Chapter 351: A Shocking Scam—Did I Come at the Wrong Time?

The Primitive Mountain Range, a canopy of lush green trees.

A breeze, gentle as a maiden's caress, swept through, stirring the dense sea of trees into a rustling whisper, like tender murmurs by a girl's ear.

"Whoosh—"

Through the mountain forest, a gust of violent wind blew past, and a clump of dark-green poisonous mist drifted by. Within it, a figure gleaming with golden light flickered in and out of view, occasionally revealing segments of bright, ferocious limbs from the mist. As it moved, its limbs scraped against the rocks, sending sparks flying with a clanging sound, like the clash of metal.

Before long, it arrived at the deepest part of the Forbidden Forest. Before even getting close, it spotted several figures exuding an eerie aura standing there.

"Everyone's here?"

On a high rock, the arrival of the poisonous mist—the withering trees and parched earth—caught the attention of one of the figures. It turned its head, waving its tentacles that fluttered about, and asked.

Jin Du didn't reply, nor did it join the small groups huddled together whispering in twos and threes. Its two enormous, gleaming scorpion pincers clinked together in response, then it silently glanced at the surrounding figures, moved to a corner, and quietly closed its eyes to wait.

Its civilization was too weak, and the power controlled by its body of Jin Du was a poisonous mist that harmed friend and foe alike without discrimination. No one would willingly approach such a worthless, invisible nobody. Well, except for Bai.

Bai was special—not only the first being willing to have a proper exchange with it, but also the most knowledgeable among all the beings it had ever encountered! The insights into power, the various techniques of application… every time it recalled them, it was utterly amazed. So this was how power could be used, how it could be developed.

Every exchange with Bai left it feeling deeply rewarded. So there existed in this universe such magnificent beings it could never have imagined…

It thought that out there, Bai must be some great figure above the Transcendent Realm—perhaps the legendary immortals like gods and demons, the overlords of stars, were beings like Bai.

It even occasionally felt that the impression Bai gave was even more stunning than the Earth Immortal great power it had once glimpsed for a fleeting moment.

But today was the day of the appointment. The Mysterious Heavenly Dew, rumored to emerge from the void, was to descend here today.

This news had been leaked by a prodigy from a vassal civilization of a vassal civilization of that super civilization.

That was also the initiator of this gathering—the octopus-like being that had just spoken.

As for why the other party was so kind as to share, according to their explanation: the amount of Heavenly Dew each being could consume was limited, and each time the Heavenly Dew descended, it was accompanied by a batch of Void Spirits. That group of Void Spirits was not something one being alone could handle, so they had to pull everyone in to cooperate.

Whether it was true or false, no one knew. But those desperate for a breakthrough were already like patients trying any remedy in desperation—giving it a try couldn't hurt.

Even it was no exception.

So, it could only suppress the urge to find Bai. The opportunity for a breakthrough was today. Jin Yun'er, you can't mess this up. Grandma and the clanspeople are still waiting…

As Time passed, one after another, figures exuding powerful auras appeared in succession.

At a certain moment, the initiator—also the most powerful among them… let's just call him Zhang Yu Ge for now—Zhang Yu Ge, whose entire body shimmered with blue light, opened his four pairs of tiny glowing eyes, looked at the ripples faintly forming in the void above, and said:

"Time is almost up…"

These words were like a pebble that stirred a thousand ripples, and one after another, the beings glowing with divine light opened their eyes, glaring at Zhang Yu Ge with predatory intent. For a moment, it was as if countless ten-thousand-lumen lightbulbs were all aimed at Zhang Yu Ge.

Zhang Yu Ge wasn't intimidated. He grinned, revealing his sharp, thick pincer-teeth. "Everyone get ready, the Void Spirits are about to descend!"

As his words fell, something tentacle-like pierced out from the void, attacking toward the back of his head.

In the next instant, it was swatted away by his steel claws. A drop of liquid, though tiny, was incredibly viscous, slowly emerging and exuding a peculiar allure.

And this sound was like a fuse being lit. A large number of small octopus-like creatures descended, waving their tentacles.

From then on, one after another, the Desert Kings each employed their own methods to slay those "Void Spirits," collecting the viscous unknown liquid called "Heavenly Dew." Some impatient Desert Kings couldn't hold back and swallowed it on the spot, crying out in delight as they truly felt a subtle transformation in their consciousness!

Naturally, Jin Yun'er was no exception. Like the others, she slaughtered these Void Spirits and collected the Heavenly Dew, for she had come precisely to break through to the Earthly Immortal Realm.

However, watching the frenzied beings around her, Jin Yun'er couldn't shake a sense of foreboding. The aura of these "Void Spirits" seemed somewhat strange. In the past, she might not have paid much attention, and might have been swept up by the others and the increasingly frenzied atmosphere.

But after exchanging with Bai so much, and hearing the various interesting experiences Bai shared with her, she suddenly recalled a peculiar creature Bai had once told her about—the Xuan Yin Thunder Eel.

This creature had an extremely special ability called 【Thunder Fruit】. The creature's ability allowed it to produce within its body a special active lightning called Thunder Fruit, which looked like an extremely rare treasure of heaven and earth. Consuming it would grant the consumer a tremendously powerful lightning force, seemingly allowing harmless control over lightning.

But if the creature that produced the Thunder Fruit harbored ill intent, it could easily extract all the power of the being that consumed the Thunder Fruit, along with the power transformed from the Thunder Fruit, drawing it out of the body and returning it to the original owner for its growth. Truly vicious beyond compare.

In thought, Jin Yun'er glanced at Zhang Yu Ge, whose aura was the strongest, then at the transparent glowing Void Spirits that resembled small octopuses. For reasons unknown, she grew more cautious and, unlike the others, did not swallow it directly—she merely collected it.

I'll take it to Bai first and let him take a look. Perhaps Bai needs it too.

Thinking this, Jin Yun'er calmed down instead. Thanks to the area-of-effect nature of her poisonous mist, she collected a bit faster than the others.

……

In the blink of an eye, another month had passed.

A month—though not long, it wasn't short either.

At least in the eyes of ordinary people in the Ji Xi Alliance, a month was enough to save up another two hundred points, bringing them closer to the points needed to exchange for the 【Life Furnace】 ability treasure.

And this bit of Time was also enough for Baichuan, who possessed narrowly infinite energy, to completely extend the eroded land to Dongguo near the Ji Xi Alliance, and at the same time take over the entire Desert Land on one side!

The Lord of the Desert, who once could chase him in a sorry state—the boundless yellow sand it stirred up, enough to shake the entire Desert, and its monstrous strength—now seemed as feeble as an infant in his current eyes, dancing in his claws. The aura of fear it emitted made him recall the frustration of the past, and he found it deeply sweet.

Baichuan still remembered that day, the sight of that big fellow when it saw him arrive, the way its little eyes kept changing. At first, it awoke in pleasant surprise from hunger and thirst, then upon sensing his powerful aura, grew solemn. Finally, as his size swelled with the wind, it turned to rage, wanting to stir up boundless wild sand to drive away the formidable enemy.

Yet the power that had always served it well in driving away strong enemies became fragile and powerless at that moment. Striking him was like a breeze against the face, painless and itchless. In the end, it trembled in the giant desert claw he raised to the heavens.

As for whether Baichuan ultimately spared it? Of course not. He, Baichuan, was famously petty! Offending an abbot might still leave a way out, but offending him meant there was truly only a dead end.

Of course, in a month's time, he hadn't only done this much. With the help of the forces in the Ji Xi Alliance that had submitted to him, he had also extensively collected various special parts from wild beasts. These parts were invariably the strongest points on the beasts' bodies—special products born from the combination of wild beast power and Grey Mist Power, representing some extremely special structures. They weren't entirely without merit.

Among these extraordinarily special structural parts, through extensive calculation and simulation, he had also extracted quite a few useful things, then fine-tuned them all into his own body. What followed was even more devastating destructive power and more coordinated, diverse methods.

On this day, Baichuan suddenly recalled that Jin Yun'er seemed to have not come for quite a while.

She had said she was going to look for Heavenly Dew, hadn't she? She had even tried to invite him, but he had refused.

After all, he didn't need any mysterious Heavenly Dew to break through to Earth Immortal or anything like that, and the only usefulness those fellows had previously—information—he had already obtained most of it.

Where did she say she was going?

……

Creak—

The wind howled, branches and leaves swayed ceaselessly, and large numbers of trees fell one after another with teeth-grinding sounds.

Three figures—one gold, one red, one green—were fleeing in utter disarray.

Looking closely, one could even see that on the bodies of those three figures, there were unnatural blue-to-green strange patches of color, and beneath that color, large areas of their bodies were nearly sunken and softened!

Behind them, a giant octopus radiating blue light and waving myriad tentacles was in pursuit. Wherever the octopus passed, large numbers of trees were directly swept apart by its tentacles.

Its aura had actually, faintly and indistinctly, begun its final transformation, about to reach Tier 5!

"Stop struggling, obediently become my food!"

The blue-light octopus, Zhang Yu Ge, stared playfully at the three figures ahead and laughed unhurriedly.

"After being poisoned by my clan's specially-made toxic dew, you still want to run?!"

"What a fool's delusion!"

"Damn it!" Hearing the taunting from behind, the master of the red figure—a creature shaped like a pig but with a lion's head—snarled furiously. He wished he could turn around right now and fight it out, but the searing pain and weakness throughout his body, and even his consciousness beginning to scatter, told him every moment that his current combat strength was less than ten percent of what it had been.

He was a prodigy from a Tier 3 civilization of the Half Lion Heart Seat, belonging to a race that loved battle above all. His civilization had once produced a great one at the peak of Earth Immortal, and at the height of their dominion, the life-bearing planets under their rule numbered as many as a hundred! Even now there were still over thirty. As the prodigy of his civilization, within their territory he was unmatched in glory—but at this moment he could only flee in disarray, not even daring to fight.

All because he'd been set up!

He had never imagined that the Heavenly Dew was fake—that it was a treasure fabricated by that damned octopus to deceive them!

The Heavenly Dew descent incident, from the very beginning, was a monstrous scam concocted by that damned octopus—a trap set solely to take them down and plunder their bloodlines to aid his own breakthrough!

The Heavenly Dew was in essence nothing more than a special species the fellow had obtained from somewhere unknown—the toxic secretions from within the bodies of those glowing "Void Spirits." When ordinary creatures drank it, it would produce all manner of hallucinatory effects on their consciousness, conjuring illusions of whatever their minds most desired.

Unfortunately, he realized it a bit too late. He could feel himself growing weaker and weaker. Even though his caution had kept him from drinking much of the Heavenly Dew, under the erosion of that extraordinarily poisonous "Heavenly Dew," most of the parts of this seemingly indestructible body that drove its movement were beginning to function intermittently.

Stumbling along, he looked at the two figures ahead, especially that golden one, and a bitter smile crossed his face. He had never expected that at the final moment, it would be Jin Du—the one he had once despised most, considering him vicious-hearted—who came to his rescue.

Sigh~~

With a faint sigh in his heart, he raised his head and said to Jin Du beside him, who still seemed to be trying to pull him along in their escape: "Hey, Jin Du, let go of me."

"?" As the only one among the three survivors who had been cautious enough not to be swayed by outside influence into drinking the "Heavenly Dew," and who was still intact, Jin Du slowly turned his head, unsure what the other wanted to do.

"Shi Gu Shi, are you about to…" Jin Yun'er didn't understand, but that didn't mean the green figure from an allied civilization didn't. That was a prodigy from another Tier 3 civilization, a creature resembling a gleaming, beautiful metallic frog.

"…I can't hold on much longer." Shi Gu Shi was well aware of Jin Du's taciturn nature and paid it no mind. "Let go of me, you two run. Let me buy you a bit more time."

"Jin Du, I misjudged you before. Today, I, Shi, acknowledge you as a worthy one. If there's a chance in the future, you're welcome to visit my Half Lion Heart Seat civilization as a guest."

As he spoke, this still-fairly-straightforward fellow released the faint pull he'd been maintaining, and turned his head to look back.

"You stinking, filthy dead fish, I've had enough of you! How dare you trick your Grandpa Shi!"

Amid his roar, a thunderous bellow erupted. In an instant, Shi Gu Shi transformed into a blazing ball of fire, wrapped in inextinguishable flames, and charged at the blue-light octopus—who was in the midst of metamorphosis—like a wild boar rushing forward!

"Stubborn fool, still trying to struggle in your death throes—become the stepping stone for my breakthrough!"

Facing the boar-charge that surged skyward with terrifying momentum, Zhang Yu Ge merely laughed and met it head-on. If that cautious poisonous bug hadn't dragged these two along in their escape, and if he himself weren't stuck at the critical stage of wanting to metamorphose yet unable to complete it, with his current power he would have long since taken down these last three Wild Kings and completed his final transformation.

Now that the other had stopped running, this suited him perfectly!

Come on, let him complete his final breakthrough. Then, with the aid of that connection, he could, with the support of the civilization behind him, take this Earth Immortal body out and become a true Earth Immortal great one!

By then, even if the civilizations behind these prodigies wanted revenge, so what!

Amid the roars, a massive shadow unfurled and pounced over…

Half an hour later, with the final thunderous boom, the golden, resplendent figure also finally exhausted its strength and crashed down. In a sorry state, it watched Zhang Yu Ge drawing ever closer. By now, the blue light all over Zhang Yu Ge's body could barely be contained. Having devoured two more Tier 4s, he was now just one final step away from breaking through!

"You little scorpion, aren't you something—run! Why aren't you running anymore?!"

Watching Jin Du finally exhausted, Zhang Yu Ge grew smug. Like a big man intimidating a delicate little girl, he approached step by step with a vicious grin on his face, yet didn't finish the kill in one strike, seemingly savoring the fear in his opponent.

"I seem to have come at a rather inopportune time?"

At that moment, an indifferent voice came from behind Zhang Yu Ge's head, carrying a hint of puzzlement.

……

(End of this chapter)