Rustle... swish swish...
Suddenly, Bai Jie looked behind him.
Inside the sewer passage, which was as tall as a person,
Countless rats were charging through the filthy water in groups, rushing deeper inside. Fortunately, Bai Jie was hanging upside down from the ceiling, so he wasn't splashed by the dirty water.
Judging by the rats' direction, they seemed to be heading toward that wailing sound.
Bai Jie followed the rats' path, neither fast nor slow. Even though he was suffering from the extreme stench, he had resolved to investigate.
The sewer was pitch black. Although Bai Jie could sense the general terrain and objects through perception, he still chose to condense electric arcs before his eyes to illuminate the way.
A sense of security immediately filled his heart.
Not far ahead, Bai Jie spotted a round, lumpy shape on the curved wall of the sewer.
He amplified the electric arcs, and only then could he clearly see that it was a massive tumor of flesh. On its uneven, bumpy surface, green-red vein-like tubes branched and intertwined, protruding from the tumor's surface, with liquid visibly flowing through them from time to time.
The enormous tumor was luring rats into it, while around it, several palm-sized fat maggots slowly crawled about.
"Son of a..."
Seeing this, Bai Jie couldn't help but curse out loud.
Because it was way too disgusting.
[Weak spiritual essence reaction detected on target]
Bai Jie's eyes lit up. The stench suddenly didn't seem so unbearable anymore.
"Alright then, how do I go about extracting this spiritual essence?"
He swore—he would rather die than use "Maul" and bite into that tumor with his own mouth. He'd rather die!
Bai Jie could only hope that there was a meteorite fragment inside the tumor. Thus, he decided to use thunderous means to destroy the tumor's vitality and see if any meteorite shards would appear among the black ashes.
Destructive spirit power was about to surge through his entire body.
Just then, suddenly, Bai Jie heard a young, yet bizarre, childlike voice.
"Did you come to play with me?"
Since the bristles on his spider legs had been standing on end this whole time, signaling that danger was still present, he hadn't let his guard down.
But upon hearing that voice, he still couldn't suppress the chill that crawled all over his body.
"..."
From behind the tumor, a humanoid silhouette emerged.
No, it couldn't even be described as a "humanoid silhouette." It was unmistakably a humanoid monster.
The newcomer was under a meter tall, with bluish-black skin and a head as large as a bucket. Its facial features were twisted and squished together. Its body was bloated, its limbs thick and stubby, exuding a rotting stench. It was sizing up Bai Jie with sinister intent. Around its round, green eyes, rings of crimson veins further emphasized its utterly resentful gaze.
Looking closer, it was clutching several human skulls in its arms!
The sight sent a bone-deep chill through Bai Jie.
It took him two full seconds of dazed shock before he could retrieve a term from his memory to describe this monster—a "Demonic Infant"!
So this was the thing howling senselessly earlier, scaring the daylights out of him, and luring rats over.
Virtual information materialized before Bai Jie's eyes.
[Target]: Giant-Headed Demonic Infant (Demonic-Evil Body)
[Vitality]: 199
[Body Length]: 95cm
[Status]: Unstable
(Weak spiritual essence reaction detected)
Seeing the opponent's Vitality, the chill on Bai Jie's body finally receded somewhat. Even though the other party had a "Demonic-Evil Body," Bai Jie didn't feel it was unbeatable.
The Giant-Headed Demonic Infant cracked open its massive mouth—its grin stretching almost to its ears, revealing rows of filthy, fine fangs—and chirped, "Come on, come play with me..."
Bai Jie sneered inwardly to dispel his fear: Heh, I'm just afraid you can't handle the game.
Bzzzzt... rumble rumble...
In an instant, thunder roared and lightning flashed!
As the dark passage was illuminated by a sudden burst of enormous electric light, twelve lightning-forged spears formed a petal-like ring above the Demonic Infant's head, poised and ready. A destructive, violent aura continuously spilled outward.
The Giant-Headed Demonic Infant's expression changed instantly. Even its gaping maw slowly closed back up.
"Ss..."
Just then, Bai Jie suddenly caught the faint sound of someone sharply inhaling.
He focused his mind and expanded his perception, discovering a familiar presence hidden nearby.
It was actually her...
Bai Jie smiled inwardly but had no intention of exposing her.
Still, he was curious how she had found her way here.
The presence of the hidden observer belonged to Yang Shining.
She was hiding at a bend in the passage, taking in the divine might Bai Jie displayed with utter shock. Astonished, she thought to herself:
"Those 'pillars of light'... why do they look even more terrifying than the Demonic Infant?"
She had never imagined that, just days after the video of Nyx defeating Xingtian went viral online, Nyx would have already grown this powerful. The reason for her surprise, in truth, was that the world had never truly witnessed Bai Jie's methods of attack.
"Whimper..."
The pink fox draped over Yang Shining's shoulder also let out a terrified whimper.
In that single moment, those twelve lightning-forged spears had immobilized the Giant-Headed Demonic Infant—a creature that even she and the Nine-Tailed Spirit Fox dared not face directly.
Crack!
Under the demonic spider's control, one lightning-forged spear violently pierced through the enormous tumor. Destructive energy erupted instantly. Countless arcs of electricity, like writhing demonic insects, gnawed frenziedly at everything.
The tumor shattered, dissolving into charred lumps of flesh and clouds of smoke. The green-black fluid that sprayed out also rapidly evaporated, exposing a monstrous shape at its center.
But no meteorite shards appeared.
Bai Jie immediately focused his gaze on the monster.
[Target]: Sewer Crocodile (High-Level Awakened Form)
[Vitality]: 98
[Body Length]: 180cm
[Status]: Stable
(Faint spiritual essence reaction detected)
The crocodile was curled up, seemingly in deep slumber. Not even the thunderous bombardment could awaken it.
"Little Fish! Run!"
Suddenly, the Giant-Headed Demonic Infant let out a piercing shriek.
Immediately, the crocodile trembled, jolted awake, and bolted ten meters away in an instant. Its speed was such that it looked as though it were gliding freely through water, rather than on land.
At the moment the Giant-Headed Demonic Infant shrieked, Bai Jie's thoughts were forcibly stalled for half a second, his head aching faintly. By the time he recovered, the crocodile was already about to vanish from his sight.
"Run? Let's see where you run to!"
Bai Jie had no intention of letting any anomalous creature with a spiritual essence reaction escape.
He let out a cold snort. Violent winds tore through the air, thunder roared, and light blazed. Seven lightning-forged spears shot through the air toward the fleeing crocodile.
Just as the lightning pillars were about to pierce the crocodile and pin it firmly to death—
"AAHHH!!!"
A shriek so sharp it could pierce human eardrums suddenly rang out, reverberating through the narrow, cramped sewer passage. It actually threw Bai Jie's consciousness into chaos once more!
Even more unbelievably, the shriek affected both the speed and the trajectory of the "lightning spears."
This time, the effect lasted a full second!
Even Yang Shining, who was hiding far away with her ears covered, found her eyes becoming vacant and her expression dazed.
The Nine-Tailed Spirit Fox even rolled its eyes back, its pink tongue lolling out of its mouth.
One had to know—in any battle, half a second or a full second was already enough to decide life and death.
Fortunately, the Giant-Headed Demonic Infant was incapable of moving both during and after its shriek. Otherwise, that would have been utterly absurd.
Nevertheless, the crocodile still managed to evade the "lightning spears" and escape!
The lightning pillars exploded against the wall in an instant, blue-violet arcs erupting everywhere. Spiderweb-like cracks spread across the sewer walls, large amounts of dust raining down.
Bai Jie simply couldn't believe it.
"So damn loud!"
"What the hell are you howling about?!"
Bai Jie was furious. His anger had blazed to its absolute limit in that moment.
Back when he was still a tarantula, although he lacked hearing, he had always been highly sensitive to—and deeply loathed—noise and vibrations.
That spider instinct had persisted through his Evolutions.
Thus, Bai Jie utterly detested noise. Combined with the sense of crisis brought on by having his thoughts forcibly halted, the Giant-Headed Demonic Infant had effectively touched his reverse scale.
The Sewer Crocodile had already seized the opportunity to flee. Only the Giant-Headed Demonic Infant remained in place. There was absolutely no way the demonic spider would spare the latter.