Chapter 134: Chapter 130: The Ferocious Snake Swarm

After patiently waiting for the crawling sounds to fade into the distance, the group remained motionless for a full five minutes before Lü Xiuning finally let out a slow breath.

"They were purple, not Iron-toothed Snakes. Another type of Soul Beast I’ve never seen before... We don’t know their numbers or their strength. It’s best to avoid a direct confrontation."

The fact that those three large purple snakes hadn’t noticed their disappearance already had Lü Xiuning on edge. The ominous feeling in his gut was growing stronger.

Han Ning said nothing. His team had all fought Iron-toothed Snakes before and knew that when you saw one snake, there were usually more. They rarely traveled alone.

Teacher Lü was right. Even with Yin Yi’s considerable strength, it was best not to just charge in recklessly.

Following the rock wall, another tall cave entrance came into view.

It was a cavern about five meters high and two meters wide. Peering inside, they could see no light coming from the pitch-black opening.

Yin Yi was the first to fly into the entrance.

After a moment, Han Ning sensed that Yin Yi’s mood was stable. He nodded to the others, signaling that it was safe to enter.

SQUELCH. SQUELCH.

The moment they stepped inside.

A sticky sensation came from underfoot.

It felt as if someone had poured a thick layer of glue on the floor.

Lifting a foot pulled up countless long, sticky threads, stubbornly clinging to the sole.

"Damn it all... If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we’d stumbled onto the set of an *Alien* movie," Lin Tianhe muttered, catching a whiff of the strange odor that wafted from deeper within the cave.

The passage was completely dark. The faint glimmer of ore in the walls barely illuminated a meter or two around them.

The ground was covered in a viscous, translucent liquid mixed with bits of light-green, unidentifiable tissue, like puddles of strange snot.

The ceiling of the passage was draped in the same purple viscous liquid. A dense web of threads hung down, looking as if they might drip at any moment.

Though the cavern started at five meters high, the ceiling grew lower the deeper they went.

As they ventured deeper, they went from walking upright to being forced into a slight hunch.

Egg Pancake, the largest of them all, was practically slithering along the ground.

Shards of broken purple eggshells began to appear on the hard rock floor of the dim passage.

Han Ning, crawling at the front, suddenly cupped a hand to his ear.

"Listen, everyone."

The others held their breath, listening intently.

WHOOSH...

A faint breeze blew toward them.

With it came strange, intermittent hisses.

Han Ning whispered, "There are creatures up ahead. If I’m not mistaken, we’ve entered a snake nest, and we’re getting close to their hatching ground."

"Chrr..."

After another four or five hundred meters, Egg Pancake was forced to slither forward, its belly pressed flat against the ground.

Finally, an irregular, circular opening came into view. It was only about a meter in diameter and emanated a hazy glow.

The opening was low to the ground. They gathered at its edge, ignoring the goo on the floor as they poked their heads through to look inside.

The scene before them made everyone gasp.

Within a space of several hundred square meters, the floor was crammed with a dense carpet of large, football-sized purple eggs.

Countless small purple snakes were hatching, their bodies drenched in a thick fluid as they crawled slowly around their broken shells.

The sight would be enough to give anyone with trypophobia a heart attack.

They looked even more bizarre than the Iron-toothed Snakes. Their scales were primarily purple, but their pale underbellies were pure black and covered with dark purple markings.

They were also slightly larger than the Iron-toothed Snakes.

In the center, a colossal snake—even larger than the Silver-Scaled Python Han Ning had seen before—lay quietly coiled beside a small mountain of Soul Beast corpses.

This massive snake actually had three eyes. Upon closer inspection, the third eye on its forehead was just a black patch. A small, slightly raised horn protruded from the top of its head, and its belly was swollen.

The hole Han Ning and the others were peering through wasn’t the only exit. To their northwest was another opening, this one nearly ten stories high.

No, it was more of a gaping chasm.

Beyond that, not far behind the colossal snake, another opening faintly glowed.

"Wh-what the..." Lin Tianhe and He Yang’s faces were masks of astonishment.

It wasn’t just because of the twenty-meter-long snake, but also the sea of writhing hatchlings surrounding it.

Right now, countless snakes, each less than a meter long, were slithering all over the dark chamber. Fortunately, thanks to Egg Pancake’s concealment ability, the group hadn’t been discovered by the small creatures yet.

The group observed silently from the opening for a while.

Han Ning’s keen perception told him that the great snake in the center of the chamber wasn’t as powerful as he’d imagined.

It seemed to be pregnant, and it lay curled in the middle of the cavern, looking completely listless.

Just then, Lü Xiuning gestured for them to pull back.

Everyone retreated several dozen meters back into the passage. After a moment of silence, Han Ning spoke up.

"I can sense it. That purple snake’s Life Force isn’t particularly strong. The pregnancy has left it weakened."

Hearing this, a cold glint flashed in Teacher Zheng’s eyes. "Why don’t we just kill it?"

"I don’t think so," Lü Xiuning said with a frown. "We got in safely, so there must be another way out. Shouldn’t we try to find it?"

’I agree with Teacher Lü,’ Han Ning thought, a little taken aback by Teacher Zheng’s ferocity. He shook his head. ’Let’s go back and see if we can find another exit first.’

The chamber was spacious enough for Han Ning to get back on Egg Pancake’s back. The nine of them and their Soul Beasts hugged the cavern wall, quietly moving away from the great purple snake’s lair.

Every so often, a small, slime-covered snake would slither past Han Ning, completely oblivious to this group of visitors from the Exotic Realm.

They were directing their Soul Beasts, about halfway back to the passage entrance, when it happened.

Han Ning’s ears twitched. He heard the rustling, slithering sound of a massive creature in motion.

The fifteen-meter-long purple snake they’d seen before suddenly appeared in the entrance, blocking their path of retreat.

With their escape route cut off, Han Ning didn’t hesitate. He sent a command through his Spiritual Power: ’Yin Yi, kill it!’

"KREEE!"

As Yin Yi flew forward, a dense cloud of Wood Elemental Particles flared to life behind it.

An unstable ball of green light formed in front of it.

BOOM!

A thick beam of Cyan Wood Radiance shot out, a pillar of light radiating destructive energy that slammed directly into the oncoming snake’s head.

With a wet, explosive SPLAT...

...the giant snake’s head exploded into a shower of blood and gore, splattering across the cavern wall.

’Only about Awakened Level...’ Han Ning quickly assessed the snake’s strength.

The blast woke every snake in the dark chamber.

A scalp-numbing slithering filled their ears. They had no time to worry about the small fry. Lü Xiuning shouted, "Charge to the main cavern! We have to find the way we came in!"

Egg Pancake lowered its head and charged toward the exit, its speed suddenly increasing.