Chapter 269

Above the Blood Lake.

This time, Su Hao did not act as cautiously as before.

Now that the Scarlet Mother Nest is dead, and the Scarlet Source Pearl lies somewhere in the lake, even if it still contains Scarlet divine power, as long as Su Hao does not get too close, there will be no adverse effects.

Moreover, Su Hao believed that after the Scarlet Mother Nest underwent an anomaly, the divine power within the Scarlet Source Pearl had already been exhausted.

Watching the Bloodthirsty Soul Fire blazing on the Blood Lake, Su Hao piloted the mechanical troop transport ship and landed beside the lake.

Just as Su Hao had thought, even though the surrounding creatures knew the Scarlet Mother Nest was dead, none dared to approach.

One reason is that the Bloodthirsty Soul Fire enveloping the entire Blood Lake gives them a strong sense of danger, and besides, many pale undead creatures guard the area, so no one dares to approach.

Another reason is that they all know the Scarlet Mother Nest is extremely powerful; once a Third Tier Supernatural being mistakenly enters the Blood Lake, the Bloody Octopus can deal with it without the nest needing to act, making the nest's main body even stronger.

Then whoever could kill the Scarlet Mother Nest must possess even more terrifying strength.

Fallen beings are not without intelligence; they are merely no longer their former selves, yet they retain relatively high wisdom, and the higher their Supernatural Grade, the more so this is.

Basically, most First Rank Fallen beings are capable of independent thought.

Third Tier and Fourth Rank beings are even more so; they at most send some subordinates to check who the new overlord of the Calamity Swamp is.

Upon seeing the large numbers of Third Tier pale undead creatures around and the blazing Bloodthirsty Soul Fire, they would have no further thoughts.

Su Hao stepped down from the mechanical troop transport ship, gazed at the Blood Lake wrapped in Bloodthirsty Soul Fire, pondered for a moment, and ultimately decided against personally entering the lake.

Although it is likely that the Scarlet Source Pearl no longer contains Scarlet divine power, he could not guarantee that there truly is none inside.

To be absolutely sure, he first snapped his fingers with a 'pa-da' sound, used the fire-storing pouch, and collected all the Bloodthirsty Soul Fire on the lake surface.

The scale of these Bloodthirsty Soul Fires has expanded so enormously that extinguishing them would be truly wasteful.

Storing them in the fire-storing pouch allows long-term preservation, and they can be given to subordinates as a trump card to deal with problems that were originally unsolvable.

Next, Su Hao lightly tapped his fingers on the Blood Sea Robe, drawing the lake's blood into it bit by bit.

These bloods greatly affect visibility; trying to find something in a lake filled with blood is obviously extremely difficult.

Moreover, these bloods also have some uses for Su Hao.

The Blood Sea Robe can produce Scarlet Essence Blood from First Rank to Fourth Rank by consuming energy or mental power.

Besides consuming sufficient energy or mental power, producing Scarlet Essence Blood also requires the corresponding time.

However, if other blood is used as an auxiliary medium during the process, it can save some energy consumption, shorten part of the production time, and increase the efficiency of producing Scarlet Essence Blood.

Anyway, leaving the blood in the Blood Lake here is useless and would actually hinder subsequent exploration.

So it would be better to collect it and use it as a medium to speed up the production of Scarlet Essence Blood—why not?

Once all the blood in the Blood Lake had been absorbed into Su Hao's Blood Sea Robe, he waved his hand, and the pale skeleton warriors around the lake entered the dried-up lake to search for any suspicious items.

Although the Blood Lake is large, the number of pale skeleton warriors is not small either; soon, one of them discovered a suspicious object.

To be safe, Su Hao did not rashly approach but instead observed the object from a distance.

It was a blood-red pearl, as if entirely composed of blood, and one could faintly feel blood flowing inside and outside it.

Furthermore, Su Hao sensed on this blood-red pearl an extremely intimate and familiar aura—the aura of Scarlet Blood.

If nothing unexpected occurs, this pearl is the Scarlet Source Pearl.

This is a supernatural item that once contained divine power; to determine whether any divine power remains, the safest method is to capture a few living creatures for experimentation and simultaneously apply the Item Appraisal Technique to it.

Immediately, Su Hao's thought stirred, and the pale bone dragons hovering in the air dove toward the lake's periphery in groups of ten to capture some living creatures for the experiment.

At the same time, Su Hao's mental power surged, and he applied the Item Appraisal Technique to the pearl not far away.

【Damaged Scarlet Source Pearl】

Supernatural Grade: Fourth Rank

Effect: Consumes mental power to clear most negative conditions affecting the flesh.

Description: The Scarlet Source Pearl was originally an artifact crafted from a drop of the Scarlet Lord's origin essence blood, reaching Supernatural Grade Eighth Rank.

Now, due to the complete loss of divine power, the Scarlet Source Pearl is severely damaged; if one can find the Scarlet Lord's divine power, there is hope to gradually repair it.

When the Scarlet Source Pearl recovers to Supernatural Grade Eighth Rank, it will undergo entirely new changes.

……

"Supernatural Grade Eighth Rank?!"

Looking at the appraisal result displayed, Su Hao involuntarily widened his eyes.

He already possessed many high-grade supernatural items on his person, but a Supernatural Grade Eighth Rank item—he had not only never owned one, he had never even heard of it before.

Originally he thought that Sixth Rank or Seventh Rank supernatural items might be the pinnacle of supernatural artifacts, those legendary divine tools.

Now it seems not so; it is very likely that Supernatural Grade Eighth Rank is the peak of supernatural items.

Of course, above Supernatural Grade Eighth Rank, there may very well be Supernatural Grade Ninth Rank items, perhaps a realm only deities can reach.

However, whether it is Supernatural Grade Ninth or Eighth Rank, Su Hao and they are separated by an extremely vast distance.

Even Supernatural Grade Seventh Rank, he would need the Synthesis Heart to be further enhanced before he could hope to synthesize it.

After a brief surprise, Su Hao's mood quickly calmed, and he then showed an excited expression.

Although the Scarlet Source Pearl is severely damaged, it is now merely a Fourth Rank supernatural item, possessing only the ability to purify most negative conditions, and it contains no divine power at all.

However, repairing it is also quite simple; as long as sufficient Scarlet divine power is fused into it, it can be gradually restored.

When he synthesized Scarlet Essence Blood yesterday, Su Hao produced a drop, and the Scarlet divine power is now awakening within that Scarlet Essence Blood.

If this drop of Scarlet Essence Blood is further synthesized, perhaps one could obtain a drop of Scarlet Essence Blood imbued with Scarlet divine power. Even if it is only a trace of extremely faint Scarlet divine power, it is still divine power; fusing it into the Scarlet Source Pearl can likewise repair it.

However, Su Hao currently has no intention of further synthesizing Scarlet Essence Blood; given his present strength, he cannot be sure of withstanding the corrosion of divine power.

Even if it were merely a trace of extremely faint divine power, he likewise lacks confidence.

Moreover, since the Scarlet Source Pearl is already in his hand, there is no need to rush its repair; he can wait until he is confident in resisting the corrosion of Scarlet divine power, then continue synthesizing Scarlet Essence Blood to repair the pearl.

Although the appraisal result shows that this Scarlet Source Pearl contains no Scarlet divine power at all, to be safe, Su Hao still did not rashly approach.

After waiting a moment on the spot, the ten pale bone dragons returned, clutching several living creatures of various forms, and dropped these forest beings beside the Scarlet Source Pearl.

After waiting about an hour and confirming that these beings had undergone no change, Su Hao finally breathed a sigh of relief and calmly stored the scarlet source pearl into his Storage Bag.

To avoid missing anything, Su Hao did not rush to leave, but continued to have the pale skeleton warriors carefully search the bottom of the Blood Lake.

At the same time, Su Hao sat in a concealed spot by the lake, incessantly summoning pale undead creatures.

Although he was preparing to leave this place and return to the sanctuary to prepare for his advancement, he had no intention of abandoning the Calamity Swamp.

As long as he could conquer this place, it would likewise bring him many benefits; with Su Hao's current strength, he indeed had the capability to do so.

Only after half a day did the pale skeleton warriors find nothing else of value at the lake bottom, whereupon Su Hao stopped what he was doing and prepared to leave first.

During that half‑day, Su Hao summoned over a thousand pale bone dragons, over six thousand pale skeleton warriors, and over five thousand pale skeleton mages.

Adding the undead creatures summoned in the past few days, the Calamity Swamp now hosts over two thousand pale bone dragons, and the combined number of pale skeleton warriors and pale skeleton mages exceeds twenty thousand.

This can be considered an extremely powerful force; even if it cannot sweep the Calamity Swamp clean, it is sufficient to completely take over the region surrounding the Blood Lake.

However, these undead beings, while possessing a certain degree of intelligence, can carry out Su Hao's assigned tasks quite well.

But they are rather rigid; when faced with unexpected situations, they cannot make the most correct decisions.

Once deprived of command, having them hold a position is no problem, but trying to have them conquer the Calamity Swamp would likely cause many mishaps, resulting in significant resource losses.

Therefore, Su Hao gave them only three orders.

First, have them exterminate all enemies within ten kilometers around the Blood Lake.

Second, after clearing the surrounding enemies, have them hold this plot of land and await the arrival of command personnel; this place will become Su Hao's base for stationing in the Calamity Swamp.

Third, have them continue to explore the Calamity Swamp, mapping it out, so that when command personnel arrive they can launch a better, more targeted war.

As for the choice of command personnel, Su Hao had two rough ideas in mind.

One of them is to have the intelligent light robots come and take charge of command.

They possess intelligence comparable to that of ordinary people; although they cannot be outstanding commanders, handling simple battle commands and deployments is still no problem.

Originally, Su Hao was somewhat worried that if the distance were too great, timely transmission of information would be impossible.

But after learning that the intelligent bronze robots had obtained and successfully used communication bracelets, even his last worry vanished.

The other idea is to look forward to the personnel skilled in battle command and territorial construction that Ling Xue'er could recruit, have them come to take charge of developing and building the swamp, and then dispatch a few intelligent bronze robots to supervise.

After giving these orders, Su Hao lingered no longer, piloting the mechanical troop transport ship toward the sanctuary.

At the same time.

Within Su Hao's territory.

A mechanical troop transport ship flew in from afar and landed in the living quarters.

"What great speed…"

Zhu Ge Chang Qing disembarked from the mechanical troop transport ship, his face still bearing a deep expression of shock.

Because he lacked sufficient clearance, he was unable to enter the cockpit while boarding the mechanical troop transport ship.

And since the mechanical troop transport ship had no windows to ensure its defensive capability, Zhu Ge Chang Qing could not use ground references to determine the ship's flight speed.

He originally thought it would take a good while before reaching the destination.

As it turned out, only a few tens of minutes had passed before the ship landed.

Looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar surroundings, he then realized that the mechanical troop transport ship had taken only a few tens of minutes to reach a place that ordinary aircraft would need several hours to get to—this speed was truly far too fast.

More importantly, according to Ling Xue'er, speed is not the ship's forte; its true strength lies in its defensive power and the cabin's space‑folding technology, which allows many more people to board.

"Commander, are you still satisfied with the speed of the mechanical troop transport ship?"

Just as Zhu Ge Chang Qing wore a look of shock, Ling Xue'er approached, followed by two intelligent bronze robots and pale skeleton warriors.

"To be honest, this flight speed really gave me a fright, and with such a huge space inside the cabin, it is absolutely a divine weapon on the battlefield; compared to this ship, our aircraft are nothing but scrap iron……"

Zhu Ge Chang Qing came to his senses, shook his head and smiled, and couldn't help but mock himself.

Whether it is flight speed or the enormous space inside the ship, both can completely outclass the aircraft originally existing on Earth.

Even military combat aircraft would struggle to achieve such high speed while still possessing this much space.

Who would have thought that a mechanical troop transport ship that doesn't look very large could actually carry nearly an entire regiment of people, and its flight speed is outrageously fast.

Whether it is ordinary people's combat or battles between extraordinary beings, having a ship of this kind can definitely achieve a surprise effect.

No matter what, we must acquire a few of these mechanical troop transport ships! As long as we have such ships, if war breaks out in the future we will hold a natural advantage.

Most importantly, since Su Hao is willing to trade the mechanical troop transport ship to the Divine Summer, he could likewise trade it to other forces.

If others have it but the Divine Summer does not, then the Divine Summer will only be in line for a beating.

Not to speak of that far future; even just looking at the present, having a mechanical troop transport ship in hand will make subsequent exploration far more efficient.

But before he could even bring up the matter of trade, Ling Xue'er led him to the side of the mechanical vehicle manufacturing factory.

(End of chapter)