The space blurred, and the figures of Li Yan and Zhao Min appeared on the roof of a dilapidated house below. A dense rustling sound reached their ears. As far as their eyes could see, the yellow sand on the ground heaved and bulged. Then, a scalp-numbing scene appeared.
One after another, small, earth-yellow insects drilled out of the sand. The sand pits they created were quickly filled in by fine sand. They were like withered bamboo twigs, about the size of maggots. A pair of small eyes on their heads glinted fiercely, and their mouths were like a horizontal slash across the top of their bodies, their appearance extremely ugly and ferocious.
These ugly and ferocious yellow insects were densely packed, in the thousands, tens of thousands. They were almost one with the yellow sand of the earth. If one did not look closely, it was impossible to tell them apart.
"It's the Crossbow Worms!" Zhao Min said softly.
They had already learned about most of the situation here from the jade slip Su Hong had given them. The Crossbow Worm was one of the demonic beasts in the underground secret grotto that people were most unwilling to encounter. Like the Snow Mosquito Clan, their individual combat power was only ordinary, but when they attacked in a group, even a Golden Core cultivator would not want to encounter them.
The Crossbow Worms' attack method was also very special: a large number of long-range attacks that were hard to guard against. Li Yan and Zhao Min had become the target of a public attack just now while flying. However, they had been vigilant of their surroundings and had sensed the crisis in an instant, dodging the sneak attack.
After the Crossbow Worms lost their target in an instant, they looked around and once again found Li Yan and the other person standing on the roof. One by one, the Crossbow Worms suddenly arched their bodies, and their large mouths, which were split horizontally at the top of their bodies, opened, revealing a row of fine, sharp teeth. Streaks of yellow light once again shot towards Li Yan and his companion like a torrential downpour. These yellow lights, some straight, some slanted, covered a very wide range, and their speed was incredibly fast. With a sharp sound of breaking through space, they arrived in an instant.
Li Yan drew a line in front of him with his hand, and a black wall of qi blocked the two of them. Amidst the continuous "bang bang bang..." sounds, Li Yan felt a force, stronger than the last, coming from his hand.
"Truly strange!"
A strange light appeared in Li Yan's eyes. Just now, when he sensed the crisis, he could have used the "Phoenix Soars to the Heavens" movement skill to take Zhao Min and escape immediately, leaving before these Crossbow Worms could react. But he hadn't done so. As the saying goes, the skilled are bold. He also wanted to see if the Crossbow Worm attack described in the jade slip was really that strange.
The yellow light emitted by these Crossbow Worms was like strong crossbow bolts, with astonishing force. Li Yan estimated that each streak of yellow light could pierce through the body of a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Of course, this force was nothing to Li Yan and Zhao Min. Even if they stood there and let the yellow light hit them, it wouldn't cause them any harm in a short period of time.
However, since the jade slip had marked this demonic beast and listed it as something that even Golden Core cultivators in the underground secret grotto were unwilling to encounter, then it would naturally not be that simple. But even for the sake of investigation, Li Yan would not carelessly use his body to block it.
He soon discovered the formidable aspect of the Crossbow Worms. After each streak of yellow light hit the black qi wall, its force was not blocked and dissipated, but instead adhered to the qi wall. The subsequent streaks of yellow light did the same. Because the yellow lights came extremely fast and were as numerous as a sky full of arrows, in just one breath, one side of the black qi wall had turned golden yellow.
Li Yan felt the force coming from his hand increasing at an astonishing speed. In just over a breath's time, it had actually reached the attack power of a Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment cultivator. And this force was getting stronger and stronger, as if it would not rest until it broke through the qi wall.
Almost at the same time, the yellow lights that did not hit the qi wall instantly turned the wall under Li Yan and Zhao Min's feet into a tattered "sieve." One after another, yellow lights pierced through with a "swish swish swish..." sound. Fine, thread-like transparent holes appeared on the wall and then rapidly increased at a speed that was invisible to the naked eye. This caused all the holes to instantly connect into a patch, forming larger and larger holes…
In just over a breath's time, the two-foot-thick bluestone wall under Li Yan and Zhao Min's feet collapsed with a "rumble," splashing yellow sand everywhere. The two of them were then suspended in the air. The attacks of the Crossbow Worms below became even more swift and fierce, and the magical power in Li Yan's hands was also constantly increasing.
He certainly wasn't willing to let this continue. That would bring him a lot of trouble. He was just about to erupt with power to shatter the force of the qi wall and roll it back. This way, he could use this force to block the subsequent sky full of yellow light, and they could take the opportunity to escape. He didn't want to fight with so many demonic beasts.
And just at this moment, Zhao Min, who had been scanning the area below with her Divine Sense, suddenly spoke.
"You just keep attracting their attention like this. Give me ten breaths of time!"
After speaking, she didn't wait for Li Yan's reply. She stood behind the qi wall and stretched out a pair of long, slender, snow-white jade hands, which began to dance like fluttering butterflies, forming a series of complex magical seals.
'This should be a magical seal for refining Gu-insects. Is Senior Sister going to refine these Crossbow Worms?'
Li Yan was a disciple of the Malevolent Spirit Sect. Although he didn't know the techniques of "Never-Parting Peak," he had dabbled in related classics, so he could roughly tell what kind of magical seal Zhao Min was making at a glance. But what he wasn't sure about was whether these Crossbow Worms were also a type of Gu-insect. This was something Li Yan could not distinguish.
Time passed quickly. Li Yan could already feel the vibrations from the qi wall getting more and more intense, infinitely close to the attack power of an Initial-stage Golden Core. Although there was only one level of difference between the Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment and the Initial-stage Golden Core, the difference in attack power between the two was like heaven and earth.
According to the jade slip, Crossbow Worms could be found in many places in the secret grotto. They would divide their territories and live, forming their own clans. Each clan was ruled by a Crossbow Worm King. About thirty percent of the Crossbow Worms that had come out were Second-rank demonic beasts, but most were still First-rank demonic beasts. And in Li Yan's Divine Sense, there was a peak Second-rank demonic beast underground in the yellow sand, emitting a series of invisible sound waves. These were not sound wave attacks, but all landed on the Crossbow Worms on the surface. This caused the ferocious qi of the Crossbow Worms on the surface to surge, and the "arrows" from their mouths shot out like a plague of locusts, filling the sky.
According to the records, the highest rank a Crossbow Worm could reach on the Verdant Continent was a Third-rank demonic beast. And it had to devour its own kind to help it grow. This promotion process was quite long. A Crossbow Worm clan could only have one Crossbow Worm King at a time. It would kill its opponent just before they were about to break through to the Third-rank, then kill and devour them to help itself advance to the Third-rank realm. Otherwise, with the terrifying reproductive ability of Crossbow Worms, they would have long since become a huge clan on a continent, forming a disaster like locusts.
Some Crossbow Worms with higher spiritual intelligence would immediately challenge the strongest in the clan after reaching the Second-rank. Their fate would either be to defeat and devour the other, or to be devoured by the other. Those Crossbow Worms that did not immediately challenge the strongest usually only submitted temporarily. Even if they were secretly accumulating strength, they would not escape alone. So the life of a Crossbow Worm was very strange, a cycle of devouring and being devoured.
The Crossbow Worm King in a clan would not easily kill the Crossbow Worms in the clan. It had to wait for them to slowly grow stronger, so that the essence blood on them would be more helpful for it to advance its realm.
The Crossbow Worm clan that Li Yan and his companion had encountered had not yet produced a Third-rank demonic beast. This could be seen from the accumulated attack power. At most, it could barely reach the Initial-stage Golden Core. This was related to their overall strength…
Li Yan quickly recalled the description of the Crossbow Worms in the jade slip in his mind.
At this time, seven breaths had passed since Zhao Min had spoken. And the speed of Zhao Min's seal formation was so fast that her hands were just a blur. In just a few breaths, a lot of sweat had beaded on her forehead. It was clear that performing this technique was also quite strenuous for Zhao Min. What was being wasted more should be Divine Sense power.
When the ten breaths were up, a strange syllable came from her mouth. Although this sound was not loud, it was exceptionally clear. At this moment, the Crossbow Worms below only felt as if a string in their minds had been plucked. They were all in a trance for a moment, and for a short period of time, they actually lost the ability to think.
Immediately, there was a very short gap in the sky full of yellow light. Zhao Min was waiting for this fleeting moment. Her ten fingers were interlocked, her hands clasped into a fist shape, with only her two index fingers pointing straight out, pressed together. With a turn of her body, she had already circled to the edge of the black qi wall. She stretched out her arms forward, and her two jade-like fingers, as white as green onions, pointed out. A blood-red thin line, visible only to Divine Sense, flashed from her fingertips and disappeared.
The blood-red thin line instantly crossed a distance of more than ten li, and then its head plunged into a patch of yellow sand. That large patch of yellow sand had been motionless all along. Compared to the sky full of yellow light attacking Li Yan's side, it was like two different worlds.
Just as the blood-red thin line plunged into the yellow sand, the originally calm and waveless earth suddenly churned like a yellow dragon. Then, a painful screech came from underground. Amidst a large amount of yellow sand flying up, a yellow shadow flew out from it.
The yellow shadow was about a foot in size. It was a yellow maggot several times larger than the Crossbow Worms in front of Li Yan and his companion. It also had a pair of small eyes on its head, and its large mouth, which was split horizontally below its eyes, was open, emitting a series of sharp hisses, its eyes revealing pain. From the pressure it emitted, its strength had reached the peak of a Second-rank demonic beast. It should be the Crossbow Worm King of this Crossbow Worm clan.
The Crossbow Worm King kept thrashing its body in the yellow sand. A few times, the look of pain in its eyes was suppressed, replaced by an even more ruthless and fierce glint. It immediately fixed its gaze on Zhao Min in the high sky far away, and in the next moment, it was about to pounce towards Zhao Min.
But there seemed to be an invisible thin line on Zhao Min's extended finger. Once she found that the Crossbow Worm King's consciousness had slightly recovered, the incantation from her mouth became even more urgent, and her fingers constantly made winding motions. The pain in the Crossbow Worm King's eyes immediately surged again, and its face showed a human-like alternating expression of pain and confusion.
Beads of sweat were already rolling down Zhao Min's smooth forehead, and her face had also turned pale. Apparently, even with her current cultivation, it was extremely difficult to subdue a demonic beast that was almost at the Third-rank.
And just as the Crossbow Worm King flew out of the ground, the attacks of those Crossbow Worms, after a brief pause, became even more frantic.
Seeing that Zhao Min's refinement of that Crossbow Worm King was not going smoothly, Li Yan called out in his mind.
"Zi Kun!"
In an instant, a purple-robed youth abruptly appeared in the void. A small purple flag in his hand circled above his head, and then a large amount of purple light scattered down. In just a blink of an eye, a patch of purple light shone brightly ten zhang in front of Li Yan, and then the purple light quickly disappeared.
The sky full of yellow light attacks was immediately blocked by an invisible barrier. One after another, dazzling yellow lights exploded more than ten zhang in front of Li Yan and his companion, unable to reach the black qi wall that Li Yan was supporting. It was the long-unused "Great Dragon-Elephant Formation"!
The "Great Dragon-Elephant Formation," personally controlled by the Purple Divine Dragon-Elephant after it obtained a physical body, was more than three times more powerful than before. As soon as all the attacking yellow lights covered the surface of the formation, they were swallowed by the formation. Although the yellow lights inside the formation still had a strange stacking power, they could not shake it at all.
At this time, Li Yan let out a breath and, with a sudden exertion of force from both hands, he struck the black qi wall backwards. It flew for more than a thousand zhang before exploding with a "bang"!