Shen Luo breathed a little easier and glanced around. Everyone was still locked in fierce combat, and quite a few had been wounded, though none of their injuries looked too serious.
Clearly, none of them were weak.
Just then, strange, low humming sounds rose all around them. They sounded somewhat like cicadas, yet were much more muffled, like the cries of young cicadas that had yet to emerge from the earth.
As Shen Luo puzzled over them, the cicada cries grew louder and louder.
Suddenly, Shen Luo's eyelid twitched. He seemed to sense something flying toward him and immediately made Ghost Vine Venerable dart aside.
But this body was not his own, after all, and he was a fraction too slow. A sharp pain shot through his cheek, and with a pfft, a bloody gash burst open on the right side of his face.
Ignoring the injury, Shen Luo hastily shifted his gaze to follow the path of whatever had struck him. All he saw was a flash of translucent light before it vanished again.
Then a searing pain swiftly spread through his right cheek...
Ghost Vine Venerable raised a hand to touch it, only for a burning pain to shoot through his fingers as well. Looking down, he found the pads of his fingers scorched black, with clear signs of corrosion.
He casually conjured a water mirror to take a look and was immediately horrified.
The wound on his right cheek had been burned and eaten away into a ghastly, fist-sized hole, exposing the pink fascia and bone beneath.
"Everyone, be careful! There's something extremely dangerous here. It's fast and almost impossible to spot, but its gu venom is incredibly potent," Shen Luo hastily warned.
"Aah!"
Immediately afterward, Li Biao's agonized cry rang out from the other side.
"It's