Chapter 180: Chapter 178: Encounter

In the cave where old wood and the mire overlap, the mud is as thick as ink, completely swallowing the light emitted by the firefly grass above.

A group of mud monsters indulges in this, enjoying it like a warm bed.

Compared to the beetles, swamp pythons, or fog frogs and other demons living in the same cave, the number of mud monsters has exploded like wild grass.

Just a few days ago, their population was less than twenty.

This explosion of reproduction relies entirely on a “feast” — the deceased Puki were filled with magic power, and dissecting just one could allow a mud monster to split three times.

They reproduce so quickly purely because resources are so plentiful.

One mud monster lazily half-floated on the surface of the mire, quietly dissolving the last third of the Puki within its body.

Suddenly, its body shuddered, and a few bubbles rose quietly with a faint “pop”.

Rising along with them was a newborn individual, much smaller in size.

The baffled newborn mud monster grabbed a dead twig and stuffed it inside itself, as the Puki had long been divided by its predecessors, and it could only find some twigs to eat.

The sudden split caused the original mud monster to become smaller; it rolled at the bottom of the mire, supplementing its body with some muddy water.

An anomaly faintly transmitted from above the mire.

When it floated up again, the newborn little mud monster was gone, with only a broken twig floating around, divided into three pieces.

Its simple consciousness hadn’t pieced together the change before a magic cannon precisely hit its body.

Pa—

The mud monster’s body exploded immediately, but it didn’t die instantly.

Mud monsters do not have vital points, so taking damage just depletes their life; the remaining parts struggled to try to regroup themselves…

A foot stomped down with tremendous force!

The remaining body burst with a sound, and the mud monster was completely dead.

Louisa, submerged halfway in the mire, advanced with a gloomy face.

Cave No.8 hadn’t been occupied for long, and aside from the mud monsters, there weren’t many other demons.

Only the environment here was smelly and dirty, extremely disgusting, and she had to personally step in to ensure all the mud monsters were eradicated.

Even the demons living here had foul blood, which didn’t excite her appetite at all.

The first attack on Cave No.8 was nauseating, and she never expected to come back for a second round.

The Puki adapted well to this environment, moving faster with their two legs and even running on the surface of the mire.

Although the number of mud monsters was large, most were newly split individuals that had not matured at all.

In just half a day, the entire cave was cleaned out, making it suitable for Puki to live.

Thanks to the demons not destroying all the fungal mats, Louisa didn’t need to wait for the mats to spread like the first time; she could go directly to the next cave — the snake monster cave she couldn’t conquer last time.

Another troublesome place, Louisa was prepared for spending a few days there.

However, when she truly stepped into the entrance of the snake cave, she immediately noticed something strange — the pervasive hissing and scale friction noises deep in the snake cave, which made one’s scalp tingle, had vanished.

The numerous snake holes were still entrenched in the rock walls, but no creatures crawled through them anymore.

Louisa frowned as she proceeded deeper, surrounded by the Puki.

The entire snake cave was shrouded in a suffocating silence, as if all the snake monsters evaporated overnight.

At the deepest part of the snake cave was a giant pit, the bottom piled with layers upon layers of dry white snake sloughs.

Using her night vision ability, Louisa discovered several broken snake eggs beneath the many gray-white snake skins.

They weren’t naturally broken by born snakes but were directly stomped flat on the ground.

She also noticed scattered drag marks on the ground — not the winding S-shapes of snakes, but rough, straight scratches, as if something heavy was forcibly dragged away.

The surrounding air was filled with the smell of snake blood, though faint. If she weren’t a vampire, she might not have recognized it.

“Exterminated by… something?” Louisa muttered to herself.

Predation?

But what kind of demon did it?

These invaders didn’t leave even a single snake monster’s bone, just useless snake sloughs and almost dissipated blood in the air — quite a clean meal.

Even the big boss’s fungal mats would usually leave some indigestible hard bones.

After normal demons feasted, there would always be some leftover residue; they wouldn’t be so thorough.

But if it were demons like the Slime, these snake skins wouldn’t have been left behind.

Louisa couldn’t think of any known demon whose habits matched the current situation.

Looking at this snake cave, who knows how many years the snake monsters drilled it to such a scale. The fact that they could exist here for so long proves that no natural predators existed around to completely eradicate them.

Louisa concluded that it was probably something that crawled out of the Rift.

Surveying the area, Louisa suddenly curved her lips upward: “Did I just pick up something ready-made?”

Not having to eradicate the snake monsters bit by bit, is that good news?

Sniff-sniff—

About to instruct the Puki to start spreading spores, Louisa’s nose twitched slightly.

She smelled a familiar scent…

Louisa raised a finger, and a small blood ball gathered at her fingertip.

Without weaving blood threads like usual, she flicked her finger, and the crimson dot landed on the ground.

A crescent-shaped crimson blade suddenly extended from the ground, sweeping forward like lightning!

The previously empty air instantly echoed with a series of teeth-grinding “crack” sounds!

The light grotesquely twisted and shattered, and the carcasses of beetles, their camouflage voided, appeared out of thin air!

Purple ichor violently gushed from their bodies, which were no more than ten centimeters long. The path of the blood blade furrowed a glaring purple blood corridor.

The dead silence lasted only for a moment.

The next instant, a scalp-numbing mass of crawling noises surged like a wave from all directions!

The outermost Puki was instantly severed in two legs by the ferocious giant clamps of a beetle and was swiftly engulfed by the overwhelming beetle tide.

Then triggered Self-Destruction…

Many insects were blasted away, but more swarmed in.

Louisa decisively transformed into a bat and flew outward at full speed, having a severe psychological shadow over fighting alone against many.

At the same time, with a thought, the few Puki that couldn’t outrun the beetles turned and dove into the insect swarm, becoming brilliant fireworks.

“Boss! The guy you were looking for!”

The guy I was looking for?

While teaching Norris skills, Lin Jun diverted a part of his attention to the front line.

[Magic Perception Level 7]

[Sound Wave Detection Level 6]

The enemy Louisa encountered soon appeared in Lin Jun’s perception.

[Race: Chis – Claw Beetle]

[Level: Level 9]

[Racial Talent: Heartless]

[Fixed Effect: Spiritual Control]

[Skills: Cold Resistance Level 5, Refraction Invisibility Level 4, Giant Clamp Strike Level 3, Chitin Shell Level 3…]

Besides the countless beetles, Lin Jun also detected someone Louisa hadn’t noticed.

[Race: Chis – Eye Worm]

[Level: Level 31]

[Racial Talents: Heartless, Floating]

[Fixed Effects: Spiritual Control, Spiritual Node]

[Skills: Night Vision Level 7, Refraction Invisibility Level 6, Acceleration Level 6, Cold Resistance Level 6…]

Is this the eye ball Norris mentioned?

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