Secret Realm Adventure: Bite out a BOSS
The mist from the depths of the secret realm clung to Xiaodou's beard like a ball of sour porridge. Bai Yan's fox fire flickered ahead, illuminating the ground with skeletons—both those of demons and ancient beasts. Xiaodou gnawed on a glowing bone and discovered it was a dragon's knuckle. Hidden within the brittle bone was a crystal core, sweet as candy.
"Don't gnaw on them!" Bai Yan promptly swatted the bones from his claws. "This is the territory of the Taotie's remaining soul. These bones are from the monks it devoured."
Xiaodou licked his paw and said, "Taotie? Are you a foodie like me?"
Bai Yan choked, his ears slightly red. "Taotie is an ancient ferocious beast, devouring everything. You..."
"You mean, you can eat as much as I can?" Xiaodou's eyes lit up. "Then we're in the same business!"
Bai Yan shook his head helplessly, but as he turned, his sleeve slipped half an inch. Xiaodou glimpsed a faint golden pattern on the inside of his wrist, resembling a scaled-down version of the Heaven-Swallowing Mark. Before they could get a closer look, the rock wall ahead suddenly shook, and countless runes swam out like tadpoles, converging above them into the phantom of a gigantic beast's head.
"roar--"
The shadowy figure opened its bloody mouth, revealing sharp fangs, each etched with the word "devour." Bai Yan's pupils shrank, and he dragged Xiaodou back half a step, only to see Xiaodou leap forward and open his mouth at the shadowy figure. "We're meeting in the same profession, why don't you treat me to something?"
The shadowy figure froze, clearly having never seen a demon dare challenge a remnant soul. The next second, it whipped its tail, stirring up a hurricane of wind, sending rubble raining down on its head. Bai Yan summoned a foxfire barrier, only to hear Xiaodou making a "crunching" sound inside—it was actually gnawing at the flying rubble!
"It tastes like soda crackers," Xiaodou mumbled, holding a rock chip in his mouth, "just a little salty."
The veins on Bai Yan's forehead bulged: "That's iron ore! Are you a Sky-Swallowing Rat or a Mining Rat?!"
Without waiting for a reply, a shadowy figure suddenly swooped down, its sharp claws darting straight for Xiaodou's face. Without a second thought, Bai Yan threw himself forward to shield him with his body, receiving a solid blow to his back. Blood dripped onto Xiaodou's nose, and he suddenly caught a whiff of something burnt—not blood, but the pine scent of Bai Yan mixed with a familiar aroma, like... like the yam porridge his mother cooked in his past life.
"Bai Yan, you're bleeding!" Xiao Dou spun around anxiously, "What should I do? I, I'll lick it for you?"
"Stop it!" Bai Yan gritted his teeth and held up the barrier, "Use the anti-poison pill I gave you..."
Before he could finish his words, the barrier shattered with a bang. The phantom's sharp claws swung again, and Xiaodou suddenly felt something explode in his stomach—the spiritual energy pellet he had swallowed earlier, mixed with iron ore and dragon crystal cores, swirled into a pot of hot porridge in the Heaven-Swallowing Mark.
"Warning! Heaven-Swallowing Power Overload!"
The mechanical voice screamed, then was interrupted. Xiaodou watched helplessly as his claws tripled in size, the Sky-Swallowing Mark radiating a powerful light, sucking the phantom directly into his mouth. Bai Yan watched in amazement as he devoured the remaining soul like noodles, sucking up the surrounding runes and bones. Finally, he burped, exhaling a cloud of star-filled smoke.
"...Are you okay?" Bai Yan carefully poked Xiaodou's round belly.
Xiaodou rolled over, and suddenly a fragment of soul flew out from the tip of his tail, with a blurry image reflected on it:
A giant rat stood under the starry sky, the runes on its claws complementing the lines on Bai Yan's wrist. In the distance, a man wearing glasses held up a piece of osmanthus cake.
"This is..." Bai Yan's pupils suddenly shrank.
Xiaodou suddenly sneezed, and countless runes flew out of his mouth, spelling out a line of words on the rock wall:
Concept: The mouse returns to its place, and the deer sings in the deep forest.
"Deer calls deep into the forest?" Bai Yan muttered to himself, "Could it be..."
"Bai Yan!" Xiaodou suddenly pulled his sleeve, "I think I swallowed something I shouldn't have..."
Before he could finish his words, his stomach began to shake violently, and his entire body swelled up like a balloon, floating towards the cave ceiling with a gurgling sound. Bai Yan quickly grabbed his tail, but was dragged into the air with him. The two watched helplessly as the rock wall shrank beneath their feet. Xiaodou's tail wrapped around Bai Yan's wrist, accidentally rubbing against the pale golden pattern.
"Ah! Let go of the tail! I, I'm ticklish!" Bai Yan's ears turned red, and he accidentally pinched Xiaodou's belly while struggling.
"puff--"
The bloated Xiaodou was like a punctured balloon, spewing out a large amount of spiritual energy and residual soul fragments. The two of them rolled to the ground, hugging each other. Bai Yan was pinned underneath, looking at Xiaodou's face above him, which was flushed from the bloating, and suddenly laughed out loud - this was the first time he saw Xiaodou with such an embarrassed expression, his round eyes were covered with tears, like a little animal whose tail had been stepped on.
"What are you laughing at?" Xiaodou pounded his chest angrily, but found that the lines on Bai Yan's wrist had become clear at some point, and they were exactly the same as the runes on his own claws.
Bai Yan also noticed it. He gently stroked Xiaodou's paw with his fingertips and said in a voice as light as a feather: "It turns out that the legends are true... The Concept Mouse will come to find it with the key to the stars..."
"What are you looking for?" Xiaodou leaned close to his face.
Bai Yan suddenly turned his face away and wrapped his tail around Xiaodou's paw. "Nothing. Let's go out first. Is your stomach... still bloated?"
Xiaodou then realized he was still lying on Bai Yan and quickly rolled to the side. However, the tip of his tail accidentally caught Bai Yan's belt, and the two of them stumbled towards the cave entrance like candied haws on a string.
As they emerged from the secret realm, the setting sun fell squarely on Bai Yan's face. He reached out to brush the spiritual energy debris from Xiaodou's beard, and his sleeve slipped down again, revealing a complete golden pattern—a deer with outstretched wings, its eyes embedded with a piece of shattered ice, exactly like the fragment of Bai Yan's jade pendant.
"Bai Yan, your lines..." Xiaodou started to speak when he was interrupted by a mechanical sound.
"Ding! The host successfully devoured the residual soul of Taotie and obtained the 'Partial Devouring' skill! The second level of the survival challenge has been passed~"
Bai Yan breathed a sigh of relief, but at this moment, the roar of the demon world's high priest came from afar:
"Bai Yan! Why did you modify the ingredients without permission? And you, Sky-Swallowing Rat! You chewed a huge hole in the rock wall of the secret realm?!"
Xiaodou shrank his neck, but Bai Yan suddenly smiled and flicked his forehead with his fingertips: "What are you afraid of? I'm here."
This sentence sounded so much like her mother's tone in her past life that Xiaodou's nose suddenly felt sore. What Bai Yan didn't notice was that two runes on Xiaodou's paw had already lit up, and at the end of the second line, the strokes of the word "deep" were faintly outlined.
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