Volume One: The Hell-Class Lord’s World Chapter 97: The War Begins

Hearing Chen Gu’s order, Pan turned at once without a word.

By the time Chen Gu reached the coordinates Kebas had set, they were already long overdue.

Kebas had already led his men away in pursuit of the enemy.

Still, Kebas knew Chen Gu would come after him, so he left behind a means of contact.

A cloud of mosquitoes settled on Chen Gu. Before he could even ask a question, they activated Kebas’s message.

“My lord, you have finally arrived. I have followed that fellow all the way here. These are the latest coordinates, but please be careful: that fellow seems no longer to be under the control of the other side’s insect monster.

All along the way there has been the flesh of that strange insect.

Even the ground seems to have been affected by its slime. My burrowing worms refuse to travel underground anymore, so when you follow after it, be especially careful.

I am not sure whether this flesh is still connected to the main body.”

After leaving the message, the mosquitoes formed an arrow pointing in one direction.

“After them.”

Chen Gu glanced in the direction the mosquitoes had flown and gave the order at once.

By then Pan had already released the wolves and crows trapped in the carriage. Hearing Chen Gu’s command, he leaped back onto the carriage and followed the mosquito swarm.

Chen Gu noticed that when the mosquitoes took flight, they did not buzz like ordinary insects. Instead, they drifted straight ahead like a mass of black mist.

They flew very fast, even faster than the Vine-Light’s pace.

If not for the fact that they kept stopping and starting, the Vine-Light might never have kept up.

Following the swarm for nearly half an hour more, Chen Gu and the others finally caught up with Kebas.

By then, Kebas had already transformed himself into part of the mosquito swarm, blending into it completely.

When he stopped, he dropped straight onto the trees nearby. From a distance, he looked as though the trees had sprouted a layer of black leaves.

When the Vine-Light arrived, Kebas noticed their approach as well. Countless mosquitoes rapidly came together and landed before Chen Gu.

“My lord, you are here.”

“How is it going?”

Chen Gu leaped down from the carriage and went straight to the point.

“That monster insect is probably afraid of fire. When the fire-spirit crows attacked, the enemy hero chose to have the ghosts put up a shield. That alone shows the insect is afraid of flames or magic.

Otherwise the enemy hero would never have done something like that.

After all, ghosts are the ones most afraid of magic.

The enemy hero was choosing to trade the ghosts’ lives for the monster insect’s life.”

“What kind of attack does the monster insect use?”

“From what I have observed so far, it has close-combat ability. It can attack with tentacles, the slime on its body is poisonous, and the mouths growing on it can devour many things.

Its melee ability should not be weak.”

Kebas immediately stated his guess. “Also, this monster insect should be able to spit poison, which means it has ranged capability.

But I have not seen it make a move all along this road, so that part is only speculation.”

“Then we’ll treat it as a ranged unit.”

Chen Gu tapped his hand. “Anything else?”

“Yes. There is always flesh on the monster insect trying to escape. I had the mosquito swarm deal with some of it, and found that the flesh had already been assimilated by the insect. The swarm would not feed on it.

The burrowing worms can eat a little, but once they do, they cannot digest it.”

As he spoke, Kebas took out some of the flesh and placed it before Chen Gu.

Chen Gu accepted it and took one look, only to find it reeked of sour decay, like vomit that had been soaked in strong acid for a very long time.

No wonder the mosquito swarm under Kebas would not eat it. It contained no blood at all, only strong acid.

“Corpse-Eating Vine.”

At Chen Gu’s call, several Corpse-Eating Vines shot out.

He tossed the flesh toward them, and the vines swallowed it in one bite. Not long after, they sank underground.

Seeing that reaction, Chen Gu knew at once that the vines did not eat it either.

At the very least, they would not eat it before there was suitable food.

After thinking for a moment, Chen Gu motioned again to the vines.

[Corpse-Eating Vine] + [Sour Corrupted Flesh Chunk] = [??? (Success Rate: 18.3%)]

What Chen Gu cared about was not the success rate; he was examining the condition of the flesh chunk.

Looking at the ingredients within it, he was left speechless.

He had never imagined that within that lump of flesh there would even be fragments of a trapped soul.

This flesh chunk had once been a complete living creature, slowly dissolved in strong acid over who knew how many years until it became what it was now.

At last Chen Gu understood why it had always tried to escape whenever it had a chance. Anyone soaked in strong acid for who knew how many years, watching their flesh and soul dissolve in it, would go mad.

Beyond that, Chen Gu also discovered several kinds of deadly poison in the flesh’s composition, along with some magical power.

It seemed the monster insect ate rather mixed fare.

Just as Chen Gu was studying this flesh’s information, the vanguard of the undead legion had also arrived at the Great Rift.

When the seven forces gathered together, they discovered a very serious problem.

They had lost their quarry.

Each of the seven detachments could swear that no one had passed along its route.

And yet Chen Gu, the man they had been tracking, was nowhere to be seen.

With only about an hour left before the phantom hero arrived, and with no enemy to show for it, the dozen or so heroes there were instantly in a panic.

“What are we supposed to do? I do not want that madman using me to feed corpse worms.”

One skeleton hero looked at the situation before him and asked bluntly.

At the mention of corpse worms, the other heroes all froze.

They did not want that either. At that moment, a zombie hero spoke up: “Could they already have gone below the rift?”

“You may be new here, so you do not know. The trees beneath this rift will not allow anything from outside to pass through their territory, no matter what form it takes, no mat—”

Before the skeleton hero could finish, a root suddenly shot up from below the rift and slammed heavily into him.

The skeleton hero had not expected an enemy to appear below the rift and had no chance to dodge. He was sent flying with a single blow.

Then the root lashed down again and again, striking with brutal force until the skeleton hero was reduced to fragments.

Only then did all the undead heroes finally react. Leading their underlings, they turned toward the rift.

At that moment, numerous bark-faced beings appeared along the edge of the rift. Each of their faces was as large as a city gate, and they stared at the undead heroes while making strange noises with their mouths.

“More undead trying to pass through the Stigmata Rift. Kill them.”