Monster Paradise

“So what do we do next?” Lin Huang asked immediately through voice transmission.

He was the only one going into the Abyss for the first time and had no experience at all handling something like this. It was best that he did not act rashly.

The others had been in the Abyss before. Even if they had never encountered such a thing, they should have at least heard of such a situation and perhaps had a way of dealing with it.

“Lan Ling, check out the situation nearby.” How Virtuoso addressed Lan Ling had changed; his attitude had clearly become serious now.

Lan Ling nodded slightly and rolled up her left sleeve, revealing a frail, skinny arm.

As her lips moved, her right hand swiftly formed a seal tactic. On her left arm, black incantations immediately appeared—they looked like they were formed from countless ants.

The complex, mysterious incantations seemed like tiny living snakes, writhing and slithering on her arm at incredible speed.

A moment later, she spread all five fingers and pressed her palm on the ground. The tiny snake-like incantations slid from her arm and squirmed underground at lightning speed.

After that, Lan Ling shut her eyes and sat down cross-legged.

This was Lin Huang’s first time seeing such a strange technique. However, he noticed something odd.

He did not sense any Divine Power waves from Lan Ling’s body at all throughout the whole process, nor did he sense any sort of waves on a psychic level.

He immediately realized what such a probing technique meant—it could not be sensed at all by ordinary measures.

Approximately two to three minutes later, sigils began to appear again on half of Lan Ling’s exposed arm. Only then did she slowly open her eyes.

She pulled her sleeve down to cover her arm once more and stood up.

“I didn’t sense any lord-level or more powerful auras within range…”

To Lin Huang, that sounded like good news. However, the adjacent Saber9 and Tu Tong did not relax their tense expressions at all.

Although he could not see the expression on Virtuoso’s face because of their mask, Lin Huang could sense from their aura that Virtuoso was still very much on their guard.

“However, we’ve certainly been sent to a slightly more problematic area…” Lan Ling paused before giving the name of their whereabouts, “A Demonic Bug Maze!”

Everyone had a slight change of expression upon hearing the name.

Lin Huang was no exception.

Although he had never been to the Abyss, he had spent some time doing some homework before coming, so he knew some basic things about it.

The Demonic Bug Maze was a special type of area in the Abyss.

This type of area was usually formed by massive gatherings of Demonic Bug Tribes.

The multitudes of Demonic Bug Tribes would gather into groups under the Bug Queen or Queen Mother’s command, forming a gigantic structure similar to a hive. They would then live in it.

This special structure would even come with some of the hive’s characteristics; the structure itself, however, was even more complex.

A normal hive had tens of thousands of tunnels. In a Demonic Bug Maze of the same size, there would be even more tunnels that were more winding, mysterious and unfathomable.

If anyone was to intrude accidentally, there was a very high chance that they would be lost inside. This was because the Demonic Bug Maze would block most probing techniques, and one would not know which tunnel would lead to the exit. A wrong turn might make one lose their chance of escaping entirely.

Lin Huang raised a doubt in his mind as he recalled all of the information about Demonic Bug Mazes.

“Are you sure this is really a Demonic Bug Maze? Why can we still see the sky?”

“This is an illusion the Bewilderment Bug groups created,” Virtuoso explained calmly, “Ignore this illusion. It relies on the hive walls to exist; it doesn’t really affect us. Moreover, nobody below lord-level can dispel it.”

Lin Huang only realized at this point that nothing was mentioned about this matter in the information that he had looked up.

“Did you sense any Bug Queens or Queen Mothers?” Saber9 asked.

“No,” Lan Ling shook her head. “This Demonic Bug Maze has a very complex structure. I’m worried that there might be special sensing bug groups around, so I didn’t dare to probe too far in.

“However, judging by the complexity of the bug group’s’ structure alone, the leader of this Maze might be a Lord or a half-step lord-level powerhouse.”

Lin Huang knew Saber9’s objective in asking this question—he wanted to determine if the leader of the Maze was a Queen Mother or a Bug Queen.

If it was just a Bug Queen, it could not sense whether its underlings were dead or alive.

However, if it was a Queen Mother, it could sense the state of all its offspring’s life cycles. This would mean that it would be even more difficult if they wanted to get out of the Maze.

“Although we can’t be sure if the leader is a Queen Mother or not, it’s best to be a bit more careful.” Although Virtuoso sounded calm, the rest could hear the caution in their tone.

The few times that Lin Huang had come into contact with Virtuoso, he had never felt that Virtuoso did anything cautiously. Now, hearing Virtuoso say they had to be careful, he was even a little suspicious about whether or not the Virtuoso in front of him had been replaced by someone else.

“Do you have a solution?” Lin Huang had no clue at all.

To him, finding the exit of the Demonic Bug Maze was a great challenge.

There were just too many tunnels; they could not be sure which was the right one.

Not only that, the biggest problem was that these Bug Tribes were contaminated by Abyssal energy and possessed clouded minds. There was no way of reading any information from them.

Virtuoso glanced at Lin Huang but did not even nod. “Let’s try first. We might not succeed though.”

Including Lin Huang, none of the others objected to this.

After all, nobody had a better solution for now; they could only try out Virtuoso’s idea.

Subsequently, Virtuoso began to explain their solution through voice transmission.

In reality, their plan was simple and very rough. It was to have everyone hide within a demonic bug’s body and let Lan Ling use spells to control the bug’s movement.

This way, they could avoid fighting with other Bug Tribes in the Maze as much as possible, to avoid causing this Bug Tribe to be wiped out.

This could also prevent the Bug Tribe Queen Mother from sensing their presence.

Although they were not sure whether or not the Demonic Bug Maze’s leader was a Queen Mother, it was best to plan with the worst-case scenario in mind.

Although Virtuoso’s plan was simple and rough to the point of being crude, everyone agreed to the plan as soon as they were done explaining it.

After all, this solution had a certain feasibility. Moreover, they could not think of anything better.

Once the plan was set, they began discussing the details in short order.

With all five of them brainstorming, the details were soon hammered out.

Almost immediately, Lan Ling formed an incantation seal with both hands. Around her, the incantation sigils slithered like snakes and disappeared underground.

Very soon, a huge, decaying bug beast crawled over quickly and prostrated itself before them.

Lin Huang and the rest frowned slightly. This was an entirely physiological reaction—the stench coming from the decaying bug beast was comparable to a biochemical weapon.

No, to be precise, it was a biochemical weapon.

In reality, there were all sorts of toxins and Abyssal energy particles hidden within the terrible stench.

Lin Huang and the rest were True Gods, and the Divine Fire in their bodies came with a cleansing function. Therefore, they were not affected by the noxious fumes.

However, cultivators below true god-level and even Virtual Gods might be infected by the toxins and Abyssal energy particles in the terrible stench.

Seeing that the rest made no move, Lin Huang leaped onto the huge, decaying bug beast’s back. With the tip of his sword, he cut an opening close to its abdomen. He then enveloped his entire body with Telekinesis and wriggled in directly.

Virtuoso and the others did not stand on ceremony after that. They hopped onto the bug’s back and crawled in one after the other, concealing their auras…