. In order to avoid the rest from asking him the combat level of his summoning monsters, he explained, "Most of my summoning monsters have basically reached gold flame-level."
Yi Zheng initially thought that he would be the strongest among the team members. However, when he heard what Lin Huang said, he instantly understood that Lin Huang was the one with the strongest overall abilities despite the fact that he was just a white flame-level.
"So what even if it's a gold flame-level? It definitely won't be able to fight me in an actual battle." Li Lang glanced at Bloody arrogantly. Up until now, he was still naive as he was set on the thought that Bloody was a monster that could not fight.
Bloody blinked its eyes while looking at Li Lang. It then turned around and looked at Lin Huang innocently. Although it did not say anything, Lin Huang understood what it wanted to say from its gaze. He meant to say, "I can fight 10,000 people like him alone!"
Lin Huang sniggered. With Bloody's parasitic abilities, it was not joking when it implied that it could fight 10,000 people like Li Lang. Bloody's parasitic abilities allowed it to defeat weak enemies. As long as their combat strength was below its own, they would not be able to escape from being parasitized by the parasite. Quantity meant nothing to Bloody. If Li Lang were unable to surpass Bloody, even if there were one million Li Langs, they would all become Lin Huang's puppets.
Yi Yeyu did not pay much attention to Bloody's combat strength. Similar to Li Lang, she originally thought that Bloody was just an ordinary summoning monster. However, it was so powerful even though it was just a double mutated monster. She thought that its strongest ability was its detection which could be done by releasing the dots of light. Perhaps, the remaining skills were merely skills for protection, and it did not have any attack skills.
However, Yi Zheng, who was on purple flame-level, and Leng Yuexin, who was on blue flame-level, had a completely different opinion. Both of them had encountered the transcendent monsters more often than Yi Yeyu and Li Lang had, and they were more sensitive to danger. Despite disguising itself well, both of them could still sense that it was not an ordinary summoning monster.
Before obtaining the results of the investigation, Yi Yeyu then stood next to Lin Huang and touched Bloody's head. Seeing Bloody had closed its eyes as it enjoyed being caressed, Li Lang joined her as well.
"You two idiots," Yi Zheng scolded quietly.
In just a short while, Bloody opened its eyes and sent the image detected by its Leech Pods to Lin Huang's mind.
"Is there any news?" Yi Zheng immediately asked as he noticed Bloody's reaction.
"Yes, let's go in," Lin Huang nodded and instructed. Lancelot that was wearing a maroon armor gradually appeared in front of them.
Although the surface of Lancelot's body was no longer misty, it became even stronger after integrating with the aura of god. Its appearance was somewhat intimidating compared to Kylie's.
If it were a game, there would be a name in bloody red color on top of Lancelot's head, indicating that it was an extremely dangerous character.
Aside from Lin Huang, Yi Zheng could confirm that the monster that was in the maroon armor could easily kill four of them within seconds.
"Lancelot, please lead us," Lin Huang instructed.
Lancelot's blue eyes gazed at Yi Zheng and the rest, then finally, it nodded as it looked at Lin Huang. It then strode into the cave.
Lin Huang and the four of them followed after Lancelot and entered the cave as well.
As the five of them took a few steps forward, Li Lang's voice could be heard, "I'm envious of the Imperial Censors!"
Chapter 572: Lancelot's Ability
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The five of them followed after Lancelot and entered the cave.
The channel towards the cave was like a descending slope.
As they walked along the twisting path for more than ten minutes, Lancelot then dove into an underground cave with them.
The cave was dark, and they could not even see their fingers in front of their faces.
However, darkness did not hinder the vision of transcendents like Lin Huang and the rest. Soon, the five of them could clearly see the situation inside the cave.
The cave was quite spacious, and the ceiling of the cave was about ten meters high. It was a vast underground world.
However, their concern was not the size of the underground world. Instead, they were worried about the monsters in the cave.
From their body size, they looked like monkeys. However, there was no fur on their bodies. They had pale, waxy skin that resembled dead human corpses. Also, they had elongated limbs. Their faces looked like humans' with ears that were about twice the size of the average human ear. Their eyes had no pupils and irises. Only the white of their eyes could be seen. They had no noses, and there were only two tiny nostrils where a nose should have been. They had sharp teeth that looked like dogs' and when they extended their tongue, it was about three times longer than that of the ordinary human's.
Some of these monsters were climbing the wall while some of them were hanging upside down from the ceiling of the cave. There were at least 100 of them, and it looked like they had fallen asleep.
"There are finally creatures here. They look hideous!" Li Lang commented.
"Are they Cavernous Devils?" Yi Yeyu asked in doubt. She had heard of the monster before, but she had never looked up the information of the monster in the monster guide.
"Yes, they are Cavernous Devils." Lin Huang nodded his head.
He had been going through various types of reading material at the Martial Hunter College. He could almost remember all the contents of the monster guide. Although he could not remember the information in detail like Bloody could, he could basically recognize all the monsters recorded in the monster guide.
The Cavernous Devil was a type of monster that lived underground. It normally ate carrion. When there was no carrion, they would hunt down living beings and eat them after they had decomposed. Under conditions when there was an insufficient supply of food, they would go dormant. If the issue of food supply could still not be solved after being dormant, they would hunt their own species. Therefore, these monsters were rather ruthless.
The monsters liked to live in a group. When they became adults, they would automatically level up to gold-level. A minority of them was commander-level, and their claws and teeth were poisonous. This was the reason why even people on holy fire-level were unwilling to offend this type of monster.
Lin Huang and the rest had intruded into the Cavernous Devil's lair.
Although the monsters had gone dormant, with their sensitive hearing, they would still be awakened if anything happened.
"There are more than 400 of them. Looking at the population size, it's highly possible that there are commander-level monsters and there might be more than one of them." Leng Yuexin shifted her gaze towards Lin Huang. She only told them what she had analyzed without giving any suggestion.
"It's not worth killing such monsters. Nothing from their bodies can be used as a material, and it'll be troublesome to kill them due to their large numbers. Should we fight them?" Yi Zheng was not interested in hunting this type of monster.
"Let's warm up since we're already here," Lin Huang said, "It won't take us a lot of time to clear these monsters."
Lin Huang had no intention to reveal Bloody's parasitic abilities. He then gave Lancelot a simple instruction, "Kill them all!"
A blue glow flashed through Lancelot's blue eyes. Before Yi Yeyu and the rest could react, a golden glow quickly formed in front of his body, shining brightly throughout the cave as if it was daytime.
The ray of light triggered the Cavernous Devils that had gone dormant. They woke up and started growling crazily.
Yi Yeyu and the rest were speechless when they saw this. They wanted to secretly kill the monsters since they had gone dormant. They tried not to make any noise and intended to kill as many of them as possible. Therefore, even when the monsters woke up, the monster horde would not have such a significant advantage over them.
Lin Huang was kind of speechless as well as he placed his hand on his forehead. He had instructed Lancelot to kill all the monsters, but he did not ask it to kill them alone. However, Lancelot had apparently thought that it had to kill them on its own. Therefore, it had unleashed its ultimate skill, the Sword Manipulation. The golden glow flashed through the air and a short blade that measuring about 10 centimeters long was formed.
As the group of Cavernous Devils knew what was happening, they pounced on Lin Huang. The short blade blasted off and penetrated through the bodies of the Cavernous Devils. Soon after, the second and the third groups of monsters were attacked.
In less than ten seconds, the crypt that was initially noisy became quiet.
Yi Zheng and the rest of them were stunned, staring at the carcasses of the Cavernous Devils that were scattered all over the ground. They remained silent for a few moments.
The four of them had just witnessed how powerful Lancelot was in the one-sided battle. They were shocked.
"It's so powerful!" Li Lang had no idea what else could he say to describe what he had just seen.
"The killing rate is terrifying!" Yi Yeyu gushed.
"I might not be able to defend against the skill if it were to use it as a single attack." Yi Zheng had only seen Lancelot's skill once, and he could confirm that he was incapable of fighting Lancelot.
"Is that the… Sword Manipulation?" A flicker of fear flashed through Leng Yuexin's eyes. The thought ran through her mind, but she had not dared to ask about it earlier.
Lancelot's abilities had been revealed, but it was not planned. Lin Huang was helpless as he had not given explicit instructions just now. However, since its abilities had been exposed, there was nothing to hide as he still had many other monster cards.
"Since the Cavernous Devils have been killed, let's take a look and see if there are any valuable things here. Otherwise, there's no use sticking around." Lin Huang was the first one to look around the cave.
Actually, Bloody had roughly studied the cave. Lin Huang walked straight towards the big pit, lowering his head and peering into the pit. There were skulls of various types of living beings, both monsters as well as humans.
"Come over here!" Lin Huang shouted at them.
Yi Zheng and the rest of them immediately rushed over there when they heard Lin Huang shouting at them.
"A bone pit? Is that the grave of the monsters?" Yi Yeyu asked curiously.
"No, this is the place where the Cavernous Devils stored their food to eat," Lin Huang explained. "In other words, it's their kitchen, dining room, and also their rubbish bin. All the monsters that have been killed are thrown here. As soon as the dead bodies have decomposed, they'll eat them and all that's left are the skulls. That's the reason why the bones have accumulated over here."
"Are we going to find any treasure here? Even if there are many of the Emperor's Heart Rings, we can hardly dig them out." Li Lang opened his palm and said.
"Be patient." Lin Huang grinned. "Bloody!"
Bloody then came out of Lin Huang's sleeve and plunged into the bone pit.
A few moments later, Bloody's body turned into the shape of a sphere from which its antennas extended. The antennas then swooped downwards and penetrated through the gap between the skulls.
Soon after, Bloody managed to dig out the Emperor's Heart Rings with its antennas. After a few minutes, it had found hundreds of Emperor's Heart Rings.
"There's such a function?!" Li Lang was startled.
Chapter 573: The Cavernous Devils' Memories
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Inside the bone pit, Bloody did not stop spreading its antennas and continued penetrating through the gaps between the bones. It extracted the Emperor's Heart Rings and a few valuable items.
After more than half an hour, Bloody stopped digging and gradually floated out of the pit. It levitated in front of Lin Huang. As it opened its mouth, it spat out all the items it had extracted.
Lin Huang and the rest glanced through the items. There were thousands of Emperor's Heart Rings among the rest of the items.
"There are 2,276 Emperor's Heart Rings in total. As for the relics and the other valuable items that are still in good condition, there are 133 of them." Lin Huang obtained the exact figure from Bloody. "Let's see if there's anything that you guys need."
They shook their heads. Apparently, they were not interested in items of such levels.
Lin Huang then took out the storage ring that Leng Yuexin had given him previously and stored all those items in it.
"Since we got these items together, I'll store them in the storage ring first. After exploring the ruins, I'll look for someone to unlock the ring. I'll then make a list, and we'll divide the stuff among the five of us equally. That way, we don't have to go through the redistribution of the stuff each time since it's a waste of time," Lin Huang suggested. "Of course, you may speak up if there's something that you need. You'll have the priority over the others and get what you want. The person will have to exchange it for the item of the same value and give it to the rest of the group."
"What if several people request for the same item?" Li Lang raised one of the possibilities.
"We'll then come up with a solution to distribute the stuff to which those who request for the item agree. After the ownership has been determined, regardless of what the result is, the rest of them mustn't argue against it." Lin Huang had thought of this answer earlier.
"What if the item costs a lot and the person can't afford to exchange the item for the rest of the items the person has? Does the person need to pay the balance with other items?" Li Lang asked.
"Yes, the person will have to pay the balance according to the market price. It's best if one pays back with the items that we need instead of something unnecessary. If there's indeed nothing that we need, one may pay the balance with Life Crystals or other types of crystals," Lin Huang explained the additional conditions.
"As for the personal items that you guys get on your own, if the others ask for it, it depends on whether the owner of the stuff is willing to exchange it with items of similar value. If the owner disagrees, nobody can force a trade.
"Let's come to an agreement first to avoid any conflict when it comes to the distribution of stuff. You may raise your objections now if there're any or if there's anything else that has to be added."
Since they were all friends, Lin Huang did not want them to fall out over money. Therefore, he lay out the rules beforehand. If anything happened during the distribution of the items, they would handle it according to what they had agreed upon earlier so that there would be no arguments.
"I have no objection." Leng Yuexin was the first one to nod her head.
"The same goes for me." Yi Yeyu looked like she did not care.
"Although the rules are simple, you have made everything clear. We'll discuss in detail if there're any contradictions in future." Yi Zheng agreed as well.
"I can't think of anything to add so far." Li Lang had no objection as well after thinking about it.
"Okay, since everyone has agreed, we'll follow the rules." Lin Huang then continued, "The four of you are all my friends. If there's anything that you really need, don't feel embarrassed to ask for it. Since it's a fair deal, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Don't regret when the item that you need is given to the others."
The rest of them nodded in agreement when they heard what he said.
"Bloody, please check again if there is any remaining stuff. If there aren't any items left, we'll leave." Lin Huang then turned around and gave Bloody a new instruction.
Bloody rereleased the dots of purple light and looked around. It found a few more Emperor's Heart Rings from the Cavernous Devils' fingers. It seized the opportunity to parasitize the commander-level Cavernous Devils and retrieved the information regarding the ruins from their memories.
After confirming that there was nothing left, Lin Huang then led the team and returned to the ground.
"Bloody, please check the situation in the ruins." As they returned to the ground, Lin Huang gave Bloody a new instruction again. It then investigated the situation in the ruins.
Bloody floated in mid-air. Countless dots of purple light were dispersed in all directions, resembling purple clouds that were clearing away.
"It's so beautiful!" Yi Yeyu exclaimed.
"What an amazing investigating skill!" As usual, Li Lang was envious of the Imperial Censor.
"How many detection pods can it release at most?" Yi Zheng was somewhat interested in its abilities.
"It can release millions of those pods at most," Lin Huang answered with a smile.
"Is the distance that the pods can cover restricted? How far away can they leave Bloody?" Yi Zheng asked again.
"I've never considered this. It seems like there is no restriction. Let me ask and see…" Lin Huang smiled and looked at Bloody. After a short while, he answered, "Bloody said that there's no problem to cover the whole A-grade foothold."
That was actually the answer that Bloody told Lin Huang to inform Yi Zheng. The actual answer was that it could cover half of the safe zone.
"What about their speed? It seems like they move quite fast," Yi Zheng continued asking.
"I guess their maximum speed is about 1,200 kilometers." Lin Huang had asked Bloody about this before. However, Bloody had given him the answer before it leveled up to holy fire-level. Their speed must be much faster now since Bloody was already a gold flame-level that had gone through its third mutation.
It seemed like Yi Zheng was interested in Bloody's investigating abilities as he continued asking several questions. After listening to Lin Huang's reply, he then nodded his head in satisfaction and kept quiet.
"Are we going to wait over here until the investigation ends?" Seeing the pods had all disappeared, Leng Yuexin turned back and asked Lin Huang.
"We don't have to wait until the investigation ends. Let's walk around as we might probably discover the second exploration point before it." Lin Huang smiled, shaking his head.
Bloody shared the information that had been extracted from a few of the Cavernous Devils' brains with Lin Huang, so he now had a brief understanding of the ruins.
The level of the ruins was high. According to Cavernous Devils' memories, the strongest monster that they had encountered was an imperial-level. Therefore, it must be at least a 4-star ruins.
Most of the monsters lived underground during the day and would return to the surface at night to hunt for food. Moreover, the dry bones that they could see everywhere along the roadside would be revived at night. These monsters had a strong desire for blood and flesh, and they were quite sensitive to the aura of living beings.
There was only one way for Lin Huang and the rest to survive in the ruins, which was to look for a site that could cover their aura before sunset.
There was such a site in the memory of the commander-level Cavernous Devils, and it was not far away from them.
Lin Huang could not explain how he had obtained the memory of the Cavernous Devils. Therefore, he guided the four of them and headed towards the right location. It was the only place where they could survive the first night.
"I have a foreboding that there's a big treasure waiting for us over there!" Lin Huang pointed in the direction of their four o'clock.
"Did you just randomly point towards a direction?" Yi Yeyu rolled her eyes as she felt that Lin Huang was too spontaneous.
"Don't tell me it's a bone pit again!" Li Lang said.
"Let me check it out since I'm the leader." Lin Huang then flew into the sky along with the four of them and Lancelot, heading towards the second destination.
Chapter 574: A War Foothold That Existed Hundreds of Years Ago
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The ruins in the Cavernous Devil's memory were located more than 600 kilometers away from the cave.
Within half an hour, Lin Huang saw the ruins under him and quickly descended along with Yi Yeyu and the rest.
"Yo, the ruins exist for real!" Li Lang teased as he thought that Lin Huang had got it right only by sheer luck.
"See! I didn't lead you guys the wrong way." Lin Huang was proud of himself.
"What's so good about that? We don't know if there's anything in it." Yi Yeyu raised her eyebrows and glanced at Lin Huang. She could vaguely feel that Lin Huang had known that the ruins were there in advance.
Yi Zheng and Leng Yuexin did not say anything as if they noticed that as well. Lin Huang was resolute in his action as he pointed towards the ruins. Moreover, he was flying in a straight line, and the ruins were just in front of them without any deviation. If he had found the cave by luck the first time, it was strange that he had managed to find the ruins by luck for the second time.
Both of them were smart. Although they knew that it was strange since Lin Huang did not want to talk about it, there was no need for them to delve further into the matter as well.
After looking around, Leng Yuexin frowned. "It looks like a war foothold…"
"It is indeed a war foothold. Judging from its size, it's not a regular, small foothold. It's a least a medium-sized one. The underground must be expansive." Yi Zheng was born in the Yi family, and he could identify it at first glance.
"Did you really think that you're the only one who knows this?" Yi Yeyu rolled her eyes at Yi Zheng. She finally had the opportunity to show off what her talent, but Yi Zheng had stolen her thunder.
"Fine. Pray, tell." Yi Zheng immediately noticed that he had made a mistake.
"I'm not interested!" Yi Yeyu turned her head away.
Lin Huang and the rest believed what Yi Zheng said.
Leng Yuexin had met the Yi siblings earlier, and Li Lang knew about Yi Yeyu's background as they had gone to the Volcanic Hell together. Any of the Yis knew about stuff related to the armed forces very well, let alone the descent of the Yi family.
"So… Brother Zheng, are there any treasures in it?" Li Lang immediately asked.
"There might be the remnants of the army in the storehouse. However, it seems like the foothold existed hundreds of years ago. It's useless despite valuable items like medicine remaining." Yi Zheng felt that it was less likely that they would retrieve anything from the ruins. "Of course, the storehouse might have been emptied, and there could be nothing left…"
"Keep your big mouth shut, Brother Zheng. I was hoping that I can get something valuable here!" Li Lang immediately shouted.
As both of them were chatting, Lin Huang instructed Bloody again, "Bloody, please check it out."
Bloody then released dots of purple lights that spread into the ruins.
Just when they were waiting for the results of Bloody's investigation, Yi Zheng walked towards one of the walls of the ruins. As he put pressure on the wall, a hole was instantly formed. The place where Yi Zheng had touched with his fingers was crushed, turning into sand.
Yi Yeyu then went over and asked, "Can you determine the exact year of the foothold?"
"As it has weathered to this extent, the foothold must have existed for at least 500 years or even longer." Yi Zheng could only make a rough estimation.
"Division 7 has only been developed for about 300 years…" Yi Yeyu was dumbfounded.
After a short while, they obtained the results of Bloody's investigation. In the ruins, many monsters were gathered. Three floors under the ground, there was a chief-level monster that was fast asleep in the storehouse which made up the most significant area.
"A chief-level monster? What's its rank?" Lin Huang immediately asked Bloody when he heard the news about it.
"From the aura, its combat level can't be exceeding immortal-level rank-3." Lin Huang was relieved after listening to Bloody's reply.
"Alright, Bloody has confirmed that there are many holy fire-level monsters in the ruins as well as an immortal-level," Lin Huang shared the results of Bloody's investigation.
"There's an immortal-level?!" Four pairs of pupils dilated when they heard about the immortal-level.
"Let's explore another place." Li Lang wanted to retreat.
"An immortal-level… That's troublesome indeed." Leng Yuexin frowned.
Yi Yeyu then looked at Yi Zheng. "Are you confident about defeating an immortal-level?"
"I barely managed to kill the immortal-level rank-1. I'm unable to kill those on rank-2 or higher." Yi Zheng shrugged his shoulders and looked at Lin Huang. "Can you determine the rank of the immortal-level monster?"
"It can't be higher than rank-3." After Lin Huang finished his words, all of them remained silent. Lin Huang then continued, "I'll kill it."
"Are you sure?" Yi Zheng took a glance at Lancelot before asking Lin Huang.
"Yes." Lin Huang nodded.
"How confident are you?"
"I'm 100% positive," Lin Huang answered dauntlessly.
"This is not the time for heroics. How confident are you?" Yi Yeyu frowned and repeated Yi Zheng's question.
"100% positive!" Lin Huang gave the same answer.
"Lin Huang, if you fail to kill the monster, all of us will have to die here. Stop fooling around!" Yi Yeyu stared at Lin Huang with a serious expression.
"Don't worry. It's not my first time killing an immortal-level rank-3." Lin Huang had no choice but to reveal one of his small secrets.
"Are you really that amazing!?"Li Lang stared at Lin Huang with eyes wide open.
The four of them knew Lin Huang very well. They knew that he would not put their lives at risk. However, they were shocked to hear that.
"Let Lancelot take the lead. We'll work together with it and clear all the monsters."
Lin Huang did not intend to reveal Bloody's parasitic abilities since its ability to manipulate a battle was rather terrifying. It was also one of Lin Huang's trump cards. Although he had faith in Yi Yeyu and the rest of them, the trump card was something too personal. Unless he had no other choice, he would not easily reveal it to the others.
"Lancelot, try not to use a large amount of your Life Power. The usual attack will do. We'll handle the remaining monsters. Minimize the use of your Life Power and save it for the ultimate warrior," Lin Huang instructed Lancelot. It would not bode well if Leng Yuexin and the rest did not get to kill a single monster. He could not let them follow Lancelot and lament about how powerful it was.
"Do I need to summon the Sword Servant? The servants will kill the weak monsters, and I'll be able to save my Life Power," Lancelot suggested. Apparently, he wanted to clear all the monsters on its own and did not want to miss out on any of them.
"There's no need to do so. Just make some random kills, and we'll do the rest," Lin Huang rejected its suggestion.
"Alright." Lancelot did not say any other thing. It lifted its legs and strode into the ruins.
The five of them immediately followed after it.
Chapter 575: Eating The Meat Without Saving the Soup
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Most of the regions of the war foothold had collapsed. The walls and the ceilings that had disintegrated sealed many of the places off, resulting in dimming the whole ruins.
As Lin Huang and the rest entered, they started sizing up their surroundings.
The wall of the room was covered with moss and poisonous mushrooms of various colors that grew in the corner of the wall. There was the occasional grass that occasionally appeared on the ground, and the leaves rustled as the wind blew past, reminding them that they were not in an entirely dead world.
Lancelot followed after Bloody, leading them towards the entrance of the underground.
Earlier, Bloody had checked the buildings that had collapsed to ensure that there was no presence of monsters. However, Lancelot, Lin Huang and the rest were still being careful as they walked through the place.
On their way, they saw more small plants and fungus. Aside from that, they found nothing.
After walking along the path that Bloody detected for five to six minutes, they finally arrived at the entrance of the underground.
The entrance looked like a straight path that would lead them to the well of the underground. However, the area of the opening was much larger than the well as it had a diameter of about five meters.
Rust covered the metal staircase at the entrance. Fortunately, they were not going to use that.
Lancelot was the first one that jumped through the entrance, and soon, Lin Huang and the rest followed after it.
When their feet touched the ground after a while, Lin Huang looked upwards. The underground cave was at least hundreds of meters deep.
However, Lin Huang soon noticed that something was wrong.
Previously, when he was underground, he could not detect anything with his Territory skill as if something had blocked it. However, his detection abilities had recovered although he was underground now. He could sense that within the region of his territory, apart from Yi Yeyu and the rest, there was the presence of other creatures.
Lancelot could sense whatever Lin Huang could as the detection radius that its Sword Territory could cover was similar to Lin Huang's Territory.
"It's so smelly!" Yi Yeyu mumbled softly and quickly pinched her nose a second later after her feet touched the ground.
Yi Zheng and the rest were on high alert. Despite not possessing a territorial talent and not being able to detect the presence of the monsters, the pungent smell was apparently due to the excretion of the monsters. This indicated that the monsters in the underground were still alive. If those monsters had died, the smell would have disappeared after hundreds of years.
There was a long corridor that had a diameter similar to that of the well. They frowned seeing the muddy and wet ground. They immediately floated up to a distance of a few centimeters away from the ground to avoid their shoes from getting dirty.
Lancelot did not mind at all and took a step forward. As its feet touched the mud on the ground, it squished and echoed in the darkness.
Lin Huang and the rest followed after it. Aside from Lin Huang, all of them summoned their relics and got ready for a fight.
As they walked along the corridor, they soon arrived at the first room in the underground.
The room was at least 1,000 square meters large and had a ceiling of about 10 meters tall. Within the region that Lin Huang's Territory covered, there were more than hundreds of holy fire-level monsters. A minority of them was awoken by Lancelot's footstep, and they peered curiously at them.
"Are they Bloodthirsty Corpses?" Yi Yeyu asked.
"Yes. Bloodthirsty Corpses can be easily identified as they have very fair skin which causes their greenish-purple veins to be rather apparent. The veins on their arms and legs that look like tattoos can be seen at first glance. Other than that, their bodies are deformed to a certain extent due to the side effects of demonification. The characteristics on their face are obvious as well. Their eyes tend to glow bright green in the darkness. Besides, they have sharp teeth which are similar to canine teeth of carnivores…" Lin Huang gave a brief scientific explanation. "One thing that is different from the Cavernous Devil that we encountered earlier is that it has a very sensitive sense of smell. Even if we didn't make any noise, the Bloodthirsty Corpses that are asleep would wake up if they smell the aura of living beings."
After finishing his words, many of the Bloodthirsty Corpses that were asleep seemed to have sensed their auras and gradually opened their eyes, looking in their direction.
Before Lin Huang could even instruct him, a dark red sword appeared in Lancelot's hand.
As it swung its sword, it penetrated through the heads of the Bloodthirsty Corpses that were about to attack from hundreds of meters away. Before the rest could react to it, Lancelot had started a one-sided killing spree.
Each time it brandished its sword, the head of four to five Bloodthirsty Corpses that were within its Territory would explode without any trace. With every step forward, there would be at least ten monsters that were killed by its sword.
Yi Zheng and the rest were shocked at the scene in front of them, and they were still immersed in their thoughts even after a while.
Lin Huang was speechless as well. Obviously, Lancelot was not going to miss any of its targets.
"Is that the Territory skill?!" Yi Zheng was the first one to recover from his thoughts and discovered the skill which Lancelot was using.
Lin Huang nodded his head helplessly.
"It seems like we don't need to fight." Leng Yuexin seemed to be upset as she had no chance to fight the monsters.
"Lin Huang, where did you obtain such a summoning monster? I'd like to seal a monster like this with my monster taming token." Li Lang salivated over the possibility of that.
"You're overthinking. There's only one monster like this that exists in the world." Lin Huang shook his head. "I don't have the energy to train another monster like this."
"Isn't it the triple mutated monster that Mr. Fu caught for you?" Yi Yeyu asked curiously.
"No, I caught it on my own. It had just gone through its first mutation when it's caught," Lin Huang explained.
The four of them instantly kept quiet. Although they did not have a thorough understanding of the job scope of the Imperial Censor, even Reserve Hunters knew that it was challenging for a monster to go through a mutation even only once. A lot of resources and time were needed for training. Therefore, most of the strong Imperial Censors would capture an already triple mutated monster. They had no idea how much effort was required to train a mutated monster into a triple mutated one. This was also the reason why Lin Huang had said that there was only one such in the world.
In the underground room, despite Lancelot not activating its ultimate skill, its performance was terrifying.
As covered its Territory, it seemed like none of the monsters was able to approach Lin Huang and the rest of them. They were at least hundreds of meters away from them. Regardless of which direction the monsters were coming from, as long as it thrust its sword forward, the monsters were instantly killed.
In less than three minutes, it wiped out hundreds of holy fire-level Bloodthirsty Corpses. Lin Huang and the rest became its cheerleaders again.
The blood of the Bloodthirsty Corpse had medicinal value. Therefore, their carcasses were valuable. Lin Huang started collecting the dead bodies.
While he was collecting the carcasses, Bloody chose few of the strongest Bloodthirsty Corpses and completed its parasitizing process. It also retrieved their memories from their brains.
After collecting the carcasses, Lancelot stopped and was about to continue their journey. Yi Zheng, who was standing next to them, finally said, "Let us take the lead and the both of you can follow after us. Otherwise, there's nothing for us to play with."
Lancelot then looked at Lin Huang in doubt.
"Why are you looking at me? You ate the meat without saving the soup for them. Let's back the rear up." Lin Huang grinned, shaking his head.
Lancelot then slowed down so that Yi Zheng and the rest could overtake them before he followed after them.
Chapter 576: Yi Yeyu and Li Lang Show Their Abilities for the First Time
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"There are three floors underground. On the first floor, there are 16 rooms that are similar to the first room we entered, and each room is occupied with hundreds of holy fire-level monsters. On the second floor, there are 12 rooms with holy fire-level monsters that are even stronger. Basically, they are on blue and purple flame-level. There are fewer monsters over there as there are 30 to 50 monsters in each room. On the third floor, which is also the lowest floor, there are two big storehouses. The first storehouse contains four gold flame-level monsters whereas there's an immortal-level monster in the second storehouse…"
Lin Huang gave brief introduction according to the information he obtained from Bloody. He then continued, "Let's start from the first floor. Kill all the monsters in each room and go further down. If we do so, when we're going to kill the last immortal-level monster, it won't have any backup. If the monsters aren't all cleared, we might be hindered during the process of killing it."
The four of them nodded in agreement.
Soon, they reached the second room. As they stepped into the room, the monsters pounced on them without a moment's hesitation.
"Damn! What's that!? It's moving so quickly!" Li Lang immediately dodged the attack with his spear as a monster almost struck him.
Yi Zheng brandished his sword supreme relic and attacked a few of the monsters that came after him.
At this moment, Leng Yuexin and Yi Yeyu who were standing behind them, joined the fight.
Lancelot turned its head and looked at Lin Huang. Although it did not say anything, Lin Huang knew what it wanted to ask.
"If you join the battle, they won't have any fun. Let's kill the monsters that they missed." Lin Huang did not intend to fight, and he put his hands in his pockets.
Lancelot turned back and looked at the four of them who were fighting helplessly. However, it did not have the chance to attack.
The monsters in the second room were Blind Apes. Their appearance was similar to apes, and they were just as agile as well. There was green fur all over their bodies. However, their eyesight had deteriorated entirely. They could only rely on sound waves released to identify a situation and hunt for their prey.
Blind Apes would level up to holy fire-level by default when they reached adulthood. Under normal circumstances, the highest level that they could achieve would be blue flame-level. It would be tough for them to get to levels higher than that. The monsters had strong limbs, a rapid attack speed, and immense strength. They preferred to live in groups. Typically, those who were on gold flame-level would not want to offend them.
There were almost 200 Blind Ape in the second room. Under normal circumstances, those below immortal-level would not provoke this kind of monster. However, Yi Zheng and the rest were going to provoke a faceoff.
Among the four of them, Yi Zheng was the most formidable as he was on purple flame-level. He was followed by Leng Yuexin, who was a blue flame-level. Yi Yeyu and Li Lang were on crimson flame-level. Although they were not stronger than the Blind Apes, as they fought against the monsters together, they managed to defend themselves against the attack of hundreds of Blind Apes. Aside from the fact that they had taken advantage of the supreme relics, this indicated that the four of them had extraordinary abilities.
However, they could soon feel the pressure coming from the monster horde.
"These monsters are moving too quickly!" Li Lang grumbled. He was using a long spear which compromised his agility. As they fought the monsters together, he only barely managed to defend against them. Whenever he wanted to perform a counterattack, the Blind Ape would have retreated. After a couple of minutes, only a few of the monsters were injured by his attack, but none of them died. His face was dismal.
Yi Yeyu was not in any better condition than him though. She only managed to kill three monsters after a few minutes. Watching Leng Yuexin's performance, she felt annoyed.
Leng Yuexin's performance was much better as she had completed level-2 Sword Dao and could possibly achieve level-3 anytime. In fact, the speed of her sword was much faster. It somehow gave people the illusion that it was slow, causing many Blind Apes to be killed by her.
Yi Zheng was the strongest as he managed to kill a Blind Ape each time he slashed his sword. He never missed any of them. Within a few minutes, he had killed about 50 monsters, which were more than the total number of monsters killed by Leng Yuexin and the other two.
It seemed like Yi Yeyu had been triggered by Leng Yuexin and Yi Zheng as she was suddenly flipping out. Red flames were gushing out crazily from her blade that was already blood red. In an instant, a few of the Blind Apes surrounding her were drawn into the flames. The Blind Apes that were shrouded in flames started growling from the pain they suffered. However, their growls lasted for less than five seconds before they stopped. The red flames then disappeared, and the Blind Apes had utterly turned into ashes.
"The temperature of the flames is scary!"
The power of Yi Yeyu's flames surpassed Lin Huang's expectations. Even Lancelot that was standing aside fixed a nervous glance at the blade.
Soon after, it seemed like Yi Yeyu was not going to hide her abilities. She waved her sword that was covered in flames. The Blind Apes that were tainted by the flames were burnt in an instant even though only their fur was tainted with the spark. The monsters that she had killed were no weaker than her. The power of her flames was incredibly potent.
On the other hand, Li Lang frowned. Seeing the three of them so mighty and his lack of progress, he felt stressed. The long spear that he was holding became longer and bigger, transforming into its second state. The spear that was originally 1.5 meters long and 5 centimeters thick was transformed into a massive spear that measured more than three meters long. Aside from the tip of the spear, it looked exactly like a large blunt blade.
Initially, it was a one-handed spear. However, it had now evolved into a two-handed spear. After the supreme relic had changed its state, there was a significant change in its weight.
Several Blind Apes pounced on Li Lang again and attacked him. However, Li Lang fought back, thrusting his spear forward. When his spear touched the Blind Apes, the cracking sound of the bones was immediately heard. The apes were flung away as they were attacked by Li Lang and were smashed against the wall. Nobody knew if they were alive or dead.
"He has improved like mad!" Seeing Li Lang's performance, Lin Huang nodded in satisfaction.
The team of four could easily pin down all the monsters as Yi Yeyu and Li Lang showed off their abilities.
Previously, Lancelot had been wielding a spear in its hand as it got ready to fight. However, when it saw what had happened, it had no choice but to put its sword away. It then continued watching the battle.
Soon, the four of them had wiped out about 200 of the Blind Apes. None of the monsters survived.
Yi Zheng and the rest started collecting the carcasses. The voice box in the Blind Ape's throat was a unique type of biological material which many laboratories were looking for.
Lancelot was upset as it did not get a chance to fight.
"Now you know how it feels? Previously, you killed all the monsters alone, and the others could only be your cheerleaders." Lin Huang laughed teasingly at Lancelot.
Lancelot kept quiet as it finally understood why Lin Huang had asked it to let the rest to kill the monsters that it missed.
"After cleaning up, let's proceed to the next room!" Lin Huang shouted at Yi Zheng and the rest while patting Lancelot's shoulder jovially.
Chapter 577: Lancelot Likes to Eat Vegetables
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Four hours later, Lin Huang and his posse cleared all the monsters in 16 of the rooms on the first floor. From the second room onwards, it basically became their show time as Lancelot would only help them out occasionally.
Most of the monsters on the first floor were below blue-flame level. One to two blue flame-level monsters would only appear once in a while and barely provided a challenge to them.
After Yi Yeyu and Li Lang showed off their abilities, Leng Yuexin and Yi Zheng started fighting freely.
Leng Yuexin's Sword Dao was utterly different from that of Yi Yeyu's as it was of the ice element. If she showed her elemental powers, the speed of the monsters would be affected. In addition to the terrifying Sword Dao that she possessed, she could handle her sword fluidly like flowing water.
Yi Zheng's Sword Dao belonged to the wind element. The level of his Sword Dao was on par with Leng Yuexin's. However, his sword realm was completely different. It could launch a swift and fierce attack with a horrifying killing rate. Each time he brandished his sword, the effect of the attack would never be rendered useless.
Lancelot finally found something interesting while watching the battle among the few of them, fixing its gaze on Yi Zheng, Leng Yuexin, and Yi Yeyu. Although the level of its sword realm was much higher than the three of them, it could still learn something new from them.
"It's not a problem for Yi Zheng and Leng Yuexin's Sword Dao to achieve level-3 before they get to the immortal-level," Lin Huang secretly evaluated their performance. Since he now possessed a level-3 Sword Dao which was also called the Pinnacle level, he could easily identify their accomplishments in Sword Dao.
He then shifted his gaze towards Li Lang and Yi Yeyu. He knew that aside from a few of the killing skills that Li Lang had not used, he had basically done his best. Most of the monsters that Lancelot destroyed were monsters that he had missed.
However, Yi Yeyu was in greater trouble. Although she had a fast attack speed and could even be compared to Leng Yuexin's quickness, her attack was too dependent on the flames in her body. This would suppress the development of her Sword Dao to a certain extent, and it was not beneficial in the long run. If this continued, Yi Yeyu would be able to trounce the weak monsters. However, she would be quickly killed by the strong ones, especially those that were immune to elements.
"We've killed all the monsters on the first floor. Let's take a break and have some snacks. The fight on the second floor will be more difficult," Lin Huang suggested after the last battle on the first floor where they had cleared all the monsters.
Yi Zheng took a look at the time and shook his head. "It's already two o'clock now! Four hours have passed!"
"I didn't even notice that." Li Lang lowered his head to confirm the time. "It was shocking how time flew by so fast!"
They exited the room that was full of blood stains and returned to the clean corridor. They then took out their snacks. They had dried meat and dried vegetables as snacks. Yi Yeyu saw that Lin Huang did not give any food to Lancelot, so she gave a piece of dried meat to it.
Lancelot then turned its head back and looked at Lin Huang, asking for his approval. Lin Huang nodded and said, "Take it. You may have a try."
Lancelot then accepted the dried meat from Yi Yeyu. When it moved its index finger, it cut a small piece of it and tossed it into its mouth. After munching on it, it gave the remaining to Lin Huang. "It doesn't taste good."
"Alright…" Lin Huang had no choice but to take the piece of dried meat. He had never fed Lancelot before. Therefore, he had no idea what Lancelot preferred to eat.
Yi Yeyu was upset when she heard Lancelot's comment. However, it was just a summoning monster, so she could not do anything to it. She could only shoot Lin Huang a deadly stare.
Lin Huang then took a bite of the dried meat that Lancelot had given him. After a few bites, he nodded his head at Yi Yeyu and remarked, "It's quite delicious. Perhaps something is wrong with its taste buds."
Lin Huang then gave Lancelot some dried vegetables. Lancelot hesitated for a while as it supposed it should reject human food after giving the dried meat a try. However, it felt that because Lin Huang was its master, it was inappropriate to do so. It then accepted it.
Again, it cut a small piece of the dried vegetable and put it into its mouth. After a few bites, its blue eyes glowed in delight. "It's delicious!"
It then put all the vegetables left in its mouth. After finishing them, Lancelot turned to look at Lin Huang. Although there was no expression on his metal helmet, Lin Huang knew that he had fallen in love with vegetables just by examining his pair of blue eyes.
"It likes eating vegetables…" Lin Huang mumbled to himself. At the same time, he took out a packet of dried vegetables from his storage space and gave it to Lancelot. "It's all yours."
The stony, cold expression on its face immediately disappeared as it gorged on the vegetables. It looked like a kid that had been starved for many years and had just seen delicious grilled meat.
"Why didn't you tell me that he likes vegetables?" Yi Yeyu stared at Lin Huang again.
"You gave it meat without asking," Lin Huang answered. However, a thought ran through his mind. "How I would know what it likes to eat? I've never fed it."
"Hmph!" Yi Yeyu growled with a pout and ignored Lin Huang.
As Lin Huang was chewing on his third piece of dried meat, Lancelot had already finished the whole packet of dried vegetables. Even the small morsels of dried vegetables in the empty packet had been cleaned up. Until it was sure that nothing was left in the packet, it turned to peer at Lin Huang.
"I don't have many packets of dried vegetables left. You finished the whole packet in just a short while. We're going to stay in the ruins for a month. There won't be enough dried vegetables for you if you eat at the speed at which you do!" Lin Huang was speechless.
"So petty! You don't even want to feed it dried vegetables," Yi Yeyu mumbled and took out another pack of dried vegetables for Lancelot. "I have some with me! Eat mine!"
Lancelot did not accept it. Instead, it looked at Lin Huang expectantly again.
"Take it. I only bought a few packets of the dried vegetables." Lin Huang shook his head helplessly.
Since Lin Huang had granted permission, Lancelot then took the packet of dried vegetables from Yi Yeyu. However, after learning that the supply of the dried vegetables was limited, it ate at a rather slow speed.
Leng Yuexin and the rest could not stand watching its plight and gave it their dried vegetables.
Seeing that Lancelot holding four packets of dried vegetables, Lin Huang found it humorous. He then extended his hand and said, "Give three packets to me. You should just take one."
Lancelot hesitated for a while when it heard what Lin Huang said.
"You even know how to save the food for yourself!" Lin Huang chuckled, "I'll keep it for you. They're all yours."
Lancelot then gave three packets of the dried vegetables to Lin Huang unwillingly.
The four of them simmered with laughter as they saw this.
They had finished their snacks and Lancelot had finished half of its second pack of dried vegetables.
"Alright, it's time to work." After resting for about half an hour, the five of them were prepared to go to the second floor.
Lancelot had stopped eating. As it realized that Lin Huang was staring at the half packet of dried vegetables that it was holding, it hid the snack behind its body as if it was not going to give it to Lin Huang.
Seeing its aggrieved expression, Lin Huang did not demand it back. Instead, he smiled, shaking his head. He then turned around, leading the team to enter the second floor. "Let's proceed to the second floor!"
Chapter 578: Yi Yeyu is Angry
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The entrance to the second floor was situated in one of the rooms that they had cleaned out. To be accurate, it was in the eighth room that they had cleared about two hours ago.
After cleaning up all the 16 rooms, the five of them returned to the entrance to the second floor underground.
The staircase was different from the first one as they were made of stone.
As they went down the stairs, they found out that not only were there scratches on the staircase but also on the walls beside the staircase. The scratches were of different depths. That being said, they seemed to be made by various monsters.
Seeing the scratches, Yi Yeyu frowned. "It seems like many monsters appear over here."
"Many of them are new. It's obvious that these scratches have been made within three days," Yi Zheng added, "This indicates that the monsters go out often to hunt for food."
"Most likely, that's the reason. It seems like all the monsters that we encounter in the ruins are nocturnal, and they'll possibly hunt for food in a group at night," Leng Yuexin further analyzed.
Their analysis was precisely what Lin Huang wanted them to find out for themselves as he could not explicitly tell Yi Zheng and the rest that about the monsters hunting for food at night.
He had gotten this information from Bloody as it had retrieved the memory of the monsters. Lin Huang could not explain the source of the information as he had told them earlier that he had never been to the ruins. He would be contradicting himself if he told them about it.
However, since they had guessed that the monsters would hunt for food at night, Lin Huang added, "It seems possible that all the monsters in the ruins are nocturnal. That's why we didn't encounter a single monster during the daytime.
"There's also the existence of the chief-level monster in the ruins, which means that this is at least a 3-star ruins. There's certainly the presence of other chief-level monsters. If our guess is correct, the ruins will be extremely dangerous at night!"
Because they had come up with their own inference, Lin Huang then concluded based on the facts that he already knew. However, he kept it secret that they were at least in a 4-star ruin.
Their faces turned grave after listening to what Lin Huang said.
"If the monsters appear in the 3-star ruins at night, it'll be very dangerous." Yi Zheng fretted.
"However, we shouldn't overthink. Let's kill the monsters before night falls. We'll be in great trouble if we are surrounded by the monsters at night," Lin Huang reminded them what they had to do now.
As reminded by Lin Huang, Yi Zheng came up with a plan. "Regardless of whether we made the right guess, we'll have to clear all the monsters here. We're at a depth of more than hundreds of meters, and there's an aura from the monsters everywhere. They'll be able to cover our aura. The main thing is that there's only one entrance which has a diameter of five meters. They can hardly attack us. If hordes of monsters do really appear at night, this place is ten times safer than places that are larger. Even if the monsters manage to squeeze through the entrance, the number of monsters will be limited, and we'll be able to defend against their attack…"
The rest of them soon noticed the importance of them clearing the monsters in the ruins. They snapped out of their thoughts and became serious.
Lin Huang felt relieved as he was wondering how he should tell them that the monsters in the ruins would appear at night and that it would be the safest for them to hide in the ruins. He did not expect that everything would turn out well just as he wished.
In less than two minutes after they had finished their conversation, they arrived on the second floor of the ruins.
There was a long corridor at the end of the stairs. There was no need for Lin Huang to show them the way as Yi Zheng and the rest saw that on the left-hand side of the corridor, there was an entrance to the first room.
Still, Lancelot and Lin Huang brought up the rear while Yi Zheng and the rest rushed into the room.
In the first room on the second floor underground, the sleeping Bat Demons were awoken by the four of them as they entered.
The Bat Demon was a type of demon with a black or greyish-black body. It had a falcon-like head and a human body structure. Without looking at its head and wings, it looked exactly like bodybuilders in the human world. Bat Demons were very muscular, but they had a dark skin tone. However, they were different from humans as their feet and palms were agile. They could fully support their body with their feet and hang upside down while they were sleeping. Besides that, they would also cover their whole body with their wings. While a group of Bat Demons was sleeping, people would think that they were black hanging ceiling lamps.
However, the "ceiling lamps" woke up as Yi Zheng and the rest entered.
Upon realizing that the monsters were Bat Demons, their faces turned grave. Although there were only 50 to 60 of the Bat Demons and the number of monsters was lesser than those on the first floor underground, their abilities were incomparable to the Bat Demons'.
Most of the Bat Demons were on blue flame-level after becoming adults. Some of the talented ones could even get to purple flame-level. Their combat strength alone surpassed the monsters on the first floor.
Besides, the Bat Demon could fly, and they were skilled at performing short flights. The Blind Apes that Lin Huang and the rest had encountered on the first floor were extremely agile monsters. However, the Bat Demon was way nimbler than the Blind Ape.
Aside from that, the Bat Demons did not build those muscles for fun. This type of monster had immense strength. The strength of the blue flame-level was on par with purple flame-levels. As for those that were on purple flame-level, they would definitely be able to fight gold flame-level monsters with their power. That being said, it was a type of monster that possessed all speed, strength, and agility.
At almost the same time as the four of them rushed into the room, a few of the Bat Demon pounced on them.
Leng Yuexin immediately activated her ice element whereas Yi Zheng brandished his sword. However, there were still two of the Bat Demons that went after Yi Yeyu and Li Lang.
Both of them could not block the two Bat Demon's actions in time, and they could only dodge their attack.
Bang! Bang!
The loud thuds were heard at almost the same time. Soon after, two shadows were blown out of the room, smashing against the wall on the corridor. In an instant, two big cracks that looked like spider webs appeared on the wall, forming an indent in it.
Unexpectedly, Yi Yeyu and Li Lang were the ones smashed against the wall.
Just as the two Bat Demons were about to pounce on them and continue attacking, Lancelot appeared, standing in front of both of them. It was using a single-handed sword, slashing its sword down on the Bat Demons. They were instantly killed, and their black blood splattered all over the place. Lancelot put its left hand that was still holding the packet of dried vegetables behind its body as it was afraid that it might stain its precious food with blood.
"Ahem!" Li Lang coughed as he got up from the indent on the wall. As he patted the dust from his body, he said, "Dirty tricks. He gets me with a sneak attack. I'm just not ready for the fight yet!"
Yi Yeyu's face turned grave, keeping quiet. However, her body was emitting red flames. Not only was her sword surrounded by flames, but her whole body was also burning. Apparently, she was angry.
When she got out of the wall, Yi Yeyu gradually walked towards the room. With every step forward, the flames on her body became more intense…
Chapter 579: Rose Demigod
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang had already known from early on that the flames in Yi Yeyu's body were of a high level. When they were at the Volcanic Hell, he had witnessed her physique almost being able to pin down all the fire element monsters. However, as he watched Yi Yeyu fight with her flames once more, he had a completely different feeling this time.
Shrouded in flames, Yi Yeyu looked like a burning goddess. Even if the Bat Demon had not touched her sword, they would still get instantly engulfed by the flames if they even had a slight contact with her burning body and turn into ashes.
Although Yi Yeyu's combat strength was just at the crimson flame-level while most of the Bat Demons were at the blue or purple flame-level, none of them was excluded. Anyone of them who had come into contact with Yi Yeyu's body would be turned into ashes within moments.
The flame attacks grew more and more aggressive compared to what Yi Yeyu had shown them on the first floor.
Yi Zheng, Leng Yuexin, and Li Lang were shocked at the scene they just witnessed. Afraid that they would be harmed by her flames, they distanced themselves from her.
"The flames are too fierce. Even gold flame-level monsters would be instantly killed by those flames." Lin Huang felt that Yi Yeyu was like an unconquerable lighter, being able to ignite anything at her whim and burn them to ashes. There was no need for her to fight as she was invincible even when standing still. "I wonder if such an effect works on those at the immortal-level."
As soon as few of the Bat Demons got burned to death, the rest of the Bat Demons gave up on their attacks against Yi Yeyu. Instead, they began to attack Yi Zheng and the rest.
However, Yi Yeyu noticed that the Bat Demons were avoiding her and attempted to attack them with her sword. However, it was rendered useless. She then put her sword away and created a red flaming whip with her Life Power.
Yi Yeyu's whip attack could cover a large area. Beams of red light appeared in the air as her flaming whip flashed through. Despite the fact that the Bat Demons had terrifying speed, they could hardly dodge all the attacks. Many of them were hit by her whip and soon, they were burned to ashes.
As Yi Yeyu waved her whip, a look of excitement could be seen on her face. It was then that Lin Huang vaguely felt that she had made the wrong choice when she chose the Sword Dao. It seemed like a whip suited her rather well.
It had become a one-sided battle in the first room after Yi Yeyu unleashed her skill. It took them about ten minutes to end the battle and more than fifty of the Bat Demons were killed.
The muscle fibers of the Bat Demons could be sold to many biological firms at a good price.
Unfortunately, only a few of the carcasses were in a good condition. Yi Zheng and the rest collected the remaining ten carcasses and put them away.
"Let's go to the next room." Lin Huang nodded his head at Lancelot after they had finished cleaning up.
After she had vented her anger with the attacks, the flames around Yi Yeyu's body disappeared and her expression returned to normal.
"I'd suggest for you to minor in the whip." Lin Huang suggested while walking along the corridor.
"Are you trying to imply that I'm not talented enough in the Sword Dao?" Yi Yeyu glared at Lin Huang."
"I didn't mean that. Since you can't become a gunmaster, you can overcome your weakness in ranged attacks with the whip. You're quite talented with the whip." Lin Huang explained.
Yi Zheng coughed as if he wanted to interrupt their conversation.
Yi Yeyu then raised her head and stared at Yi Zheng. She then explained, "To be honest, I really liked using the whip when I was younger. However, my father and brother told me that it would be hard to marry me off if I chose the whip as my main weapon so they forced me to take a major in sword skills."
'Would it be hard to marry you off if you use a whip?' Soon, a man who was being tied appeared in Lin Huang's mind and a woman in leather whipped him. 'Could that be the reason?'
"That's just prejudice. Females have the right to choose any weapon they prefer. The Rose Demigod is an exception. There are many women who use whips as a weapon before the Rose Demigod. If it wasn't a problem then, why would you say that using a whip is a problem seeing that this only seemed to happen to her?" Leng Yuexin said. It was what she wanted to tell Yi Zheng.
"The Rose Demigod?" Lin Huang had no idea who she was.
Bloody seemed to have sensed what Lin Huang was thinking and immediately explained to him.
"The Rose Demigod is a female demigod that existed more than 500 years ago. She was powerful and her weapons were two whips laced with poisonous thorns. More than 500 years ago, her husband was caught in bed with another woman. Her husband and his lover were whipped into mincemeat and after that incident passed, she became mentally ill. Following that, she would often gather information about married couples and whenever she found someone who was having an affair, they would bear the brunt of her whip. This terrified the people in the core zone."
"The president of the Union in Division 2 was found to be cheating on his partner as well. She attacked him in public but she faced attacks from others and fled before becoming insane. It took her several years to get in league with the monsters beyond the safe zone as they prepared an apocalypse-grade monster horde with the intention to destroy the entire Division 2."
"There were 16 demigod-level monsters and more than a dozen billions of monsters that joined the monster horde with most of the monsters in the safe zone joining them as well. With that, they managed to almost wipe out the entire Division 2 in a single night. Thanks to the backup team from Division 3 and Division 1, they managed to prevent Division 2 from getting destroyed."
"Although the Rose Demigod killed the president of the Union, she didn't leave the battleground after she was exhausted and was killed by another demigod. Although it has already ended, humans still avoided using the whip as a weapon after hundreds of years, especially for females who intend on majoring in the whip."
After listening to Bloody's explanation, Lin Huang knew that he had misunderstood the matter.
Yi Zheng was speechless that Leng Yuexin supported Yi Yeyu. Although he knew that his understanding was inaccurate, he was still on his father's side and advised Yi Yeyu to give up her intentions to learn the whip.
"That's discrimination toward women. If women shouldn't learn to use whips just because of the trouble created by Rose Demigod, why aren't the men prohibited from using swords after the Sword Maniac incident? Instead, the number of men who use sword has doubled after the incident." Leng Yuexin hated double standards.
Yi Zheng remained silent as he knew that he was in the wrong.
Li Lang who was standing next to them dared not interrupt them as he was not close to them.
Since Lin Huang majored in the sword, he knew very well about the Sword Maniac incident.
More than 400 years ago, a person named Sword Maniac was said to have the most powerful weapon in the world. He always held a black sword in his hand and challenged people from various places.
He challenged most of the people who were not using swords from Division 3 to Division 1 and none could defeat him.
Once he discovered that he was invincible, Sword Maniac went out of his mind. He went to the forbidden area in Division 3 and broke its seal, releasing hordes of monsters that had been sealed more than 800 years ago. He even fought against the first generation protoss for seven days and seven nights before eventually dying of exhaustion.
His insane actions had brought a great disaster to Division 3. It was then that the people said that the only reason they were able to suppress the first generation monsters was with divine help.
However, none of them suggested prohibiting the use of swords after the Sword Maniac incident. Instead, the number of people who were training with swords grew.
While he was being told the story about strong men in the past, Lin Huang felt that there were countless madmen in this world that would simply put their lives at risk.
"It's fine. I simply wanted to give a suggestion. What you guys are arguing about?" Seeing the situation becoming awkward, Lin Huang immediately jumped in. "Nobody cares much about that nowadays. There are many of them who use whips in the arena. Yeyu, you can still train in the whip if you want to do so. However, it'll take you some time to learn it. If you don't want to learn the whip, you can minor in other things."
The rest of them merely kept quiet for a moment. As they reached the end of the corridor, they turned right at the T-junction and soon arrived at the second monster room.
Chapter 580: Bladefoot Worm
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The monsters in the second room on the second underground floor were the Bladefoot Worms.
The monsters looked like praying mantes. However, they had six pairs of long legs. Four of their hind limbs under their abdomen possessed an incredible jumping ability and grip which allowed them to climb anywhere. They would attack with eight of their forelimbs and each of them was as sharp as a sword, even comparable to an expert-grade relic.
Most insects would have a blind spot on their back. However, the Bladefoot Worm did not have any. Even if somebody attacked them from the back, they would be able to twist their bladefeet to defend against the attacks. They could twist like a professional yogi.
One of the abilities of the Bladefoot Worms that were often neglected was their wings. The pair of wings on their back were actually bladed wings that had a sharpness that was on par with their bladefeet. To be precise, there were not only eight blades on their body, there were ten of them instead. Many of the hunters were deceived by its name and were killed by their wings.
It was a monster that had speed, explosive power, and an incredible killing ability on their side.
The body of the adult Bladefoot Worm measured a length of about five meters with most of them on the blue flame-level. A small minority of their population managed to achieve the purple flame-level and were one of the top predators among monsters of the same level. Put simply, their personal abilities were a rank higher than their actual rank.
The moment Yi Zheng and the rest saw that the monsters in the second room were Bladefoot Worms, their faces turned grave.
This was especially so for Li Lang because he knew that it would be difficult for him to kill even a single monster like that.
"Xiao Yu, Xiao Li, be careful." Yi Zheng reminded both of them. Unlike the Bat Demons, they might be killed if the Bladefoot Worm's attack struck them.
Lin Huang and Lancelot were standing behind four of them looking relaxed. They were not interested in such monsters.
"Lin Huang, be careful. Ask your summoning monster to pay attention to the other monsters since they're exceedingly fast." Leng Yuexin was unsure of Lin Huang's abilities so she frowned as she reminded him. She was curious as to why Yi Zheng did not remind Lin Huang about this. She then thought that it could be that Yi Zheng was of the opinion that Lancelot was strong enough to protect Lin Huang.
In fact, Yi Zheng felt that even if Lin Huang was weaker than him, he would not that much weaker since they had done battle before Lin Huang leveled-up to the holy fire-level. Yi Yeyu was one of the members in the audience of that battle and she knew how strong Lin Huang could be. As for Li Lang, he had earlier witnessed Lin Huang's abilities at the Volcanic Hell and had no idea how much stronger Lin Huang could be but there was one thing he knew for sure — Lin Huang was much stronger than him. Leng Yuexin was the only one who had yet to witness Lin Huang's abilities during the time when he was still at the complete gold-level. This was the reason she was worried about him.
"Don't worry. Lancelot won't let the monsters to come near me." Lin Huang answered with a smile, without further explanation. He then told Yi Yeyu and Li Lang, "Yeyu, Old Li, be the doorkeeper. Don't go too far."
Li Lang knew that he was not strong enough and dared not enter rashly.
Yi Yeyu was reluctant to do so as she wanted to activate her flames again. However, she knew that the effect of her flames would not be similar to what it could achieve during a battle drill and she gave up after thinking carefully about it.
Soon, the Bladefoot Worm sensed the presence of Lin Huang and the rest as it immediately pounced on them.
Yi Zheng and Leng Yuexin were on the frontline, so they immediately made their way through the monster horde while Yi Yeyu and Li Lang were guarding the door not far away from them. Each of them had a monster coming after them.
Under such circumstances, there was a big gap between four of their abilities.
Li Lang's long spear had transformed into a large spear that was about three meters in length. His abilities were on par with the Bladefoot Worm.
Yi Yeyu on the other hand, ignited her blood-colored sword as the both of them were similarly locked in their own battles.
As for Leng Yuexin, she held a sword in each hand. The swords were made up of the ice and fire elements respectively. She rushed towards the monster horde as an explosion occurred due to the opposing elements. The monsters retreated the moment she passed by.
On the other hand, Yi Zheng's sword had already slipped out of his hand but he moved his hand slightly, manipulating the sword like the wind. By doing so, his sharp, long sword pierced through the body of the monsters.
Leng Yuexin and Yi Zheng had also finally shown their true power. As Yi Yeyu and Li Lang could not help out at all in the fight, both of them could no longer retain their abilities.
To be honest, Leng Yuexin's dual attributes and Yi Zheng's Sword Manipulation were out of Lin Huang's expectation as he had never seen them using such skills.
Leng Yuexin's current attacks were effective. She would freeze the monsters with ice and kill them with fire. Also, her ice sword could be used as a defensive weapon and she could launch an attack with her fire sword. However, Lin Huang knew that it was actually the simplest skill of the dual attributes. Leng Yuexin must have some other skills up her sleeves that were even more powerful.
Since he had seen the Sword Dominator's skills, he had nothing to say about Yi Zheng's Sword Manipulation. Right when Yi Zheng was about to unleash his Sword Manipulation, Lin Huang felt curious as to why did he not create few more swords. However, once he saw that Yi Zheng could not even control a single sword smoothly, he instantly understood that he had been expecting too much from him. Yi Zheng's Sword Manipulation was obviously different from the one obtained from the monster. Instead, he practiced it on his own.
Lin Huang who had fought Yi Zheng before clearly knew that it was not Yi Zheng's strongest skill. However, it was currently the most effective skill that he had. The speed of the Bladefoot Worm was fast and they could hardly be killed by a regular sword attack.
All of a sudden, one of the Bladefoot Worms gave up on its attack against Leng Yuexin. It changed its target and pounced on Li Lang instead.
With the strong explosive power of its hind limbs, it appeared in front of Li Lang in a blink of an eye before Li Lang could pick up his large spear in time.
"Damn it! I'm doomed!"
Scenes of how he would be cut into pieces flashed through his mind. Right this moment, a dark red glow flashed through the air and the Bladefoot Worm that attempted to attack Li Lang immediately exploded. It looked like a bullet that had penetrated through a watermelon, casusing it to explode.
Seeing the Bladefoot Worm's dead body fell onto the ground, Li Lang then turned back and caught a glimpse of Lin Huang. As usual, Lin Huang was still watching the battle at the corridor, folding his arms across his chest. Lancelot took out a dried vegetable and put it in its mouth as if nothing had happened.
"Hey, don't get distracted during a fight." Lin Huang's languid voice was soon heard.
Li Lang then shifted his gaze from them to the battle. Still, he could not calm himself down even after a long while. Despite the fact that he already knew that Lancelot was strong, he had never witnessed its strength before. However, the fact that Lancelot managed to kill in a split second frightened him. Not to mention that he had no chance to fight back at all, he could not even dodge its attack. He could only react to it when Lancelot's attack had penetrated the Bladefoot Worm's head. That being said, he would be killed by Lancelot within seconds.
"Could Lin Huang himself defeat Lancelot?" Li Lang doubted it. The next second, he denied his own doubt and thought to himself, "Lin Huang is only at the white flame-level. He's definitely incomparable to Lancelot."
The battle in the second room finally ended after half an hour.
A few of the monsters that attempted to attack Li Lang and Yi Yeyu were killed by Lancelot within seconds, the rest of the Bladefoot Worms seemed to have felt that there was something unusual so they dared not attack them any longer.
After fighting for about half an hour, more than sixty of the Bladefoot Worm were killed by Yi Zheng and Leng Yuexin.
The feet of the Bladefoot Worms were the most valuable parts of their bodies. They were one of the main materials used to make sword-type relics. Eight of its bladefeet could be sold at a price of two expert-grade relics. Heck, they could actually make some money from this.
After collecting the carcasses, they headed towards the next room.