Other than the 'Fiery Flowers', Li Yao and Li Jialing also discovered all kinds of bizarre underground lives. The diversity of the creatures reminded Li Yao of his experience exploring the silver lake below Boneyard in the past.
However, almost all the lives below the ground were like colorful mutants of the life on the surface of the planet instead of being born naturally. It seemed that they had been modified and interfered with by generations of intelligent lives since the Pangu and the Nuwa civilizations in order to survive in such a harsh environment.
The habitats of most of the underground lives were the shelters that had been collapsing, buried, and abandoned for hundreds of thousands of years.
After only half a day, Li Yao and Li Jialing passed by three forsaken shelters, or rather, ancient relics.
Ancient relics sounded like mysterious places that boasted infinite treasures that the experts of various places were eager to explore, just like the Kunlun relic that the Xing Yao Federation once discovered, and the Nuwa warship and the Pangu underground palace deep inside the Land of Eternal Night near the north pole of the Ancient Sages Sector.
However, such ruins that had a special maintenance system or were frozen in the depths of the North Pole, so they could remain intact, were really one in a million existences, and very rare.
Most of the relics had experienced the erosion of time from ten thousand years to hundreds of thousands of years. The magical equipment and the corpses that were slightly valuable had long been obliterated. They were either obliterated or mixed with the magma. There was no possibility of excavation or repair.
It was exactly the case for the three relics near the 10084 district.
The crystal processor systems that used to boast remarkable computational ability had long turned into rusted, twisted, empty shells. The rune arrays that were used to clean the air and cool the temperature had been covered by moss and vines. Most of the channels had been blocked by collapsed rocks and spurting magma. The traces of the last victims' painful struggles before their death could be vaguely seen. The traces had all turned into fossils and were clearly branded on the uneven walls.
Whether the owners of the relics were the Pangu or the Nuwa Clan who controlled the universe hundreds of thousands of years ago, the ancient Cultivators who inherited tremendous primeval treasures despite their ignorance, the nobles of the demon race in the Great Dark Age thirty thousand years ago, or even the first batch of modern Cultivators in the Star Ocean Imperium … there was no difference at all. Their glory and civilization were gone, and their corpses were no longer what they used to be. The dim light of the 'Fiery Flowers' brushed past their traces that were covered in moss. Even the lizards and snakes that crawled past in a hurry did not bother to look at their ashes, because there was nothing inside that could be sucked or swallowed at all.
However, now that the relics had been found, it meant that the wildlings were not far away.
It was because most of the wildlings were the descendants of the people in the relics.
Li Yao and Li Jialing both covered their telepathic thoughts with spiritual energy and spread them out like ripples. As they expected, they soon discovered the traces of a few wildlings in the darkness.
The two of them appreciated a marvelous ambush battle.
At first, it was a Red Ring who hunted a Black Armor Soldier.
The Red Rings were smaller and thinner than ordinary people. They were about 1.5 meters tall, but they had long, strong muscles all over their body that seemed to be tied together by ropes. Shocking explosive strength was contained in them.
They were as agile, elegant, and brutal as the cheetahs in the underground world. Their two rows of canine teeth that protruded like daggers could bite the head of a human from the back and stab into the eye sockets, destroying the brain tissue instantly. Deep below the ground, there were no other large mammals except for human beings. Such a tooth structure only suggested that they were used to feeding on their own kind.
Li Yao paid special attention to the eyes of the Red Rings, only to discover that their pupils were crimson rings that spread out as Li Jialing described. They were glittering even in the darkness. When they were illuminated by the Fiery Flowers, they would be even more glittering and soul-stirring.
It seemed that, other than "night vision", they were also attached to some sort of natural mental attack, which was similar to "deterrence" and "shock". Although the attack was feeble, it was more than enough to deal with the common prey.
Their ears were also large and flat, with interconnected wrinkles. It was said that the depths of the wrinkles were filled with extremely sensitive sensory organs that could sense the terrain around and the breath and heartbeat of the prey through the feedback of soundwaves.
With such sharp search and attack weapons, the Red Rings were the best hunters in the dark and deadly area. They were at the top of the food chain.
When Li Yao sensed the Red Ring, he was hanging upside down on the top of a cave and crawling toward another Black Armor who was gnawing on a lizard.
Li Yao had thought that the Black Armor was as wide and flat as a tortoise, but after seeing it with his own eyes, he discovered that the Black Armor was also thin and small. The black armor on their bodies was not a single piece of iron but a structure that was as dense as fish scales. They looked more like armadillos.
Other than the black armor, they had not evolved any more attack weapons. Naturally, they were at a disadvantage in the competition against the Red Rings.
Seeing that the Black Armor, who was alone and ignorant, was about to be killed by the Red Rings, Li Yao was considering whether or not he should stop the fight between the two wildlings.
Suddenly, right when the Red Ring jumped at the Black Armor Soldier, a stalagmite nearby suddenly moved and threw a black shadow at the Red Ring Soldier, knocking him to the ground.
It was a Night Wing who had disguised himself as a rock!
Li Yao was greatly surprised by the delicacy of the Night Wing's' mimicry '. Although he had not recovered from his heavy wounds and had only activated one tenth of his telepathic thoughts to detect the enemy, the Night Wing had managed to escape from his scanning. The racial talents that had evolved deep below the ground were indeed quite impressive.
Also, it was obviously a trap that had been set up in advance. The Black Armor was the bait, and the Night Wing was the main attacker to hunt down the careless Red Ring. The fact that they had set up such a thorough trap suggested that the brilliance of wisdom was not entirely gone yet. They were still in the category of "human beings" and not just animals in human skin.
The shadow that the Night Wing threw out seemed to be a super alloy component on a certain piece of magical equipment. It also had sharp edges and looked like a club when it was swung. The Red Rings were made of flesh and blood after all. They did not train their spiritual energy. After taking the heavy blow, they fell to the ground and bled profusely.
Seeing that the Black Armor and the Night Wing were roaring and about to bite the throat of their prey, Li Yao stood up from the darkness and slightly increased the surging spiritual energy around him.
The underground residents were highly vigilant about danger. The Black Armor and the Night Wing did not hesitate for even half a second before they abandoned their prey and retreated into the darkness, running away.
Li Yao did not stop them but simply went forward to check the Red Ring's condition.
His head had suffered a heavy blow, and his skull had deeply collapsed from the left temple. He could not breathe at all. It was obvious that he would not survive.
Li Yao observed the body of the Red Ring carefully, only to discover that, although he was naked, there were uneven tattoos on his chest that were caused by beetles. There was also a rubber band on his right arm, on which two sharp bone blades were strung. Li Jialing told Li Yao that the Red Rings had the habit of polishing their bone blades with the teeth of their deceased relatives. They believed that the souls of the deceased were attached to the canine teeth that were as sharp as daggers, and that such bone blades would bring good luck and protect the safety of the living.
It seemed that the Red Ring's relatives did not bring him good luck today.
However, the complicated tattoos and the unique customs also proved that the Red Rings were not ignorant animals in human skin that the Immortal Cultivators slandered, but a member of the family of human beings.
Li Yao could even accept the bizarre-looking demons. Naturally, there was no reason for him to reject the underground locals who still looked like human beings after all.
The Red Ring's weird eyes gradually lost the lackluster brilliance and turned into a dead gray that looked like rocks. His chest stopped rising and falling, too. His muscles that had been tightened all the time were relaxed, but his veins were constricted and rigid, making him assume a very twisted posture.
Li Yao sighed and crossed the Red Ring's hands in front of his chest, pretending that he was sleeping peacefully. He put him in a corner of the cave and buried the body with rocks quickly. That was all he could do for now.
Li Jialing had been observing in silence. He hesitated many times, but he did not raise the questions in his heart in the end.
After burying the Red Ring, the two of them moved on.
The caves and crevices up ahead were even more rugged and mysterious. Had it not been for the guidance of the map, the coordinates, and the giant arrowheads that Long Yangjun sprayed with special fluorescent drugs when they went deep underground, Li Yao and Li Jialing wouldn't have thought that there was a way out in such a desperate place.
They walked and crawled for half a day. Then, it was suddenly broad in front of them. A tunnel almost forty meters in diameter appeared out of nowhere. The helical stripes on the wall of the tunnel must've been developed by some sort of super enormous drilling magical equipment.
"It must've been developed by the Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan hundreds of thousands of years ago!"
Li Yao observed the environment and said, "It should've led to … the surface of the planet? But later, after the drastic geological changes, the front half of the tunnel leading to the surface of the planet collapsed and was buried. The only thing left was the back half, which had no head and no tail. "
There was vague light at the end of the tunnel.
Also, the oxygen content and the pressure of the air up ahead were different from this place. As a result, the air flow that was similar to a wind was born.
According to the localization chip, Long Yangjun's coordinates were right up ahead at the end of the enormous tunnel.
Li Yao and Li Jialing looked at each other. Now that they had come to this place, there was naturally no need to hesitate. If Long Yangjun did have ill intentions, there would've been no need to save them from Blackstar the Great at all. If she really wanted to harm Li Yao, there would've been plenty of opportunities in the past ten days. There was no need for her to trick them to this place.
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