The five of them walked 60 meters toward the train, the dirt path under their feet growing increasingly slick and muddy.
Puddles of various sizes dotted the landscape about a dozen meters away. Beside them lay several human corpses, rotten beyond recognition, as black-skinned leeches with a greasy sheen slid in and out of their bodies.
A teacher in the group named Liu Yueming said grimly, "These are all people who escaped from the train... I don't know if they died from inhaling too much of the white fog or if they were killed by other creatures."
"I remember that inhaling too much white fog in a short time doesn't cause immediate death. The paralysis gradually sets in over about half an hour, and that train is 300 meters from our school at most..."
Teacher Zhou trailed off, his expression turning grim.
Just as the words faded, Han Ning, who was walking at the head of the group, opened his mouth to speak but suddenly heard a faint rustling sound from the mud to his right.
Before he could even turn his head, he felt a sudden chill on his pant leg and staggered, nearly falling.
"What was that?!"
Han Ning felt the heavy, cold sensation on his pant leg, and goosebumps erupted all over him.
With speed he didn't know he possessed, he instinctively grabbed the thing on his pant leg. A heavy, slick, and cold sensation filled his palm, and without a moment's hesitation, he flung it away.
SPLAT.
A faint cry sounded from nearby.
It all happened in an instant. Yin Yi at the front and the others behind only reacted after Han Ning had already flung the creature away.
In a flash, Yin Yi leaped to Han Ning's side, pulling him behind it protectively.
The others instantly adopted combat stances, their heads snapping toward the source of the sound.
Not far away, a creature lay on its side in the mud. It was a Guardian, about 50 centimeters long, with a brownish-yellow body and eyes as black as obsidian. It let out a faint cry.
There were two pinky-sized holes torn in the Guardian's abdomen, from which pale green blood trickled steadily onto the ground.
"What the hell is this thing? A gecko? A lizard?" Luo Chen frowned.
"Yin Yi, wait! Don't kill it!" Han Ning, who was observing the Guardian, noticed a light glowing on Yin Yi and quickly stopped it.
"That Guardian is injured. It doesn't seem like it was attacking you just now. Maybe we just happened to be blocking its path?" Teacher Zhou said from behind Han Ning, sounding a little uncertain. He had only caught a blurry glimpse of the motion.
Liu Yueming stepped forward, observing the Guardian closely. "It's pregnant," he said.
"Pregnant? Teacher Liu, you can tell just by looking?" Luo Chen asked in amazement.
"My son used to raise Guardians, so I learned a bit about them." Liu Yueming smiled and pointed to the creature's abdomen. "And it looks like it was attacked by another Soul Beast. It's badly hurt."
As he spoke, Liu Yueming started to move closer to get a better look at the Guardian's condition.
"Teacher Liu, watch out!"
Han Ning's brow furrowed. He heard that faint rustling sound again. Just to be safe, he stepped forward, grabbed Teacher Liu by the shoulder, and pulled him back a few steps.
The moment he spoke, the brownish-yellow Guardian desperately rolled to the side.
HISS!
A moment later, a vicious-looking snake head erupted from the mud, its jaws snapping shut on the exact spot where the Guardian had just been lying.
"HISSS..."
Missing its target, the snake's head whipped back.
The surrounding mud cracked open, and a thick Gray Snake, over two meters long, burst out from beneath.
Its scales were grayish-white, its pupils a bright yellow, and three sharp spikes protruded from its head. It was a species of snake none of them had ever seen before.
"Everyone, get back!"
Han Ning motioned for everyone to get behind Yin Yi and put some distance between themselves and the Gray Snake.
The Gray Snake coiled into a striking position, its crimson tongue flicking as it let out a terrifying, hissing inhale. Its bright yellow eyes were fixed on them, cold and merciless.
It let out a piercing shriek at the group, its jaws gaping wide as it lunged straight for Yin Yi.
Unlike the Guardian, this Gray Snake was extremely aggressive!
A light flashed from Yin Yi's body as it prepared to counterattack.
A sickly-sweet, coppery scent suddenly filled the air. As the Gray Snake leaped, a pale yellow glare burst from its pupils.
Struck by the yellow glare, Yin Yi froze in place. A faint, grayish-white, stony sheen spread across its emerald-green surface.
But Yin Yi recovered almost instantly. With a slight shudder of its body, the gray sheen vanished.
It swung its long whip, slamming it head-on into the airborne Gray Snake.
HIIISSS!!
In that instant, the Gray Snake's body visibly buckled, though it didn't break completely. Unable to withstand the immense force of the Vine Whip's strike, its body slammed into the mud with a heavy SPLAT, where it writhed in agony.
Before the Gray Snake could recover from the intense pain, a long, thin wooden spike shot out, piercing its body in an instant.
BANG!
The Wood Type Spiritual Energy detonated wildly inside the Gray Snake, blowing it clean in two.
The top half of the Gray Snake's body landed right next to the Guardian. Its bright yellow eyes still held a cold light, and it continued to make threatening, gasping hisses.
"Badass, Brother Ning! Seriously badass! You're the number one from our engineering school for a reason!" Luo Chen came over, not holding back on the praise.
"Haha, that was all Yin Yi." Han Ning laughed modestly, reaching out to pat Yin Yi's body in encouragement.
"Chrrp~" Yin Yi retracted its Vine Whip and gently brushed his palm with its tender leaves.
"Phew... Good thing we brought you along. Without your Yin Yi, that snake alone would have been more than enough for us to handle." Teacher Zhou let out a sigh of relief.
Just then, the Guardian, which had been hiding off to the side, saw that the Gray Snake was truly dead. It dragged its blood-soaked body and painstakingly moved in front of Yin Yi.
Then, to everyone's astonishment, the Guardian bit off its own tail, stuffed the bloody stump into its mouth, and began chewing and swallowing it greedily.
After devouring its tail, it still seemed unsatisfied. It shuffled over to the bloody snake carcass and began to tear at the flesh with all its might.
"It's about to give birth," Teacher Liu Yueming's voice explained. "Female Guardians eat their own tails before labor to replenish their nutrients. I don't know what specific breed of Guardian this is, but this must be instinctual for them."
The yellow Guardian gnawed on the flesh for ten seconds or so, then buried its blood-soaked face in the mud. It curled its body into a ball, and its snow-white abdomen began to contract and expand violently.
With each violent contraction, grayish-yellow eggs were expelled from under the Guardian's body, one by one.
With each egg it laid, the Guardian's skin seemed to weather before their eyes, losing its luster bit by bit.
After a total of six fist-sized eggs had been laid, the Guardian's body had become completely dull and lifeless.
"Chirp..."
It struggled to open its pure, obsidian-black eyes one last time. It cast a look filled with complex emotions at the eggs it cradled, gave a few faint cries in Yin Yi's direction, then closed its eyes for good, its life completely extinguished.