Chapter 81: Deep within the Beast’s Lair

Moments later, the battle ended. To prevent too many casualties among the werewolves, Qian Ye also drew his sword and joined the fray, using the most cumbersome method to slay each beast with a single strike.

After the werewolves cleaned up the battlefield, Qian Ye once again entered the forest, igniting the Dawnfire of the origin flame, drawing out another wave of beasts.

This wave was much smaller, only numbering three to four thousand, and their strength was nothing to write home about. This time, there was no need for Qian Ye to act; Esca led the werewolves to harvest them all.

Qian Ye entered the forest twice more, but seeing that he could no longer draw any more beasts, he gave up.

This did not mean that the entire area had been cleared. There were still clearly more beasts lurking in the forest, but they had learned fear and were now hiding, unwilling to come out. Knowing fear was a good thing, as it would keep the beasts from recklessly challenging Qian Ye’s well-armed army.

Since the beasts weren’t coming out, Qian Ye didn’t want to waste effort trying new methods to lure them. In the new world, the most important thing was to master the rules, not to engage in senseless slaughter. He began to wander through the forest, exploring its secrets. The area with the three Sacred Trees was, of course, the first place to go.

A few days had passed, and most of the numerous beast eggs originally piled under the Sacred Trees had disappeared, leaving only a few particularly small ones still soaking in the pool. The tree sap pond beneath the trees had significantly lowered, making the rock islands in the pond appear larger. Only the base of a stone chair remained, with a few scattered stone pillars standing.

With his true vision activated, Qian Ye saw that the missing scouts were still buried within the trunk of the Sacred Tree.

Nothing could stop him this time. Qian Ye leaped to one of the Sacred Trees and swung Dongyue, cutting open the trunk. The Sacred Tree trembled and emitted a cry like a baby, with its split section writhing. It then “spat” out a human body, and the sap turned thick and sticky, sealing the cut like glue.

It was a human warrior, naked, with pale skin and multiple small holes, marks left by the branches of the Sacred Tree. After landing, he seemed disoriented, struggling to get up, wanting to return to the Sacred Tree, but his limbs were weak, and he could only squirm helplessly on the spot.

Qian Ye crouched down, lifting the man’s face, examining it carefully. The warrior’s eyes were hollow, his pupils cloudy, and long without focus. His eyes had likely lost their function. A strange smile lingered on his face, unchanging, showing no signs of the struggle or anxiety his body was expressing.

Qian Ye’s heart sank; he had his answer.

The warrior’s body was still alive, but his will was gone, making him nothing more than a walking corpse. Presumably, the other warriors inside the Sacred Tree trunks were in the same state.

Qian Ye rose, silent for a moment because of this bad news, then tapped the Sacred Tree’s trunk with Dongyue. The Sacred Tree trembled again, and the bark opened a crack, spitting out the bodies of the humans and werewolf warriors. Not just this tree, but the other two Sacred Trees did the same, expelling the warriors inside.

From this, it was clear that these three Sacred Trees were intelligent, and quite advanced at that.

Qian Ye moved all the warriors’ corpses to a clearing outside the forest and unleashed a burst of origin fire. Under the Dawnfire, these once-zombified warriors turned to ashes, ending their combat-filled lives.

Having done this, Qian Ye returned to the three Sacred Trees and asked, “Can you understand what I am saying?”

A branch of the Sacred Tree extended, pointing toward a small island in the lake.

Qian Ye leaped onto the island and examined it closely. The submerged part of the island was entirely made up of intertwined roots of the Sacred Trees. It seemed that the island was formed by the secretions of the Sacred Tree roots. Its lower part was stony, but the protruding stone pillars had a metallic luster, indicating that only these parts combined both rock and metal properties. This was the material the six-armed creatures used to make their weapons.

From this, it was clear that the stone pillars were even more valuable than imagined, as their production method determined a very limited output. Qian Ye decided he must find and recover all the spears thrown by the six-armed creatures that day.

At the center of the island were the remains of the stone chair. As soon as Qian Ye touched its foundation, he felt a peculiar sensation, as if touching three faint, vague minds. They were hazy and fragile, only able to convey basic emotions like fear. Beyond that, Qian Ye could receive no more information.

These three minds were clearly the wills of the Sacred Trees, but the stone chair, which had served as a medium for communication, had been shattered by Qian Ye, preventing further exchange. However, if Qian Ye hadn’t broken the chair, he would have faced a far more powerful beast army. Most likely, the six-armed creature wouldn’t have needed to use a host to fight. If it had stayed hidden in the forest, Qian Ye would have had no easy way to deal with it.

From the material, the stone chair was just ordinary rock, nothing special. How it became a medium for communication, and the principles behind it, were unknown to Qian Ye. When he shattered the chair with a gun, it was simply an instinct developed over years of fighting, a guess that the object might be important to the six-armed creature.

Each rock on the island was a secretion from the Sacred Tree roots, likely of special value. Similarly, the sap lake formed by the three Sacred Trees was enough to send another hundred thousand people into the new world. Other mineral resources and supplies could not be explored and analyzed for the time being.

Qian Ye left the central area and continued deeper, soon discovering that the ground was riddled with voids, forming a honeycomb-like structure underground. The passages varied in size, some allowing people to bend and walk, while others could accommodate heavy trucks. Inside the passages, there were many branches, all resembling beehive structures. Each area had different-sized cells, but the cells in the same area were identical.

This was where the beasts’ nests were!

Compared to the valley outside, this nest was three-dimensional, extremely vast, akin to an underground labyrinth. Even with such a scale, accommodating tens of thousands of beasts would still be crowded.

Qian Ye jumped into the largest passage, ready to explore the depths of the nest.

The passage sloped downward, with some sections steep and others gentle. After walking for a while, side passages began to appear, leading to chambers above, below, and on the sides.

Qian Ye randomly chose a chamber to enter. It was several meters square, with walls made of a rock-like material, but upon closer inspection, it differed from ordinary rock.

On the floor, a few roots lay, and that was all. There were no bones, droppings, scales, or feathers, typical of a beast’s den. These beasts seemed to have no need for eating, drinking, or excreting.

Qian Ye casually cut a piece of root. The root was hollow, and a gush of clear sap immediately sprayed out from the cut, turning sticky and sealing the break upon contact with air.

Qian Ye then cut a piece of rock from the wall, revealing distinct layers. The rock was only a few centimeters thick on the surface, gradually turning to soil inside. He cut a few more pieces and found the rock thickness varied. Collecting a few samples, he placed them in Anduya’s space and returned to the passage, continuing his exploration.

While it was one thing to explore with perception, it was another to actually enter this maze-like underground kingdom.

The nest’s spatial design was extremely efficient, with virtually no wasted space. The distribution of the passages maximized efficiency, a sign of a master’s handiwork.

Qian Ye looked back and could faintly see daylight at the turn of the passage. He mentally traced the path he had taken but found no specific design for light. Not particularly concerned with the construction details of the nest, he noted them down and continued his exploration.

He still remembered that when the six-armed creature was chasing him, an ancient will was awakening deep in the forest. Whatever it was, such a large and ancient entity was not to be trifled with.

With the beasts having poured out, the nest was empty, presenting the perfect opportunity to explore. Even if he encountered that ancient entity, Qian Ye was confident he could escape.

As he went deeper, Qian Ye’s understanding became clearer.

This nest was designed so meticulously, unlike a regular gathering place but rather a specially optimized military camp. As he ventured further, a unique passage suddenly appeared before him. While the other passages were made of stone, this one was wooden, its walls formed by intertwined roots.

Without hesitation, Qian Ye strode in. His Dawnfire was the bane of all wood.

Inside the passage, he found a series of chambers. The front chambers were mostly empty, but the rear chambers were filled with beast eggs. Each egg was embedded in the walls, floor, or ceiling, connected to a root, through which nutrients were presumably delivered.

This level must be the hatching chamber. As Qian Ye went deeper, the next level of chambers left him puzzled. Each room was large, with rows of stone platforms, each with pits, seemingly for placing beast eggs, but the pits were smaller than the normal eggs he had seen.

These rooms were empty, with no apparent purpose, but having a whole layer of such rooms in the nest suggested they were not useless.

Qian Ye set aside his doubts and moved to the next level. Here, he suddenly became more alert, sensing a massive will awakening.

With Dongyue in hand, Qian Ye moved forward cautiously. When he stepped onto flat ground again, a vast underground space appeared before him.

It was huge and grand, truly a great hall. Below was an underground lake of Sacred Tree sap. In the center of the lake, a massive spherical object floated, half-submerged.

It was grayish-white, with dark gray patterns, rising and falling rhythmically. Standing before this sphere, at least fifty meters in diameter, Qian Ye felt like an ant.

As Qian Ye approached the edge of the lake, a consciousness touched his mind, sending a message with a clear sense of inquiry.

However, Qian Ye couldn’t interpret the message. It was not in any language he knew, nor did it have the ability to communicate directly with him, unlike the six-armed creature, which could bypass the language barrier and communicate telepathically.

Perhaps sensing Qian Ye’s lack of response, the gray sphere sent the inquiry again. Qian Ye still didn’t answer, unsure how to. After a while, the gray sphere sent the inquiry a third time.

Every minute or so, it would repeat the same inquiry.

Qian Ye’s alertness gradually eased. All signs indicated that while the gray sphere was large and ancient, it lacked intelligence and had no active attacking capabilities. It only responded passively, like a machine needing human operation.