The people who had followed Cheng Li and Yuan Mu originally planned to shove the two of them toward the insectoid race if they encountered any, buying themselves time to escape. Who would have thought Cheng Li could run even faster than they could? At this point, it was hard to say who would end up buying time for whom.
Seeing this, the two men simply split off from Cheng Li and Yuan Mu.
The moment something slick wrapped around her ankle, goosebumps erupted all over Cheng Li’s body.
The disgustingness of the insectoid race was on par with zombies.
The tentacle was just about to tighten, intending to crush her slender ankle in two, when the next second, a streak of blue light flashed past. The tentacle split cleanly in half, and the severed section wrapped around Cheng Li’s ankle instantly lost its vitality. It slipped free and fell to the ground.
Yuan Mu’s ears twitched slightly. He seemed to have heard something. Just as he turned his head, Cheng Li rounded a corner, shifting his line of sight and causing him to miss the severed tentacle on the ground.
At that moment, a dagger forged from Blue Key Stone clung tightly against Cheng Li’s calf, as though it had fused together with her leg.
Inside the mine tunnel, screams and the sounds of flesh being torn apart echoed endlessly.
“We need to find weapons,” Cheng Li said.
“Take the cutting blades off the stone drilling machines. Those can barely be used,” Yuan Mu replied.
Cheng Li had thought of those razor-sharp cutting blades as well. She immediately changed direction again. “I know where the nearest drilling machine is.”
Five minutes later, Cheng Li and Yuan Mu each carried a cutting blade as they cautiously moved through the mine tunnels.
“I think I heard Uncle Zhao’s voice,” Cheng Li said with a frown.
“Over there.” As Yuan Mu spoke, he was already moving.
Cheng Li followed close behind, but within a few steps she overtook him and charged ahead. Yuan Mu’s eyes darkened slightly. Clenching his teeth, he accelerated, refusing to fall too far behind her.
Uncle Zhao was sitting inside a stone drilling machine, planning to drive it out to look for his young master and young madam. With him were Hu Li, Chu Feng, and Li Shuixi. Before they could find anyone, however, they ran into the insectoid race first.
Uncle Zhao was merely a butler. His real combat experience against the insectoid race was practically nonexistent. The machine was easily destroyed by the creatures, and the protective panel of the cockpit was torn apart. One of the insectoids clamped its jaws onto his shoulder, trying to drag him out of the cockpit. Hu Li, Chu Feng, and Li Shuixi were military academy students who had participated in plenty of live combat before, so they fared somewhat better than Uncle Zhao and still had the strength to fight back. But as more and more insectoids joined the battle, all three of them sustained injuries one after another. Even the energy stones inside the drilling machine were swept away and swallowed by the insectoids.
These were only level one and level two insectoids, yet without mechs or weapons, they were utterly helpless before them!
If a sentinel or guide were here, things definitely would not have ended with them so powerless.
The same thought surfaced in all three of their minds at once. ‘In the next life, I’ll become a sentinel or guide no matter what.’
Their hearts filled with despair, convinced there was no escaping this disaster.
As Cheng Li rounded the corner, the first thing she saw was Uncle Zhao being bitten through the shoulder and dragged down from the drilling machine by an insectoid. Her eyes flew wide open. Before she herself even moved, a blue dagger shot out like lightning and wind, slashing straight toward the insectoid’s head.
Everyone present saw only a streak of blue light flash past. The next second, thick, foul-smelling slime splattered all over the ground.
Roar!
The insectoid that had half its head sliced off flew into a rage. Ignoring its wounded body, it charged directly at Cheng Li. Cheng Li did not retreat in the slightest and met it head-on.
In her hands, the sharp and durable cutting blade swung fast enough to leave afterimages behind. It looked less like combat and more like someone chopping vegetables as chunks of flesh continuously fell to the ground.
Chu Feng, Hu Li, Li Shuixi, and the others were dumbfounded. Somehow, once the cutting blade was in Cheng Li’s hands, it seemed to become capable of cutting through anything.
With the pressure on them greatly reduced, they refused to believe it and hurriedly dismantled cutting blades of their own before charging at the insectoids.
‘I’ll hack it apart!’
‘I’ll hack harder!’
‘Hack hack hack!’
At last, the blades sank into the insectoids’ bodies.
Then they realized the blades were stuck and couldn’t be pulled back out.
“Help!”
Hu Li abandoned the blade and ran, but with enemies in front and behind him, he barely made it two steps before an insectoid wrapped itself around him. From feet to head, he was bound tightly layer after layer. The crushing pressure made every inch of his body ache with unbearable pain.
This time, he was really done for!
At that moment, Yuan Mu finally arrived. The instant he got there, he saw Hu Li twisted up so tightly by the insectoid that he was barely recognizable as human. Without a word, Yuan Mu rushed forward and hacked down with his blade.
Whoosh!
Hu Li collapsed limply onto the ground, greedily gulping down fresh air.
Tears streamed uncontrollably from the corners of his eyes. He had escaped death once again.
More and more insectoids were gathering. At this rate, they were finished!
Cheng Li released her ability and picked a direction where the insectoids were fewer. “That way. Retreat!”
Li Shuixi supported Hu Li at the front, followed by Uncle Zhao, then Chu Feng. Bringing up the rear were Cheng Li and Yuan Mu.
“You go with them. I can handle myself,” Cheng Li said to Yuan Mu.
Yuan Mu pressed his lips together. Within a single day, he had already hated his own uselessness countless times.
“I can keep up,” he said, his tone firm and stubborn.
From the corner of her eye, Cheng Li glanced at the young man’s face. Sweat poured down like rain, washing away the grime on his skin and revealing once more that exceptionally handsome face beneath. Determination and persistence filled his deep-set eyes. At that moment, it was as though light itself shone from him.
Cheng Li stopped trying to persuade him. While fighting with the cutting blade in one hand, she simultaneously controlled the dagger, sending it weaving through the insectoids not far behind them, slaughtering wave after wave to keep them from catching up.
Her mental power drained rapidly. In less than ten minutes, a splitting headache tore through her skull.
Perhaps it was because the sounds of their battle were too loud, or perhaps the insectoids were summoning each other, but more and more of them began converging on their location.
“This won’t work. We’re heading for the elevator and going back to the surface,” Cheng Li said.
The commotion above ground had never stopped. Maybe the insectoids up there had already been wiped out.
The others no longer wanted to remain in the mine tunnels either. The moment Cheng Li spoke, they immediately changed direction and ran toward the elevator.
But after only a few steps, they all stopped dead.
“We’re finished!” Li Shuixi’s face turned pale with terror as she muttered in despair.
Ahead of them stretched a densely packed mass of insectoids, too many to count.
Cheng Li turned to look, and her heart sank as well. In her previous life, she had perished together with zombies. In this life, she was about to die in the belly of insectoids. Tsk, tsk. Both were equally ugly creatures.
‘I’m not willing to accept this. I refuse!’
But she also knew that unless a miracle happened, every last one of them was doomed.
“That’s a level three insectoid?” Cheng Li pointed toward the insect among the swarm that had a pair of wings and eight tentacles. Out of all the creatures present, this one gave her the greatest sense of danger.
Yuan Mu answered with a quiet hum, then raised his voice in case she could not hear him. “It is.”
Cheng Li stared at the insectoid, battle intent surging in her eyes. If she killed it, would these insects retreat?
There was only one way to find out.
While everyone else was desperately fighting for their lives, Cheng Li sprang upward in a bizarre motion and charged straight into the swarm. She rolled and leaped her way through them, nearly trampled several times and almost caught by their feeding appendages. By the time she finally reached the level three insectoid, half her body was already drenched in blood.
“Cheng Li!”
Yuan Mu roared furiously, his eyes splitting wide with rage. How could she be this reckless?!
Did she not care about her life at all?!
Cheng Li turned her head and flashed Yuan Mu a grin. “If I don’t drag a few down with me, I won’t be able to die satisfied!”
The moment she finished speaking, the cutting blade in her hand collided head-on with the level three insectoid’s razor-sharp claws.