Forty Millenniums of Cultivation - Chapter 1271
Chapter 1271: The Blood Tide and the Hellish Light Butterflies
The signs of life came over exactly from the pathway that was blown out by force.
The four of them did not hesitate anymore. Covered by the hundreds of spiritual puppets, they changed their direction and flew into the enormous hole.
The pathway, which had been formed by an explosion, did not belong to the planetary starship. Traces of melting metal could be found everywhere, making the pathway look like a cave in a mountain. Occasionally, circles of whorls could be seen on the wall.
If Li Yao was asked to take a guess, he would propose that the invaders dug into the wall with a huge drill which had an unbelievably high temperature. The drill melted all the metal components of the planetary warship and created such a destructive channel.
The invaders must have planned to hit the critical part directly in such a way!
Therefore, there was surely a certain invaluable treasure, or a core facility of the planetary warship, at the end of the channel!
Because of the enormity of the planetary warship, they had not reached the end yet even after they walked forward in darkness for ten minutes.
Occasionally, they ran into the broken dead bodies of the Pangu Clan and the giant metal puppets that had been twisted and deformed. The hollow eyes of the metal puppets were gazing at the depths of the channel, as if they were monuments guiding the way for them.
Tang Qianhe pierced into the dead bodies with a syringe but failed to retrieve any living material.
After almost a million years of erosion, the corpses and the puppets had long lost their vigor and magnificence of the past. They had turned into what appeared to be fossils and gradually melded with Kunlun.
It was not until half an hour later when a tiny red spot, which looked like a flickering lantern in the dark night, popped up ahead.
The signs of life were suddenly getting intense.
All four of them held their breath. The spiritual puppets entered the state of the highest alert.
As they moved forward, the red spot grew larger and larger still until it gradually occupied their eyes and turned into—
A red inferno.
Li Yao swallowed subconsciously. He felt that his throat was both stinky and scorching.
The scene in front of them obviously fitted the description of the inferno.
At the end of the channel was a boundless square that was more than a hundred kilometers both in length and width.
Li Yao discovered what seemed to be starship debris at the edge of the square. They were similar to the primeval warships on the ground.
Therefore, it was quite possible that this place was a starship manufacture center deep inside Kunlun.
A planetary warship was massive, so it would not often perform space jumps but usually served as a ‘base’.
Both the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan certainly needed starships that were more agile for the regular battle, patrol, and logistics missions.
The starship manufacture center was brimming with dead bodies of human beings and soldiers of the Nuwa Clan and the Pangu Clan. Everybody was mauling each other in the most resolute manner.
Their twisted bodies reminded Li Yao of the bacteria under a microscope.
The scale of the battlefield and the fierceness of the battle were a hundred times greater than the battlefield on the surface!
What was most blood-freezing for Li Yao was that all the dead bodies—whether they belonged to human beings, the Nuwa Clan, or the Pangu Clan—were buried in thick redness. They were even wriggling under the influence of the spiritual waves.
Everybody became a creature of blood. They seemed to have been skinned and were struggling miserably with their bleeding wounds.
It was like the soldiers who should have been killed hundreds of thousands of years ago were still haunting the place and having the most brutal battles day after day incessantly!
“They are moss,” Kou Ruhuo said calmly. He commanded a spiritual puppet to fly to the battlefield.
Li Yao observed carefully and finally discovered the truth.
All the dead bodies and the remnants of magical equipment were densely covered in a layer of blood red moss with barely any gap left.
The moss was extremely thick, and it was even able to move around. The hundred square kilometers there was its territory. It was the moss that made the dead bodies red and seem to be moving.
When the spiritual puppets were still more than ten meters from the ground, the blood red moss on the ground suddenly flowed crazily, like a storm that was brewing on a peaceful ocean. An enormous tide made of the red moss rolled up to almost fifty meters high and consumed a spiritual puppet directly!
Being enveloped by the moss, the spiritual puppet seemed to have fallen into an extremely weird stomach. It soon gave up struggling and simply allowed the moss to drag it into the debris. Soon, there was no sign of it anymore.
“This is a kind of weird moss named ‘Blood Tide’. It is a ‘living fossil’ that has survived to this day from the primeval era,” Su Changfa explained to Li Yao. “The Blood Tide is also known as ‘Ghoul Moss’. It feeds on crystals and also corrodes metals. A very foul creature, actually. It’s not unusual to go through all the trouble of excavating a relic only to discover that everything inside has been devoured by the Blood Tide.
“Thankfully, the primeval battlefield here is too large for the Blood Tide to spread to every corner. Otherwise, the ecological system wouldn’t be functioning at all!
“As you have seen, the Blood Tide can attack targets thirty to forty meters from the ground. For our safety, let’s not fly to below fifty meters from the ground.”
Li Yao did not know much. He was there to learn from the three Immortal Cultivators after all. He nodded and asked again after thinking for a moment, “Now that the Blood Tide has covered all the dead bodies and puppets, how are we going to excavate them?”
“There’s no need to be hasty,” Su Changfa said softly. “Adjust the spiritual energy output of your crystal suit to the minimum level. As long as the gravity control unit can keep you floating in midair, it will be good enough!
“Kou Ruhuo and Tang Qianhe will take care of everything.”
Li Yao turned off most of the magical equipment units on his crystal suit as he was told obediently. Like a giant rock floating in midair, he calmed down and observed Kou Ruhuo and Tang Qianhe’s operation.
The two Immortal Cultivators examined the square carefully with two squads of spiritual puppets, paying special attention to the dome that was covered in darkness.
The two of them and the spiritual puppets soon vanished into the darkness.
Very soon, golden brilliance was bursting out in the darkness like lightning in a dark cloud.
Kou Ruhuo and Tang Qianhe fled out, followed by dozens of dazzling streaks of light, as if they were being hunted by dozens of dragons!
Greatly surprised, Li Yao hurried to set the resolution of his crystal cameras to the highest, only to discover that the ‘glittering dragons’ were actually made of countless tiny moths!
What was weird that a small crystal was embedded into the stomach of each moth and grasped by their appendages that had already retrograded!
The moths and the crystals were so perfectly integrated that they almost seemed natural.
The two Immortal Cultivators and the spiritual puppets dived down to the ground at a high speed. The glittering dragons behind them became faster and faster, too!
On the ground, the Blood Tide, which fed on spiritual energy, sensing the arrival of intense spiritual waves, rippled out like a greedy, unsatisfiable mouth.
The two Immortal Cultivators controlled their speed and distance perfectly. When they were about to enter the hunting range of the Blood Tide, they suddenly changed direction and dashed to the two sides while turning off most of the units on their crystal suits.
They flew forward purely pushed by inertia. There was not the slightest spiritual wave coming from them anymore.
Most of the spiritual puppets around them hit the brakes and flew horizontally, too. Their spiritual energy output was cut off.
Three of the spiritual puppets, on the other hand, activated the super-compressed crystal reactor to the maximum and unleashed infinite flames of spiritual energy before they leapt into the Blood Tide like three torches in the darkness!
The shining moths in midair seemed to take spiritual energy as their food, too. Attracted by the three spiritual puppets, they ran into the Blood Tide without any hesitation.
In the moment, the dragons were roaring, and the Blood Tide was boiling!
Li Yao saw that the crystals on the abdomens of all the moths were glowing, turning them into tiny suns. Wherever they went, they would burn a large area of Blood Tide into ashes!
However, there was simply too much moss. It was flowing over from various directions in a hurry. However big the hole that the shining moths burnt was, the moss could fill it up instantly!
It was like countless streaks of magma were flowing into an icy ocean. What a rowdy and intense view!
“Such moths that also feed on spiritual energy are known as ‘Hellish Light Butterflies’.” Su Changfa smiled. “Everything in nature is related. The Blood Tide and the Hellish Light Butterflies, as a pair of mortal enemies, often live relatively close to each other. Although they are usually at peace, they are low-level creatures, and you can incite them to attack each other with appropriate baits.”
Very soon, the fierce battle between the Blood Tide and the Hellish Light Butterflies ended.
All the crystals on the Hellish Light Butterflies were drained. They fell into the Blood Tide like moths darting to the fire. The last bit of the brilliance perished.
However, a giant hole almost five kilometers in diameter had been burnt in the Blood Tide, too. All the moss within the area had been consumed, revealing the original appearances of the dead bodies and the puppets below.
The remaining moss retreated far away. For the time being, it did not dare approach the area that was still mixed with the scent of the Hellish Light Butterflies anymore.
Li Yao and the Immortal Cultivators took the opportunity to land and scan the debris on the battlefield.
It was a pity that the Blood Tide was too damaging. All the remains had become riddled with holes because of the corrosion. They were fragile and vulnerable and would collapse at the first touch.
“It seems that nothing here is worth excavating!” Tang Qianhe pouted and sighed.
Li Yao thought for a moment and asked, “What kind of things are worth excavating?”
“For example, the magical equipment that hasn’t been affected by the environment or the passage of time, the sabers, swords, and firearms from the primeval era, and the likes,” Tang Qianhe said with a smile. “Such things are highly valuable!
“Also, the clear and well-preserved ancient spiritual stripes and rune arrays, if duplicable, are also valuable items for scholars.
“Moreover, if we ever run into the better-preserved bodies of the Pangu Clan, from which living materials can be retrieved, so that we can analyze their gene strands, that will truly be an invaluable treasure!”
“What about the super large puppets almost a hundred meters tall that were piloted by human beings?” Li Yao’s heart was racing.
“You are talking about the ‘Colossus’!” Kou Ruhuo interjected. “Of course, that is a marvelous weapon and the ultimate treasure that every Cultivator dreams about!”
