Ever since Roy and Benia discovered an object of a suspected underground ruin, they had been paying attention to everything in their surroundings.
Fortunately, Roy found that Big Black seemed to be heading in the direction of the ruin because more and more artificial traces appeared along the way.
The size of this possible demon ruin seemed to be enormous. From the moment they discovered the first artificial trace, Big Black had already gone about twenty kilometers deep, and they had yet to touch the core of the ruin.
The deeper they went, the fewer tunnels dug by the demon worms. In the end, there was only the path that Big Black had dug. Roy guessed that Big Black might have accidentally found this ruin and touched something there to mutate. Ultimately, only it could reach this ruin, and the other demon worms did not have the ability.
Fortunately, when he first saw Big Black, he did not kill it because it was too ugly. Otherwise, he might never have discovered the secrets deep underground.
After an unknown amount of time, the rumbling and movements of Big Black finally stopped. It finally stopped in a large underground cavity. It was not large, and above it was an arc-shaped dome with numerous crystal-shaped fiery red stalactites hanging down. They might be lava crystals that formed due to the high pressure underground. The ground below was uneven, and crystal clusters of various sizes were growing. Not only was the entire cavity not dark, but it was emitting fiery red light, and the source of this light was a flowing underground magma river!
They could only see about two hundred meters of the magma river in this cavity. The source and downstream were in the ground, and they could not tell where it came from or where it went.
After Big Black stopped in the cavity, it slowly crawled to the magma river. Its body sent out a muffled rumble, indicating to Roy and Benia that they had arrived.
Roy jumped down from Big Black’s head and stood beside the magma river. He looked around in confusion. He did not understand why Big Black stopped here. It was clearly not where the ruin was.
But Benia understood. “It seems to mean that it often comes here to eat…”
“Eat?!” Roy looked at the magma river in surprise. “Don’t tell me it’s here to drink magma?”
“I don’t know. Let’s wait and see what it does!” Benia was a little unsure.
Left with no choice, Roy and Benia waited and observed Big Black’s actions, only to find that Big Black was wiggling its body idly. There was still a very long portion of its colossal body outside the cavity, and as it slowly squirmed, its body was shrinking into the cavity bit by bit.
Just as Roy and Benia were wondering what this guy wanted to do, Big Black suddenly seemed to smell something, and its body, which was initially moving slowly, immediately accelerated. It opened its big ring-shaped mouth, straightened its head, and stared intently at the river.
Its actions attracted Roy and Benia, and they turned their attention to the river.
Not long after, they saw a long grayish-white thing in the magma. This thing was slowly floating out from the entrance of where the magma flowed out.
This long grayish-white object was about 1.5 meters long, and it looked like a baguette. When the magma brought it out, it kept rolling in the magma.
Patter patter. Roy looked up and saw a large amount of green saliva flowing out of Big Black’s mouth. This saliva seemed to be strongly acidic. After dripping onto the ground, it immediately made sizzling sounds and corroded large pits on the ground.
“That thing is Big Black’s food?” Roy immediately understood.
When the long object arrived at the center of the magma river, Big Black ignored the magma as it extended its head and grabbed it with its mouth. Then it raised its head and wanted to swallow it.
But at this moment, Roy moved. He spread his wings, flew up, and kicked Big Black’s head, kicking out the thing that it wanted to swallow.
After being kicked by Roy, Big Black let out an aggrieved sound but then cowered in fear.
Roy ignored it, reached out to catch the thing it spat out, and landed.
How should he put it? As soon as he touched it, he felt that it was as hard as rock, and its height could reach Roy’s waist. It was quite big. Benia walked forward curiously and observed with Roy.
Roy held this thing and carefully sensed it.
“Strange. Although this thing has magic power, it’s too weak. It doesn’t make sense for Big Black’s mutation to be caused by eating it!” Roy said. “It doesn’t look like ore. It looks like a fossil of something…” Benia pointed at the long stick. “Look at this. There are very regular and fine stripes on it. It doesn’t seem like something natural.”
Roy looked at where Benia was pointing and found that it was indeed so.
Before the two of them could study it, there was another commotion by Big Black. Roy and Benia realized something and looked at the river. Sure enough, an identical long object was flowing out along with the magma. This time, there was no need for Big Black to do anything. Benia flew over and grabbed this thing from the magma. Then she placed the two objects side by side and found that apart from the slight difference in size, the rest was identical. There were fine lines and the same stone texture.
“Ah!” Benia suddenly thought of something and exclaimed, “This thing… It can’t be… an insect egg, right?!”
“An insect egg?!” Roy was surprised by Benia’s guess. “What the hell?! Are there such big insect eggs?”
“Of course it’s possible!” Benia nodded. “Don’t forget. According to my previous guess, if there was once an insect-type demon lord here, its insect eggs might be this big!”
Benia’s words convinced Roy. If it really was an insect-type demon lord, it might really be possible.
“In that case, this place really did have a master a long time ago!” Roy held one of the insect eggs. “But it seems that it’s been so long that they’ve all fossilized…”
“At least ten thousand years, or even longer!” Benia nodded. “The good news is that, after such a long time, the previous master likely died. We don’t need to fight for territory.”
“Can you tell what insect the eggs are?” Roy asked Benia.
Benia shook her head. “How can I tell? But judging from the size of the insect eggs, the demon lord was probably huge. Generally speaking, the size of insect-type demons is dozens of times larger than the insect eggs it lays.”
“Another big fellow hundreds of meters…” Roy was a little speechless. “Since these insect eggs were brought out by magma, it means that the upstream of the magma is where the insect-type demon lord was. At least, it was where it laid its eggs! Who knows how many descendants it gave birth to and how many years Big Black has been devouring the insect egg fossils…”
“Not descendants!” Benia shook her head. “Even an insect-type demon is a true demon, not a bug! If it really wanted to give birth to descendants, it would have laid demon eggs instead of insect eggs!” “Then these eggs…” Roy was a little puzzled. “Soldiers! Or rather, something similar to clones!” Benia said. “I’ve fought some insect-type demons before. Although they have low intelligence, they are often an army alone. They will bring a large number of insects similar to them to attack together, which is their unique attack method. Generally speaking, they can use magic power to quickly hatch the eggs they lay. Moreover, if the insect-type demons are willing to split soul fragments and give them to these insects, the insects will be stronger.” Hearing Benia’s words, Roy remembered. Wasn’t the spider demon Araniya like this back then? The spiders she carried with her should be hatched from her eggs. However… Roy looked at the insect egg in his hand. It was much bigger than Araniya’s spider eggs… “Let’s go in and see what kind of insect-type demon it is!” Roy called Benia and jumped onto Big Black’s head.
However, what the two of them did not expect was that when they commanded Big Black to continue drilling into the stone wall where magma was flowing out, they found that it was unwilling. It appeared terrified!
Benia tried to communicate with Big Black for a while, but it still did not move. Even though Roy was releasing his aura to make it submit, it was still unwilling to move forward despite being equally terrified. “I’m afraid that the insect-type demon lord might have been much stronger than me!” Roy said. “There’s no other explanation for Big Black’s fear.”
“Then what should we do? Should we continue going?” Benia asked.
“Of course. Even if the insect-type demon lord was stronger than me, it should be dead. There’s no need to worry about anything!” Roy said. “Big Black is just a monster. Since it doesn’t want to move forward, then let’s not force it. Let it stay here while we continue forward.”
Although Big Black was no longer digging for them, Roy and Benia could pass through the magma river. Although the temperature of the magma was very high, it was not a big problem for them.
Instead of using frost to resist the magma, Roy chose the flowing brightness flames. He attached it to his body, hugged Benia with one hand, and stretched his other hand forward to split a path in the magma. But as he moved forward, he did not know if it was an illusion or not, but he felt his entire body tense up. Gradually, he felt his hair stand on end, as though there was an immense threat waiting for him in front. Compared to him, Benia was worse. She hugged Roy tightly while trembling all over. “Not… not good, Darling!” Benia said fearfully. “It seems like… it’s not as simple as a demon lord…”
