Chapter 309
Since it was likely for them to be found if they flew on swords, they were just sticking onto the ground when they walked these days.
Such a long journey was not a burden for the Xu brothers as two golden core cultivators. After a long day of running around, the two finally arrived at the place marked with “mine”.
“Well, according to the map, it’s here.” Xu Ziyan compared the site with the map and found that Rong Taiqing was a careful one, as he did mark a lot of references on the map, making it impossible to spot the wrong place.
“There are more blood-sucking worms in front of us. Not only they are more numerous, but there’re even more types.” Xu Zirong closed his eyes and tried his best to analyze different information in the air.
Xu Ziyan looked more and more worried. It seems even more likely that a big-scale battle would occur.
It’s not that there hadn’t been any large-scale battles in the world of cultivation before, but this kind of battles never happened in the Xuan Yu realm.
After all, the Xuan Yu realm was just a middle-sized realm, and it’s also one that had been sealed for thousands of years. For cultivators inside the realm, they had never ever imagined to see such a battle in their life.
A closed area often means backwardness. Although the high-level cultivators in Xuan Yu realm already noticed the inappropriateness of this closure, and they already began to repair the Meng path, there wasn’t a way to change this status quo in a short period of time.
“Time…” Xu Ziyan muttered to himself, “I hope that it’s not too late…”
“Brother…” Xu Zirong suddenly looked cautious, “there’s someone in front of us.”
“What?” Xu Ziyan was shocked.
“Yes, a living person, and he’s with those worms.” Xu Zirong replied with a gloomy face.
“One of those eight people?” Xu Ziyan asked.
“I don’t know, I can only sense that the person’s Qi and blood, which are both a bit strange. It’s similar to that of a worm, but not entirely the same.” Xu Zirong frowned, as he also felt weird for the appearance of this thing.
“Can you go over and take a look?”
Xu Zirong shook his head, “there are too many worms in front of us, and someone will surely notice us if we go over like that. Moreover, I also felt the fluctuation of a few mantis-looking worms over there. We only have one chance, there will be no way for us to get near the mine if someone notices us.”
Xu Ziyan pondered for a while, and finally suppressed the doubts in his mind. He was very curious about the person who could travel freely among the groups of worms. If he could get hold of this person, then he might know the real plan of Bai Hua!
“That person has gone away.”
“Have he left?” Xu Ziyan asked.
“Not sure, but it’s beyond my area of perception.” Xu Zirong shook his head gently.
Xu Ziyan squinted his eyes, “forget about him, our main task this time is to confirm the location of the mine, and…” His gaze suddenly froze again, “we need to find out whether the ores here are the reason of the mutation of the worms.”
“Go, take a look around, and we will walk further inside when we are familiar with the surrounding environment.”
Xu Ziyan climbed down from the tree silently, his movements were as subtle as a cat. Xu Zirong followed closely behind him. Obviously, the two of them were almost touching each other, but they never affected each other’s actions.
The two probed around the mine for several times, marking several convenient locations for setting traps.
Along the way, relying on Xu Zirong’s sense of blood-sucking worms, they avoided at least ten patrolling squads.
“This mine looks really weird.” Xu Ziyan said in a low voice. He was lying on a small mound and looking at the silent mine in the distance.
“We’ve come this way, and we haven’t encountered as many patrols as there are around here. It seems that these worms have really become smart, and they even know that they need to guard important areas.” Xu Zirong said with a sneer.
Although he had never seen any blood-sucking worms in the other two places, he had heard a lot of news from Big Foot Luo. Among the three mother worms, only this one developed the most strangely. If this mother worm wasn’t noticed by a cultivator who had entered coincidentally, they wouldn’t have expanded so recklessly.
Although the two female worms had many worms, most of them were in the early stage of the war. Since the cultivators did not understand the fighting method of blood-sucking worms, their corpses were all left in their original place, and there were soon a lot of blood-sucking worms produced from them. In the later stage, the cultivators realized that they could never leave any corpses there, or they had to at least burn them with Samadhi True Fire, leaving absolutely no chance for the blood-sucking worms to produce any shadow worms.
Those two mother worms frantically expanded their power, but now they were hit hard by the cultivators. The original controlled area had thus been shrinking year by year. If there wasn’t any mutation which caused the attack speed of the Alliance, the two mother worms might have even lost their currently controlled areas.
However, this one was completely different. It was silent at the beginning, but it directly wiped off all the human beings near its area after being noticed and produced a large amount of sub-worms and shadow worms in an extremely short period of time.
This mother worm successfully resisted the initial attack of the alliance by relying on those worms that had sacrificed, and this female worm knew how to restrain itself and wouldn’t produce more worms blindly. Instead, it would produce more worm clans silently while retaining the current controlled areas.
It’s exactly what an old, cunning person would do!
Therefore, there were contradictions. Generally, those who were sent out to perform the task of exploring new areas were often newborn mother worms. After all, such exploration was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and the mother worms might even wander in the void for countless years fruitlessly!
Therefore, the worm king preferred sending the more experienced mother worms to the controlled areas of demon race, in order to assist in fights with other demon races. It wasn’t entirely impossible to dispatch an experienced mother worm for this mission, but the worm king would only do so after confirming the existence of a new area in the void.
Xu Zirong kept analyzing in his mind but then rejected his own speculations.
Through the information that he obtained from the fighting tower, he realized that the worm king had to be there to notice the sealed area.
The strength of the worm king was equivalent to that of a cultivator of Mahayana. He was only one step away from ascending to the demon realm. Once such a person appeared in the Xuan Yu realm, he could completely slaughter all the cultivators in the entire realm by himself.
It would be much better to do it by himself than letting the mother worm develop by itself!
Xu Zirong believed that the worm king was an intelligent one and he must have understood this, so it only proved that he’s not the one controlling the mother worm.
Moreover, this mother worm was just too cunning and it perfectly understood humans’ mind. Very often, her understanding towards cultivators wasn’t inferior to those experienced old men.
So what about Bai Hua?
Xu Ziyan thought for a while and silently crossed the name. Although Bai Hua was a little smart, it was impossible for someone his age having such a rich experience. Also, after getting into contact with Bai Hua, he was sure that he knew nothing much aside from seducing men.
Hmm…
——Are there other people behind Bai Hua?
On Xu Zirong’s notebook, he drew a vague outline behind Bai Hua’s name.
Judging from Bai Hua’s actions in Xuan Jia sect, Xu Zirong had to admit that he was almost fooled by some of his tricks as well. For example, if he reported Bai Hua to the elders of the Xuan Jia sect about the trap of the blood demon, he might have been imprisoned already.
Perhaps Bai Hau didn’t intend to frame Xu Zirong, but he was definitely targeting someone who’d cultivated the Blood Sea Heart Sutra, one that could perfectly tell what’s wrong about him.
Nothing would happen if this person didn’t show up. Once he did, Bai Hua could then put all the blame on him, and if he really wanted to play dirtier, he might as well let the mother worm order its sub-worms to launch an attack against the protective array of Xuan Jia sect. Bai Hua could play the role of savior and confirmed the guilt of that person.
It’s not like Bai Hua could come up with such a sophisticated trap on his own, but Xu Zirong was still a little puzzled – if that person had such means, why would he use Bai Hua as a puppet instead of acting on his own?
“Why…why do you need Bai Hua?” Xu Zirong tapped the vague outline behind Bai Hua with his fingertips. He thought that he could kill this person easily once he found out why he needed Bai Hua.
“Let’s go, it’s time for us to be there.” Xu Ziyan tugged at Xu Zirong’s sleeve. It was getting late, and those blood-sucking worms, which were busy carrying red ore, followed their shadow worms back to the lair.
The lair of the mother worm was huge, and it was still expanding.
Xu Ziyan wondered if the ground they were stepping on had already been hollowed out by the worms, leaving only a few bare entrances, and everything else was covered with a thick layer of secretions.
There was a large entrance not far from the mine, and dense groups of worms were drilling through the entrance. After just a while, the entire entrance was quiet.
If there wasn’t a lair, no one would believe that there were hundreds of thousands of worms busy transporting ore just a while ago.
“Wait a second.” Xu Ziyan didn’t believe that not a single worm remained.
Since there were so many patrolling troops on the periphery of the mine, who would believe that there was no defense inside the entrance?
“Even if the mutation has nothing to do with this mine, it must still be an important thing.” Xu Ziyan said in a low voice.
Xu Zirong nodded silently. If Bai Hua just wanted a nice presentation of things, he wouldn’t have placed so many worms there. After all, he had to leave them enough space for exploration.
