Free Web NovelChapter 309: Chapter 230: A Sky Full of Fireflies, Night Nether City
These tiny black flying insects were almost invisible, roughly five to six times smaller than a mosquito. They were somewhat similar to the small insects encountered in the Queen’s Ruins—Spiritual Energy-based Soul Techniques had only a weak effect on them.
However, thanks to the All-Encompassing Spiritual Silkworm, any Flying Scabies that entered his body were instantly killed and expelled.
Ah Yu, at his side, also had a way to deal with them. They hurriedly took out a few small black pills from their personal pack, swallowed them, and chewed a few times. Just as they were about to toss the rest to Han Ning, they saw he was standing there completely unaffected.
"Elder Qingyao, Egg Pancake, use Dragon Power. Don’t activate your Spiritual Energy."
Dragon Power was a special Energy that combined a Dragon Type Bloodline with Qi and Blood Power. It was very different from Spiritual Energy.
Hearing this, the two dragons immediately changed their defensive tactics.
The surging green light around Qingyao’s body suddenly stalled. In its place appeared a cyan, flame-like radiance, almost identical to the green flames that had erupted from the Taman Insect Master’s Yimu Flood Dragon before its death.
BOOM!
Before Egg Pancake could even display its own Dragon Power, the green flames swept out in all directions like a ferocious beast, incinerating the Death Leeches that were hurtling toward them like cannonballs.
"Death Leeches feed on the Abyss’s grudges and Spiritual Energy. They’re practically endless—you can never kill them all. We need to leave, quickly."
Ah Yu’s face was pale and tense.
Han Ning didn’t need Ah Yu’s warning; he already knew these leeches were tough. He immediately ordered his two Soul Beasts to get out of there, without the slightest intention of picking a fight.
As the saying goes, even an elephant can be killed by enough ants. Though the dragons had thick hides, massive bodies, and abundant Spiritual Energy, facing an endless swarm of leeches head-on would be a foolish choice.
"SKREEE~" "ROAR!!"
The brightness of the green flames covering Qingyao’s body dimmed to a minimum, leaving only a faint, almost imperceptible layer of light. It enveloped both it and Egg Pancake like a thin film as they charged into the pitch-black night.
In the faint light, Han Ning could vaguely see what seemed to be an endless mass of black bodies writhing madly on the ground below. Light glinted off their slick, segmented backs, creating a nauseating spectacle.
Even though the two dragons were flying at incredible speed, a continuous stream of leeches still shot up from the ground, WHIZZING toward them and slamming into their bodies with unnatural velocity, utterly fearless.
"The Flying Scabies are extremely sensitive to the flow of Spiritual Energy," Ah Yu explained. "To them, even the faintest trace of it is as dazzling as a light in the dead of night. They have a symbiotic relationship with the Death Leeches: The Flying Scabies drain a creature’s flesh, blood, and Spiritual Energy, and the Death Leeches then devour the grudges the creature releases as it dies."
"Don’t they have any natural predators?" Han Ning asked, frowning as he looked away.
He had seen plenty of disgusting sights, but the glimpse of that madly writhing swarm still made his stomach turn.
"Any stronger Soul Beast is their natural predator. But Death Leeches feed on grudges; they can’t survive without them. The problem is... the Abyss is close to the Netherworld, so the supply of grudges is nearly infinite. The Death Leeches thrive on these endless grudges, constantly multiplying and occupying a vast area of the Abyss."
"What exactly is the Netherworld?" Han Ning pressed. "Is it really a world where the Undead live?"
"It is the final destination for all Undead, the world of the dead, cut off from all signs of life... Rumor has it that Night Nether City was built on a fissure leading to the Netherworld. Maybe we’ll find out more if we can get inside the city."
Speaking of the Netherworld, Ah Yu’s expression grew reverent, their words filled with both fear and awe. It was a reaction befitting an Abyssal Creature.
’Netherworld? I’d just call it the Underworld... Surely there aren’t actually Ox-headed and Horse-faced guards or the Ten Halls of Yama in there...’
Han Ning was skeptical about the existence of this so-called Netherworld, but he didn’t dismiss it outright.
’After all, he’d already transmigrated to another world. It stood to reason that other unexpected things could happen.’
Ultimately, Qingyao and Egg Pancake’s power far surpassed that of the filthy creatures below. Before long, the attacks from the Death Leeches and Flying Scabies grew less frequent, eventually stopping altogether.
To avoid attracting attacks from other Soul Beasts and causing unnecessary trouble, they followed Ah Yu’s lead, carefully traversing one Lord Level Soul Beast’s territory after another.
Over 2,000 kilometers passed in a flash.
As they flew, Han Ning began to get a preliminary sense of the Grudge Abyss’s terrain.
It was like a miniature version of the surface world. Hills, rivers, grasslands, even volcanoes—the Abyss had them all.
However, compared to the surface, the environment here was terrifying.
Grayish-white or pitch-black vegetation grew on the rolling hills. Mushrooms covered in black and white spots were scattered in the crevices of rocks, periodically spewing clouds of fluorescent spores into the air.
The nearly-dry riverbeds looked as if giant, serpentine creatures had slithered through them. Foul-smelling liquids, sometimes surging violently and other times trickling slowly, flowed where water should have been.
The so-called grasslands were actually composed of giant Tree Demons, on whose backs grew large patches of grass-like leaves that released hallucinogenic substances into the air.
The Abyss wasn’t a completely dead world. On the contrary, it was home to numerous bizarre Soul Beasts. Most were misshapen and ugly; some were bloodthirsty and short-tempered, others were insidious and cold, and still others were as timid as mice.
The two dragons flew over a vast expanse of the Tree Demon grasslands. According to Ah Yu, an Abyssal Demon Tree approaching the Upper Lord Level dwelled deep within the grasslands. All the Tree Demons living there were its Descendants.
