Chapter 978: Chapter 739: Creatures Not from This Universe
"Indeed, the rocks of the entire planet have an extremely strong ability to devour energy. Attempting to use magic to fight here is simply a death wish," Ai Lin nodded as she spoke.
"I’ve encountered many creatures on this planet, and due to the immense gravity, their bodies are incredibly sturdy and they all possess some ability to devour energy to various extents. Not only is magic ineffective against them, but pure physical attacks also do limited damage," Little Zi said.
"This place is actually a paradise for cultivation. What a pity that those mages treat it like a giant trap," Long Yi said. Whether mages or warriors, the harsh environment here could definitely push people to their limits in a short time.
"If I were them, I would immediately leave after sending my enemies here. They actually went to the trouble of sending people to kill us, are they insane?" Ai Lin said.
"After all, we are thorns in the side of some ancient powerhouses. If they could kill us, their fame and status would be unmatched," Long Yi said.
"I still think life is more important," Ai Lin pouted as she spoke.
The three energy-devouring worms they rode on moved quickly, not slithering on the ground but floating and flying close to the surface. There was almost no obstruction along the way, nor did any creature dare to block their path. Soon, the trio arrived at the outskirts of a camp.
There, a large group of mages were looking forward expectantly, while another three energy-devouring worms lay beside them.
Seeing the three worms return, they were originally very excited. Some even started to cheer, but when they saw the people behind the worms, everyone fell silent.
Long Yi, Ai Lin, and Little Zi jumped down, and the three worms crawled back to their companions and lay down. The six huge worms emitted a buzzing resonance, as if communicating something.
"What’s the matter, keep laughing, why aren’t you laughing anymore?" Long Yi walked over and asked.
The faces of the mages grew even uglier.
"Oh right, because you’ve realized that on this planet, akin to a mage’s tomb, you seem even more powerless than us, right?" Saying so, Long Yi drew a serrated giant sword from his private space—there was still blood on the sword, and the mages didn’t need to guess whose blood it was.
"Alright, now does anyone want to tell me, where exactly are we, and how do we leave?" Long Yi held the giant sword in one hand and scanned each person, but no one spoke.
"Or do I need to remind you that it’s actually easier for me to torture what I want out of you than you might think?"
As Long Yi spoke, Little Zi took two steps forward, and at the same time, thirteen female demon avatars appeared.
"Gentlemen, psychic power is unaffected in this world," Little Zi said with a smile, "So do you plan to die here and let me torture your souls, or cooperate with us to leave this place together? Maybe we’ll get lucky and kill all those ancient powerhouses?"
The crowd looked at each other, and eventually, an elder sighed and spoke, "Mr. Long Yi, we’ve lost. We’ve made the wrong choice, but unfortunately, even if you torture my soul, I can only tell you that you can no longer leave this place. Not just you, even we cannot leave."
When the elder spoke these words, the first to react was not Long Yi, but the people beside him!
"Elder! What do you mean by that? Didn’t you say that after we imprisoned Long Yi and company here, we could leave?"
The old man shook his head helplessly, "Because the moment we entered this planet, Lord Delas had already closed the planet’s teleportation array. His intention is clear: to trap Long Yi here forever!"
"You old bastard! You knew all along, didn’t you?" Some people immediately began to curse in fury, while the elder could only close his eyes, saying nothing.
"Sit down, how can you speak to the elder like that!"
"Pah! You bring a bunch of our own people to their deaths; what kind of elder are you?"
"The elder did it for the family!"
"Family? What about us? Aren’t we the family? If we all die, who will take care of the family? That puppet Emperor is no fool!"
"..."
Long Yi and Ai Lin exchanged glances; this was truly a farce.
Meanwhile, Little Zi had been staying by the side of those energy-devouring worms all this time. Through psychic power, Little Zi was able to conduct a series of simple communications with the worms. Long Yi initially thought these energy-devouring worms were just tamed creatures, but Little Zi told him that they actually possessed a certain degree of intelligence. They had been tamed before simply because the ancient powerhouse named Delas possessed a giant artifact, and as creatures created by giants, the worms had no choice but to follow orders.
Life created by giants?
Long Yi moved closer, infusing giant’s power, and the psyche of the worms immediately became agitated. Clearly, the worms could distinguish the power that came from giants.
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The Energy Bug told Little Zi that there was actually another Teleportation Array on this planet, left behind by the Giants, but because the planet itself had the effect of devouring energy, it required a significantly larger amount of energy to activate. Long Yi thought about the colossal Cosmic Stone fragment in his private space. Would that be enough?
"Let them continue their performance here. We’re leaving," Long Yi said to Ai Lin and Little Zi.
The two girls nodded, each jumping onto an Energy Bug, sitting beside Long Yi. Then the six huge Energy Bugs took off simultaneously, leaving the area at an extremely high speed.
The people who were arguing stopped and looked at each other in confusion. These Energy Bugs were supposed to obey their commands, so why did they follow Long Yi instead? And judging by the direction they left, could it be that they had found a way to leave?
"Follow them! They must have a way to leave!" someone shouted.
Instantly, everyone perked up. The planet’s immense gravity forced everyone to use magic to alleviate the strain on their bodies, but the planet’s energy-devouring nature greatly reduced the effectiveness of their spells. This accelerated the consumption of their Mana, but it was negligible compared to the desire to survive!
At this time, the three of them were on the backs of the Bugs, with Little Zi constantly communicating with the Energy Bugs.
Meanwhile, Long Yi took out the Giant’s tablet. Since this place was related to the Giants, then the Giant’s tablet was bound to be useful.
Originally, this planet was just a small meteorite, interesting for its natural energy-devouring effect, so it was collected for research by the Giants and eventually turned into a planet-sized body. The Giants, as usual, conducted life experiments on this planet, resulting in all creatures born here possessing the characteristic of energy devouring.
But all this paled in comparison to the Energy Bugs.
The Energy Bugs were the original eggs attached to that meteorite. After the Giants hatched them, only six survived.
True to their name, Energy Bugs can devour energy. But in fact, their diet is quite broad, almost everything is edible to them. Their body structure is very special; their skin material has an extremely strong passive stabilization property. Passive stabilization means the greater the external impact they receive, the more solid they become. Inside their body, there aren’t normal digestive organs, only a very special chaotic energy. The Giants researched this energy but whether any conclusions were reached, the Energy Bugs didn’t know. In any case, the Energy Bugs could turn everything they swallowed into energy.
However, among all these findings, there was one conclusion that surprised Long Yi the most. The Energy Bugs were not created by the gods. They were not created by the Giants either; they were just nurtured under the care of the Giants.
In the entire multi-universe, any life form was either created by the gods, like the Giants and the Dragon Clan; nurtured in environments created by them, with the gods’ rules, like some naturally born lifeforms; or created by species that were made by gods, like Humans created by the Giants.
But Energy Bugs did not fit into any of these categories.
Energy Bugs, as well as the meteorite they were originally attached to, were not part of this multi-universe. Their bodies bore no imprint of the gods, they even lacked the basic characteristics of life. The composition of Energy Bugs’ body structure could almost be understood as a simple combination of matter, energy, and spirit. This was simpler than most life forms in this multi-universe, even simpler than Crystal Poison. Or perhaps, one could think of the Energy Bugs as an excessively large, thinking single-cell organism.
In the description of the Energy Bugs, the last sentence plunged Long Yi into deep thought.
"Perhaps our vision is too narrow—The descending Heavenly Kingdom once warned us that even if we truly embarked on the path of following the gods, we would still not have left our cage. Now, recalling these words, I think we may need to go a step further in our exploration methods."
Cage...
This word instinctively made Long Yi feel uncomfortable. No matter the original intent behind it, it was clear that the Giants were not particularly fond of this multi-universe. And now that they had disappeared from here, where had they gone?
For some reason, Long Yi felt that the sudden disappearance of the Giants from this multi-universe wasn’t as simple as he had imagined. Considering that at some uncertain point in the future, the Giants were battling an unknown enemy, Long Yi’s heart was filled with inexplicable worry.
However, Long Yi quickly recovered from this concern. Worrying about anything now was superfluous; he couldn’t help anyway. Better to just faithfully complete his task as a Pioneer—although even he himself did not know what this task was.
The sun in the sky gradually dimmed. Long Yi noticed that the position of the sun in the sky had almost not changed, but now it was being obscured by another planet.
On the distant horizon, a pillar of light rose to the sky.
"That’s the place," Little Zi pointed towards the pillar and said.
The six Energy Bugs accelerated towards the location of the light pillar.
This was a base composed of seven small buildings, with the light pillar emanating from the Array in the center.
"This must be the Giants’ research base from the past," Long Yi said. The buildings here were very tall, clearly not meant for average life forms.
"Let’s take a look around first," Ai Lin suggested.
The three dismounted from the backs of the Energy Bugs. The Bugs then crawled around the Array and lay down. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it on qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)
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