New direction
The gold-eating rat gnawed at Jin Chengcheng for a long time, but couldn't even touch a single hair on it. All its attacks were blocked by a halo of light.
Gritting his teeth, he flicked his wrist and the whip, still outside, lashed out at him, quickly followed by a cacophony of sharp howls.
Although they suffered heavy losses themselves, the gold-eating rats were either dead or injured, falling off Jin Chengcheng's body like rain.
Grinning and shaking her head, Jin Chengcheng looked at her tattered robes and felt a surge of anger. With a flick of her wrist, she retracted her whip.
With a hand seal, a whooshing sound pierced the air. Most of the gold-eating rats on the ground were wiped out, clearing a space from the massive army of rats.
Upon hearing this, Jin Chengcheng's face turned pale. Standing there panting, she glanced at the group of gold-eating rats that were still stationary and hadn't approached yet, and quickly summoned a spirit sword.
"Just leaving like that? Aren't you going to take revenge?" A voice rang out with a laugh, but it made Jin Chengcheng's eyes redden.
He glared angrily at the person who had come in: "Why are you so slow!"
As the two were talking, the gold-eating rats, who had been stunned into place by Jin Chengcheng's earlier move, started moving again. A continuous stream of gold-eating rats continued to pounce on Jin Chengcheng with the same goal in mind, ignoring Ruan Qingyu beside her.
Seeing this, Ruan Qingyu's eyes turned cold: "It's already very fast. Blame it on this place being too big." Her hands moved without slowing down, and a fiery wind swept out with a single palm strike.
They swiftly and cleanly burned an area of gold-eating rats to the ground, but it seemed as if the rats had been given a command; even if one wave was burned, another would appear.
"Where did these rats come from?" Seeing Jin Chengcheng looking exhausted, Ruan Qingyu quickly rushed to her side and helped her up.
"I encountered someone from the Jade Sect earlier. She took the jade slip points and the Ganoderma lucidum that the Golden Rat King needed during its weakened state. After that, the rats rioted," Jin Chengcheng said bitterly.
Upon hearing this, Ruan Qingyu quickly scanned the surroundings with her divine sense, frowning as she asked, "Where is the Gold-Eating Rat King?"
To everyone's surprise, Jin Chengcheng became even more frustrated upon hearing her question, shaking her head and saying, "That Gold-Eating Rat King was at the early stage of the Golden Core realm. I killed it with the help of the Jade Stone Sect from the very beginning."
"That was the previous one. Once one of these species dies, a second Gold-Eating Rat King will quickly emerge." The most urgent task now is to find the newly emerged Rat King, kill it again, and escape while it is without its mastermind.
"Can't you just burn it all at once?" Jin Chengcheng knew that her strange fire had some peculiarities. Could it be that it couldn't be burned all at once? At this point, if she was still thinking of holding back, she was being overly cautious.
Understanding her thoughts, Ruan Qingyu shook her head: "Burn them all? Then we need to find the source first. These gold-eating rats have been continuously being produced since I arrived."
With a mournful look in her eyes, Jin Chengcheng suddenly reached out and grabbed Ruan Qingyu's wrist, saying, "I know where it is!"
Instantly, Ruan Qingyu waved her hands, expending a full thirty percent of her spiritual power, and burned all the gold-eating rats that were originally around the two of them to ashes.
Then, taking Jin Chengcheng with him, they followed her memory back to the place where she had first discovered the Ganoderma lucidum. The location was quite obvious, surrounded only by a few huge rocks.
There is a large pit in the center, and judging from the residual spiritual energy on it, it is clear that a rare spiritual herb once grew there.
"This is the place. The Gold-Eating Rat King was guarding the Ganoderma lucidum there at the beginning. After we killed it, the Ganoderma lucidum was taken away, and then the Gold-Eating Rat swarm appeared."
Following Jin Chengcheng's description, Ruan Qingyu frowned and looked around the pit. The area was spotless. There was no sign of any rat holes. How did these gold-eating rats reproduce so rapidly?
With a slight twitch of her ears, Ruan Qingyu straightened up and looked towards the direction outside the boulder.
Wutong's voice rang out: "Miss Ruan, there should be a solution here. I will first use my zither music to distract those gold-eating rats. You should think of a solution as soon as possible."
After all, even a large number of ants can kill an elephant. If Jin Chengcheng is constantly targeted by these gold-eating rats, even if she eats magic pills every day, she will eventually be worn down and die.
At this moment, Jin Chengcheng, having recovered a considerable amount of spiritual power from the pill, looked around. She raised her long whip, the sound of it cutting through the air quickly resounding throughout the heavens and earth. Just a quarter of an hour later, Jin Chengcheng laboriously retrieved the magical artifact.
"There must be a rat hole here!" I saw with my own eyes that the gold-eating rat king was as big as a tiger, lying near the Ganoderma lucidum, constantly absorbing the spiritual energy emanating from the Ganoderma lucidum.
Ruan Qingyu carefully searched every possible place in this area, but still couldn't detect any arrays or spatial distortions.
Ultimately, their attention turned to the pit where the Ganoderma lucidum had been picked; the only option now was to try this pit.
Ruan Qingyu stepped forward and squatted down, covering the pit with her palm. The Phoenix Divine Fire, fueled by the spiritual power within her body, surged forth and rushed into the ground.
A moment later, nothing changed. Ruan Qingyu patiently squatted there, continuing to channel Phoenix Divine Fire into the flames.
This was the most exhilarating time since the Phoenix Divine Flame was born, with a continuous stream of spiritual energy causing the flame to surge higher and higher. Venturing deeper, this time Ruan Qingyu did not summon the flame to transmit the consciousness from the underground.
Thus, the divine fire raged unchecked underground for another half hour. The sounds of the gold-eating rats outside grew louder and louder, eventually becoming like noise, disturbing Ruan Qingyu and Jin Chengcheng inside the boulder.
Jin Chengcheng watched her actions closely, somewhat puzzled, but she didn't just sit and wait to die. She quickly replenished herself with various spiritual pills, waiting for the last chance to charge out and kill another wave.
At worst, she could use these rats as training grounds and kill them to her heart's content every day. Jin Chengcheng thought to herself, when suddenly she heard a different voice.
He abruptly took a step back, then remembered that Ruan Qingyu was still standing there, and reached out to grab her. But he saw Ruan Qingyu suddenly stand up and stagger backwards several hundred steps.
With a loud roar, a gold-eating rat with phoenix fire on its fur suddenly rushed out.
Although this gold-eating rat is quite different in size from the original gold-eating rat king, Jin Chengcheng can still tell at a glance that this is the new gold-eating rat king.
"That's it!" Jin Chengcheng shouted, lashing her long whip at the Gold-Eating Rat King. This move was filled with anger and venting, and it was powerful and forceful.
Reacting just as quickly, Ruan Qingyu swiftly withdrew the Phoenix Divine Fire that was still raging underground, and at the same time reviewed what had happened underground.
It turns out that the nest of the gold-eating rats was indeed down below, and the gold-eating rat king had only one task: to continuously produce new gold-eating rats.
If the Gold-Eating Rat King's cultivation level is at the early Golden Core stage, then it can breed Gold-Eating Rats at the Foundation Establishment stage. As the Gold-Eating Rat King's cultivation level improves, it needs to continuously upgrade its cultivation to breed even more powerful Gold-Eating Rats.
This led to the first Gold-Eating Rat attempting to devour the Ganoderma lucidum to enhance its cultivation and cultivate more powerful Gold-Eating Rats. However, all of this was destroyed after Jin Chengcheng and the Jade Stone Sect member appeared.
So after inheriting the clan, the new Gold-Eating Rat King did nothing but breed more Gold-Eating Rats and keep clinging to Jin Chengcheng.
The underground nest was built by the Gold-Eating Rat King over many years and was very suitable for the remaining Gold-Eating Rat population. Now that the nest has been destroyed, the Gold-Eating Rat population can no longer reproduce.
Even though the Golden Rat King was covered in scorching divine fire, he still charged towards Jin Chengcheng despite the pain when he saw her.
Fueled by both old and new grudges, Jin Chengcheng's face darkened, and she flipped her wrist, transforming it into a long sword as she charged towards the Gold-Eating Rat King.
Seeing this, Ruan Qingyu only had time to instruct Wutong to continue blocking the group of gold-eating rats outside, to kill the gold-eating rat king first, and then deal with the group of little rats outside.
The Gold-Eating Rat King's eyes were bloodshot as it stared intently at Jin Chengcheng. It opened its mouth and let out a sharp, long screech, causing the two to frown.
The black and gold rat tail lashed back, still aimed at Jin Chengcheng. Jin Chengcheng, who had anticipated this, suddenly turned to the side, and the longsword clashed with the rat tail, producing a piercing sound.
Having failed in its first attack, the Rat King raised its tail high and changed direction, swinging it towards Ruan Qingyu. What met the tail was only a blazing wall of fire; the instantaneous surge of heat forced the Gold-Eating Rat King to retreat two steps in fear.
The fire wall, originating from the same source, instantly reminded the Gold-Eating Rat King that this thing was the culprit that destroyed his entire nest.
The rage he had been harboring towards Jin Chengcheng instantly turned towards Ruan Qingyu. He lunged towards her, sharp serrated teeth protruding from his mouth, gleaming coldly and reeking of a foul stench.
In contrast, Ruan Qingyu slightly raised her head, her eyes burning with fierce flames, and her hands rapidly formed hand seals. A Fiery Phoenix Slash shot out, colliding head-on with the Gold-Eating Rat King.
Just as the Golden Rat King was about to come into contact with the fiercely burning Fire Phoenix, its enormous body suddenly flipped over and fell, with only a few furs on its abdomen being burned by the flames.
"Squeak squeak squeak—" After dodging this wave, the gold-eating rat landed on a boulder, then jumped up again and launched a second attack on Ruan Qingyu.
Ruan Qingyu's eyes widened slightly as she looked at Jin Chengcheng on the other side. She saw the other woman flick her wrist, and the whip wrapped around the Gold-Eating Rat King's tail.
With a sudden burst of strength, she grabbed the Gold-Eating Rat King. Instantly, the attack that was rushing towards Ruan Qingyu was blocked, but the Gold-Eating Rat King was so strong that Jin Chengcheng, who was originally standing three zhang away, was caught off guard.
She quickly pushed off with her feet, shortening the distance by half. The soil on the ground was kicked up by the force of her feet, and seeing this, Jin Chengcheng kicked off the nearest rock.
"Hey, I can't hold him back anymore!" Jin Chengcheng shouted.
Nodding, Ruan Qingyu didn't hesitate. She condensed the Phoenix Divine Flame into a sword and thrust it towards the Gold-Eating Rat's head. Sensing the threat of death, the Gold-Eating Rat struggled violently, but Jin Chengcheng behind it tightened her whip.
"Boom—" In an instant, the huge head of the gold-eating rat exploded, and the noisy outside suddenly became quiet.
Jin Chengcheng shook her slightly sore wrists: "It's finally over." Then, she glanced at Ruan Qingyu and asked, "Won't there be any new Gold-Eating Rat Kings this time?"
"Hmm." Ruan Qingyu raised her hand and wiped it away. In an instant, the enormous corpse of the gold-eating rat was engulfed in flames. In the blink of an eye, only ashes, which could be scattered by the wind, remained on the ground.
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