txolops Chapter 347 Blood-Red Lake
Chapter 347 Blood-Red Lake
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"Since that's the case, then let's go our separate ways and keep to ourselves! If I happen to run into you outside, I'll devour your Nascent Soul!"
Having said that, the Poisonous Dragon stopped rambling. He suppressed his demonic power to a level close to the peak of Core Formation, then his figure flickered and transformed into a condensed crimson light, speeding away without looking back.
Upon seeing the fragile space here, the Poisonous Dragon dared not even fully activate its escape light, for fear of causing another spatial rift.
Elder Xinggong stood there, watching the departing figure of the Poisonous Dragon, his brows furrowed and a hint of doubt flashing in his eyes.
"The venomous dragon's departure was clear: it headed straight for the center of the secret realm, completely ignoring the thousand-year-old spiritual herbs along the way..."
The Ninth Elder's mind raced: "Could it be... that this old poisoner knows the origin of this place?"
The Ninth Elder no longer hesitated. He also suppressed his own Nascent Soul aura, keeping it below the threshold of the Perfected Core Formation stage. His body shimmered with starlight, transforming into a pale silver starlight, and he quietly followed.
……
Luo Ming, the Poisonous Dragon, the Ninth Elder, and others showed little interest in ordinary thousand-year-old spiritual herbs; their sights were set on the core opportunities that might exist deep within the secret realm.
As time went by and news of the secret realm within the crimson pillar of light gradually spread, the number of cultivators entering began to explode!
In particular, two of the beams of light were located not too far from large islands such as Silver Shark Island, where human cultivators lived.
Although the crimson beam of light is highly corrosive to magic power and flesh, as long as one's cultivation reaches the late Foundation Establishment stage or above, and one fully activates a top-grade protective magic artifact, one can still safely reach the teleportation barrier at the center.
The outer area of the secret realm quickly became "lively." Almost every day, new groups of cultivators were randomly teleported in from entrances in various directions, scattering across the vast edge of the secret realm.
What followed was increasingly frequent and intense conflicts and battles!
Five days later, Luo Ming's escape light stopped, and ahead was a lake shrouded in mist.
The lake water was not clear or azure, but a viscous, dark red that seemed to have been settled for countless years, just like the blood-red mist that perpetually shrouded the sky, yet perhaps even more intense.
Above the lake, wisps of increasingly dense crimson mist rose and drifted, flowing slowly like living things, completely obscuring the scene deep within the lake.
Luo Ming hovered in mid-air a hundred feet above the lake shore, gazing solemnly at the eerie blood lake.
His powerful divine sense, capable of covering an area of two hundred miles, attempted to probe into the lake, but it was as if he had hit an invisible and sticky wall.
The pervasive crimson mist could greatly obstruct and weaken divine sense probing! His usually invincible divine sense could only penetrate a thousand feet into the mist before it felt sluggish and difficult to move forward, its perception becoming blurred and unclear, making it difficult to advance any further.
"This blood-red mist...something's strange." Luo Ming frowned, alarm bells ringing in his mind.
Obstructed consciousness means a shorter reaction time to a crisis.
"This fog... is not just a simple barrier to divine sense; it also seems to contain an extremely subtle yet pervasive malevolent energy that can subtly influence the mind."
"If a cultivator with insufficient cultivation and weak will stay here for too long and inhales this mist for an extended period, they will likely become increasingly confused, irritable, and easily angered, eventually... heading towards a state of demonic possession." The solemn voice of the Heavenly Mirror Hermit echoed in his mind.
"The core area of this secret realm should be here. Let's probe it first."
Given the eerie and dangerous nature of this place, Luo Ming naturally wouldn't risk his life by venturing directly into the lake to investigate.
With a sudden thought, he was about to release some gold-devouring insects to scout ahead and see what was in the lake.
However, before he could make a move—
"Buzzing..."
A deep, dense buzzing sound, like the rapid vibration of countless tiny wings, suddenly came from the depths of the lake, from the area shrouded in blood-red fog!
At first the sound was faint, but in the blink of an eye it amplified rapidly like a snowball, becoming deafening!
"What is that?" Luo Ming was startled and immediately stopped moving. He instantly suppressed his aura to the extreme, and at the same time, his figure swayed and retreated dozens of feet like a ghost, silently disappearing behind a huge, jagged, blood-red reef on the shore, perfectly concealing himself.
In just a few breaths, the buzzing sound became like thunder! Then, a chilling scene unfolded!
The blood mist deep within the lake churned violently, like boiling water! The next moment, a massive "blood cloud" burst through the thick fog and rose from the lake!
That wasn't a real cloud, but a terrifying insect cloud formed by countless strange flying insects, each the size of a fist, dark red in color, with long, thin mouthparts, scarlet compound eyes, and rapidly vibrating wings!
The swarm of insects was so numerous that it blotted out the sky, obscuring most of the already dim sky. The sound of their flapping wings merged into a violent sonic wave, causing ripples on the lake surface and rolling sand and stones on the shore.
"Bloodthirsty mosquitoes!"
Luo Ming gasped, horrified.
This insect is weak individually, only equivalent to a level one demon beast, but its characteristics are extremely terrifying - not only is it highly poisonous, but it is also bloodthirsty, with sharp mouthparts that can penetrate ordinary spiritual energy shields, and once it forms a large number, even Core Formation cultivators can only flee at the mere sight of it!
The swarm of insects before us must number far more than a hundred thousand; it's probably well over a million!
They hovered and danced in the air, not scattering, but maintaining a certain formation, rapidly coalescing and changing, and finally transforming into a blurry, giant "bird" shape with a wingspan of over a hundred feet!
After the "blood-red giant bird" formed from the insect cloud took shape, it let out a deep roar, and then its speed suddenly increased, turning into a huge blood-red torrent that swept across the lake and flew rapidly towards the outer edge of the secret realm, leaving only a gradually fading, heart-palpitating buzzing echo.
"They've gone out 'hunting'..." Luo Ming realized, his face growing even uglier. With such a large swarm of bloodthirsty mosquitoes regularly going out to hunt, the low-level cultivators who had intruded into this secret realm, as well as the original inhabitants of the demonic beasts, were likely to suffer.
Once the terrifying swarm of insects had flown far away and the buzzing was almost inaudible, Luo Ming slowly emerged from behind the reef. He gazed at the eerie lake, now "calm" again, with only a slow-moving blood mist, his eyes flickering uncertainly.
"The lair of the bloodthirsty mosquitoes is probably somewhere in this lake... Such a large number, and that eerie blood mist..." Luo Ming's mind raced. The more dangerous the lake, the greater the secrets it might hide.
The Sea King Sect is famous for its beast taming. Could this swarm of bloodthirsty mosquitoes be the guardian monsters they cultivated and left behind here?
He hesitated for a moment, then decided to test the waters. With a slight thought, the Five Elements Bracelet on his wrist flashed with golden light.
With a soft "poof," a small cloud of golden insects flew out, but quickly dispersed, transforming into thirteen strange beetles with gold and silver markings on their backs and shiny shells, which hovered quietly in front of Luo Ming.
After repeatedly devouring rare metals and nourishing themselves with spiritual springs, the gold-devouring insects now have more than 70% of their carapace covered with golden spots, some of which have even merged into patches, exuding an even harder and sharper aura.
"go!"
Upon receiving the order, the thirteen Gold-Eating Insects flashed with golden light in their compound eyes, flapped their wings in unison, and transformed into thirteen imperceptible golden threads. With a "whoosh," they shot into the dense blood-red mist ahead without hesitation, flying rapidly towards the depths of the lake.
Luo Ming closed his eyes and observed the scene seen by the Gold-Eating Insect through the soul restriction.
For the first few thousand feet, everything was normal.
The gold-devouring insects moved through the blood mist. Although their speed was slightly hindered and the golden halo on their bodies made a slight "sizzling" sound when it came into contact with the blood mist, it was not a big problem. The scene that was fed back was a blurry blood-red mist and dark red lake water below.
However, just as these thirteen gold-devouring insects had penetrated to a depth of about five or six thousand feet into the lake—
A sudden and unexpected change has occurred!
"call out--!"
A silver shadow, without warning, shot out from the churning blood mist below, like a venomous snake that had been lurking for a long time, with incredible speed! Its target was a gold-devouring worm flying at the very front!
"A level five bloodthirsty mosquito?" Through the shared senses of the Gold-Eating Insects, Luo Ming "saw" the true form of the silver shadow!
That was a giant, monstrous mosquito, far larger than any ordinary bloodthirsty mosquito!
Its entire body has a cold, flowing silver luster, as if it were cast from mercury, except for the tips of its compound eyes and slender mouthparts, which shimmer with a touch of scarlet.
Behind it, a pair of thin, silver wings vibrated rapidly, almost turning into a hazy light and shadow, radiating a powerful and violent demonic energy fluctuation, steadily reaching the level of the Core Formation stage!
Silver Bloodthirsty Mosquito! Luo Ming instantly recalled the records about the insect's levels: blood-red corresponds to Qi Refining, blue to Foundation Establishment, and silver... to Core Formation! Legend has it that in ancient times, there was an even stronger Golden Mosquito King, a terrifying existence comparable to the Nascent Soul stage.
Faced with the sudden attack of the silver bloodthirsty mosquito, Luo Ming's locked-on gold-devouring insect was not afraid. Instead, its ferocity was aroused, and it let out a sharp hiss. Instead of retreating, it advanced, opened its sharp mandibles, and fiercely bit at the silver shadow! Gold-devouring insects are ferocious by nature. They feed on metal and have hard shells. Few demonic beasts of the same level can break through their defenses.
However, what happened next made Luo Ming's face instantly darken!
As the gold-devouring insect counterattacked, a hint of human-like mockery seemed to flash in the silver, bloodthirsty mosquito's cold, compound eyes. Suddenly, its rapidly vibrating silver wings flapped violently!
"Whoosh!"
A flash of silver light! Its figure seemed to teleport, leaving a faint afterimage in its original spot, before its true form appeared like a ghost behind the Gold-Eating Insect! Its speed far exceeded the Gold-Eating Insect's reaction time!
Immediately afterwards, the silver bloodthirsty mosquito's long, slender proboscis, about a foot long and gleaming with a cold metallic light, slightly adjusted its angle and aimed at the gold-devouring beetle's carapace.
"Pfft!"
Through the telepathic connection, Luo Ming clearly "heard" the teeth-grinding cracking sound of the carapace being pierced!
The Gold-Eating Insect's hard shell, strong enough to withstand a single blow from an ordinary magic weapon, was easily pierced by this silver light, as if a hot knife were cutting through butter! The silver light passed through its body, bringing with it a cluster of fine golden shell fragments and insect tissue.
He knew the silver bloodthirsty mosquito was powerful, but he never expected it to be this powerful! The silver light that shot out from its mouthparts was as sharp as a top-tier flying needle magic weapon!
These Gold-Eating Insects, which are not yet fully mature and whose carapace defenses have not yet reached their peak, are simply no match for them!
Of course, if he were to release thousands of gold-devouring insects to form a swarm and encircle and annihilate it with sheer numbers, no matter how powerful the silver bloodthirsty mosquito was, it would definitely be overwhelmed and torn apart by the swarm of insects.
But Luo Ming wouldn't! The situation of this strange, blood-red lake is unknown. Who knows how many of these silver, bloodthirsty mosquitoes are hiding inside, or even... are there any more terrifying creatures? The swarm of insects that just flew out to hunt is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
He would never use the main force of the gold-devouring insects he had painstakingly cultivated to fill this bottomless pit.
Just as Luo Ming was weighing the pros and cons, a violent fluctuation of spiritual energy and the buzzing of a swarm of bloodthirsty mosquitoes suddenly came from behind.