Chapter 48 Chapter 48 "The best treatment must be able to carry...
Ma Chengying frowned and quickly summarized and analyzed the information passed back by the two people.
"Deputy Captain Ma, the suction of the rift seems to be weakening." An old team member keenly noticed the change.
At the same time, the data on the monitoring instruments seemed to have reached a peak and then began to slowly decline.
In the distance, before everyone's eyes, the pitch-black hole that had expanded to its limit began to shrink inward. The arc-shaped lightning at the edge looked much weaker than it did then, and the rolling turbid fog also calmed down a little.
Only the Qingbao Spirit Snake sent out from Huoqiu Mountain has not sent back any news.
"Is it stable? Or is it exhausted?" Huoqiushan narrowed his eyes and observed the cave entrance calmly.
Jiang Qing stared at the shrinking darkness, his fingertips unconsciously stroking the compass jade in his palm.
"The spiritual treasure hasn't moved yet?" Ma Chengying's voice was filled with a barely perceptible tension.
The Qingbao Spirit Snake of Huoqiu Mountain has a detection ability comparable to Renata's Mother of Ten Thousand Snakes Kong. It is one of the spiritual beasts that is good at lurking, but no news has been sent back at this moment.
Huo Qiushan's fingertips moved slightly, and the seal of the contract on his wrist emitted a light blue halo, which was the contract induction between him and the spirit snake.
"It's still there." Huo Qiushan's tone was calm, but it made everyone around him breathe a sigh of relief. "It's gone deeper into the rift. The signal is being severely suppressed, and only fragmented fluctuations can be transmitted back."
After a while, Huo Qiushan's tone suddenly changed, his expression instantly tense, and he spoke very quickly: "No, that wasn't the core before, it was a trap. That eye is alive, and it's still devouring!"
Everyone's expression froze.
"In the information Qingbao sent back, I saw a massive creature composed of countless compound eyes. It was actively absorbing the energy escaping from the rift. Those crystal fragments were its excreted waste or shed shells. The weakening suction just now was it accumulating strength, preparing... for prey! It discovered the Qingbao Spirit Snake..."
Before he finished speaking.
A dull roar came from deep inside the cave.
The suction force that had weakened just now suddenly exploded, and its intensity was hundreds of times stronger than before.
Suddenly, there was a violent tremor under my feet, and the hole that extended downward and was half buried in the soil suddenly emerged from the soil.
On one side, yellow sand and tree roots were surging from the soil, and on the other side, everyone was pulled by the huge suction force, pulling them straight into the cave.
Ma Chengying's reaction was quick. A shadow left from his wrist. He quickly pulled out his weapon and thrust it into the ground. After stabilizing himself a little, he quickly pulled everyone to prevent them from being sucked away by the suction.
Hong Ling also summoned her spirit beast immediately. It was a giant scorpion covered with crimson crystal armor. The crystal scorpion's tail hook pierced deeply into the ground, and its eight legs clung tightly, barely stabilizing her and Hong Ling.
Wen Zhuxi's face was as pale as paper, and the strong sense of crisis brought by the foreboding almost suffocated him.
He grabbed Lin Qingzhou's arm tightly and rushed towards Jiang Qing almost instinctively, as if that was the only safe haven.
Lin Qingzhou didn't push him away this time, because she also felt that despairing aura of destruction. She grabbed Wen Zhuxi with her backhand and slammed her other hand to the ground. The seal of the contract shone brightly: "Liu Guang, protect your body."
A pink and white phoenix appeared with a scream, flapping its wings wildly, and finally landed steadily in front of the two people. It used its huge wings to pull the two people into its arms.
Jiang Qing's condition seemed to be better than everyone else's. Ji Changsu had done special training in this aspect. She pushed her mental strength to the extreme, and her feet were nailed to the ground as if they were rooted, but her body was still pulled forward by that force.
The compass jade in her palm was now extremely hot. The gray mist was spinning wildly, and the handle of the spoon was pointing directly into the cave, almost trying to break free from her palm and fly out.
In this situation, the three people who still had the spirit beast in the cave were twitching their fingers, using the beast-controlling finger techniques to the limit, trying their best to control the spirit beast to escape.
The wind is getting stronger and stronger.
Jiang Qing gradually felt that he could not open his eyes. The sticky darkness with a disgusting sour smell suddenly pressed down, instantly swallowing up all the light and sound around him.
Jiang Qing felt his feet lighten, and his bones groaned under the heavy burden. He felt dizzy and was violently dragged towards the abyss.
"ah--"
In my ears was the sharp buzzing sound caused by weightlessness, mixed with my companions' short and sudden screams of weightlessness.
The next second, everyone was swallowed up by the thick fog.
When Jiang Qing's body flew past the cave entrance, he seemed to see yellow-stained teeth and exposed gums.
"Bang!"
About ten seconds later, her back hit something slippery and elastic. The huge impact force dislocated her internal organs.
The chicken legs and fish fillets I had just eaten in the morning were churning wildly in my stomach, and a strong fishy and sweet taste filled my throat.
Jiang Qing's vision went dark and he began to cough violently, each breath tearing at his chest.
She struggled to stand up, and her hands immediately sank into a cold and sticky "ground" that was like semi-solidified colloid.
She raised her hand and put the object under her nose and sniffed it.
"vomit--"
Damn, it stinks!
Jiang Qing quickly shook his hands twice, trying to get rid of the mucus.
After a while, Jiang Qing began to look around.
Zhu Tianba ran out of the seal of contract on his own initiative and rubbed her hand.
She looked around and did not forget to look for the compass jade that Ji Changsu gave her. Fortunately, it fell next to her.
"Cough cough... Bah! What the hell is this place?!" Zhao Peng's rough voice sounded not far away, with weakness and shock and anger after vomiting.
"Everyone, count your numbers. Report your location and status!" Ma Chengying's voice pierced through the panic-stricken, ubiquitous dull throbbing sound. It was as cold and hard as iron, forcibly tearing through the chaos.
She had obviously fallen quite hard, and her voice was filled with suppressed gasps.
"The third team, Zhao Peng, can move, the Armored Bull is here!" Zhao Peng's voice responded first.
"Team three, Meng Yanlang... cough, the arm may be dislocated, undead rat, the contact is weak, but still there." Meng Yanlang's voice sounded a little weak.
"The third team, Hong Ling and Mi Song, are fine." The voices of the two senior students were relatively stable.
“…”
"Medical team, Lin Qingzhou, Liuguang is here." Lin Qingzhou's voice trembled slightly. The pink and white phoenix beside her made a low, soothing sound. The soft light barely dispelled the darkness a few meters around her, reflecting the slowly flowing sticky liquid under her feet, which was emitting a strange green fluorescent light.
"Wen Zhuxi?" Lin Qingzhou's voice suddenly rose, filled with panic, "Wen Zhuxi, answer me!"
"Ahem... I'm behind you. I was almost drowned by the mucus... Ahem." A weak voice, but with a sense of relief as if surviving a disaster, came from the edge of the mucus pool not far from Lin Qingzhou's feet.
Wen Zhuxi's half body was soaked in fluorescent mucus with fine bubbles, his face was as pale as paper, and he was being dragged out by Lin Qingzhou with all his strength. The edge of his expensive combat uniform made a slight corrosion sound.
"Team One, Huoqiu Mountain." A voice that was calm and almost indifferent came from deeper inside, calm and peaceful.
"Can we still contact the Qingbao Spirit Snake in Huoqiu Mountain?" Ma Chengying asked immediately.
"The connection is still there. It's deeper and safe for now." Huoqiushan's answer was still brief.
"Jiang Qing? Jiang Qing!" Zhao Peng's anxious shouts rang in Jiang Qing's ears.
"I'm here." Jiang Qing took a deep breath, suppressed the nausea that was churning in him, and replied in a hissing voice, "Team Three, Jiang Qing, I'm fine."
"It's good that everyone is alive." Ma Chengying's voice was filled with a subtle sense of relief, but then turned sharp. "Everyone, please check your equipment and turn on the lights."
The vibrations had stopped, and the surroundings were dark and unusually quiet.
They fell from the top, so it shouldn't be pitch black in here.
Ma Chengying fell into deep thought.
Several strong flashlights and the light from the spirit beasts pierced the thick darkness.
The scene before me was terrifying.
They seemed to be deep in the intestines of an enormous creature.
The "ground" underfoot is dark flesh-colored, covered with thick folds and sticky liquid living tissue. It is elastic and undulates slightly with some slow and powerful pulsation.
The two sides are made of the same material, with "flesh walls" that converge upwards, so high that the top is invisible and hidden in the darkness.
The air was filled with a thick, sour stench and an indescribable sweet smell, like a mixture of stale blood and rotting plants.
No one among those sent out to investigate the spirit beasts reported the situation inside.
Before everyone could recover, the "pink soil" under their feet began to wriggle.
What's even more creepy is that under the strong light, you can see some dark white or dark objects scattered in the folds and cracks of the flesh wall and in the flowing fluorescent mucus.
There were broken animal bones, twisted and deformed metal fragments, and even the remains of half a strange beast that had been corroded beyond recognition and could not be identified.
Jiang Qing instantly thought of the teeth and gums he saw when he fell in.
She spoke calmly and quickly: "This is not a cave. We are in the belly of some mutant beast..."
This conclusion exploded like thunder in the dead silence.
A word can wake a person up from his dream.
But at the same time a new problem arises.
According to records so far, there is no creature with a mouth growing outside its body and a large enough body to swallow so many people and large spiritual beasts at the same time.
Moreover, according to the information brought back by the three people before, it was obviously an abandoned mine. Meng Yanlang's undead rat and Huoqiu Mountain's Qingbao spirit snake both saw things shaped like eyeballs and small pieces of minerals inside.
"Deputy Captain Ma!" Huo Qiushan's cold voice suddenly came from the front again, penetrating the suffocating fear.
"The Qingbao Spirit Serpent has sent back clear information. The core of the abnormal node is approximately 300 meters away from us. The surrounding environment is fluctuating violently, but the path is blocked by a pool of highly corrosive acid."
Huo Qiushan said, "Also... a large number of secondary life reactions are gathering near the acid pool and are awakening. They may be symbiotic or defensive organisms within the giant insect, attempting to bypass it and explore a safe route."
"Secondary life forms? What form? How many?" Ma Cheng asked quickly in English.
"The shape is unknown, the energy reaction is complex, and the number... is more than twenty." Huoqiushan's answer made everyone's heart sink to the bottom.
"Deputy Captain Ma." Jiang Qing suppressed the urge to vomit and the increasingly intense restlessness coming from Zhu Tianba deep in his soul, and pushed his mental strength to the limit.
The results of Ji Changsu's hellish seven-day special training were revealed at this moment. She forcibly filtered out Zhu Tianba's excited roar that was like noise interfering with her judgment, and spread out her perception like a spider web.
The compass jade in the palm of his hand was so hot that it almost burned his skin. The gray mist was spinning wildly, and the handle of the spoon was like a magnetized needle, pointing firmly in the direction that Huoqiu Mountain had just mentioned.
The direction pointed by the compass jade is consistent with the core location described in Huoqiu Mountain. It is estimated that this place is affected by the beast core source power.
Jiang Qing quickly walked up to Ma Chengying and briefly explained to him the matter of the beast core power. In order to facilitate understanding, she took out the dark crystal to replenish it, and explained that Zhu Tianba could absorb this energy.
When she mentioned this to Ma Chengying, she specifically emphasized the words "resonance" and "evolution".
Ma Chengying nodded and agreed to delegate power to her at special times.
After getting Ma Chengying's approval, Jiang Qing looked down at Zhu Tianba, and the next step would be much easier.
After dealing with Jiang Qing, Ma Chengying quickly recovered and shouted loudly, issuing orders at the same time: "Everyone, move towards Huoqiu Mountain! Hong Ling, Mi Song, lock the front with your lights, Zhao Peng, prepare to engage! Meng Yanlang, can the Undead Rat locate the specific location of those secondary life forms?"
"No, the interference is too strong. I can only vaguely sense the movement of the energy ball." Meng Yanlang's voice was filled with frustration and anxiety, and he shook his head.
"It's too late." Huo Qiushan's voice suddenly rose, losing its usual coldness. "The Qingbao Spirit Snake has been discovered. Something is coming from the direction of the acid pool. It's very fast. Get on guard!"
Before he finished speaking.
“Hiss—”
The eerie sound of countless bones rubbing against each other and slippery objects moving at high speed surged from the darkness ahead like a tide.
The beam of light from the high-intensity flashlight shook violently, barely capturing some outlines of creatures climbing and jumping at high speed on the sticky flesh wall.
Those things are hard to describe in words.
They have insect-like limbs, but are covered with pale bony shells that seem to have been softened by gastric juice, with fluorescent mucus flowing in the cracks of the shells.
The head is twisted, and there is no eye or mouthpart, only a round hole that opens and closes constantly and is covered with fine sharp teeth.
Some slithered along the ground like giant white slugs, while others used their sharp appendages to hook onto the folds of flesh and launched themselves forward like deformed spiders.
There were so many of them that they instantly filled the corridor in front of the view.
"Attack!" Ma Chengying swallowed and pretended to be calm. She was not completely sure that she could leave here safely.
But as the captain of the guard team, she represents the highest level of the academy. If even she cannot be relied upon at this time, then the group of people below will be like losing their backbone and become a pile of loose sand. In that case, the probability of them being able to clear the abnormal nodes alive and successfully get out will be almost zero.
"boom!"
Zhao Peng's roar and the armored bull's violent trampling broke out at the same time.
The khaki energy shock wave rushed forward in a fan shape, crushing several bone-armored slug monsters in the front into sticky powder.
Hong Ling's crystal scorpion tail hook flashed with cold light and stabbed out as fast as lightning, accurately nailing a spider monster that pounced from the air into the flesh wall, and green liquid splashed.
"Liu Guang, light feather arrows." Lin Qingzhou shouted delicately, and the pink and white phoenix sang clearly. With a flap of its wings, countless arrows condensed from pure light energy poured out like a rainstorm, piercing through the body of the strange beast and making a "hissing" burning sound.
When she chose to study therapy, her mother dissuaded her, saying that the fastest way to end harm is to end the source of the harm to the patient.
The best treatment is to be able to pick up the knife and go at it.
She didn't believe it at the time, but now she feels that what her mother said makes some sense.
If she kills all the strange beasts around, no one will be able to harm her patients!
"Wen Zhuxi, stop pretending to be dead!" Lin Qingzhou, who was in combat mode, did not forget to pay attention to the condition of her fiancé.
Wen Zhuxi gritted his teeth and struggled to get up. With a flip of his wrist, a translucent, air-distorting shockwave emanated from his palm, knocking several of the gathered beasts to the ground. "It hurts so much... I sensed danger, but I didn't expect it to be so disgusting!"
"Qingzhou, at a direction of forty-five degrees to the left front, it's heading towards you, three degrees to the left." Wen Zhuxi's prediction played an absolute role at this time.
The two of them work together in perfect harmony.
Jiang Qing leaned against the solid side of the armored bull, his heart beating wildly like a drum.
With one hand, she tightly pinched the seal to suppress Zhu Tianba's crazy impulse that was almost about to break free from the restraints in the seal of the contract. With the other hand, she tightly grasped the compass jade, and her mental power was like the most precise probe, struggling to scan and locate in the chaotic battlefield and countless complex energy flows.
Zhu Tianba was digging the ground and roaring frantically at her feet, his amber eyes fixed on the direction where the strange beast was coming from. Deep in there, he had something he wanted desperately.
Beasts are easily affected by the beast core power, resulting in various negative effects.
Every time Zhu Tianba came into contact with this energy, he would uncontrollably pounce on that thing.
Jiang Qing frowned and looked ahead.
Behind the group of strange beasts, the area dimly illuminated by the strong light suddenly twisted violently for a moment.
Immediately afterwards, a silent, gray-white energy pulse spread out like water waves.
The area swept by this gray-white ripple, whether it was the flowing mucus, the folds of the flesh, or the strange beasts in battle, all became blurred and transparent in an instant.
The image flickered for a moment, as if the signal was bad, and then returned to normal.
But the few bone-armored beasts at the core of the ripples disappeared silently in a flash.
"The core position is offset, fifteen degrees to the right front. Two hundred and eighty meters away!" Jiang Qing shouted out the latest position, sweat running down his forehead.
The core was constantly changing. Although it was very close, everyone felt as if they were several meters away.
Almost at the moment she finished speaking, the area in front, which was barely illuminated by Lin Qingzhou's "flowing light" and the light of the Red Crystal Scorpion's shell, twisted and folded violently again.
The deadly gray-white energy spread silently.
"Disperse!" Ma Chengying shouted, his voice filled with unprecedented urgency.
Everyone instinctively fell to the sides or back of the flesh wall, rolling over and over to avoid it, not caring whether their bodies were covered with the smelly mucus.
Gray-white ripples swept past, and several bone-armored spider monsters in the front instantly became ethereal.
The flesh and mucus where they were originally located also became transparent for a moment, and then returned to normal, leaving only a heart-wrenching hole.
"What the hell is this thing!" Zhao Peng crawled out of a pile of mucus in a panic.
The Iron-Armored Bull used its huge body to block most of the aftermath of the ripples for him, and even a slight blurred mark appeared on the edge of the thick shell on the bull's back.
Meng Yanlang's face turned pale. The edge of the ripple just now almost brushed his head. "Annihilation! The energy in this core is out of control. It is indiscriminately erasing everything it touches!"
He is indeed a top student who has read dozens of books. At this moment, he can still recite the contents of the book one by one.
Zhao Peng pouted angrily.
"We can't let it strike again." Hong Ling's crystal scorpion tail hook pierced deeply into the flesh to steady herself, her voice resolute. "Otherwise, all of us, including this giant insect, will be wiped out bit by bit."
A cry of surprise rang out within the boundless and silent flesh wall.
"Be careful on the side!" Wen Zhuxi's warning came with a broken scream, reminding Jiang Qing.
A leader-level beast, which was a circle larger than the other bone-armored beasts and had a dark red shell, took advantage of the moment when everyone was distracted by the pulse and silently shot out from the shadow of the side flesh wall.
Its mouth, full of sharp teeth, opened to the limit, like a high-speed rotating meat grinder, and rushed straight to Jiang Qing's unprotected neck.
The deadly drill mouthparts were about to touch Jiang Qing's skin.
Zhu Tianba suddenly moved.
Its figure was expanding at an extremely fast speed, and the silver energy wrapped around it surged out like a boiling flame. Its body turned into a silver lightning that tore through the air, and it arrived first.
"Bang--"
There was a crash.
Zhu Tianba used his body to hit the side of the leader of the monsters hard.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment.
The high-speed rotating drill mouthparts of the leader beast made a sound of twisting bones, and were knocked off course, brushing past Jiang Qing's shoulder, leaving a string of blood beads.
Its huge body was smashed by this unimaginable force and flew out like a broken sack, smashing heavily on the squirming flesh wall. The hard dark red shell cracked inch by inch, and green liquid spurted out wildly. It twitched a few times and then stopped moving.
Zhu Tianba, while knocking the leader of the monsters away, used the force to roll in the air with incredible agility, landing steadily on all fours, splashing a sticky liquid.
It didn't even look back at the leader of the monsters. Its amber eyes had been completely swallowed by the fiery golden color, and were fixed on the direction from which the gray-white pulse came.
It made a higher-pitched, more urgent sound.
He kicked the ground hard with his hind legs, ignoring all the secondary monsters that were rushing towards him, and ignoring the shouts of his companions, and turned into a determined platinum-colored stream of light, rushing towards the core position.
The speed was so fast that it left a shadow behind.
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