After finishing the incantation, Daniel Nagumo spun his hands in a flourish. A burst of white light bloomed around him, and suddenly a streak of rainbow mist swirled beneath his feet, spiraling upward to gather above his head. The mist condensed into a dazzling, multicolored haze, and as it spread, the Nether Millet flowers all around withered and shriveled in a flash—even their broad leaves curled up and dried out. It was as if the vibrant life force had been sucked away by that colorful cloud…
As Daniel Nagumo’s hands kept shifting in rapid, intricate gestures, the haze pulled tighter into a halo. Thunder rolled across the sky, and the ground in the hills began to tremble.
“Whoa… That’s the ‘Rainbow Soul Devourer’ spell!” Shawn Young shouted in alarm.
According to the Codex of Ascension, the ‘Rainbow Soul Devourer’—also called the ‘Rainbow Yin-Yang Shift’—draws on the energy where yin and yang meet. It’s a sinister technique that uses true qi to summon creatures of extreme yin. Everything conjured by this spell is ruthless, domineering, and terrifyingly powerful…
Sure enough, once Daniel Nagumo finished casting the ‘Rainbow Soul Devourer,’ he shot Shawn Young and Yan Xiaoyu a cold, wicked grin, made a throat-slashing gesture, then leapt away, vanishing behind the hills.
Just then, the ground shook again, and a wave of bizarre laughter echoed across the whole hillside.
The laughter was deep and low, like a bunch of maniacs barely holding back an explosive outburst. It sounded like laughter, but there was a wild, angry edge to it that made your scalp tingle. After a stretch of these cold, muffled chuckles, a chorus of mournful wailing followed, as if some huge injustice had driven them to such a pitiful sound…
“Rumble… rumble…” came another strange noise as the earth trembled once more. In the withered Nether Millet fields, the loose soil suddenly heaved and split open, and ragged figures began crawling out from the dirt.
There were hundreds of these weird ‘people’—they sprawled on the ground, twitching erratically and letting out creepy ‘hehe…’ giggles.
But their clothes were in tatters, and their limbs had shriveled so much they barely looked human anymore. As they lay on the ground, a strange blue-green glow shimmered over their exposed skin, wrapping them in an eerie light. Their faces pressed to the earth where the glow was strongest, their necks pulsing as if they were sucking up something…
“What are they… doing?” Jade Swann asked, frowning.
“Not sure. Looks like they’re sucking up the yin energy from the ground…” Shawn Young replied.
“I’m going to check it out. What are these things, anyway? Not ghosts, not monsters… Might as well wipe them out while I’m at it!” Jade Swann couldn’t sit still. She strode over, and when she got within four or five meters of the ‘people,’ one suddenly lifted its body and showed its head, startling her.
Turns out, the ‘person’ had no facial features at all—just a mess of rotten, bloody flesh. Their hair was completely gone, and under a layer of blue-green light, their forehead glowed with a weird, eerie shine.
Next, the ‘person’ lifted its withered right hand and gently stroked its bald head, almost like a lover’s tender caress. It was bizarre and creepy. After a few strokes, it suddenly popped its skull open like a lid, making a sharp ‘crack!’ sound.
The move made Jade Swann jump. Shawn Young, seeing this, hurried forward to grab her hand and pulled her back, super wary. After all the weirdness lately, Shawn had gotten into the habit—if something’s off, there’s definitely supernatural trouble brewing!
Sure enough, when the ‘person’ popped its skull, a wave of rotten corpse stench spread out, and a swarm of tiny blue-glowing bugs flew out of the open head. There were also maggots, pale as rice grains, wriggling out and squirming around, filling the air with bursts of foul odor.
Then the ‘person’ closed its skull, toppled backward, and as it hit the ground, there was a series of cracking sounds. The body shattered, and the floor was instantly crawling with those pale, wriggling bugs.
At that moment, a cloud of blue-green mist flashed out from under the ground, enveloping the bugs. Suddenly, the maggots sprouted wings and shot into the air, turning into clusters of glowing blue insects. They buzzed around in midair, making a loud, weird humming noise.
Shawn Young and Jade Swann grew more and more freaked out. Shawn still couldn’t tell what those flying bugs were, but the air was thick with their rotten stench. One look and you knew—they were loaded with deadly poison!
Suddenly, all the little flying bugs in the air whipped around and shot straight at the two of them. They moved fast—really fast—and the stench hanging in the air got even stronger.
Shawn Young quickly jumped back a few steps, channeling his qi to his hands in an instant. His mind flashed, and he conjured a blazing red fireball, thrusting his arms forward and shouting, “Five Organs Alchemy—Inferno Heaven Break!”
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Whoosh… whoosh… whoosh… The fireball shot out and split into three in midair, each one blazing and gorgeous, trailing waves of scorching heat as they blasted toward the swarm of pale-blue bugs.
Boom… boom boom…
At this close range, the three fireballs instantly covered the swarm of blue bugs, sweeping them up in a shower of brilliant flames. The air shimmered with heat, and waves of fire rippled all around.
From Shawn Young’s own experience, fire spells are naturally the bane of flying insects.
So he launched three attacks in a row, hoping to roast all those little blue bugs at once. But the result was totally unexpected—the bugs scattered in the flames, crackling as they went, and then morphed into a cloud of blue mist.
Seeing them turn to mist, Shawn thought he’d burned them up for sure. But suddenly, the blue cloud burst with a flash of light, twisting and swirling in midair until it transformed into a snake-shaped haze.
The snake-shaped haze stretched seven or eight meters long, writhing and flying through the air. Its tail whipped around, flashing with blue light, and a wave of fishy stench flooded the air, along with a bone-chilling cold that snuffed out all the heat in an instant!
"No way! These things aren’t afraid of fire at all!" Shawn Young was shocked—bugs that didn’t fear flames were way tougher than he’d expected.
The snake-shaped haze twisted its long body, released another burst of fishy stink, then split with a sharp ‘whoosh whoosh’ into two smoky snakes. They shot straight at Shawn Young and Jade Swann, bringing a wave of foul, rotten air right to their faces. The snakes opened their jaws and lunged for their throats!
Shawn reacted fast, grabbing Jade Swann and pulling her back several steps. Both of them ducked and dodged just in time to avoid the attack. But the smoky snakes twisted nimbly, turned around, and aimed their gaping jaws at the pair again, spewing out clouds of dark blue smoke…
The two clouds of dark blue smoke billowed thickly in the air and spread along the ground. Worst of all, wherever the smoke touched, the earth bubbled and sizzled, filling the air with a powerful, corrosive stench…
"I’ve got it… These bugs are Ghost Lacewings!" Shawn Young cried out, finally remembering where these little blue bugs came from.
"Ghost Lacewing? What the heck is that?" Jade Swann blurted out.
"They feed on corpses buried in places of extreme yin and evil, and thrive on Nether Essence. These things are insanely poisonous, immune to fire, and even blades and axes can’t harm them! Daniel Nagumo used Nether Millet to raise them—he wanted to breed these monsters!" Shawn explained quickly.
"Whoa… So these little creeps are basically invincible evil bugs? Is there any way to deal with them?" Jade Swann gasped.
"Uh… I haven’t figured that out yet, but these things are no joke. We need to fall back—staying alive comes first!" Shawn said, grabbing Jade’s hand as they both turned and bolted for the valley exit.
"Heh heh… Trying to escape? Dream on!" Just as they turned to run, Daniel Nagumo appeared behind the hills. He snickered, then clasped his hands together, forming a weird yin-yang spell seal. Chanting under his breath, he swung his arms at their backs and shouted, "Hah!"
Buzzz… buzzz… buzzz…
The Ghost Lacewings that had been circling overhead suddenly whipped around, homing in on the pair’s scent and swarming after them. There were so many, the sky looked like it was covered by a rolling, terrifying cloud…
(End of chapter)