In the underground river, I sat on a boat. I had just dipped the oar into the water and stirred it a few times when I saw the surface of the water churn up and a huge force pulled the oar in my hand underwater.
In the swiftly flowing river, I didn't know if anyone else had noticed, so I could only shout, "Breaking news! There's something in the river!"
"Splash!"
Before I could finish speaking, a dark figure darted from the water onto the boat and pounced on me.
"Buzz!"
Lin Que saw the dark figure, gripped the peach wood axe in his hand, and swung it down fiercely.
"Snap!"
As the axe handle broke, I finally saw what that thing truly looked like.
This is a huge worm, which looks like a large centipede. Its body is thicker than my forearm, but instead of legs, it has two rows of slippery, lace-like fins on its sides.
The monster's head was also strange, with two huge tentacles, a ring of palatal teeth in its open mouth, and venom glands visible on its palatal teeth.
Lin Que's attack failed to harm the water centipede, allowing the beast to seize the opportunity to rush onto the boat and nimbly entangle my left leg.
"Damn it!"
Old Song didn't know where this water centipede came from. When he saw me being attacked, he pounced on it, grabbed its body, and pushed its head to the side: "Kill it!"
"I'll do it!"
The Wei family members beside Song Laosan drew their daggers and violently stabbed him.
The Wei family member stabbed the water centipede, but it felt like stabbing a steel pipe; the blade slid to the side and landed on the assault boat.
The assault boat was pierced with a hole, and gas began to hiss out. When Song Laosan saw that the boat was leaking, he angrily cursed, "You son of a bitch, at least aim properly!"
The Wei family member was also dumbfounded, using his injured arm to plug the hole in the boat: "I aimed! But this insect's body is too hard, my knife couldn't pierce its shell!"
Perhaps because Song Laosan held it down, or perhaps because the Wei family member's knife caused the water centipede pain, it began to struggle violently. Its fins, which looked like soft seaweed on both sides of its body, were actually sharper than a blade, cutting several gashes in the assault boat. My rat-patterned clothes were also torn and bleeding.
"Pfft!"
In the chaos, I drew the Two Realms Blade and swung it, severing the water centipede in Song Laosan's hand with a single strike. I growled in a low voice, "The Two Realms Blade is effective against this thing; it's not something that formed naturally!"
Qu Ruilin saw that the water centipede, even with its head severed, was still writhing there. He then glanced at the speeding inflatable boat that was visibly deflated, grabbed the rope-throwing gun, aimed it at the shore, and pulled the trigger: "There's definitely more than just this one thing in the water. Everyone come and pull the rope, get ashore as soon as possible!"
"Splash!"
As we started pulling the rope, the water on both sides resembled a scene of feeding koi, with countless water centipedes thrashing and swarming around us.
"Pfft!"
"Pfft!"
Lin Que and Song Laosan, wielding their two-dimensional swords, slashed repeatedly at the side of the boat.
Our boat sank after only a few seconds. Fortunately, the river wasn't too wide, and we all had to pull ourselves up to the bank by holding onto ropes when we got to the last meter.
After our boat sank to the bottom, the pressure on the boats behind us increased sharply, and those water centipedes all swarmed towards Jiang Man's boat.
Seeing that they were being surrounded, we all started pulling on the ropes of their boat, sweating profusely. After the boat reached the shore, Jiang Man and the others all jumped ashore.
Everyone gathered on the shore and stepped back about two meters, keeping a distance from the water.
After watching the water centipedes thrash around for a while, Song Laosan dived back underwater and exhaled a breath of stale air: "Don't worry, everyone, the things in the water won't come ashore!"
Wei Shengnan strode towards the riverbank: "The Eight Treasures Exquisite! That's our Wei family heirloom, we absolutely cannot lose it!"
"Don't worry, our boat is connected by ropes, nothing will be lost!"
Seeing Wei Shengnan's anxiety, Qu Ruilin walked with her to the shore, grabbed the rope connecting the two boats, and began to pull up the wreckage of the assault boat.
When I saw this, I was about to go and help, but after taking two steps, I shone my flashlight on Qu Ruilin and said, "Wait, don't move!"
Qu Ruilin paused in his actions, turned to look at me, and asked, "What's wrong?"
There's something on your leg!
I walked up to Qu Ruilin and used my knife to pry something off the back of his right leg.
When Song Laosan saw the thing move, he went up to it too: "Is this thing alive? What the hell is it?"
The thing I took off Qu Ruilin's leg was about the size of a quail egg, light blue in color, and had a semi-transparent feel.
At first glance, it looks like a green jade cabochon, but this thing has eight legs that look like small hooks, two antennae on the front, and a piercing-sucking mouth like a mosquito's mouth.
At this moment, Manjing pointed at me and said, "Big brother, you have this on you too!"
I looked down and sure enough, there were two of these things clinging to my left calf. I quickly removed them: "Everyone, check each other to see if anyone else has one of these!"
While we were checking each other, Qu Ruilin and Wei Shengnan dragged the wreckage of the assault boat aboard. Wei Shengnan retrieved the Eight Treasures Exquisite and, looking at the dozen or so small insects we had thrown on the ground, asked me, "Have you seen these things before?"
*Smack!*
I stomped on an insect and smashed it, then shook my head as I looked at the splattered liquid on the ground. "I've never seen this before, but these kinds of insects are only found on people who have just fallen into the water, which means we must have brought them up from the water."
Qu Ruilin stretched his right leg: "I don't have any special reaction, how about you guys?"
"I don't have any either!"
"I'm fine!"
Seeing that everyone else was shaking their heads, I spoke up and said, "I don't know where this insect comes from, but it shouldn't be the larva of the water centipede we just saw. It should be a different species."
"We're not entomologists, why should we care about this stuff?"
Upon hearing that everyone was alright, Qu Ruilin turned his attention to the shore and broke a rib of a skeleton with his hand: "It's very humid here, so these bones haven't weathered. The path ahead was made by people walking on it. Duan Jinyan and the others probably got ashore here!"
“One of our boats has already sunk, and there’s something in the underground river behind us. Staying here makes me feel uneasy.”
Song Laosan stomped on all the jade insects on the ground, crushing them all: "Since there's no way forward, let's go ahead and check carefully!"
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