Chapter 0533: Farming
The darkness in Riverguard City was immune to the wind, and yet one could almost imagine it as being tangible enough to breathe in. It entered any soul unfortunate enough to be nearby with every breath. It would be absorbed until it coated every inch of the victim’s insides, turning them to its side.
The trio walked through broken streets lined with dilapidated buildings. Some were completely smashed, leaving only waist-high walls behind. Li Luo wondered what had destroyed them so thoroughly.
It was hard to imagine that this was once a bustling city, prosperous and lively.
With the power of the cloaking talismans, the three exuded no resonant power signature. They moved like silent wraiths through the city, penetrating deeper in.
Ssss.
They turned the corner to a different street and halted. There was a building before them with red snakes covering the floor, writhing and hissing.
A closer look revealed a lack of scales, which made them look more like red, fleshy worms.
They had no eyes, their mouths were full of sharp teeth.
Others.
They were not of a high level, probably White Eroders at best.
The three paused for a moment but did not kill them. There was a strange sound that rattled the walls coming from the shabby building they had crawled out of.
A few moments later, a strange snake slithered out of the darkness, roughly a dozen meters in length.
This snake creature was also made out of flesh and blood only, lacking scales. It left a trail of rotting red behind it that ate away at the ground.
It had eight legs sticking out of its body, some sort of bizarre cross between a spider and a python. Worst of all was its human head with completely white eyes that was terrifying to look at.
This was a much stronger creature with corruption levels far exceeding its little worms.
The trio watched from a safe distance as the snake creature left the house and moved away.
"That one should be an Earthly Disaster-class," Jiang Qing'e murmured. "Stronger than the two-faced man-wolf we saw the other day, I think."
"That's the third one we've seen since entering the city." Li Luo bit his lip. They had underestimated the number of Others here. Ignoring the Eroding-class Others, which were too numerous to count, there had been three exact copies of that snake so far.
And that was clearly not going to be all of them.
By his rough estimate, there were at least ten of the bastards around the city.
Ten Earth Fiends to take on? They judged these snakes to be at most at the second Fiend Body Tier, thankfully.
There was also the Four-limbed Demon-eye Serpent to contend with.
"These were probably made by the Heavenly Disaster-class Four-limbed Demon-eye Serpent. All the Others we've met in Riverguard City have had a similar form. This is no coincidence," the First Princess pointed out.
Li Luo grimaced. If the Four-limbed Demon-eye Serpent was making minions and playthings, then it had probably developed quite a respectable amount of sentience.
"There are a lot of Others around. If the Four-limbed Demon-eye Serpent can control them all, that would be very problematic. There are only three of us. If we're busy dealing with the minions and the boss strikes, we could be in grave danger." Jiang Qing'e looked very concerned.
The First Princess nodded. She was about to speak, but then she suddenly whirled around to look at the west side of the city.
"That corruption!" she hissed.
Jiang Qing'e turned as well. There was some drastic movement in the black fog in that direction, indicating a presence many times stronger than the snake creatures.
"Should be the Four-limbed Demon-eye Serpent," Jiang Qing'e said softly.
"Should we go take a look?" the First Princess asked.
"We can. With the cloaking talismans, it should not be able to detect us. We need to know what class it is in before we can make a plan," Jiang Qing'e answered.
The two were decisive personalities, and they moved immediately after their discussion.
Li Luo followed closely. This place was freaking dangerous, with Disaster-class Others sprouting up like mushrooms on a farm. A puny little Resonant Master like him was in constant danger.
The three moved through more broken pavement. Jiang Qing'e and the First Princess finally stopped after a tense half an hour. They both looked at a multi-storied inn and the uncommonly wide thoroughfare leading up to it.
The black fog swayed again, and a five-meter tall figure appeared.
It was a white human-snake with four limbs, with a fat snake body slithering lazily along behind it. It was covered in milky white scales. Li Luo looked closer and almost vomited when he realized they were bleached human fingernails, sharpened to triangular points.
Above the snake body was the naked torso of an extremely beautiful woman, her long hair seductively draped over her chest. She had a single red eye that glinted sinisterly. This Other looked like a beautiful lamia... except for the damned fingernails.
Li Luo did not dare to look too long. He was afraid of the red eye, instinctively sure that it would hypnotize him.
The white lamia was probably the strongest Other here in Riverguard City, the same one that had swallowed the city lord.
It moved languidly across the street, but one swing of its tail carried it dozens of meters across the pavement. It made its way over to a large garden.
The trio quickly scaled the tall inn for a better look at the garden, and they were horrified by what they saw.
There were many humans in the garden.
So many live humans?!
The humans were lying down like corpses, although they could detect some faint signs of life in their bodies.
Regardless of gender, the humans' stomachs were horribly distended.
The Four-limbed Demon-eye Serpent made a leisurely round to inspect them, then it made a strange hissing sound.
Immediately after, the stomach bulges began to stretch and warp, as though something within was stirring and trying to break out. The humans' mouths opened, but no sound came out.
And then their eye sockets burst with sickening pops, oozing with black blood. Two black snakes came out of each human, swallowing the eyes before slithering out of the eyeholes. These meaty, black snakes swam quickly towards the Four-limbed Demon-eye Serpent, who snatched them up and stuffed them into its mouth, chewing with sickening crunching sounds. Fresh, black blood dripped from its mouth, making the demonic face look even more frightful than before.
On the ground, the humans deflated into nothing more than empty skin. It was as though their insides had been completely devoured.
When the Four-limbed Demon-eye Serpent finished its meal, it shot jets of black light back into the humans. Small worms landed on each body and then quickly burrowed their way back into the defenseless people.
Afterward, it slithered away again.
Li Luo and the others were speechless.
They all looked a little green in the face.
This Other was farming humans as food for its brood!