“Coming? What’s coming?”
Before Roland could ask, the ground beneath his feet suddenly arched upwards, then shattered. In an instant, the entire Black Stone Tower was lifted! A massive gray beast emerged from the earth, its gaping maw attempting to completely engulf the base of the stone tower. Slime from its hide splattered everywhere.
Since Aoxia’s ability could only rewind the scene, not reproduce sound, Roland felt like he was watching a silent movie. However, the extremely realistic imagery still gave him a strong shock. The witches who were seeing it for the first time were in no better shape. They all gasped, covering their mouths and retreating several steps. Ashes even reflexively drew her sword, standing in front of Tilly.
However, the terrifying monster was not alone.
Beneath the Black Stone Tower, there was also a tentacle monster. Its dark body was almost completely embedded in the tower, looking like countless feet growing from the base. However, the dark red light reflected by its scales indicated that it was a living thing.
Although the tentacle monster was about half the size of a castle, it still seemed insignificant in front of the giant maw capable of swallowing the tower. To avoid being swallowed, it waved its tentacles, bracing them against the upper and lower jaws of the giant beast. At the same time, it sprayed bursts of blood mist from under its scales. Obvious signs of corrosion could be seen on the giant beast – clearly, this concentrated, almost black mist could harm it.
However, compared to its enormous size, the blood mist corrosion alone could not stop the giant maw from swallowing. As the stone tower was lifted higher and higher, the tentacle monster finally lost its support, crushed by the enormous weight of the tower and falling into the monster's belly. Then the Black Stone Tower slowly slid down until it was completely submerged in the giant maw. In the last moment of the image, Roland saw the devil covered in eyeballs. It seemed indifferent to the monster’s attack on the camp, lying motionless on the top of the tower, being swallowed along with it.
The rewind ended there. In an instant, the red mist and the giant beast disappeared, and the scene returned to calm, leaving only a huge pit to tell everyone that what they had just seen was not an illusion.
Roland breathed a sigh of relief. He was convinced that it was right not to call the First Army soldiers to watch. Even he felt his heart pounding while watching the change, and even after it ended, a trace of lingering fear remained.
“Is this…the worm monster that swallowed Agatha xiaojie’s laboratory?” After a long silence, Tilly finally spoke. “Why is it attacking the devil’s camp?”
“Perhaps we were wrong all along. It might not be a hybrid abomination enslaved by the devils, at least not controlled by the devils behind the snow mountain…” Roland looked at Agatha. “What do you think?”
“I agree with that,” Agatha nodded, obviously having pondered this question for a long time. “Not to mention that there are no records of this kind of abomination during the two Battles of Divine Will. If the devils really had the ability to drive them, we wouldn’t have lasted this long. If the enemy had sent a few giant maw beasts carrying high-ranking devils from underground into the city during a large-scale siege, Taqila would have been reduced to ruins long ago.”
“If it wasn’t the devils, then who is controlling it?” Tilly frowned. “And the group of transparent mantises that Nightingale xiaojie discovered. It’s obvious that these abominations are acting according to a plan.”
“Can’t they just be doing it because they want to?” Nightingale spread her hands. “Hybrids aren’t ordinary abominations. Judging by the performance of the Evil Moon, they already have basic thinking skills. If they live long enough, they might be smarter than us.”
This sentence made everyone burst into laughter, and the heavy atmosphere dissipated a lot. Obviously, no one really thought so. After all, it was too ridiculous to say that a group of monsters that drank blood and crawled around in the mud would be smarter than humans who baked bread and wore woven clothes.
Only Roland remained silent, staring at the deep pit, his mind racing.
Humans are the smartest species?
He didn’t even dare to think that, especially in this completely unfamiliar world. When the living environment and needs are vastly different, the characteristics displayed by intelligent creatures may be completely different. Take abominations, for example; they certainly wouldn’t think that silk and bread were anything good.
“Why didn’t the Eye Devil react to the attack at all?” Andrea asked, puzzled. “Didn’t you say that as long as it sees something, the entire camp will be awakened?”
“Because it wasn’t seen by anyone,” Agatha explained. “Only when we see the Eye Devil does the Eye Devil see us. However, that giant maw beast—it doesn’t have any eyes at all. Except for a big mouth, it has nothing.”
“Because it doesn’t need eyes,” Roland said. “If you live underground all year round, the role of eyes is minimal, like earthworms. There is no need to evolve special light-sensitive organs to guide the way.”
“Evolve…what?” Tilly asked curiously.
“Light-sensitive organs, like eyes. Some animals’ skin can also do this,” he didn’t explain too much, but squatted down, pointing to the depths of the cave. “Lightning, do you want to go down and take a look?”
The little girl nodded immediately.
“It’s too dangerous,” Ashes stopped her. “We don’t know what’s hidden underneath.”
“No need to go deep into the tunnel, just take a look at the direction the giant beast moved,” Roland said. “Nightingale will monitor the magic reaction above, so there won’t be any danger.”
“Eh, aren’t we going to follow the tunnel to catch it?” Lightning pouted.
“Not this time. After all, it swallowed a devil, not Agatha,” he repeatedly urged. “Report back immediately after finding the direction of the tunnel, understand?”
“I understand,” Lightning took out a portable torch from her backpack, lit it, and plunged into the deep pit.
“The entrance is here!” After a few moments, Lightning’s voice came from the magic stone. “Can you see the firelight?”
Based on the position of the torch’s flickering, Nightingale quickly determined the direction of the underground tunnel. “No problem, you can come up now.”
Looking at Nightingale standing in the southeast direction of the deep pit, and the towering snow mountain behind her, Roland frowned even more.
He wasn’t the only one who thought of this.
“It seems we really guessed wrong,” Tilly shrugged. “The worm abomination we encountered in the Misty Forest wasn’t going to the devil’s camp, but to this snow mountain?”
“That seems to be the case,” he raised his head, only to see the mountain looming in the clouds and mist, the white snow reflecting shimmering light under the sun. “It seems we need to thoroughly investigate this highest mountain in the Western Region.”