stonecrandall Chapter 25 High-level players beat low-level players, and idiots beat idiots.
Chapter 25 High-level players beat low-level players, and idiots beat idiots.
Luo Lan stood at the edge of the pool filled with bones and remains.
With the naked eye, one cannot see through this black pool that has accumulated countless years of stagnant water and filth.
Luo Lan scanned the world beneath the water with his crimson single eye and switched to [thermal vision]. But even in thermal vision, the underground river remained a deathly, eerie blue, devoid of any heat source reaction from living creatures.
There's nothing underwater? Luo Lan didn't believe it.
The pool was piled high with shattered skeletons, the broken bones still bearing serrated teeth marks, as if a sign saying "There is a ferocious beast here" was about to be erected by the water.
As for the inability to see underwater conditions with [thermal vision], Luo Lan had already encountered monsters like the Giant Armored Spider that actively changed their body surface temperature, so it wouldn't be surprising if there were similar disguised predators underwater.
Luo Lan glanced at the iron candlestick she was carrying on her shoulder, its flame flickering on top.
After weighing the candlestick in his hand, Luo Lan aimed directly at the center of the black pool and flicked his arm.
"Thump."
The heavy candlestick tumbled through the air several times before crashing into the center of the black pool. Water splashed more than half a meter high as the heavy iron handle dragged the candlestick rapidly downwards.
Just as Luo Lan had expected, the extraordinary attributes of this [Eternal Flame] were indeed remarkable.
Even after the candlestick sank underwater, the candle flame continued to burn eerily in the water.
The eternal flame at the top of the candlestick flickered stubbornly, just as it did in the water, its dim yellow light spreading outwards through the murky pool.
The water did not evaporate because of the fire, nor did the fire go out because of the water; the two ignored each other.
With the help of this dim little flame, the scene deep in the black pool was gradually illuminated.
The candlestick slowly descended, its flame sweeping across the bottom of the water from top to bottom, illuminating the outline of a huge black shadow that was even darker than the water itself.
It lay motionless at the bottom of the pool, its size so large that the flames could only illuminate a small part of it.
[I knew there was something there.]
The eight external spider spears opened slightly behind him, and two hearts beat alternately in his chest cavity. Luo Lan was ready to retreat and test the waters.
He clasped his hands together and aimed them at the massive dark shape underwater. Pale, inverted cone-shaped bone spikes spun and coalesced in his palms.
【Bone Spur Burst Shot lv.2】
"Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—!"
Several pale, hard bone spikes, accompanied by a sharp whistling sound, tore through the air and plunged straight into the water.
The bone spikes lost some of their momentum after entering the water, but still left long white trails as they plunged into the massive black shadow at the bottom.
The attack hits within half a second.
"Splash!!"
The commotion underwater grew louder and louder, churning the entire black pool as turbid underground river water, mixed with broken bones and silt, rolled up from the bottom.
A massive, dark shadow rose rapidly from the bottom of the water towards the surface.
"roar!"
The water surface suddenly burst open, and the roar of the churning creature echoed.
A colossal creature burst forth from the bottom of the pool.
The overall outline of this thing looks like a blue crocodile, but its size is really outrageous. The part of its upper body that is above the water is three meters long.
Its back and head were covered with a thick layer of ridged, spiky scales, each scale edged with serrated protrusions. A row of thorns extended from the back of its neck to the end of its back, and now they were shining with a blinding red light, like red-hot irons embedded in its skin.
Even more deadly, crimson high-frequency lightning was leaping wildly from the entire row of thorns along its spine. Crackling arcs of electricity spread from its spine to the water's surface, turning the entire black pool into a boiling pool of lightning.
The disturbed slumbering behemoth had clearly fallen into extreme rage.
Its terrifyingly large mouth, big enough to swallow the entire Luo Lan whole, suddenly opened wide, and lightning flashed between its two rows of guillotines. The two crimson vertical pupils in its eye sockets shone like two condensed balls of lightning, and the splashing water carried steam evaporated by the crimson lightning.
[Holy crap, what does "there's a giant, thunderous crocodile in the sewer" mean?!]
Now Luo Lan understood why [thermal vision] couldn't see the enormous predator underwater.
Crocodiles are cold-blooded animals, and their body surface temperature is almost the same as the surrounding water temperature, so their thermal vision naturally cannot detect differences in heat sources.
If I hadn't been cautious and tested the waters first, I probably would have been electrocuted into a charred corpse by the pool full of red lightning if I had rashly entered the water.
In the blink of an eye, the giant crocodile, its body crackling with lightning, charged toward Luo Lan on the shore. Its four short, thick claws stomped on the broken bones on the shore, making a "crackling" sound, and the thorns on its back released arcs of lightning with each step.
Faced with this behemoth that seemed to be a moving natural disaster, Luo Lan's instinctive reaction was to turn around and crawl back into the sewer.
But at the very moment the giant crocodile burst out of the water, Luo Lan keenly noticed a detail.
In the pool of water, scorched by lightning and dragged out from beneath the giant beast, a few faint streaks of crimson appeared.
Those probing bone spike attacks just now did indeed injure it.
Most of the bone spikes that were fired blindly earlier were deflected when they hit the crocodile's thick carapace, leaving only a few white spots on its hard scales.
But two blind cats stumbled upon a dead mouse, piercing its soft belly flesh and making two small holes. Although the wounds were pitifully shallow, trickles of blood were flowing from them.
[It will cause me to lose health, so...]
The fact that it could be injured meant that Luo Lan could break through its defenses, or even defeat it. This small discovery made Luo Lan abandon the idea of retreating immediately.
"Thump, thump, thump..."
Luo Lan's second heart suddenly clenched.
[Rage Lv.1]!
The giant jaws of the Thunder Crocodile, crackling with lightning, lunged forward to bite.
With the amplification from [Berserk lv.1], Luo Lan nimbly dodged the attacking bite at the last second, the air-bursting sound of the crocodile's jaws snapping shut whistling past her side.
With a simultaneous push off the ground from both legs, Luo Lan leaped towards the cave wall, the eight spider spears on his back piercing the slippery cave wall surface.
The [grasping bristles] at the ends of the spider spear segments opened instantly, and Luo Lan's body firmly adhered to the almost vertical stone wall.
The crocodile, having missed its target, let out an enraged roar. It turned its massive body and, with astonishing force, charged directly towards the direction Luo Lan was climbing.
"boom!"
The crocodile slammed its head against the bottom of the rock wall. The entire underground cavern trembled violently from the impact. The immense force created large, terrifying, spiderweb-like cracks in the bottom rock walls.
The row of thorns on the crocodile's back burst into an even more dazzling crimson.
Countless violent red lightning bolts, like wildly dancing serpents, surged and climbed madly up towards Luo Lan on the damp rock wall.
In the blink of an eye, the eight spider spears on Luo Lan's back moved upwards along the rock face at a dazzling pace. Before the lightning could catch up, Luo Lan had already darted up more than ten meters like a rapidly ascending afterimage.
The raging thunder exploded less than two meters from Luo Lan's feet, scorching the rock wall black.
The attack missed, but the Thunder Crocodile was unwilling to let its prey escape.
This terrifying behemoth, six or seven meters long, actually used the gripping force of its four limbs to keep its entire heavy body vertically pressed against the rock wall, desperately stretching its neck and opening its mouth wide to bite at Luo Lan's heel.
Its sharp claws scraped across the rock face, creating a series of dazzling arcs of lightning, its fangs tore through the air, and it raised its head to bite upwards.
But, it's out of reach.
Luo Lan nimbly climbed a few more meters higher, now suspended nearly twenty meters above the ground.
Luo Lan glanced down. Confirming that neither the crazed crocodile's attacks nor its lightning strikes could reach him, he was in a relatively safe position.
With a turn of his body, the eight spider spears on his back pierced deep into the dead corners of the rock crevices, firmly fixing his entire body high up on the rock wall.
Looking down from above, one could see the colossal thunderous beast struggling and climbing repeatedly at the base of the rock face.
With his hands clasped together, aimed at the thunderous crocodile below, pale bone spurs condensed one after another between his ten fingers.
【Bone Spur Burst Shot lv.2】
One. Two. Ten.
Dense, pale white bone spikes drew out continuous cone-shaped air currents in mid-air, crashing down from the sky like a torrential downpour.
They used their high ground to attack low ground, taking full advantage of the terrain.