บท 322: AZI Volume 6 Chapter 26
Holding little to no expectations, Long Hua stores Shui Yue away, and opens the treasure chest—inside, he finds a single item.
"…Hm?"
Holding a pale blue bottle by its neck, Long Hua pops the cap open, and takes a sniff of the content.
[Merely a body strengthening elixir. Simply drink it to experience its effect.]
As the dark clouds part, the colossal white serpent rears its head closer to the island.
"…"
Staring into the white serpent's azure-colored eyes, which are behind a layer of dark clouds, Long Hua asks—
"…This is it? After all that?"
(*-laoban…)
Seeing the attitude that Long Hua is taking with the unpleasant individual, the Tai Xuan Emperor turns nervous.
Not minding Long Hua's tone, the unpleasant individual answers—
[I do not consider Hai Zang to have been able to pose much of a challenge; hence, I find this elixir to be more than appropriate enough to serve as a reward. Do you know why I consider Hai Zang a failure?]
"…"
Although Hai Zang looks intimidating at first glance, Long Hua—who is reviewing the battle in his head, is quick to realize its major flaw.
"It doesn't possess a powerful main body. The moment its outer shell is destroyed, it becomes something that anyone can squeeze like a soft persimmon."
[Indeed. Not only that, but it must also reconstruct its vessel every time it finds new materials that can be used. At the same time, the entirety of the reconstruction process can take up to a year at a minimum. Possessing such an obvious weakness, a creature of that nature cannot possibly be considered the ultimate lifeform.]
"…"
Blinking his eyes, Long Hua summons the phantom maw of a serpent, and tosses the body strengthening elixir into it.
Snapping its lips shut, the maw swallows the elixir, along with the bottle.
Following this, Long Hua immediately feels an itch throughout his body, and looking down at his hands, he sees his skin drying up and cracking.
Rubbing his hands together, the dried skin chips right off and breaks into dust.
"…Hmm. Should have used this while I'm in the shower."
Not willing to deal with this discomfort, Long Hua draws a large quantity of water from the air, and basks himself inside a rotating pillar of water.
This bathing experience is probably akin to how articles of clothing would feel inside an active washing machine.
"…"
Leaving Long Hua to his own devices, Tian Cheng retrieves the combat bodies, along with the Machina Frame and its weapon.
...…
Emerging from the water pillar, Long Hua feels much more refreshed, as he forms a fist with his right hand.
And feeling a clear increase in his physical strength, the urge to test it manifests in Long Hua's heart, causing him to ask—
"So, where is the entrance into the next zone?"
Towards Long Hua's question, a simplistic magic array—consisting of only three white rings, manifests in the island's center.
[This teleportation magic array will take you to the second zone. However, be warned that Shā Chén, the ruler of the zone isn't as easy to deal with.]
Not knowing what to make of these broad words, Long Hua frowns before making his way over to the teleportation magic array with Tian Cheng.
"…"
"…"
Stepping onto the magic array, the two are teleported in the next instance, and—
...…
Upon regaining his awareness, Long Hua remarks—
"…Places like this brings up unpleasant memories."
Teleported into a vast desert, Long Hua is reminded of the first ruins, to which, Tian Cheng replies—
"I do not believe that place was that bad compared to the one we're in now."
Different from the first ruins that they had been to, the sand here is made up of two different colors, black and gold.
"…"
And even without using his divine senses, Long Hua can see numerous tornadoes moving about in the distance.
"Uh?"
Just as Long Hua takes one step forward, he looks down at the cuff of his dress shirt.
"…?"
Seeing three unusual tears on the sleeve, Long Hua narrows his eyes.
Beneath these tears, he also sees scratches on his skin; however, due to the effects of the body strengthening elixir, the scratches close within the blink of an eye.
"…"
As soon as a wild thought crosses his mind, Long Hua turns to Tian Cheng.
"…?"
*…! …! …!* looking down at her clothes, which have numerous rips and tears appearing at random, Tian Cheng frowns.
Considering how Tian Cheng's clothes are a part of her combat body, for it to be damaged by the drifting sands with such ease—
(*-laoban, this is…?)
Before the Tai Xuan Emperor can say anything, Long Hua stores Tian Cheng into his storage pouch, prior to taking out a single bullet.
*Ping! Ping! Ping!* seeing the bullet's body being chipped away at, Long Hua clicks his tongue and tosses it forward.
Even before the bullet can travel for five meters, it is thoroughly mangled out of shape, as it plops onto the sands, and vanishes from sight.
"I think, I understand what that unpleasant bastard had meant…"
*Sha! Sha! Sha!* as soon as Long Hua had said this, bulges appeared throughout the desert, and as these bulges rose in height, they gradually assumed a humanoid form.
"This…?"
Finding this situation to be nothing but odd, cold sweat rolls down the side of Long Hua's head.
In the first zone, all the creatures there had unique appearances, but the ones here, they all seem to possess a uniformed appearance—being humanoids formed of black and gold sand.
(Don't tell me…? That Sha Chen he mentioned, is it the only creature in this zone?)
Thinking of this, and drawing out Shui Yue, Long Hua decides to test this theory, as he takes a quick glance at the evolution interface, which currently shows the EXP bar at—
(142 out of 4,000.)
Keeping this number in mind, and taking a single step forward, numerous tears appear on Long Hua's clothes, as grains of drifting sand brushes pass them.
(Dammit, this environment is completely against me!)
Realizing that he cannot possibly hope to do battle in this environment for prolonged periods of time, Long Hua clicks his tongue, as he approaches one of the sand puppets.
Slashing with Shui Yue, Long Hua cuts through the sand puppet's body with effortless ease, but the moment it breaks apart, a powerful wind would howl—throwing a massive pile of sand towards himself.
"…!"
Widening his eyes, Long Hua immediately steps backwards, but a quarter of the sand still manages to touch his feet—shredding his boots, along with a portion of his trousers!
"…"
Distancing himself, and staring down at his shredded skin, which is being mended at a visible rate, Long Hua heaves a heavy sigh as his shoulders drop.
Even after killing one of the sand puppets, the EXP bar's 142 remains unchanging—proving his theory that all these puppets are being controlled by a single entity.
"Screw this."
Deciding to exit the hunting grounds, Long Hua's figure vanishes from sight.
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