The sandworm shot straight out of the ground, rising a hundred meters into the sky like a mountain suddenly thrusting up from the earth.
Countless small gods clung to its body, iron-helmet fleas, long-legged worms, and mutated sickle.
Immediately afterward, an even more frantic sound of sand surging came from all directions. Countless small gods poured out from the layers of sand like a tide. These sandworm servants let out all kinds of shrill, grating screeches.
In the blink of an eye, the entire area turned into a paradise for insect-like gods.
It seemed to have lost track of its prey's direction. The sandworm that had rushed straight into the sky gradually stopped.
Its head swung rapidly from side to side, scanning the surroundings, until its gaze finally locked onto the drill pod that was drifting in the distance, falling rapidly.
Buzz!
Another roar sounded. The sandworm instantly turned into a dark torrent, spraying up countless grains of yellow sand as it rushed straight toward Qin Siyang.
All the sandworm servants around it were thrown into the air by the violent movement, some even sliced into pieces by the sandworm's spiked armor.
Seeing this, Qin Siyang sucked in a cold breath.
"Is this sandworm crazy today?"
His mind was full of doubt.
When he ran into it last time with Hu Chan, it wasn't like this at all.
No sound waves, no yellow sand attacks. It was just a huge worm chasing him desperately with brute force.
Back then, he had even thought that large gods were nothing special.
'So why is it suddenly acting like a mad bull that has seen a red cape today?'
Qin Siyang had already pushed the drill pod's throttle to the limit, plummeting toward the ground at the fastest speed possible.
Right now, whether he lived or died depended first on how good Lu Daoxing's drill pod technology really was, and second on whether heaven would spare his life.
At this moment, Qin Siyang had no other choice but to pray.
In the distance, the sandworm's mouthparts were rapidly growing larger to the naked eye. Meanwhile, the distance between him and the ground was getting closer and closer.
Whether he would be caught by the sandworm first, or drill into the ground first, would determine whether his life ended here or he continued clinging to survival.
Life and death hung by a thread now, long beyond his control.
Qin Siyang couldn't help but start praying devoutly, "Professor Lu, bless me! Heaven, bless me too!"
Boom!
The drill pod slammed into the barren plain like a cannonball, blasting countless fragments of stone and sand into the air.
The tremendous propulsion and the strange tunneling technology caused the drill pod to vanish the instant it touched the ground.
Boom!
Immediately afterward, the massive sandworm plunged forward like a dragon diving into the sea, smashing straight into the pit the drill pod had just left.
Its hundreds-of-meters-long body disappeared underground in just a few seconds.
Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!
The sound grew farther and farther away, gradually fading until it vanished.
All that remained was swirling yellow sand and a scene of utter devastation.
Countless sandworm servants still crawled aimlessly across the ground, panicking after losing their master.
High in the sky, a gigantic bird's eye opened.
It only gazed for a moment before slowly closing again.
From beginning to end, no one ever knew it had appeared.
In the darkness underground, Qin Siyang drove the drill pod forward at high speed.
Behind him, he could hear the sandworm relentlessly crashing through rock and soil in pursuit, along with the occasional sound waves it released.
While traveling underground, the sandworm's enormous body was greatly slowed by the solid earth and rock, but the speed at which it released its sonic attacks actually increased. Even the drill pod racing at full speed couldn't dodge them.
Thousands of meters underground, the hardened soil that had been compacted for tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years trembled like an earthquake. Inside, everything was constantly being squeezed and shattered.
The drill pod moving through it shook uncontrollably as well, jolting up and down, repeatedly slamming violently against the surrounding rock.
But to Qin Siyang's surprise, the sandworm's sonic attacks turned out to be all thunder and little rain. They didn't cause any devastating damage to the drill pod. Even he himself only felt ringing ears and dizziness, which he could handle without too much trouble.
It was completely different from the power of the sound waves he had felt in the air earlier. The difference was like heaven and earth.
"If Hu Chan was here, that kid would definitely say this is another research point that could produce a top-tier paper!"
Qin Siyang gritted his teeth. The foot pressing the throttle didn't dare loosen even for a second.
With one foot already stepping into the gates of hell, the tension made Qin Siyang completely lose track of time.
After who knew how long, the sound of the sandworm chasing behind him gradually disappeared, leaving only the occasional sound wave ringing in his ears.
Some time later, even the sound waves grew weak and soft, like a cricket rustling faintly in the grass.
Finally, even that faint noise vanished.
Even though his whole body was still tense, Qin Siyang didn't dare lift his foot off the throttle. He continued moving forward at full speed.
Only after another hour passed did he finally relax slightly. His mind was no longer stretched to its limit, and he felt he could slow the drill pod down.
But after several attempts to lift his foot, he still couldn't manage it.
"My foot's gone numb."
Qin Siyang rested for a while longer.
Finally, the feeling returned, and he slowly brought the drill pod to a stop.
He lay back in the driver's seat and closed his eyes to rest for an hour before slowly sitting up and removing the armor on his body, which was already shattered beyond repair.
"Even though I'm exhausted, I still have to start the Path of the Believer today."
Starting the Path of the Believer on the surface had been a fishing operation he carefully designed. The goal was to use this chance to eliminate the enemy who could completely track his movements.
He just hadn't expected that the enemy wouldn't be Guo Jiuxiao and the others, but someone right beside him.
Qin Siyang still felt a strange sense of unreality about Chang Tianxiong's assassination attempt.
There had been no warning and no expectation. It felt as if everything that had just happened had been an illusion.
But the shattered armor lying beside him, and his now empty wrist, proved that he had truly experienced a battle where he narrowly escaped death.
The terrifying image of the sandworm surfaced in Qin Siyang's mind again, making him shiver.
"No wonder no one has managed to kill a large god so far. That sandworm is just… In the future, even if someone beats me to death, I won't dare provoke it again."
The reason he had chosen to lie flat in an open environment was also because he worried the enemy might be too powerful for him to handle. If that happened, he had planned to unexpectedly let the sandworm show up and deal with the enemy for him.
Based on his previous experiences, every time he stayed exposed outside the safe zone for a little over an hour, the sandworm would come to attack.
This time, the sandworm had also arrived right on time and saved his life.
Of course, after saving his life, it had almost taken it back again.
Qin Siyang still felt lingering fear.
The fishing operation had hooked bigger and bigger fish, almost costing this fisherman his own life.
He sighed sincerely.
"Next time, I absolutely can't take risks like this again."
———
Somewhere in a wilderness—
The enormous sandworm was violently smashing the surrounding rock and soil, venting its fury after losing its target.
Only after a long time did it finally stop.
It slowly slithered across the devastated ground, its pair of red eyes like crimson crystals turning back to look at its own abdomen. On the neatly layered scales were two wounds as thick as a person's arm.
One of them looked old and had already turned into a scar, but no new scales had grown over it.
From the other wound, dark green blood was steadily flowing out.
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