Chapter 139 - 47: [Demon Insect Bone Severer and the Shadow of Antlers]

Chapter 139: Chapter 47: [Demon Insect Bone Severer and the Shadow of Antlers]

As the earth trembled, several patches of vegetation on the High Grass Plain suddenly collapsed! Dirt flew into the air as if an invisible, gaping maw were swallowing the soil beneath, grinding rocks and gnawing through the bedrock.

A moment later, the earth returned to silence.

A loud RUSTLE echoed from the tall grass, sounding like something with many limbs writhing about. A few seconds later, the rumbling roar of a lion-like Magical Beast rang out, followed by the gruesome sound of tearing flesh.

The two exchanged a glance. Talia stepped forward, intending to enter the collapsed patch of grass to search for traces of the Earth-Devouring Demon Insect, but Samael grabbed her.

"The grass reaches our shoulders, and the blades are tall enough to hide our heads. If we rush in blindly, we’ll easily lose sight of each other." He pointed at the High Grass Plain before them. "This environment is unfamiliar, and there are many unknowns. We can’t get separated. There might still be Advanced Undead like Corpse Demons lurking in the brush—we cannot split up."

Samael unslung the previously forged Nether Copper Chain from his shoulder, winding it around his waist with a metallic CLINK CLANK. Extending his Nether Copper Hand Armor, he prepared to wrap the other end around Talia’s waist.

"I’ll do it... I can do it myself..." Talia’s slender waist shifted slightly within the loop of the Nether Copper Chain. Her voice carried a strange sense of awkwardness.

"Hmm?" Samael paused his movements, completely unaware that his hands, gripping the chain loop, were resting perfectly on either side of Talia’s slender waist.

"No, no, it’s fine... just continue... Ouch!" She let out a weird yelp as the loop of the Nether Copper Chain tightened around her midsection, and she irritably bumped against Samael’s shoulder armor. "What are you doing now!"

"I’m tying the chain tighter! What if it slips and we get separated? Are we going to play hide-and-seek in the tall grass? There could be even more dangerous things hiding in there!" Samael replied matter-of-factly. He gathered up the slack of the chain hanging between them and held it in his hand. "We have to move forward together. I don’t want to get ambushed by the claws of some hidden Magical Beast, and you certainly don’t want to run headfirst into a pile of moving, rotting meat."

"You really are..." Talia huffed.

The two quickly dashed into the tall grass. With a Hammer Spear on one side and a Nether Copper Kite Shield on the other, they worked together to sweep aside the dense vegetation obscuring the unknown. Trampling over the flattened stalks, they marched forward side by side, forcing their way through the impenetrable wall of grass as if swimming through it.

Seen from above, as the pair carved a path through the tall grass, seven or eight ripples in the vegetation RUSTLED away in all directions as the hidden Magical Beasts and Undead hastily retreated.

After a difficult trek, they burst through the wall of grass and stumbled right into the collapsed area they had seen from afar. To their surprise, the depression was actually a deep pit littered with a messy tangle of broken stalks.

Samael lost his footing and stepped into thin air, nearly plummeting into the hole. Amid the RATTLE of the Nether Copper Chain, Talia grabbed the loop around her waist. Relying on the strength of the Demon Race, she barely managed to suspend Samael’s heavy body in midair.

"My waist... is thin enough already, you don’t need to squeeze it any tighter." Talia grimaced beneath her helmet. The weight of Samael’s sudden drop had yanked the chain loop around her waist even tighter.

"You don’t need to hold on, it’s not deep." Suspended in midair, Samael peered down. "This is an Insect Path left behind by the Earth-Devouring Demon Insect."

"Oh?" She slowly lowered the Nether Copper Chain. Once Samael’s feet touched the ground, she slid down the wall of the pit to join him.

The Insect Path ahead was deep and dark. The air smelled of fresh soil, and the tunnel walls were covered in spiral, scale-patterned excavation marks.

Talia conjured a pale fireball, holding it high to light the way, and the two walked side by side into the shadows of the Insect Path. Everything felt incredibly familiar, just like the first time they met.

However, before they could take more than a few steps into their nostalgia, they turned a corner in the tunnel and simultaneously bumped headfirst into a cold "wall" made of spiral scales.

"What is this..." Samael and Talia drew their weapons at the same time. But the scaled "wall" before them remained silent, completely blocking the tunnel without leaving a single gap.

An Earth-Devouring Demon Insect.

DRIP. A faint splashing sound. The two looked down to see a puddle of faintly glowing blue blood at their feet. The Demon Insect’s blood was seeping from a corpse and quietly flowing down the Insect Path.

It was the corpse of an Earth-Devouring Demon Insect... or rather, a small part of it.

Its scales gleamed with a coppery luster. Clearly, due to the unique geological conditions of the Hai Xin Plain, its body had accumulated a massive amount of copper, which served as the material for building its scales and teeth.

"It’s dead?" Talia stepped forward in shock, pressing her hand against the surface of the Earth-Devouring Demon Insect’s scales to try and feel even the slightest sign of life. But it was pointless. This was nothing more than a corpse.

"I originally planned to use the Nether Copper Chain to snare the Earth-Devouring Demon Insect, then find a way to equip it with Nether Copper Spiritual Implants—" Samael stared at the corner of the massive, lifeless body in front of them.

"Wait, wait a minute!" He suddenly realized a crucial piece of information. "Although it sounds a bit morbid, since it’s already dead, I can use the Circuit Infiltrator to modify it into an Undead-form Earth-Devouring Demon Insect."

Samael pressed his Nether Copper Hand Armor against the dead body of the Earth-Devouring Demon Insect.

[Circuit Infiltrator activated.]

[Detecting biological materials...]

[Subject too large. Severe deficiency detected (over 70%).]

[Unable to generate organic Spiritual Construct.]

"What do you mean, ’over 70%’? Didn’t this Earth-Devouring Demon Insect die in one piece?" Samael paused. He and Talia quickly climbed back to the surface and jumped into another Insect Path pit.

Inside the pit was a massive cross-section of a corpse, covered in excavation and bite marks from spiral scales. An Earth-Devouring Demon Insect had been brutally torn into more than a dozen pieces. That was why it had been judged as having over 70% damage.

"There are excavation marks from another Earth-Devouring Demon Insect here, slightly smaller ones." Talia pointed at the intersecting fork in the Insect Path, where two differently sized digging trails crossed over the severed cross-section of the corpse. "Two Earth-Devouring Demon Insects fought each other, and the smaller one killed this bigger one."

Samael waved his hand and activated his scanner on the mangled corpse in front of him.

[Scanner enabled.]

[Drilling-Type Artificial Organism Type 1. Tier 6 technological organism. Can be driven as an industrial biochemical machine or an excavation biochemical machine. Used for mining, digging, and establishing the prototype of an Extraterrestrial Underground Colony.]

[Drive methods include, but are not limited to: Ethereal Spiritual Signal (i.e., the Spiritual Energy signal of the Space Sub-Human), Spiritual Implant modification.]

[Status: Deceased.]

[Life Cycle: Brooding Phase.]

"Brooding Phase," he muttered. "Its young should still be around. Perhaps it died trying to protect them... Let’s go check the other pits nearby and see if we can find its young."

Just as the two struggled back to the surface, the ground suddenly rumbled and shook once again.

The massive silhouette of the killer Earth-Devouring Demon Insect appeared at the edge of the distant High Grass Plain, diving in and out of the soil like a giant dragon.

Its body was twisted, grotesque, and mangled, with some parts reduced entirely to bone. On its Undead-like, incomplete body, the metal scales and curved, drill-like tusks gleamed with a familiar, eerie cyan luster—it wasn’t copper, but Nether Copper.

It suddenly raised its massive head and spread its giant, spiral blade-like Nether Copper fangs. Its mangled, Undead tongue pushed forward, lifting a tall, humanoid figure crowned with metal Antlers out of its Nether Copper-filled maw.

The tall, humanoid figure with Antlers slowly turned its head. Across the vast distance, it quietly gazed back at the High Grass Plain. Its body gleamed with the color of Nether Copper, looking just like an empty suit of Armor.

However, the tall grass obscured Samael and Talia, preventing it from seeing anything.

The humanoid Nether Copper figure with Antlers retracted its gaze and slowly receded back into the mouth of the Necro Earth-Devouring Demon Insect.

The Necromantic Demon Insect snapped its giant Nether Copper teeth shut. With a rumbling roar, it slowly burrowed back underground.

The tremors in the bedrock gradually faded away toward an unknown region in the north, and the earth returned to silence.