Chapter 403: Lying in Wait?
Translated by Jouissance of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
The entire underground was up in arms about the appearance of the Metal Swallowing Beast.
You XiaoMo who was busy digging up rocks suddenly raised his head and looked in the direction of the sound in disappointment. Those people had arrived so quickly, he hadn’t dug up as much as he wanted yet.
Ling Xiao walked over. “We have to leave here soon. Another half hour and those people will arrive.”
You XiaoMo could only pack away his hammer and chisel before putting all the crystals he had dug out of the wall into his bag. These were all metal minerals. He had only thought of collecting some half an hour ago. This was his only hobby after coming underground.
“Master, hurry, I can feel a very powerful person coming.” PiQiu also walked in. He had already become a teenager of around fifteen years. However, his voice was still very childlike. He was a kid who hadn’t entered puberty yet.
You XiaoMo sped up. “Alright, alright.”
Just over an hour ago, they had split up from LanQiu and the others. Ling Xiao had them go look for the Eye of Golden Earth. Though he didn’t know what the Eye of Golden Earth was, it must have something to do with what Ling Xiao had told him before. As for them, they were going to find something called the Eye of the Sun.
According to Ling Xiao, the Eye of the Sun would be the area richest in the element of metal, so they were walking in the direction where there was more metal.
After they left, many others came, as expected, all looking for the Metal Swallowing Beast.
One person walked into the stone room You XiaoMo was digging up crystals in and saw the marks on the wall. He called out in surprise, “Look at this, everyone!”
The others outside immediately came inside after hearing this.
“It seems that the walls here have signs of being dug from by someone. Could it be the Metal Swallowing Beast?” That person wondered aloud.
Another man walked over and frowned at the wall. “Why would the Metal Swallowing Beast dig up the wall?”
That person said smugly, “You probably don’t know but the walls are filled with a type of metal. The hardness and quality of this metal is pretty good, so the Metal Swallowing Beast definitely would enjoy it. It’s not impossible that it dug the walls up to eat.”
As soon as he finished, the others ran out.
That person was stunned for a moment before he paled and hurriedly pursued the others. How dumb of him. He shouldn’t have told anyone. If the marks on the wall really were left by the Metal Swallowing Beast, that meant that it must still be nearby. Telling the others meant that he had given himself many competitors.
Thus, You XiaoMo evolved into the Metal Swallowing Beast that everyone was fighting for.
Then, on You XiaoMo and Ling Xiao’s side, they followed the path with the richest element of metal.
After checking repeatedly, Ling Xiao finally managed to figure out how this palace was designed. It was designed to be like the Taichi’s yin and yang eyes, with two elements, yin and yang.
t/n: yin: negative energy, yang: positive energy.
The yin referred to the place richest with the element of earth. That was where the Eye of Golden Earth was.
The yang, on the other hand, was the area richest in Solar Power, and Solar Power was closely related with the element of metal. So, the area richest in that element was also called the Eye of the Sun.
Knowing that the palace was designed to be like a Taichi diagram made finding the Eye of Golden Earth much easier.
t/n: Taichi diagram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taijitu
However, the Underground Palace was too big. Though they knew that the Eye of the Sun was towards the south, it would be troublesome to find. What was even more troublesome was that the people who were looking for the Metal Swallowing Beast were all going south.
The Metal Swallowing Beast ate metal, so it would naturally flee towards more metal.
“Over there, I saw the Metal Swallowing Beast go that way!”
It was then that a delighted voice called out. With this voice, there were more and more footsteps, but the sounds of footsteps quickly dispersed. Soon enough the tunnel was silent again.
After a few moments, a suspicious figure appeared in the tunnel. The person looked wretched, but his darkened eyes held a flash of clarity, laughing to himself creepily as he walked along.
“Idiots. I would never tell you that the Metal Swallowing Beast actually ran this way. Now, there’s no one to compete with me for the Metal Swallowing Beast.”
After that, he quietly crept along the tunnel towards a room. The room looked like a waiting room and it was made entirely out of metal.
Just as he was about to reach the doorway, a blue figure suddenly darted out from inside and in front of him before rapidly fleeing in the other direction.
The wretched man wasn’t surprised but delighted and pursued without hesitation. He was a Three Star Emperor powerhouse and a speed oriented one. He had trained in many speed techniques, so he was very confident about his speed.
As expected, though the Metal Swallowing Beast was fast, it was still being closed in on.
Anxiety flashed through the Metal Swallowing Beast’s blue eyes, but then they lit up. He suddenly swerved and went in a different direction rich in the element of metal.
The wretched man, seeing the Metal Swallowing Beast choosing his path recklessly and heading towards a wide, open area, laughed frighteningly. “You can’t run. Just behave yourself and be mine.”
For speed-oriented practitioners, wide open spaces were the best place for them.
After a while, the Metal Swallowing Beast threw itself head first into a mountain of metal.
The metal mountain was around forty to fifty meters tall, stretching hundreds of meters lengthwise with plenty of mined minerals on top. Most were black, red or gold, like the type of rock that You Ming and You Qingshan had discovered the Metal Swallowing Beast in. However, the rock back then was tens of times larger than the ones here, and the rocks here also had less metal element.
Seeing the direction the Metal Swallowing Beast ran in, the wretched man wanted to laugh about his luck. The Metal Swallowing Beast had jumped into a cavern. So long as he pursued, he would eventually trap the Metal Swallowing Beast inside and then it’ll be easy for him to get it.
To make sure nothing would go wrong, the wretched man immediately gave chase.
The walls and floors of the cavern were all made of black gold sand and stones. If it wasn’t for the weak light that these metals emitted, it would be pitch black.
However, no matter how dark it was, it wouldn’t hinder the man’s sight. In this moment, he didn’t dare let his guard down.
After chasing for around two hundred meters in, the wretched man could smell the vapor in the air and the metal element that was getting richer and richer, richer than any other place he had been. His spirits rose, and he sped up.
In the distance, he could see the fleeing figure of the Metal Swallowing Beast. After a few seconds, he turned a corner.
The wretched man charged forwards. When he also turned the corner, he coincidentally saw the figure of the Metal Swallowing Beast, glowing with a weak blue light in the darkness, jump into the air and land in… a person’s arms?
The wretched man paused.
He checked over and over again before confirming to himself that this was indeed a person.
It was just that this person seemed to have a layer of black dirt on him, head to toe. He wasn’t clean anywhere, except for his startlingly bright eyes. But there seemed to be a shorter person next to him.
The wretched man wasn’t sure it was as he was thinking. Though these two didn’t seem very powerful, he still cautiously asked, “My friend, could you give me the demon beast in your arms?”
The person was silent for a moment before asking with a tone filled with suspicion, “Yours?”
The wretched man’s eyes flashed. “That’s right, it’s mine!”
“Liar.” This time he had a much faster response.
The wretched man’s face fell. “What do you mean? Are you trying to steal my demon beast?”
The other suddenly hugged the Metal Swallowing Beast in his arms tight and said in a highly brattish tone, “This demon beast is obviously mine, how is it suddenly yours?”
The wretched man was lost for words. He hadn’t thought that such a shameless person existed. He had chased this Metal Swallowing Beast here, so he was the clearest on if the Metal Swallowing Beast had an owner or not. This person actually dared to say the Metal Swallowing Beast belonged to him. Shameless! He had already forgotten that he had done the exact same thing just now.
The wretched man said harshly. “Brat, give me the Metal Swallowing Beast in your arms, or else don’t blame me for what I’ll do next.” Since the other ignored the carrot in favor of the stick, then there was no reason for him to hold back either.
He would’ve never thought that not only did the other not seem scared, his eyes even lit up with something that seemed to be delight.
He immediately asked, “You mean this is the Metal Swallowing Beast?”
His voice was filled with delighted surprise, immediately managing to deal a blow to the wretched man’s heart. It couldn’t be that this man didn’t know that the demon beast in his arms was the highly-sought after Metal Swallowing Beast? Then wouldn’t that mean he had revealed this amazing news to the other?
In that instant, the wretched man felt extremely regretful and decided to deal with this as quick as possible.
“If you won’t hand it over, then I’ll send you and your friend to death.”
With that, the wretched man lightly kicked off with his feet, his form darting towards them with startling speed.
