Dark Blood Path

The murky river produced by silt and sludge surged, and a large number of green bubbles burst out of the water, followed by green figures crawling above the dirty, muddy water. The figures seemed to have no fixed shape. Their bodies could be thick or thin, round or flat. Xiao and the others could see a mass of colloidal jelly form in the blink of an eye, but they couldn’t distinguish the monster’s facial features.

Through their translucent bodies, they could see the internal conditions of these creatures, although their body systems were still in the process of digesting. Fish, birds, water plants, and the like, as well as the two individuals who were dragged down just now, have been dismembered, and their limbs have emerged in the bodies of five to six monsters simultaneously, displaying symptoms of digestion.

When Jiang Xiaowen saw these extremely dirty, disgusting monsters appearing like a mass of mud, she felt nauseated for a while, and her expression turned very ugly.

Seeing this, a member of the Hawk team immediately took out his bow, pulled the bowstring, and shot an arrow at one of them. The monster’s reaction seemed to be quite slow; it didn’t dodge, and it didn’t even react at all as it let the arrow submerge right into its body. Then a surprising scene happened. The arrow was shot directly into the monster’s body and lingered there. The hole in the monster’s skin gradually mended, and it crawled onward as if nothing had happened. The arrow swimming inside its body was squeezed out bit by bit until it emerged from behind and dropped to the ground.

“Shit, why didn’t I spot them when I came here? These are swamp slimes!” Xiao Yu recognized these loathsome monsters with one glance and shouted, “Don’t engage; these are elementary monsters; physical blows almost have no effect; they use acid attacks, so maintain a distance of at least 50 meters!”

Du Tao was stunned. He never thought there would be monsters with such strange shapes in this world, but he didn’t dare slack as he commanded the three teams in a hurry, “All teams, hear me out. The Tiger and Hawk teams retreat first, and the Bear team erect your shield cover; don’t let them get close!”

Slime creatures were exceedingly tricky elementary monsters to defeat since they had a semi-liquefied body and no definite shape, making physical attacks nearly useless. In the early stages, this was a dangerous monster; even Xiao Yu would fall into a perilous predicament once he got entangled amidst a bunch of these creatures at the same time.

The region was inundated with slimes; there were about a hundred of them!

This low-level slime monster had almost no intelligence and relied entirely on instinct to take action. It fed mainly on aquatic plants, plankton, small fish, shrimp, and birds, although it also occasionally hunted larger species that were passing by. They reproduced the subsequent generation by dividing, and their reproduction rate was heavily dependent on the nutritional situation. No one knew how many slimes could be found in this swamp land since, in this small region alone, there were about a hundred of them.

Over a hundred slimes washed ashore at the same moment; clusters of green, transparent objects were seen slithering ahead at a not-so-slow pace. The crowd did not dare to confront the enemy, so they withdrew and retreated to normal terrain. Of course, these people had no trouble running and getting rid of the slimes. However, this area was riddled with bottomless bogs; if they didn’t pay attention, they would join the land of the dead.

The slimes’ pace was slow, but they were unaffected by the swampy landscape, as they were able to simply slither through it without sinking, and the area itself was favorable to their activities. Seeing that the slimes were approaching, Xiao Yu first thought of the blast flame ability, which could indeed take down many of these creatures as they were susceptible to magic attacks.

But keep in mind that this location was positioned atop a long, swampy mud river overflowing with methane gas. A great number of slimes were churning, and all of the gas from the mud got expelled and filled the whole area. Everyone hasn’t gone very far, so if a fire-attributed skill like “Blast flame” or “fire elemental enhancement” was hastily used, no one knew how grave the consequences would be.

Xiao Yu gave up on the idea of using the blast flame skill, took out the luminous beast blade, turned around, and shouted to the others: “I’ll lure them away, Miss Han; lead the others to escape!”

After Xiao Yu finished speaking, he rushed towards a slime, and the blade cut the monster into two halves, but the two separated entities gradually converged and became one. The bodies of several slimes split open at the same time, releasing streams of acid from inside.

Xiao Yu deftly avoided the acid attack. The acid spilled over the ground in an instant and corroded it into huge holes. Several slimes were slashed in half in a couple of hops. These attacks, however, were not harmful to these monsters at all. In other words, the damage he caused was basically zero.

He spotted more and more acid erupting from all directions. Their acid attacks were incredibly corrosive and could easily dissolve both gold and iron, yet when sprinkled on other slimes, they would do little harm.

Several slimes got aggroed by him, but the majority remained indifferent and continued to surge at the receding humans. Obviously, Xiao Yu’s slashing had no effect on them, and since they didn’t feel endangered, they naturally pursued other enemies.

Xiao Yu gave up using the luminous beast blade and instead took out the stabilizing wind bead and held it in his hand. He couldn’t help but secretly rejoice; thanks to previous preparations, he allowed the Wind Bead to absorb the energy of twenty lower soul gems in the past couple of days. So now he could use wind blades and sand spears more than a dozen times, with at least five to six wind and sand tornadoes to use for special circumstances.

The cyan wind blade condensed into shape and shot out quickly; three slimes who lined up perfectly in front of Xiao Yu, as if waiting for their execution, were cut one by one by the wind blade. Right afterward, a sand spear condensed and flew out, piercing through four slimes one after another. They all emitted a weird noise at the same time before dissolving.

Like the sand spear, the wind blade was a magical attack created entirely from wind-attributed energy. Since both have the effect of a magic attack, they could inflict a lot of damage on these tricky slimes.

The slimes’ bodies that were hit twisted a few times and finally collapsed, turning into a disgusting, viscous green liquid that scattered all over the place.

The stabilizing wind bead attack was successful, but Xiao Yu felt no delight since the number of slimes was too great, and the remaining power in the wind bead could only attack a dozen more times, which was far from sufficient. Nobody knew how many slimes dwell in this region, and it took time to replenish the wind beads’ power using soul gems. But under their current circumstances, that was impossible.

Fortunately, Xiao Yu’s two assaults ultimately made the other slimes fearful. These monsters had no intelligence, yet, out of instinct, they were all hell-bent on eradicating this menace. Then, more than a hundred slimes instantly turned around, stopped chasing the others, and started pursuing Xiao Yu instead.

Xiao Yu picked a different path from the others and sprinted, but before he got far, a vast swamp formed in front of him, and slimes erupted from it one after the other, wriggling and approaching his side. There were swampy slimes in all directions, and streaks of green poison blasted out, making Xiao Yu’s escape almost impossible.

Finally, a jet of acid landed on his back, and the sound of Zizi’s corrosion could be heard as the acid burned his clothes and skin. The strange liquid nearly entirely pierced the black scale armor, corroding a hole in its black scales. Xiao Yu was well aware that the slime’s acid did more than just corrode. It was also highly poisonous, which made his heart skip a beat.

There were more and more slimes gathering around him, and just as Xiao Yu was worrying about how to escape, a beautiful figure flew over his head before countless shiny grains of dust sprinkled down one after another, instantly making all the slimes fall into a state of sluggishness.

“Xiao Yu, quickly throw that bead to me!”

Xiao Yu forcefully hurled the stabilizing wind bead in his palm into the air without a second’s hesitation.

The slimes were still sluggish as Jiang Xiaowen grabbed the wind bead in the air. Her dream dust ability was a mental attack type, and the lower the opponent’s mental strength, the more obvious the effects. However, even though slimes were resistant to such attacks, the skill was enough to keep them dazed for at least ten seconds without moving. And if they couldn’t take advantage of this long period of time to flee, they should just die.

At that time, numerous sharp wind blades sprang from Jiang Xiaowen’s hands, and a dozen slimes hooked together were ripped apart, giving Xiao Yu a breach to break through.

Jiang Xiaowen felt that she was finally helping Xiao Yu for once, so she shouted proudly, “Let’s go.”

Xiao Yu bolted without a second thought. Then, just as he believed he’d escaped, there was a disturbance underneath his feet, and the air bubbles in the whole swamp area began to roll. The murky water immediately splattered around, revealing an enormous, red-colored giant slime.

The gigantic red slime was too large; it stood five meters high, appearing like a small house standing in front of him; its translucent body was full of undigested animal remains, and there was even a human-faced spider monster that had just been devoured and currently in the process of being digested—this spider was a first-order monster.

This slime could even swallow a first-order monster, proving that it was at least a first-order monster as well!

Moreover, it was a terrifying existence, completely immune to physical attacks.

The moment the giant red slime appeared, a violent mental wave spread in all directions, and all the slimes that were unable to move due to Jiang Xiaowen’s mental attack woke up. Not only that, but under the influence of the giant slime’s mental strength, their original green bodies abruptly turned red, and their speed increased by several times at once.

It was clear that the giant red slime was a powerful force, and all other slimes seemed to submit to its power.

Jiang Xiaowen realized that her “Dream Dust” mental attack had failed. She gritted her teeth, soared to a reasonable height, and launched a sand spear at the giant slime. The mighty sand spear was one of the strongest first-rank skills contained in the bead, and it quickly transformed into a stream of sand and engulfed the giant slime, leaving a large hole in its gigantic body, though the hole seemed to be insignificant in comparison to the monster’s whole body.

Boom!

At that moment, Jiang Xiaowen had no idea why her brain blazed with a roar, and she plummeted from the sky as her vision went dark.

“Damn it. It used a mental attack!”

Xiao Yu covered his aching head. He was not skilled in mental skills; hence his resistance to mental attacks was far lower than Jiang Xiaowen’s. However, the “ghost cloak,” which was engraved with a second-level mental resistance, coincidentally lowered the mental damage by 80%, and the giant slime’s mental wave attack had little effect on him. Right then, like a cheetah, Xiao Yu dashed through several swamps, leapt, and embraced Jiang Xiaowen, who was about to fall into the water, and landed in a safe place.

Countless streams of acid shot out in unison, and the slime’s boulder-like massive body was also moving towards them.

The advent of the giant slime resulted in additional methane gas being produced, and the blast flame skill could no longer be employed.

Xiao Yu couldn’t help frowning; it seems that a fierce battle is inevitable!