Sheyan shook his head with a wry smile, but he continued to walk in the middle of the team without choosing to leave by himself. After traveling for less than fifty meters, they found that they had stepped on dry land. This should be a high piece of land in the swamp, forming an island with an area of about a kilometer square.
After arriving at the island, they turned more vigilant because they knew they should now be close to the targets. The vegetation on the island was not that lush, so they could not provide cover.
In the middle of the island was a vacant area about the size of a school field. On the vacant ground, perhaps due to frequent trampling, withered plants intermixed with new plants that were struggling to grow. The tenacity of marsh plants was evident.
Ramtas’s nose flapped, looking like it was about to howl, but Sheyan forcefully stopped him. Ronnie soon shot a signal flare more than ten metres into the sky. They then saw two people who were sitting back to back in the middle of the open space with dull expressions, breathing heavily. They were both wearing tattered military camouflage clothes and had two tattered backpacks beside them.
Everyone’s morale soared now that they finally saw other living humans. At that moment, Aldaris suddenly whispered with hardly-contained excitement, “Pi ore?”
These two words immediately filled the contestants with ecstasy. They still remembered that Ronnie had made the previous ore his own just because he found it first. Several people rushed forward in a hurry in fear of falling behind others. However, there were also some who headed towards the hostages instead. These people were obviously more far-sighted. They knew that the sooner they found out the whereabouts of the Pi veins, the sooner they could get there.
Sheyan heaved a faint sigh, then looked at Aldaris with admiration in his eyes. Aldaris just shrugged and grinned.
Not everyone had rushed forward. Besides the two of them, Pokan, Dardanian and William the sniper had maintained their composure.
The distance of dozens of meters between the contestants and the captives was covered in the blink of an eye. When the contestants reached the two captives’ side, the ground under them suddenly turned soft. Then, an area of over two hundred square meters around them suddenly collapsed downwards!
Although the ground only collapse for five or six meters, the entire depression was filled with mud, going up to their waist! Then, roaring sounds transmitted over from underneath the ground. A large number of strange creatures dug their way out of the damp soil!
These creatures were not very tall; only about a meter in height. At first they seemed like octopuses walking upright with their tentacles straight, but upon closer inspection, there were some major differences.
First, these creatures were wrapped in very thick muscles with clear outlines, especially the tentacles supporting the body, which were thick and strong. The creatures’ surface was covered with a brown layer of skin. When they ran, the muscles inside could be seen contracting and loosening. Their feet were webbed, so they were quite agile even in the swamp.
Their mouths were big and ferocious, taking up more than half their head. Sharp, yellowish teeth were visible inside. The way they chewed was not with the common up-and-down movement, but a left-and-right grinding motion. When they ate, their teeth would protrude outwards, so the food residue would fall oout, making for a particularly nauseating sight.
And when they were irritated or angry, they would grind their teeth and make creaking sounds. Right now, that creaking sound filled the ears of Sheyan and the rest of the contestants, coming from everywhere around them.
There was a single huge, yellow eye above the these creatures’ mouth. Inside the eye were many distinct concentric circles. The more concentric circles a creature’s eye had, the stronger the creature was. The pupil was a vertical pupil akin to those of dragons, indicating that a very thin amount of dragon blood flowed in these creatures.
When these creatures ran, a few strands of braids would fly behind their heads. Upon closer inspection, these braids would be revealed as fleshy red tentacles, and at the end of each tentacle was a closed eye.
Faced with such a predicament, Sheyan’s pupils could not help but contract, even though he had been prepared for it. He immediately probed the monsters to get their data.
[ Violent Beast — Dangerous, Wanted (These beasts have caused the death of more than 10,000 colonists on multiple planets and are therefore wanted by the Interstellar Nightmare Realm Safety Committee. None of the wildlife conservation regulations apply to them. Any interstellar citizen has the right to hunt these creatures for rewards.) ]
[ HP: Average ]
[ Defense: Average (without their biological power, these creatures can even be described as fragile) ]
[ Speed: 3 m/s ]
[ Attack Power: Weak, but attack may carry biological power ]
[ Biological Characteristic(s): Their biological power enabled them to become highly resistant to any long-range physical attacks. ]
[ Attributes of Common Violent Beasts: Strength 33, Agility 27, Physique 10, Intelligence 70, Spirit 70, Charm 10, Perceptive Sense 25 ]
[ Natural Habitat: Violent Beasts can evolve in small degrees to adapt to the environment, so they may be found in any environment except in dry deserts and other environments with an extreme lack of water. ]
[ Community: Small to large groups (200-500 per group) ]
[ Value: You can claim a reward from the Empire for killing a Violent Beast. You have to cut off one of its tentacles and its compound eye as proof. In addition, because Violent Beasts carried a trace of high-class blood, some of the Violent Beasts’ brains may contain very rare crystalline beast cores, which could bring you a small fortune. ]
[ Biological Power(s): Information yet to be collected.]
[ Possible Loot: These creatures evolve all the time and have a high level of intelligence, so you may find the remains of their victims in their nests. ]
[ Description: These creatures are hard to comprehend. They are chaotic and evil by nature. They seem to treat all living beings as their enemies. If you underestimate them due to their size, you will not be far away from death. Their highly-developed brains bestowed upon them all kinds of terrifying biological powers. According to the latest study, their wisdom in hunting is not inferior to humans’; they have an innate cunning instinct. ]
[ Would you like to pay 10,000 utility points to instantly connect to the database to get information on their biological power? (Yes/No) ]
***
In this critical juncture of life and death, Sheyan naturally would not be stingy with ten thousand utility points. He immediately paid and obtained a new series of information:
[ The biological powers of Violent Beasts vary, but fortunately, each Violent Beast can possess only two biological powers. ]
[ Their racial biological power is: ‘Light Distortion’. Simply speaking, the Violent Beast you see with your eyes does not show its true location. There is a deviation of no more than 40 centimeters, which makes it a necessity to make calculations to correct your aim. However, each Violent Beast can freely adjust the magnitude of light distortion on itself, so you cannot accurately determine whether its real body is in front, to the back or to the sides. ]
[ Their individual biological power is released from the compound eye on the tentacles growing behind their heads. The range is about fifteen feet (five meters). Usually, each Violent Beast can only master one individual biological power. The individual biological powers include petrification, weakening, disease, neurotoxin and paralytic toxin. ]
[ Potential abilities possessed by high-rank Violent Beasts: AoE poison attack, AoE weakening, Earthquake, water control, earth control, flame control, lightning release. ]
[ The latest data shows that some of the more powerful Violent Beasts have mastered psychic waves. On June 8, 1715, Violent Beasts that were released by rebels on planet Tarit Centauri went on a killing spree in the 7th colony. When the rebel suppression forces arrived, a Violent Beast leader communicated with a Lieutenant Colonel of the rebel suppression forces via psychic waves. The Violent Beasts successfully escaped in the end by using the lives of 376 hostages as threats. ]
***
At this time, Pokan was screaming for the others to cover him, because as a terrain sculptor, he intended to use his powers to lift the ground under their trapped allies in order to rescue them. He had already started chanting a spell aloud while waving his wand.
With the dark night as the background, spots of yellowish light could be seen coming out of Pokan and joyously pouring into the earth. The marsh in front of him started to shake, then slowly rose with a deep roar.
But at that moment, the scalp-numbing sound of teeth grinding came out again from beneath the ground, and then something amazing happened. Three yellow lights emerged from the earth and fought back against Pokan! Although the three yellow lights were obviously much weaker, but with their combined power, they forced Pokan into a stalemate. At least, Pokan would not be able to successfully shape the terrain in a short period of time.
Sheyan read through the series of information he obtained as fast as he could, but when he skimmed to the part which stated that each group of Violent Beasts contained 200-500 creatures, he immediately decided to leave without a second thought.
Before running away, Sheyan happened to witness Pokan’s terrain modelling spell being resisted by the biological powers of the high-ranking Violent Beasts, so threw a curse-mix over in Pokan’s direction. The thick curse smoke enshrouded Pokan and would slow down any hostile creatures that wished to approach him. This was the least Sheyan could do for the team.
