Chapter 1266: Chapter 1267: Descent (Lanxi Grand Alliance)
"It’s the Black Ink Bug Mother."
In an instant, Blood Hand let out a sigh of relief. The straw mouth opened wide with a "wah," and actually spat out a puff of white smoke that enveloped it. An unknown Mysterious Power shrouded the insectoid monster.
"Oblivion Sorcerer, looks like your perception isn’t bad at all, shu-shu-shu-shu."
Among the string of keys hanging before Phantom Gate’s neck, one key floated up, actually summoning a phantom of a gigantic black raven’s head. Immediately afterward, the entire raven-head phantom faded into nothingness, leaving only a single blood-red eye emitting a scarlet glow, shining ominously behind Phantom Gate, ill omens spreading.
The last one, Mist, swung the scythe in his hand. The thousands of trickster Runes the three Tricksters had briefly inscribed and virtualized earlier now fully revealed themselves. With a whoosh, dark green flames ignited on the insect monster’s body.
In no time, this so-called Bug Mother was taken down by the combined efforts of the three Trickster Scarecrows.
Green gazed at this Will Assembly Being Bug Mother, its life level roughly equivalent to a Level-3 Life Form, and could not help recalling some past events.
During his days as a wizard apprentice, Green had once obtained a Mother Buzzing bugs with a Love God Venus Potion.
That was Green’s earliest contact with a will-based life form.
During the newcomer trial, Green relied on the numerous wizard apprentice corpses hunted by Ghost Thief Despair to cultivate Magical Wog. Under the gathered will of a vast swarm of sub-bugs, a Mother Buzzing bugs that had originally possessed negligible Strength instantly attained wizard apprentice–level Strength. Though it was still easily killed by the Son of the Sun, it nevertheless blocked a tremendous amount of burning flames for Green.
The Snowthread Worm King sealed in Flame Soul World was likewise a Will Assembly Being formed from an enormous number of Snow Threadworm.
So-called will-life is often formed by an uncountable number of weak life forms gathering together, relying on their assembled Strength to kill stronger life forms, obtaining nourishment from the prey to feed all the weak individuals and evolve continuously.
Once there are no longer threats, the Will Assembly Being will disperse again and exist as numerous individual lives.
This is an evolutionary mode of mutual benefit in union. Some Wizards’ evolutionary paths are also based on this principle and are quite wondrous—for example, Wandering Dandelion and Faceless Masked Ni’ermoza.
It seems this Mother Nest civilization should be a Civilization World that has pushed this evolutionary trait of will-assembly life forms to its extreme!
Having gained a basic superficial understanding of the Trickster civilization and the Mother Nest civilization, Green unconsciously began to look forward to the appearance of the Ironblood Galaxy civilization.
If this intelligent civilization possessed potential for cooperation, since Green had now fallen into the Ironblood Galaxy World Cluster, he would naturally first attempt some form of interaction with this civilization.
As a Stigma Sorcerer, most of the coordinates Green had once come into contact with belonged to the internal coordinates of the World Cluster where the Wizarding Alliance resided.
The endless void, vast and boundless.
The distance between one World Cluster and another is extremely great, with unimaginably large void storms and unfathomable void life forms whose expanse surpasses several great worlds. Such cross–World Cluster spatial leaps, searching for the path back to Wizard World, can only be completed by relying on those Dominators with broad vision to point out the nearby adjacent World Clusters, then, through various clues, attempting to locate the World Cluster where the Wizarding Alliance resides.
"Not bad, Oblivion Sorcerer, it seems your insight really can provide us with quite a bit of help."
Crackle!
Lightning tore through the sky, flashing by in an instant and illuminating the Iron Curtain Firmament. The four of them trod forward over the muddy forest ground.
Hua-hua-la-la...
Amid the sound of a waterfall, they all looked toward a Metal Cage hanging on a sheer cliff face. A huge gliding parachute of unknown material was constantly dissolving, while the Metal Cage was already wide open, the creature within nowhere to be seen.
"It jumped down. It should be some type of flying creature with webbed toes, weighing around seven hundred and fifty kilograms."
As he spoke, Green came to the cliff’s edge, stretched out a finger to smear a bit of residual liquid, sniffed it carefully, then said in a low voice, "It’s a female creature... Hm? Seems to be in gestation."
Phantom Gate took a smear of the residue from Green’s fingertip and let out a wicked "shu-shu" laugh.
"You dual-sex, flesh-and-blood breeders really are troublesome—weak gestation periods... I wonder how many mothers die during this time."
As he spoke, Blood Hand put the fingertip into his mouth. Then the straw chest wriggled, and a vividly lifelike Strange Birds creature woven from straw emerged in his hand.
Hm?
This type of cursing method was somewhat similar to certain Curse Witchcrafts of Wizard World. Green had once used this kind of Curse Witchcraft during the wizard apprentice newcomer trial.
With a creak, the straw Strange Birds began emitting green smoke. After a while, it seemed to lose its effectiveness and disintegrated back into a mass of straw, which merged into Phantom Gate Scarecrow’s arm.
"Let’s go. I’ve placed a descent curse on it. Although the Ironblood Warriors won’t kill pregnant females, those Mother Bugs eager to build their nests won’t pass up such fresh ingredients."
Green asked in puzzlement, "What’s the benefit of doing that?"
"You’ll know when dawn comes tomorrow."
Blood Hand used green flames to draw several trickster Runes on the ground, which then merged into the muddy soil and gravel, seemingly as some sort of marker.
The most taciturn Mist unexpectedly took the initiative to explain things to Green.
"The Elders of the Ironblood Galaxy civilization monitor the number of life forms in the Cage from above, using us as prey for those adult Ironblood Warriors to be promoted to Scarred Iron Blood Warriors. If the number of prey in the Ironblood Cage is sufficiently large, the adult Ironblood Warriors thrown in will be endless. So, if you don’t want to face endless waves of giant coming-of-age Ironblood Warriors sweeping through, then you’d better take care of some of the prey yourself first."
Boom!
Just then, a volcano in the distance suddenly erupted. The four of them looked over; even though it was extremely far away, they could still feel that earth-shaking Fire Elemental Fluctuation.
"Over there is a Fire Flame Demon. Any adult Ironblood Warrior that can kill it will receive the title of Ironblood Hunter, surpassed the Scarred Iron Blood stage. Before each trial, it’s the time when the Flame Demons gorge themselves as much as they can. Best stay far away from there."
Hearing Mist’s explanation, Green was greatly shocked.
Through the Three-Colored Light Eyes’ observation, Green could clearly sense that was actually a World Master–level Fire Element creature, yet it served as the coming-of-age trial target for a group of Level-3 Ironblood Warriors?
Moreover, from the faint senses coming from the distant horizon, this vast world had far more than just that one Flame Demon World Master. There should be a considerable number of powerful creatures.
Still, speaking of which, possessing Third-Level Creature strength right after reaching adulthood—this innate growth of the Ironblood race and civilization was on par with Wizard World’s prehistoric Barbarian Giants.
Hoo-hoo-la-la!
Across the chasm, a mountainside landslide occurred. Massive amounts of soil and vegetation tumbled down. Faintly, one could hear roars near and far amid the storm. In the darkness of night, no one knew how many battles were taking place as the creatures thrown down in the Metal Cages slaughtered each other.
"Hide. It’s almost dawn. The trial is about to begin. Let’s hope we’re lucky enough this time."
Mist glanced at the slightly whitening horizon as he spoke.
"How long has your war been going on?"
Green finally asked the most crucial question.
"Uh... should be over a full epoch by now, I guess. Anyway, it’s been a very, very long time."
Phantom Gate sighed.
Hearing this, Green let out a breath of relief. Only a bit more than an epoch, then.
During the war between the Wizarding Alliance and the Metal Destroyer civilization, when that Trickster had communicated with Green, the war among the Tricksters, the Ironblood Galaxy, and the Mother Nest civilization had already been going on for quite some time.
Now, with just a little over one epoch having passed, it seemed that the five-plus epochs he had spent in the Dimensional Esophagus might correspond to only a very short span in the real world.
