Book 4: Near Blood - 122: Retreat 2
This light was not very bright. At first, it looked like a dim star against the backdrop of a night sky.
However, this flaming light quickly began to expand, turning from a small burning star into a vast column of flames that shot into the sky.
This column seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. It spread rapidly, engulfing the entire Death Region in the blink of an eye, and covering an area of ten thousand kilometers. It was like a god had struck the earth, causing a violent wave of flames to surge forth and illuminate the night.
The night was no longer lonesome and had turned into an eternal day. The brilliant flame column continuously surged into the sky as if it had shot out of a volcano, lighting up the entire sky.
In this instant, people in the Dark Wastelands, the Endless Sea, the Halma Forest, and even some locations further away could all spot this column of light that had appeared towards the very north.
That was how brilliant and eye-catching it was.
The Wankui Caves, the Seven Kingdoms, the Heavenly City, the Gulan Castle...... powerful individuals turned their attention towards this direction and felt their hearts tremble slightly.
Thankfully, this feeling subsided as quickly as it came.
The moment the column of flame disappeared from the sky, those peak existences across the different races let out sighs of relief. They knew that this was most likely the unintentional snort of some hibernating Origin Beast. It was akin to an unintentional moment of sleep talking or restlessness in bed.
This wasn’t the first time that something like this had happened in the history of the Primordial Continent.
Even so, the situation was not nearly as simple to the people who were closeby.
Yes, close enough to even almost be within reach.
Ten thousand kilometers was a short distance to an Origin Beast. Just as Jun Moxie had said, the survival of a horde of ants near a human depended not on the ants but actually on the human.
Su Chen and the others were quite lucky. The hibernating Origin Beast didn’t seem to have any intentions of waking up. It grumbled unhappily before falling back asleep. Even so, in the eyes of the ants, this grumble seemed to shake the very foundation of the earth, and harsh waves of flames constantly surged forwards.
The heat rushed towards them as the flames began to spread.
The battalion watched from far off in the distance as the wave of flames surged in their direction like a supernova. Everyone yelled in shock, “Raise the defenses!”
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
Barrier after barrier was erected just shortly before large waves of flames engulfed them.
“Woop!!!”
The Cloud-Piercing Shuttle began to sound out with an alarm.
Su Chen began to burn Origin Stones like crazy. After the lesson he had learned with the Flood Dragon Emperor Shuttle last time, he now always had a ton of Origin Stones on him at all times.
The Cloud-Piercing Shuttle was blown about back and forth like a leaf in a rainstorm as the violent flames and drafts of hot wind pushed him relentlessly. Even though it was for just a few seconds, it felt like an eternity.
The wave of flames dissipated and retreated, and the Cloud-Piercing Shuttle returned to normal. Su Chen turned around and saw that the other people around weren’t in much better shape — their barriers had all been burned through and their skin singed. Shi Kaihuang’s beard had been burned off, and a few people had lost a large chunk of their hair. They were all Light Shaking Realm cultivators, though, so they quickly recovered.
Even so, everyone was quite badly shock.
They were at the very edge of the region and had only experienced the aftershocks of the grumble. If they had to bear the brunt of it, they probably would have all turned into ash.
Also, they were lucky that the majority of this grumble’s energy had gone straight into the air. Otherwise, no one would have been able to escape.
Was this the power of an Origin Beast?
The true master of this continent had just let out a casual grumble and unleashed enough power to destroy an entire region.
However, their immense power was also why the continent couldn’t sustain them, causing them to fall into a long sleep.
Even so, as long as the Origin Beasts were still alive, the Beast Race would never die out.
At this moment, Su Chen recalled what Zhu Chen had said.
When faced with this kind of frightening power, even the most heroic and ambitious person would falter, wouldn’t they?
He finally understood how the Bloodline Nobility Clans felt, at least a little bit.
What’s wrong with me?
Am I going to give up that easily?
Su Chen forced himself out of his stupor. He knew that the shocking display of strength he had just seen had rocked him internally, so he hurriedly reigned in his consciousness.
So what if Origin Beasts were that frightening? They had been cast aside by this world.
The future of this world would belong to the Intelligent Races, to mankind!
Su Chen stared at the remaining blazes, which had yet to die down. A resolute expression appeared on his face.
Most people hadn’t ever seen the power of an Origin Beast before. Even for Li Chongshan, that was his first time witnessing it.
Having escaped from the jaws of death, everyone let out a long sigh.
“We survived! Ha, we actually survived!”
“Lady Luck truly is smiling upon us! Even that didn’t kill us, haha!”
“That’s right! We escaped from the jaws of an Origin Beast!”
“Thank the Heavens! They are not unkind to us and didn’t intend for us to actually die.”
“That’s right, that’s right! Some good came out of the disaster, and we got to see an Origin Beast.”
“What good is that? Did you get any benefits?”
“I didn’t get any benefits, but we are still people who survived an attack from an Origin Beast! Once we get back home, won’t that be a glorious feling when we tell other people? Has anyone ever seen an Origin Beast’s power before? Haha!”
“Psh! You’re talking like you’ve actually seen one before. All we saw was one of its breaths. Did anyone actually see what it looks like?”
“If I saw what it looked like, I would be dead.”
“That’s true. I’m starting to feel like Moxie’s plan was really too far-fetched. We might not have been able to sneak by such a frightening existence even if Danba wasn’t interfering.”
“Psh, even if we couldn’t deceive it, it might not have awakened as long as we didn’t provoke it.”
“That might not be true. That annoying buzzing sound when a mosquito flies past a person’s ear is enough to warrant a slap.”
“My land boats are not that loud.”
“Go tell that to the Origin Beast.”
They had actually started to argue amongst themselves.
“Alright, stop fighting. That was something no one has ever tried before, so there’s no point in arguing about the possible outcomes.” Li Chongshan interfered and stopped them. “What we need to do now is to come up with a new plan. No matter what, we need to leave this place.”
Everyone fell silent when they heard these words.
“What’s wrong with you guys?” Su Chen flew over on his Cloud-Piercing Shuttle and asked.
Guo Wenchang sighed, “There aren’t many more rations. Our plan has failed and the path is not clear. We don’t have enough resources to survive off of.”
To gather the resources for making the land boats, the Heavenly Might Army had robbed their way across the territory but hadn’t found many rations.
In other words, this plan of theirs had to succeed.
It had failed, but they weren’t dead yet.
The troubles that they had been facing earlier were still there. They needed to fill more than ten thousand mouths — this was not an easy problem to resolve.
Su Chen, however, began to smile when he figured out what the problem was. “I was wondering what the issue was. I had anticipated this problem earlier before I came, so I brought some rations with me.”
Lin Shaoxuan stared at him, in a bad mood. “We have eight thousand people here. How many rations can a single Origin Ring contain?”
Su Chen replied, “That’s why I brought a ton of Origin Rings.”
He opened the cover of the Cloud-Piercing Shuttle. Everyone saw a huge pile of Origin Rings sitting inside the shuttle, glittering and shining like a mountain of straw and wheat.