Having made up his mind, Qianye once again scanned the other tunnels and finally picked the largest one. This tunnel was almost a hundred meters in height with obvious traces of wear, a clear sign that giant beasts often took this path. Ordinary soldiers from the Moonlight Demons had no way to hide themselves. They would naturally avoid this path because death was their only fate upon being discovered.
This path inclined downward and led into the deeper parts of the earth. And judging from common knowledge, the Earth Dragon’s hiding place was likely to be deep underground. Hence, Qianye picked this pa.s.sage and jumped right in.
Only after entering the path used by a giant beast could one truly realize the grandeur and mysticism of the underground world. This pa.s.sage itself was akin to a giant underground hallway, stretching so far that it seemed endless. There were shallow pits scattered all along the ground and an interweaving network of trenches with some sort of sticky fluid flowing within them.
Qianye advanced rapidly along the cave walls. As he was traveling, he suddenly felt something off about these shallow pits running along the center of the tunnel. Upon careful examination, he found these pits—each several meters in diameter—were actually footprints! From how they were shaped, it would seem that this giant beast was different from the rhinoceros he had encountered before.
If all of the shallow pits were footprints, then what were the trenches? They didn’t look like naturally formed structures at all.
After traveling for an unknown length of time, the tunnel finally made a turn and inclined downward. Two somewhat smaller caves appeared around the corner and no one knew where they would lead to.
As he was pa.s.sing the cave, Qianye heard a weak rumble from within. That was not a natural sound, but the timbre of an origin gun. There was no way he would mistake that unique frequency.
An idea popped up in his head as he moved stealthily toward the battlefield. A battle at this point was likely the allied forces of the Spider Emperor and Moonlight Demons fighting the Earth Dragon’s beast mob. This was a good opportunity because Qianye could appear to reap the benefits from whoever the winner was. He only hoped the Moonlight Demon squad wouldn’t lose too quickly and that they would weaken the beast force somewhat.
After several turns, he reached an open area brightly illuminated by raging flames.
This underground hall was hundreds of meters high from floor to ceiling. There was a platform at the center standing dozens of meters tall, with a waterfall flowing off its edge. The water converged into a winding river which eventually disappeared into the cave walls to form an underground waterway.
There was a structure on the other side of the platform that looked both like a camp and a lair. It consisted of a stone wall surrounding a beehive that was several stories tall. Some odd insects would fly out from the hive from time to time to reinforce the defensive force.
Qianye wasn’t seeing things; these giant insects were indeed guarding the stone wall. They would hide behind the giant rocks atop the wall and spray out dark, poisonous liquid from time to time.
Outside of the nest were the forces of the Spider Emperor and Moonlight Demons. Hundreds of elite soldiers had formed a stable battlefront around the advantageous terrain. They had surrounded the nest and were using accurate firepower to clear out the giant bugs atop the stone walls.
The formal battle strategy between the two powers shook Qianye. Ignoring the Spider Emperor’s side, it was quite surprising that these bull-sized insects were actually defending their fort in earnest. These bugs were clad in thick sh.e.l.ls which, even when shot, would crack and leak some fluid at most. To these insects and their extremely powerful vitality, such damage was nothing more than a light injury. But they would eventually reach their limit after constant acc.u.mulation and finally fall off the walls as corpses.
There were hundreds of corpses in the middle of the battlefield just like the worms that had attacked Qianye before. Most of them had been torn into many segments, apparently killed as they were charging.
Having lost their melee type and relying on the poison-spitters alone, the defensive line was naturally full of openings. However, the poisonous liquid from the sh.e.l.led insects was extremely powerful. An arachne who was struck by the fluid fell to the ground, screaming, and a part of its body soon dissolved.
The liquid that had missed their targets would evaporate into a mist of poison and only disperse after some time. This formed a poison-shrouded area after repeated attacks and pushed back the warriors of the Spider Emperor and Moonlight Demons constantly.
Comparatively speaking, the insects were at a disadvantage. The giant bugs were being killed at a steady rate, and the nest could hardly keep up with the rate of consumption. Their defensive power and poisonous mist were also weakening gradually.
As Qianye saw it, the poisonous mist wasn’t all that powerful. The dark races mostly possessed great resistance to poison and could easily charge through to take down the settlement. At that point, these giant poison-spitting bugs wouldn’t be able to hold the line.
It was impossible for the Spider Emperor’s side to not know this simple logic. The reason why they had dug-in to whittle away at the enemy forces was probably because they were apprehensive about something else.
Qianye edged back slowly to pick a better location. He scaled the cave wall and arrived on a raised platform. This place was a hundred meters high and overlooked the entire battlefield.
As the bugs fell one after the other, the nest began spitting them out at an evidently faster rate. Unfortunately, its production was limited and couldn’t keep up with the losses on the battlefield. The nest seemed to be feeling restless at this point—it began wriggling constantly, spraying faint silvery liquid from the wounds on it.
It was at this moment that Qianye’s blood core pulsed strongly for a moment, almost breaking his bloodline concealment!
Greatly shocked, he immediately suppressed its movements. During that brief moment, Qianye clearly sensed something in the nest that made him want to devour it—almost like a delicious meal. This kind of inherent longing of the bloodline occurred rarely, if ever, in Qianye.
One had to know that the dark golden blood energy was refined from the Mystery chapter and its bloodline was inherently pure, even slightly more so than Nighteye’s primo lineage. Something even the dark golden energy longed for naturally interested Qianye.
The more he craved, the calmer he became. When his blood core moved just now, a sharp commander wearing the colors of the Moonlight Demons glanced over in his direction. Fortunately, Qianye wasn’t discovered since he was hundreds of meters above and out of the man’s line of vision.
Such an expert was overseeing so many powerful troops, yet they were still advancing at a leisurely pace. This made Qianye feel that the nest was not simple at all. The Moonlight Demon expert was clearly waiting for something.
Qianye had never lacked patience. He merely watched on in silence.
At this moment, the number of armored bugs had dwindled and the nest’s defenses were on the verge of collapse. The Moonlight Demon expert finally lost his patience—he waved his arm forward, commanding the soldiers under his command to begin their charge.
The poisonous mist was indeed limited in its effects. Only a handful of people fell to the poison while the rest pa.s.sed through the cloud and began charging at the nest. The soldiers at the front were clearly more powerful than their peers, evading the bugs’ poisonous spray with great agility. With them restraining the insects, those at the back completed their charge in the blink of an eye and arrived below the nest.
The wriggling inside the hive increased sharply and then burst open. A silvery figure rushed into the sky and, making a sharp turn in the air, dived at the soldiers below!
“We’ve waited long enough!” That expert laughed loudly. With a flicker, his figure arrived below the insect fortress and spread a large net over the silvery silhouette. The net glittered with a metallic l.u.s.ter and was dotted with sharp blades and hooks. It was a shocking weapon!
The giant net’s landing spot not only covered the silver figure but also several Moonlight Demon warriors. Once caught in the weapon, these soldiers would be gravely injured if not killed outright. To the commander, however, their lives weren’t as important as the silver shadow. He would rather kill his men than let the prey escape.
The silver shadow made a sharp turn just as the net was about to descend. Its movements were full of alacrity but were still one step too late. The net seemed like it would catch its quarry.
It was at this time that the rumble of an origin gun echoed through the cavern. A fist-sized origin bullet streaked across the cave and blasted the expert"s back!
This shot was extremely powerful. It blew the expert into the air and forced him to spit out a mouthful of blood. The giant net lost control and deviated to the side, missing the silvery shadow and covering the Moonlight Demon soldiers instead.
Bluemoon’s vaguely-discernible figure appeared on the other side of the cavern. The origin cannon on her left arm glowed once more, but a gentle voice emerged in her ears before she could fire again. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Bluemoon suddenly turned around and fired toward a shadow beside her. A large rock there sprang into motion as the illusion was broken. A silver-armored warrior came into being and deflected the incoming bullet with a swing of her heavy sword.
Even after going head-on against Bluemoon’s shot, this person only leaned half a step back. In terms of strength, she was far above the commander from just now.
“So it’s you! I knew you would come!” Bluemoon gnashed her teeth.
“Of course, how could I miss an opportunity to finish off the Highbeard s.h.i.+eldmaiden?” the female warrior said calmly.
Bluemoon was furious. “You have too much Highbeard blood on your hands. Our tribe will not let you off!”
The female warrior broke into laughter. “What a joke! How much evil has your Highbeard tribe committed?”
Bluemoon’s expression sank. Light began to flicker on her gun, but she sensed something just as she was about to fire and glanced over in Qianye’s direction.
Qianye was startled. He was about to attack just now, but Bluemoon had sensed his aura as soon as he retracted his Bloodline Concealment. Her perception was simply too sharp, completely different from what he knew about her.
Bluemoon reacted with extreme speed. At the same time that she opened fire, she also tossed two origin grenades at her feet. The female warrior slashed the origin bullet apart and was just about to charge when she saw the origin grenades appear up front. She had no choice but to retreat while spewing curses.
After the blast dispersed, a giant rock fell down from the ceiling and kicked up a cloud of dust and gravel.
By the time the dust had settled, Bluemoon was already nowhere to be found. Qianye saw her vanish into a nearby tunnel, but the problem was that they were on opposite sides of the cavern and he would have to cross over the battlefield in order to chase her down. Additionally, Bluemoon had displayed an extremely high level of stealth and speed. Qianye wasn’t too confident in catching her now that she had a big lead.
The female warrior was livid. She snorted heavily but didn’t give chase, apparently realizing that she couldn’t catch up.