Chapter Six: Swarm
2015-12-27
Author: Floating Tower
“Should be around here, right?”
Soren’s figure slowly descended from the sky. He gazed at the desolate wasteland before him and murmured, “I remember the site where the Golem War broke out was in this area. It wasn’t until the Golem Puppets went berserk that it started to spread to other places.”
“Eh?”
“Someone has left traces! Looks like quite a few! Seems to be an Adventurer team!”
——”Tracking [Divine Profession]!”
As a deity who mastered the Tracking Divine Profession, Soren immediately spotted the traces left on the ground.
These traces had been there for over a day, and the wind and sand had buried most of them. Even a Legendary Level Ranger might not gather much information. But for Soren, who controlled the Tracking Divine Profession, none of this was a problem. He could even deduce the number of the team and some occupational characteristics of its members based on the traces that were almost buried in sand.
“There’s a total of sixteen people!”
“Looking at the depth of these footprints, they likely weigh over 500 pounds. Judging by the size of the footprints, the targets should be medium to small-sized creatures, likely taller humans. It’s impossible for humans to leave such heavy footprints unless one of them is a strong armored warrior carrying a lot of gear.”
Soren estimated that the minimum was a high-level warrior based on their habitual load.
“These traces are surprisingly shallow!?”
With the Tracking Divine Profession activated, Soren also noticed some smaller traces and muttered, “They don’t look like they belong to Halflings; their steps couldn’t possibly be this light.”
“Seems to be a Monk?”
“It looks like a team from the Eastern Kingdom!”
Strong capabilities.
A considerable number.
From the Eastern Kingdom.
Based on the information from these traces, Soren began to recall things from his memory, activating the ability of the Tracking Divine Profession to find the direction this team was heading in, like retracing time.
The Tracking Divine Profession allows one to roll back based on traces and trace back the paths left behind.
Even with most traces buried by wind and sand, Soren easily caught up with their pace.
Three hours later.
A dark passage appeared in Soren’s sight; there were obvious signs of digging, and one or two torches were stuck in the walls.
“It seems they have gone inside.”
Soren thought this and did not linger, his figure instantly vanishing into the shadows. He then continued deeper along the passage.
Broken stone columns.
Weathered walls.
Even buried for over a thousand years, the architecture from the Arcane Empire period had not completely deteriorated. Soren found some signs of battle; it seemed this team had encountered a bit of trouble.
“What is this?!!!”
Soren bent down to pick up a piece of shell from the ground, surrounded by severed appendages about the size of an adult’s arm, with strange patterns on the surface. They looked like innate magical runes. Such limbs were hardly seen on ordinary creatures; in Soren’s memory, only a few remarkable creatures bore such things.
A flicker of Spell Light appeared in his palm, and he murmured, “Could it really be a d*ath Bell Beetle?!”
d*ath Bell Beetle.
Challenge Level 10.
Challenge Difficulty: S-rank.
An Underworld creature of neutral faction, a mutated species.
The number of swarm creatures in the Multiverse is enormous. Almost every plane that can sustain life shows traces of swarm creatures, and in the Bottomless Abyss, there’s even a Demon Lord of the swarm. The outbreak of swarm variations caused quite a bit of trouble during the Arcane Empire Era and the Silver Age, but after experiencing several crises, many factions began to purge the swarms.
In the deepest parts of the Bottomless Abyss, many Demon Lords still keep a constant watch against the swarm’s counterattacks!
Demon Spiders are creatures created by the Demon Prince Digomorgen, extracting a portion of the swarm’s abilities. While swarm creatures are rare in the Material Plane, they are commonly encountered in lower planes.
“If it truly is a d*ath Bell Beetle, it won’t be easy to deal with.”
The ancient ruins from the Arcane Empire period are severely radiated, which led to a large number of mutated species, often giving birth to very dangerous creatures.
The d*ath Bell Beetle is one of them!
This beetle-like creature has only ten legs and bears a bright red, hard shell. Its two evil claws swing before its four black round eyes and serrated mandibles. Their massive jaws are very dangerous. They communicate through a tremolo. The d*ath Bell Beetle is a variant of a giant beetle, distorted long ago due to excessive exposure to transformation magic and sonic energy. Since the day they were created, these twelve-limbed giants have bred in underground nests, constructing vast and complex tunnel systems akin to ant hills.
They are highly mutable creatures.
In areas of high energy radiation, new mutations are very likely to arise.
Soren knew this well because d*ath Bell Beetles are not rare in the Underdark. They are unconscious hunters, living solely to reproduce and expand their nests. When a nest of beetles reproduces excessively, the d*ath Bell Beetles will open up a new nest. Known d*ath Bell Beetles are utilized as mounts by races in the Underdark. Earth Goblins have domesticated them in the past, and several Orc tribes have attempted the same. Cavalry riding d*ath Bell Beetles in the Underdark can sometimes become elite combat units for their respective tribes or cities.
A d*ath Bell Beetle typically measures about 9 feet in length and weighs around 1500 pounds.
………………
“There are no traces of Goblins; this doesn’t seem suitable for Earth Goblins to live in. It looks like there aren’t any passages connecting to the Underdark.”
Soren observed the surroundings, confirming that this was merely a wild swarm nest.
d*ath Bell Beetles can be tamed as mounts, and creatures capable of taming this swarm species are not easy to deal with. Some powerful tribes and cities in the Underdark control them, representing a quite formidable indigenous force.
“Wild ones are slightly better.”
Soren continued forward down the passage, but was much more cautious than at the beginning. An adult d*ath Bell Beetle boasts a strength score of 26 and a constitution that can exceed 22 points; in terms of power, it could rival mid-tier demons in the Bottomless Abyss. If this area is affected by energy radiation and has mutated species, the danger level is even higher.
d*ath Bell Beetles are extremely dangerous when used as cavalry mounts; their charge is more terrifying than that of the ground dragons, and Drow Elves have attempted to tame them.
But because they were not as easy to handle as Stone Lizards, they ultimately chose to give up.
Buzz!
A strange tremor suddenly emerged from deeper within the passage, followed by a flurry of sand cascading down.
Sonic Attack!
d*ath Bell Beetles have the ability to perform sonic attacks, a special attack that cannot be defended against by conventional means and can only be resisted through constitution; it seems those people have already encountered a large number of d*ath Bell Beetles, otherwise, there wouldn’t be such an impact here.
——”Haste!”
Soren’s figure instantly transformed into an afterimage and dashed forward, the scenery around him rapidly retreating. Ahead lay some gigantic corpses of swarm creatures, and he could vaguely see one or two human corpses.
This Adventurer team had already suffered casualties.
………………
“Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Amid hurried breaths, Ti retracted her hands, moved her wrists, and gently rubbed her temples.
“These damned bugs!”
An Eastern Dance Maiden armed with a dagger landed next to her, bl**d seeping from her arm, looking somewhat disheveled, and spoke, “There are too many! We can’t k*ll them all!”
“We need to think of another way.”
Annoying bugs.
Not only do they have incredibly hard shells, but they can also unleash strange sonic attacks, lacking any defensive measures. If it weren’t for the decent strength of the present Adventurers, they would likely have been cleared out by sonic waves.
Ti’s condition wasn’t great either. Though as a Master of Fist she possessed Legendary Level strength, relying on physical means to deal with the d*ath Bell Beetles was still exceptionally difficult.
They really are hard to fight.
And while Monks have extremely strong magical resistance, their effectiveness against sonic attacks is not ideal. If not for other strong individuals in the team, they would probably be done for this time.
“Do you remember the hall we passed earlier?!”
At that moment, one of the Wanderers in the team suddenly shouted, dodging the attacks of the d*ath Bell Beetles, “There seemed to be many Golem Puppets there!”
“Maybe they can still be activated!”
“If we can activate them, we might be able to use them to deal with these damned bugs.”
They had gradually approached the core area of the swarm nest.
Here, remnants of Arcane Empire artifacts were evidently preserved; the dense energy radiation had created such a large swarm nest. Ti even suspected that what they were looking for lay in the deepest part of the nest.
“Who knows alchemy?”
At that moment, another person in the team shouted, “Those who understand alchemy, come forward and try. We’ll cover you as you charge!”
“These bugs are simply endless!”
“If this drags on, we’ll likely be exhausted by them!”
Zzzz.
Ahead in the passage, tremolo pulses echoed; it was unclear how many d*ath Bell Beetles were there, and they had already taken down thirty to fifty of them, while more bugs seemed to be rushing over from the other side of the passage.
“I’ll go!”
Suddenly, the Eastern Dance Maiden at the back of the team jumped out and shouted to Ti, “Cover me as I go! I have some knowledge of alchemy; perhaps I can find a way to activate those Golem Puppets!”
There were not many Spellcasters in the team.
The entire Eastern Kingdom had very few Spellcasters, and the Eastern Dance Maidens also had certain spellcasting abilities, many of them having inherited Sorcerer bloodlines.
Due to the need to use alchemical potions and study puppetry, the Eastern Dance Maidens had respectable achievements in alchemy.
………………
In the Eastern Kingdom, Golems have been evolved into another form of puppetry. (To be continued ~^~)
