Chapter Forty-Seven: Going Deeper

"Ah..."
Chen Qi felt as if his little schemes had just been exposed. The posture he hadn’t yet withdrawn froze awkwardly in midair, and for a moment, time seemed to stand still around him.

He recovered quickly, pulling himself out of his rehearsed stance and bowing respectfully to the team leader.

“Emmm, I just realized I don’t even know the esteemed name of our team leader.”

Suppressing the urge to secretly use his probing skills on her, Chen Qi walked over to where the group was gathering.

After a brief breakfast, the group pressed deeper into the cavernous depths. Chen Qi kept his place at the center of the formation, constantly sensing the crimson stone around them and remaining vigilant for any sudden dangers.

Before long, he abandoned this fruitless vigilance. On one hand, he trusted that the inner-sect disciples boasted far sharper senses than any outer-sect member like himself; on the other, he reasoned that much of the area near the Blood God Wasps would be devoid of other beasts—or, perhaps, they had long since become prey to the wasp swarm...

The depths of the stone cave were eerily quiet. Apart from the shifting red glow reflected off their group, they encountered no living creatures—not even a trace of plant life.

No one could tell how long they walked before Chen Qi noticed the surrounding red hue deepening, the once-crimson rock now streaked with swirling bands of blackish red.

Not only that, but the air was steadily growing hotter—almost fifty degrees, he guessed. Coupled with the occasional gust of searing wind, an ordinary person would quickly perish from dehydration.

Fortunately, no one in the group was ordinary. With blood energy circulating around their bodies, much of the heat was kept at bay. Aside from some mild discomfort, there was little real danger.

Silence reigned here, broken only by the wind’s intermittent howls, rendering everything around them mysterious and still.

After following a narrowing passage for a while, they reached a dead end. Instead of a path, a gap had opened in the rocky floor—wide enough for two or three people—with hot air continuously pouring upward.

Peering down, they saw a sixty-degree slope vanishing into the depths below, shrouded in a deep red gloom.

The team leader raised a hand for them to halt. Then, with a flicker, she plunged headlong into the opening.

They waited for about three minutes. Suddenly, a flash of blue-green shot up from below, and as the team leader’s figure darted past, the earthen slope collapsed, sending a cascade of crimson rock tumbling down.

Beneath the opening, a long, blackish-red shadow moved even faster, whipping about like a striking lash. As its body flicked, it pulverized the falling rocks, and in an instant, one end of the shadow had arched beyond the mouth of the chasm.

With a powerful contraction, as taut as a slingshot’s drawn cord, the beast’s head whipped up with a shrill whistle, driving straight toward the team leader.

She drew her long sword, shrouded in violet light, and met the attack head-on, slashing at the oncoming monster.

The sword swept a violet arc through the air, clashing against the beast’s head with a spray of sparks.

At last, Chen Qi and the others caught a full glimpse of their foe:

It was a monstrous centipede over three meters long, its body clad in interlocking black and red armor. Dozens of legs, bristling with barbs, ringed its elongated form. The most striking feature was its abdomen, where a pattern of black lines faintly formed a demon’s face—an unsettling sight.

Seeing its charge blocked, the centipede lashed its antennae about the sword, swinging itself toward the team leader. Its blade-like limbs flashed open, intent on slicing the human before it.

But the team leader was prepared. She summoned her true energy, coloring her face with a flush, and her right hand—wreathed in emerald light—cast a sigil into the air.

The sigil struck the centipede’s many legs; those hit directly even snapped off, making the beast writhe in agony and emit a series of piercing hisses that filled the silent cavern with a dreadful resonance.

By now, the others had gathered their wits. Two inner-sect disciples sprang forward with weapons drawn, while Chen Qi pulled out his beloved handgun.

Suddenly, the demon-face tattoo on the centipede’s back grew eerily dark. As its limbs writhed, a fetid wind swept forth, laced with venom. Even standing several meters away, Chen Qi found it hard to breathe and his body went numb for a moment.

Seizing upon this hesitation, the centipede unleashed its trump card: its massive, fist-sized jaws yawned open, and a stream of poison—swirling with green and scarlet—shot straight at the team leader, whom it saw as the greatest threat.

Caught off guard by the venomous wind, the team leader failed to react in time and took the spray directly to her face.

Yet the centipede showed no sign of triumph. Its antennae trembled with unease, and the demon-face tattoo on its back began to glow faintly.

Suddenly, the team leader’s form dissolved into mist. In the blink of an eye, she reappeared on the beast’s opposite side, fingertips aglow with emerald light, firing a rapid volley at the centipede’s vulnerable underbelly.

Catching the beast off guard, her abandoned sword and sudden assault left it scrambling—the demonic glow on its belly only half-formed as it tried to counter the oncoming barrage.

Meanwhile, the two inner-sect disciples shook off the effects of the venomous wind. The round-faced woman fired an arcane point from her fingertip, the handsome youth slashed his blade in a sweeping arc, and from the rear, several bullets streaked forward.

A series of explosive cracks rang out, and the shockwave kicked up a storm of dust and debris, shrouding the centipede’s fate in a roiling haze.

For a moment, a flash of blue-green light cut through the smoke, accompanied by violent surges that sent tremors through the ground and dislodged stones from the cavern ceiling.

When the dust finally settled, Chen Qi saw the centipede’s wretched state: its armored hide was shattered in several places, one antenna had been severed, and a deep gash ran across its abdomen, oozing foul, stinking blood.

The demon-face tattoo it once took pride in was now half-dimmed, making its once-terrifying visage appear oddly forlorn.

The centipede reared upright, sending another wave of its fetid wind outwards. Still, it seemed unsatisfied. It spat venom with all its might, even secreting sticky fluids from the depths of its joints. Wherever the fluids landed, the red stone sizzled and corroded, filling the chamber with the sound of boiling water.

In a flash, the centipede began spinning on the spot, whipping up a cyclone of stench and toxic sludge, splattering venom in all directions like a water spout.

The team leader had already sheathed her sword, spinning it in a flourish of purple light. With effortless grace, she swept every incoming splash aside.

From the distance, Chen Qi’s handgun crackled with sharp reports, each brass bullet spinning toward the beast, only to be deflected by the whirlwind it conjured.

The centipede spun faster and faster, raising another cloud of dust and debris that blurred the group's vision.

Suddenly, a resounding crash split the air. A streak of blue-green pierced through the smoke, and when calm returned, the centipede was nowhere to be seen—only the hole in the ground had grown even larger.

“After it!”
The team leader clenched her teeth and leapt down. One after another, the group followed, sliding swiftly down the steep slope into the unknown below.