Chapter 213: Jiang Chen Has More Plans
The sight of the Goldbiter Rat holding Ling Xuan’s body in its paws and biting down hungrily at it caused Ye Qiao’s scalp to go numb. It was as if his entire body had been struck by lighting. He trembled uncontrollably all over and his teeth chattered.
Ling s.h.i.+ and Ling Feng looked at each other with a despairing but resolute intent to kill in their eyes. The two shadows swept left and right as they once again charged towards Jiang Chen.
They had no other choice now. They had hope to live only if they captured Jiang Chen. This goal hadn’t changed even with the death of their boss Ling Xuan.
If they couldn’t take down Jiang Chen, they were dead without a doubt.
At this moment, they only hoped that boss Ling Xuan’s death would distract the Goldbiter Rat so that it wouldn’t be interested in taking the two of them.
Their arts and speed were deployed to their extreme in this moment of life and death.
Ling Feng and Ling s.h.i.+ could almost see hope again at this point.
The Goldbiter Rat moved again at this time. Its speed was so fast that it surpa.s.sed their powers of comprehension.
Golden light flashed.
Pa pa!
Two crisp sounds rang out as Ling Feng and Ling s.h.i.+’s hovering bodies were slapped down like rotten mud.
When everyone took another look at them, their skulls had been flattened. Upon landing on the ground, their bodies no longer showed any signs of life.
Two spirit realm pract.i.tioners had been destroyed in the blink of an eye.
All of a sudden, Ye Qiao felt he became completely lifeless as he finally experienced the despair that Ye Dai and Ye Zheng had felt in that moment.
As he looked at the golden colored sea churning over the land, and then cast a glance at the corpses of his spirit realm personal guards lying on the ground, Ye Qiao didn’t react at all as he was swallowed by the boundless rat tide.
The rat tide made a clean sweep of things and slowly began to retreat after fifteen minutes, continuously returning to the Millionditch Stonenests and leaving behind a ground covered by bone shards.
...
Jiang Chen caught back up to Ye Rong and the others after an hour.
“Jiang Chen? Back so soon?” Ye Rong was a bit surprised to see Jiang Chen return. He’d been gone only for how long?
“I’m back.” Jiang Chen displayed a bizarre grin.
“It’s done?”
“I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what went on in the minds of second prince and his party. They actually entered the mountain valley area and were destroyed by the rat tide.”
“What?” Ye Rong was shocked. “Destroyed by the rat tide? Ye Qiao, is he…”
“They are all dead. A bunch of bone shards all over the ground is what’s left of them.” Jiang Chen shook his head with a sigh, as if this matter had nothing to do with him.
Dan Fei looked at him meaningfully, only somewhat believing him, but she didn’t say anything.
It was rather Xue Tong who had a hint of a smile on his lips and didn’t say anything.
“Forget it, he brought evil onto himself. Let’s go. This place is truly uncanny.”
After having so many things happen, Ye Rong wasn’t much excited by Ye Qiao’s death. He just wanted to leave this maze realm as soon as possible.
Besides, the main opponents who could compete with him, Ye Dai and Ye Qiao, had already been destroyed by the rat tide.
Ye Zheng had dug his own grave in following Ye Dai, being Ye Dai’s dog, and had accompanied Ye Dai to the grave. Naturally, he was of no threat to Ye Rong.
With regard to this matter, Ye Rong’s mind had long since travelled back to the capital. He had no particular thoughts about the Autumn Hunt itself.
As for Dan Fei, she was coming back with a full haul after obtaining four Silvermoon Monsterape babies. She didn’t have any particular opinions anymore as she had already lost interest in the Autumn Hunt.
It was rather Jiang Chen who, despite accompanying Dan Fei in, was the most proactive now. He wasn’t particularly enthused about hunting spirit creatures at all. However, he swept up all the spirit ingredients and herbs he found and thus came away with quite a haul as well.
As time progressed, they would sometimes b.u.mp into other teams, but everyone walked away unscathed since there were no conflicting interests.
On this day, the team traveled south and walked in the opposite direction of the exit.
“The Autumn Hunt will end in another seven days. We should hurry back to the appointed location, what do all of you think?” Ye Rong suggested.
Dan Fei thought for a moment but didn’t say anything. Her beautiful eyes looked at Jiang Chen, obviously seeking his opinion.
Jiang Chen said, “You head for the exit first, I’ll meet up with you there before the time approaches.”
“What do you have planned?” Dan Fei was curious.
Jiang Chen smiled as his eyes looked into the distance towards the south. “I just feel that it’s a bit of a pity to just leave like this after making a trip in.”
Ye Rong and Dan Fei looked at each other, both a bit shamefaced. They’d accomplished both of their goals this time, but Jiang Chen hadn’t seemed to gain much of anything despite contributing the most effort.
Ye Rong had gained the most this time as his compet.i.tors had all been swallowed by the rat tide, indirectly sending him to the throne.
Dan Fei had obtained the baby spirit animals she wanted, thus she did not come in vain.
It was Jiang Chen who’d gone to all the effort, but they were the ones who’d ended up benefitting. Therefore, they could understand why he wanted to linger around a bit longer.
“Jiang Chen, watch your safety.” Ye Rong clapped Jiang Chen’s shoulder.
Dan Fei originally wanted to accompany Jiang Chen, but when she saw that Jiang Chen had no intention of inviting her, she naturally didn’t make herself unwelcome.
“Take care.” She seemed to have a lot of things to say but only said those two words in the end.
Jiang Chen left the team, dithered for a bit and then made swiftly to the south.
Ever since entering the maze realm, all the spirit creatures that Jiang Chen had encountered had headed in that direction. This made him curious; just what was happening there? What was it that was caused so many spirit creatures to continuously be congregated in that area?
These spirit creatures all seemed to be in quite a hurry to the point that even those usually interested in the flesh and blood of humans didn’t bother to stop and attack when they pa.s.sed by human camps.
“Something more tempting must be happening in the south!”
…
The area to the south was an enormous, deep abyss. There were boundless caverns at the bottom of the abyss that ran in all directions and their entrances were numerous.
Jiang Chen hid himself well outside the caverns.
Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet trembled as the head of the Goldbiter Rat King poked out.
“Young master Chen, this cavern is incredibly big. Many spirit creatures are gathered there, as if waiting for something to happen.”
“Oh? How many spirit creatures?” Jiang Chen asked lowly.
“Roughly ten or so. The ones that are strong are similar to me. Those who are weak are at least mid rank spirit realm.” The Rat King was at the advanced rank spirit realm.
“That many? What are they waiting for?”
“I didn’t go near them and I don’t know what they’re waiting for. But according to my senses, there should be something special beneath the caverns that all the spirit creatures want to claim for themselves.”
“A special item? What can it be?” Jiang Chen was quite curious.
“In my speculation, it should be some spirit item, like a spirit fruit, a spirit source or something. These spirit creatures wouldn’t spend so much time occupying this territory if it wasn’t something particularly useful.” The Goldbiter Rats were renowned for being timid.
Even though not many of these spirit creatures would be a.s.sured of a victory over it, the Goldbiter Rat King still didn’t dare draw near. They were naturally cautious and timid. It was a trait shared by all the Goldbiter Rats.
“Go, take me there for a look.”
It was very easy for Jiang Chen to enter the caverns with the help of a Goldbiter Rat King that could drill and fly through the ground. He followed the Rat King in continuously threading through the ground.
The caverns were deep and dark, twisty and windy, quite serpentine in its makeup.
Jiang Chen deployed his Psychic’s Head to the maximum and directed the Goldbiter Rat King to continuously dig in front. The Rat King’s drilling abilities were truly amazing.
“Slow down, we’re almost there. Don’t alert the other spirit creatures.” Jiang Chen reminded it.
Jiang Chen and the Rat King both knew that if they entered through the currently existing pa.s.sages, they’d be discovered by the spirit creatures entrenched in the area, no matter which tunnel they took.
Although the Rat King’s strength allowed him not to fear these spirit creatures, and its appearance wouldn’t even alarm the other spirit creatures, it was another thing entirely if the Goldbiter Rat King appeared with a human in tow. If it was just the Rat King, that was just another spirit creature and another compet.i.tor at most.
Spirit creatures had incredibly high intelligence and an innate wariness of humans. If they discovered that the Rat King had brought a human here, it would be greatly ostracized and perhaps even be attacked by a mob.
Jiang Chen didn’t come here to become a living target for these spirit creatures. He had come to take a look at just what the spirit creatures were fighting over.
Jiang Chen was the reincarnated son of the Celestial Emperor. He didn’t lack any theories or knowledge. What he lacked was all sorts of divine materials and earthly treasures. It was apparent that the item all these spirit creatures were fighting over wasn’t ordinary, given that there were so many of them here.
“I’ve partic.i.p.ated in the Autumn Hunt because I wanted to put myself through trials and search for all sorts of good items. Since I’ve chanced into it this time, I naturally won’t let it go. Although it’ll be a bit dangerous, I should still make a play for it!”
Fortune came from risk. With high risk came high rewards.
Jiang Chen naturally understood this, and so he had the Rat King cleave a new pa.s.sageway. He didn’t excavate it through to the end and stopped when they were about two to three meters away from the outside world.
This distance allowed him to observe the scene through the Psychic’s Heart without any worry about being discovered by the spirit creatures in the outside world.
The Rat King was cowardly. If it wasn’t for Jiang Chen’s promise, it wouldn’t have wanted to get embroiled in this at all. Therefore, when Jiang Chen called it to halt, it naturally wouldn’t refuse.
However, it was rather curious. Just how was Jiang Chen going to observe the situation outside from within the walls?
What it didn’t know was that Jiang Chen’s Psychic’s Heart could feed information to his five senses. He made use of this divine art to sense everything outside and fed it into his eyes, able to see things without seeing them at all.
Jiang Chen deployed the “Psychic’s Heart” to the maximum. He saw through the transference of imagery of an enormous chasm, with hundreds of spirit creatures surrounding all corners of the abyss.
These spirit creatures were all staring fixedly at the depths of the deep chasm, with the fervent light of greed emanating from their eyes. It was as if there was something that would make them go crazy beneath the chasm.
“It looks like there’s something nice below!”
The perceptive abilities of Psychic’s Heart were exceedingly strong. He could even sense that there seemed to be two incredibly abundant spirit powers being contained below the chasm. One of them was the pure spirit power of ice and the other was the pure spirit power of fire.
These two miraculous powers emanated faint blue and red light within the chasm. The two colors blended together and made the entire chasm look quite eerie.
“Can it be that there are two different treasures within this chasm?” This eerie scene made it difficult for Jiang Chen to get a grasp on things. Theoretically speaking, ice and fire were opposing elements. These two powers constrained and neutralized each other. Logically speaking, they wouldn’t be able to coexist!