The creature's body took up the entire tunnel space, leaving nowhere for Damien and Ruyue to go but backward as its massive mouth approached them.
'Wherever there's an underground, there will be worms.' Damien thought to himself as he cautiously retreated.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
KIIIIIIIK!
Ruyue formed a swarm of projectiles and shot them into the creature's mouth, making it reel in pain. Green blood spurted over the cave floor. The worm shook and stopped its movements for a second, giving Damien the perfect opportunity to strike.
Bang!
One shot from Hel's barrel was all it took. A bubble of spatial mana exploded on the worm's body and blew its mouth to pieces.
It dropped limp, all signs of life leaving its body.
"Hm? Was it really that easy?"
He originally thought they'd failed to kill the beast in their first attack, but was he wrong?
Hong!
A strange sound rang out at that moment.
An emerald-green light filled the air and formed a bulbous protrusion around the worm's bloodied corpse.
And miraculously, its last string of lifeforce suddenly boomed with vitality. Within a second, it had healed back to peak condition.
KIIIIIIIIIIIK!
The worm once again let out an angered screech and charged forward again to consume its prey.
From its reaction, it was clear that this situation was considered normal.
Damien's eyes narrowed. He retrieved Freya and fired a barrage of mana bullets into its body again, watching with furrowed brows as the process repeated itself.
'Immortal body? No, it's…'
"Ah! Fallen Heart Jade!"
Ruyue's voice suddenly rang out.
"Fallen Heart Jade…?" Damien repeated.
"Yes," Ruyue responded, her eyes glimmering in understanding.
"That gem in its mouth is a Fallen Heart Jade. It is the reason the beast can continue regenerating."
She killed the worm again as she continued,
"I read about it in an ancient text long ago. The Fallen Heart Jade is a natural material with extreme regenerative abilities, but the conditions for its formation are extremely rare. The piece in that worm's mouth isn't too big, but it's more than enough to support a weak monster like that."
Damien's eyes widened slightly.
"Something like that exists? Then…"
He rushed forward as the worm finished regenerating and fearlessly shoved his arm into its mouth.
KIIIIK!
The worm roared in anger and rapidly shut its mouth around Damien's arm, It closed like the petals of a flower, giving him no choice but to withdraw from its most important treasure, but unfortunately, it wasn't nearly strong enough!
"Stop that."
Damien's words were accompanied by a surge of mana, through which he forcefully solidified the space around his arm and made it impossible for the worm to continue moving.
He wrapped his hand around the green bead attached to the creature's throat and ripped it out with all his strength, pushing backward and shooting it in the head several more times.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Another river of blood flew through the air, and the worm dropped dead for the fourth time.
But this time, it wasn't coming back to life.
Damien observed the bead in his hand with All-Seeing Eyes, his interest growing with every second.
'I didn't expect something like this to exist. It uses mana similar to the [Heal] trait to manifest effects that mirror Transcendent Regeneration. Unfortunately, the lifespan of this piece is mostly used up…'
Naturally, such a small piece accompanied by a weak beast that died far too easily wouldn't be able to last long.
However…
"It was fused to this worm's body. That isn't something that'll happen naturally unless the treasure has sentience."
Damien glanced at the worm's corpse and withdrew Mirage.
'Void Sword Art First Form: Bladeless'
A gash spread through space, slicing the worm in two vertically.
There wasn't much space to move around in the tunnel, so Damien had no choice but to walk through the worm's goo to find what he was looking for.
And find it he did.
A grin spread across his face as he cut open a glowing sack in the corpse, revealing five more pieces of Fallen Heart Jade.
Though they were dulled, they presented an interesting prospect.
He turned to Ruyue.
"If the rest of the species share this trait, we might have found what we were looking for," she said, voicing his thoughts.
Fallen Heart Jade would be incredibly useful to possess during the Ascension Ceremony.
It was called a ceremony, but it was, in reality, a miniature war where all conflicts boiled over and bared their fangs.
Every beast was willing to use any means necessary to climb higher, and if they couldn't keep going, they would make sure others couldn't get above them!
Fallen Heart Jade was a piece of the puzzle. On its own, it wouldn't be enough to bribe the Overseer, but it gave Damien an idea of what to do.
Plus, with these kinds of effects, couldn't he restore his own regeneration to a certain extent?
Damien quickly cleaned the worm fluids off his body with mana, but left a hint of its scent in his aura.
With their target determined, it was time to start the hunt!
The duo rushed through the tunnel, soon finding that it didn't intersect with other paths to form a system.
They jointly spread their awareness and searched for a path anywhere nearby, and to their surprise, there wasn't just one, but many!
These worms were clearly independent creatures. They were able to sense each other's presence and actively moved to avoid each other.
This was great news. It meant they would be free from the risk of a swarm as they hunted.
Creating a path from tunnel to tunnel was easier than expected. Ruyue was able to compromise the structural integrity of the rock far easier than Damien could, and Damien was able to rapidly destroy the compromised area to give way for them.
The hunt proceeded smoothly from there.
Most of the worms were weak, which also meant the amount of Fallen Heart Jade they possessed wasn't much, but the few stronger beings had large chunks of the material in their bodies that made the fervor in the duo's hearts rise.
Eventually, they'd killed over 50 of these worms and collected a decent amount of jade.
And judging by their internal clocks, night was soon to fall.
"Should we go up?" Ruyue asked, a bit hesitant.
"We should. We don't know if we're safe here, and if it turns out we aren't, we'll end up being chased through this enclosed space where we don't have room to act freely."
"Hmm…"
"Plus, we have to meet the others."
"That's true. I guess it can't be helped."
The amount of raw material they had was more than enough to carry out Damien's intentions. It would be nice if they could stay in the underground and avoid the dangers that lay before them, but it was stupid to make assumptions in a place like this.
Time and time again, this sub-universe had proved that it would do everything against one's logical assumptions.
And who could say this time would be different?
Perhaps Damien and Ruyue didn't know…
…but this time wasn't different at all.
