For some reason, I thought that the name used by that flirty woman who wanted Huancheng's sword was a pseudonym, instead of her actual name. *facepalms*??‍♀️ T~T

Madam Flower Hairpin -> Lady Zanhua

Chapter 59: The Threat of Despair

Nine-Layer Heavenly PaG.o.da's second floor!

Different from the languid and dead stillness of the first floor, the second floor was a lush world, densely filled with flowers, plants, and trees whose many branches and luxuriant leaves hide the sky and cover the earth. It was more fresh and resplendent than in the outside world.

Dense fog pervaded the air, but the division of the fog wasn't uniform. In the concentrated areas, one's line of sight only reached as far as one meter, which meant that you wouldn't be able to sense whether there was someone a meter away in front of you. On the other hand, the fog in the less concentrated areas was as thin as mist, floating and rising like spirals in a kind of hazy illusion-like beauty.

Chu Ye's five-man group naturally chose to go to a place where the fog was thin so that the danger would be much lower.

Because the s.p.a.ce transmission array needed an hour of buffer time after each activation, after the s.p.a.ce transmission array sent the five of them to the second floor, they could rest and adjust for an hour without worrying that Murong Chang would immediately chase after them. Meanwhile, Lanxi Liuhua and Ming Yuexin restored the magic power in their bodies.

Once the battle power of the entire five-person team was restored to its original level, they simply walked around on the second floor, not daring to relax even the slightest bit. Using 100% of their energy, each and every one of them paid close attention to all directions. When danger was discovered, they would immediately resolve it in the fastest time possible.

This was in order to maintain their long-term combat effectiveness.

In less than two hours, they had already encountered no less than ten magical beasts, and they were all above the fifth-grade. Fortunately, these magical beasts weren't all magical beast herds. There were some who appeared on their lonesome. With their group working together, they easily killed them and then casually dug out their core crystals.

“Hey, didn't you say that the second floor is a hundred times more dangerous than the first floor? I don't see how that is so.” As the eight-year-old Xiao Zhenzhu saw the next threat being wiped out, and the child's heart couldn't help but feel slightly complacent.

Chu Ye's eyebrows wrinkled. In their one hour of rest earlier, she had already informed the other three about the situation on the first floor, as well as a solemn a.n.a.lysis of their critical circ.u.mstances earlier. Now, it seems that a child is a child, immediately forgetting the pain once the scar is healed.

She still gravely said, “Keep in mind, the real danger is invisible.”

She didn't know why, but Chu Ye always felt that the real danger in the second floor wasn't those high-grade magical beasts. Moreover, regarding the lush green gra.s.s on the ground, she always thought them to be strange, but she couldn't explain what was strange about it.

If Chu Ye's earth magic broke through the seventh grade, perhaps she could have discovered that the soil of the Nine-Layer Heavenly PaG.o.da's second floor was weird. Unfortunately, she was currently only at third-grade.

“Woos.h.!.+” Suddenly, a whoos.h.i.+ng sound was heard as a wing sliced the air. A huge golden bird ferociously rushed down from a towering tree that was several hundred meters high, its long pointed beak directed toward Chu Ye's group on the ground.

Surprise attack!

“Be careful, that is a golden three-legged crow!” Lanxi Liuhua immediately confronted the enemy, and his fierce magic was of dazzling color.

Legend says that the golden three-legged crow was the descendant of the Fire G.o.d bird. Its entire body was colored gold, and it was born with three legs. Its wide pair of wings was akin to a sword covered in a myriad of sharp needles. They were exceptionally sharp, and their combat lethality was much much stronger than the average avian magical beast.

“Heavens… it's actually ninth-grade!” Ming Yuexin cried out. As the golden three-legged crow suddenly made a surprise attack, behind its back was nine blood-red rings of light, which are representative of a ninth-grade magical beast. They were so shocked that they forgot to attack.

This was definitely the highest grade magical beast that Chu Ye and the others had seen so far.

“Quickly go up and help.” Chu Ye ordered. Her own attack was already released, and she involuntarily stepped forward a few steps.

However, just a few paces away, Chu Ye immediately felt that something was wrong.

The earth seemed to be sinking!

Sinking?

How could the earth sink?

Chu Ye was shocked, looked down and suddenly became alarmed.

What was sinking wasn't the earth. What was sinking was only the area of a circle underneath her feet, whose diameter was no more than one chi. 

And she was sinking quite fast.

Chu Ye is merely a little stunned, her legs had already sunk up to her knees.

“Chu Ye…” Ming Yuexin, who wanted to step forward to a.s.sist Lanxi Liuha, suddenly saw Chu Ye sinking into the earth, and immediately turned pale and panicked.

“Don't come over, this is an embellished swamp. Quickly take Little Liuxing and Xiao Zhenzhu and retreat.” Chu Ye immediately raised her hand to stop her.

Until her legs had sunk into the ground, Chu Ye had felt the strangeness of the second floor's environment.

At the surface, it looked like the gra.s.s on the ground was extremely dense, detailed and beautiful. In fact, most of the region underneath it was a swamp that ate people without even spitting out their bones.

This kind of swamp is different from the ordinary swamps of the outside world. Its suction power was far more than ten times that of ordinary swamps because living in the swamp was a type of swamp magical beast – the blood leeches, an abnormally soft-bodied magical beast that sucks blood from any living creature.

Different from ordinary leeches who would voluntarily remove themselves from their victims once they were full, blood leeches would actually suck blood from their victims until they die.

“Then you come over here quickly!” Although Ming Yuexin, who grew up and flourished in Bian City, had never seen a swamp before, she had heard of its horrors. Looking at Chu Ye who had already sunk until her thighs, she anxiously sobbed.

Little Zhenzhu was quick-witted. When she heard Chu Ye saying that the place they were standing on was a beautified swamp, she immediately dragged Little Liuxing to run several meters away. Then, the two climbed up a nearby big tree, like two little monkeys.

“I can't move.” Chu Ye had a few drops of cold sweat on her forehead. If she hadn't personally experienced it herself, she never would have thought that the suction power of this swampland in the Nine-Layer Heavenly PaG.o.da was so great that she was absolutely incapable of freeing herself from it.

If you dare struggle, you would only sink faster and deeper.

Furthermore, her legs that had sunk into the swamp were squeezed by the mud as if it wanted to make them burst. It hurt down to her bone marrow.

The most frightening thing was that Chu Ye already felt some movements within the mud in the swamp, like something was squirming inside. She was afraid that the blood leeches had already caught the scent of fresh meat.