ASER - Chapter 67
Chapter 67: Massacre
Tian Zhongye was, after all, a straight-laced guy. His mind was filled with the thought: "So, should we launch a sneak attack now? But there are so many of them, we can't possibly ambush them all."
With so many large lizards, even an F-class individual would undoubtedly die if entangled.
"No need for a sneak attack," A'Diao said, her tone calm and steady.
Because female lizards were rare among these, and it was well-known in the biological world that lower-level creatures became more ferocious and aggressive in mating situations, these male lizards soon began to fight each other frantically.
They were incredibly fierce.
Rao Xueya: "This reminds me of the three of you fighting over chicken legs. It's not just similar, it's exactly the same."
The three of them: "..."
You pig-raiser, what's wrong with you!
However, the world of snatching love and having babies was indeed cruel. In no time, seven or eight of these lizards were dead, and countless others were heavily or lightly injured.
At this moment, A'Diao deliberately chose a heavily injured one, stood up to attract its attention, and their eyes met.
In Rao Xueya's words, it was like a turtle spotting a green bean... their eyes locked.
A'Diao then immediately used her "gaze-string pulling" technique. After the glue was flung out, even if this lizard realized it and wanted to warn the others, it was too late. It was already blind and couldn't dodge the bites of its companions. After being killed, the glue on its body was transferred to other lizards.
A'Diao continuously released more glue. Because of the frantic fighting and sticking, one lizard entangled others, leading to an even more chaotic melee.
In the end, the ground was covered in glue and tightly stuck-together clumps of lizards...
"That's about enough, let's go!"
The five of them immediately rushed down the hillside. Song Ling jumped onto her flight device, moving extremely fast. Once within her spiritual channeling range, her Spirit Power range enveloped them... The three lizards at the front had the least glue on them and thus still had some mobility, but they were the first to be affected by her.
Sluggish, sluggish, sluggish!
The three were already injured. After being slowed, their physical reaction speed decreased...
A'Diao was the fastest, already darting through the gaps in the grass. While sprinting, she unclasped something from her waist with one hand. Just as one of the lizards spat out petrification toxin, her figure flashed—swoosh! The line of toxin shot past her side. She tapped a stone amidst the grass with her foot, leaped into the air, did a backflip, and as she descended, she fiercely plunged the thin-bladed sword from her waist vertically into the head of a Petrification Lizard.
But before the longsword could be withdrawn, another lizard pounced and bit from the side. As if anticipating it, she sidestepped, ducked, abandoned the longsword, and drew a short-bladed sword, half an arm's length, from her other side. She thrust it upwards from under the sturdy lizard's jaw, piercing directly through the soft skin of its lower jaw and into its brain.
Stab in, pull out, and a mixture of brain matter and blood gushed down.
But a stream of petrification venom shot towards her from behind in a black trajectory. She pulled out both swords simultaneously. The longsword swept out, cleaving the venom stream, but the lizard whose pupils had rolled back as it spat the venom didn't live to see her attack.
Song Ling, standing on her flight device, pulled out an ordinary-looking laser pistol from her waist.
Bang!
One shot pierced its eyeball.
Brain burst!
After finishing off the three, neither of them was surprised by the other's abilities. After all, they had already gotten a measure of each other's strength during the trial cooperation the day before yesterday. It wasn't like opening a blind box, were they supposed to wait until they were actually in the catacomb to exclaim "Wow, wow, wow, amazing"?
The other three also arrived shortly after and, facing no obstruction, charged towards the clumped-together Petrification Lizards.
"Finish them quickly, don't conserve Spirit Power, or the lizards below will smell the blood and come out."
Five minutes later, the faces of the five were much paler, and they had consumed a considerable amount of Spirit Power. However, they still had some strength left overall, mainly because the lizards were in such poor condition. They were essentially just finishing off heavily wounded enemies, so they didn't need to waste much Spirit Power on dodging or defending.
So satisfying!
After killing the last one, the five quickly cleared the battlefield, dug out all the Spirit Power cores and eyeballs, and then swiftly retreated to their original spot on the hillside to rest.
No reckless advances; able to advance and retreat.
Sure enough, shortly after they retreated to the hillside, the strong smell of blood attracted another batch of lizards.
Fortunately, there were only ten. After they emerged, they roared a few times, seemingly furious, but then they began to frantically devour the flesh and blood of their own kind.
"Luckily, luckily, only ten..." Tian Zhongye's mouth was suddenly covered by Tian Zhongxiang. The group looked on with grave expressions as an enormous head abruptly appeared at the cave entrance.
This one was much larger than the other lizards, over three meters long, with a massive head, extremely sharp teeth, and claws that left deep prints on the ground.
After it came out, its nose twitched. It suddenly looked towards A'Diao and the others, its reptilian pupils rotating, seemingly narrowing into a vertical slit.
Damn! Its sense of smell is enhanced too?
Could it be that it smelled the blood on them?
A'Diao and the others hid in the grass.
This was a Level 2 Petrification Lizard.
Would it come over?
Everyone held their breath, while A'Diao rubbed her fingers, a hint of coldness in her eyes.
Dealing with the thirty-odd lizards before had used up a lot of glue. Sulfuric acid was the most expensive, costing five thousand thought power for a small amount, but it had the best effect. After trying it and seeing the results, she stopped using it. Later, she mostly used glue, but the large quantity also meant high consumption. Dealing with these lizards had directly used up over forty thousand thought power.
Now, she still had one hundred and ten thousand thought power left.
She had specifically saved it up for this catacomb trip, but it was still far from enough.
After a while... there was no movement from that direction. After a bit longer, they roared a few times and crawled back in.
A'Diao and the others rested for a while, then began to approach the cave entrance again.
A'Diao glanced at the corpses on the ground, which still had a lot of flesh and blood remaining, lightly ground her back teeth, and gave Song Ling a look.
Song Ling raised her wrist and tapped it a few times. No. 7 (Pangolin) stealthily lay prone in the grass near the cave entrance, entering stealth hibernation mode. It also switched to energy-saving mode, reducing its energy efficiency and making it harder to detect by other instruments.
This thing was too advanced, truly worthy of being a twenty-million-value high-tech modern forbidden item.
A'Diao felt envious just looking at it, but there was nothing she could do. The Song family was wealthy and influential, heavily investing in cultivating Song Ling, a member of a collateral branch entering the family core. This was unlike Chen Ran's pettiness.
"Alright, shall we go in?" Song Ling reported to A'Diao after finishing the setup.
"In."
The cave entrance was deep and dark, and a faint stench wafted from it. A'Diao gestured with her hand, and everyone followed her into this pitch-black world.
A dozen or so seconds later, when they were about seven or eight meters deep into the catacomb, several figures cast shadows on the dim walls.
The sound of underground water flowing was sparse, faint and intermittent.
In the darkness, a massive Level 2 Petrification Lizard suddenly rushed out, spraying faster and more concentrated venom at the foremost figure. The ten lizards ambushing behind it also spat in unison...
The venom, like a rain of arrows, instantly covered the five figures.
Not good, these beasts were prepared!
The five figures couldn't dodge in time... all the venom hit them.
Jinling Academy. Less than ten minutes after the incident, Zhongchuan Mingxiu learned through his own channels that the Chen family's car had been bombed. Afterwards, the Cui family reacted to clean up the mess, but the authorities had already been mobilized. The Cui family tried to use connections to suppress the matter, but Chen Ran was no pushover. He put on a first-class performance, coughing up blood in front of dozens of officials.
Lingcheng was already Chen Ran's domain. Coupled with the cooperation of Feng Ting's faction of military officials, the official circles were instantly shaken. The news reached Lingcheng directly, causing the entire Danzhou officialdom to become aware of it at once.
The reactions from all sides were significant. The matter they had intended to suppress was preemptively brought into the open by people from the Song family's faction, and the reason given was very noble and grand.
Official Rank Security.
This title was very serious, involving all official ranks of the imperial court. For a time, panic spread through Danzhou's officialdom, and people from the Cui-Wang faction dared not show their faces. Under these circumstances, various armed forces were mobilized, frantically hunting down the assassins.
It was clearly just one car being bombed, yet the commotion was so huge that suppressing it was no longer possible.
The current result was that one of the two hovercars that launched the attack was destroyed by a mysterious force, with both vehicle and occupants turned to ashes. The other one, however, had disappeared; it was unknown whether it escaped or was also silenced. Regardless, everyone in official circles knew that this matter was definitely related to the Cui family. Although no conclusive incriminating evidence had been found yet, under the current investigation mechanism, the Cui family would be monitored, and any action they took would be flagged as suspicious by the relevant departments. It would be very difficult for them to dispatch other forces to assassinate A'Diao or anyone from the Chen family again, as doing so would be tantamount to walking into a trap.
Of course, this also had a certain impact on the Cui family's power in official circles, because no one knew whether the disappeared hovercar had vanished completely or had been buried like a landmine.
If this landmine exploded, everyone involved would be in trouble.
The result was that the Cui family's already damaged influence automatically disintegrated further, leaving only its core members who could not detach themselves.
Zhongchuan Mingxiu's first reaction was that the Cui family had been set up by the Chen family.
Was it Chen Ran or Chen Xun? The timing was too perfect. It couldn't possibly be A'Diao, could it?
Was she really that formidable?
Zhongchuan Mingxiu felt a headache coming on. Just then, Cui Liang from Kyoto contacted him again with a single message: "You're already on bad terms with her. Do you think you can still stay out of it? Song and Chen have joined forces, but the Wang, Cui, and Zhongchuan families combined are not necessarily weaker than them."
Zhongchuan Mingxiu's expression was gloomy. He wanted to ally with the Wang family, but regarding the Cui family... he always had reservations.
Cui Liang was now backed by Kyoto powers, but it wasn't because of his astonishing talent; rather, he had simply caught the eye of a noble lady of high status and was taking the path of a marriage alliance.
This sort of thing wasn't very reliable; it could collapse at any moment and easily lead to backlash.
One had to know that marrying into the wife's family was even more unstable than marrying up (for a woman).
But now, A'Diao was coming on strong, and the Chen family's momentum was overwhelming...
It seemed his path had narrowed. He shouldn't have gotten involved with Cui Liang in the first place, indirectly provoking this "malignant tumor" A'Diao.
Now he was in a mess, unable to advance or retreat.
How should he break out of this current situation?
Zhongchuan Mingxiu pondered for a few minutes, then suddenly contacted a spy.
"Go check if Song Ling is also with A'Diao."
If Song Ling was with A'Diao, it would mean the Song family was fully involved in this matter. First, there was the political understanding between Chen Ran and Governor Jiang; then, the friendship between Chen Xun and Jiang Chao; and further, A'Diao and Song Ling. This was enough to prove their alliance was inseparable. He, on the other hand, could never achieve such a cooperative relationship with the Cui and Wang families, especially since the Cui and Wang families had a bitter feud from previous power struggles and annexations, making them even less reliable allies to each other.
If something went wrong, that dog Cui Liang could sell himself out and hide in Kyoto, but he himself hadn't even taken the college entrance exams yet; his risk tolerance was too low.
After the check, it was confirmed that Song Ling was indeed among them.
Zhongchuan Mingxiu's expression was very ugly, but he still sent a message to Cui Liang: "You don't even know where A'Diao is right now, what do you expect me to help you with?"
He stalled him for the time being, then Zhongchuan Mingxiu quickly contacted his other "brothers."
In the group chat, Yuan Shu was already gone. This kid wasn't stupid; he had come to his senses. Although he hadn't fallen out with Zhongchuan Mingxiu, he had pulled back from the brink. His family probably found out and gave him some guidance.
Zhongchuan Mingxiu didn't react much. At this moment, he contacted several people from Tangzhou.
"We're going down to the catacomb in seven days. Make the following preparations..."
The group chat immediately buzzed with excitement. They were finally going down to the catacomb!
They would definitely be the first team in their class to enter a catacomb!
In the catacomb, eleven lizards ambushed them, their venom mostly hitting the targets. However, they soon discovered that after the venom struck, the five figures didn't fall but remained motionless. This was because they were realistic projections, a virtual skill from Song Ling's wrist device.
While using the wrist device's projection to confuse the lizards, she was also releasing her spiritual channeling. But she still had one hand free, and this hand was on another slot of the laser gun, inputting Spirit Power with her fingers.
Freezing ray.
It seemed it wasn't an ordinary laser gun, but a modified new-type forbidden item—Freezing Mind.
An ice-blue beam instantly struck the sluggish Level 2 Petrification Lizard's head. Its head was instantly frozen—mental sluggishness plus physical freezing. At the same time, just before its eyes could spray venom again, sulfuric acid spurted out with a sizzling sound.
The triple negative status effects meant its attack power was controlled before it could even unleash 10% of it.
Little Fist attack initiated... Swoosh! A'Diao instantly thrust her sword into its eyeball, piercing and bursting its brain core.
Stab in, pull out. A'Diao leaped onto its back and threw down a small ball.
It exploded.
Buzz! A large halo of light burst forth. But everyone was wearing specialized protective goggles. In the white glare, these reptiles, adapted to subterranean life, were instantly blinded... However, the five activated their energy capture mode, pinpointed the locations of the spirit cores, and thus ignored the blinding white light, directly locking onto the lizards' positions.
The five took up their respective melee and ranged positions, their attacks rapidly weaving among the ten Petrification Lizards, unleashing Spirit Power wantonly.
Massacre, massacre!
At this moment, they were excited and tense, attacking with nerves taut. After all, their counter-ambush had succeeded. A'Diao had noticed earlier that the lizard flesh and blood outside hadn't been completely devoured, indicating that the lizards which had hastily retreated into the cave weren't full. However, the Level 2 lizard had controlled them, showing its cunning and its intention to lure them into the cave for an ambush.
So, she played along with its intention.
Thus, she used the projection as bait for a precise counter-ambush. It was going smoothly, without any dangerous surprises, and it looked like the battle would end in another minute. But just then, No. 7 suddenly alerted Song Ling.
Song Ling's expression turned cold.
There were people outside.
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