The Ink Flood Dragon let out a piercing wail, its massive body thrashing in agony on the seabed, churning up clouds of mud and sand and throwing the already chaotic battlefield into further disarray.
It was already covered in wounds. Taking the Life-Ending Curse head-on had added fresh injuries to old ones, piling frost upon snow.
But when it noticed Lu Xiuyuan being blasted away, it saw that the hateful golden barrier had shattered. Its blood-red eyes blazed, and it lunged at him with its cavernous maw open.
"Damn it! Since when have the Duo'e Sect's demonic cultivators become so fearless in the face of death?"
Lu Xiuyuan had barely steadied himself when he saw the Ink Flood Dragon charging recklessly toward him. His expression changed drastically, and he hurriedly brought out his Treasure Mirror, its spiritual power badly depleted, and unleashed a beam of mirror light to stop it.
The Ink Flood Dragon neither dodged nor evaded. It let the beam tear a fresh wound through its scales and reached Lu Xiuyuan in an instant, snapping its enormous jaws shut!
Crack-
With a sharp shattering sound, fragments of the mirror scattered everywhere, and the Treasure Mirror's spiritual glow went out completely.
Lu Xiuyuan hastily pulled out a blue Spirit Talisman and tried to activate it, but he was a step too late.
The Ink Flood Dragon opened its bloody maw again and bit down!
"Aah-"
With a brief cry of agony, Lu Xiuyuan was bitten clean in half at the waist! Scarlet blood instantly stained the surrounding seawater. Clinging to his last thread of life, he activated the Spirit Talisman.
A fierce beam of sword light shot out and slashed savagely across the Ink Flood Dragon's enormous body.
"Roar!"
The Ink Flood Dragon let out a heart-rending roar of pain. The sword light was powerful, leaving a huge, hideous wound across its mountainlike body.
"I regret... regret that I could not slay every evil beast..." Lu Xiuyuan gazed at the still-living Ink Flood Dragon, his eyes filled with bitterness. At last, he closed his eyes helplessly, all signs of life fading away.
With its enemy dead, a flicker of satisfaction crossed the Ink Flood Dragon's eyes. It swallowed Lu Xiuyuan's corpse, then twisted its grievously wounded body, preparing to swim back into the fissure in the seabed.
Halfway there, however, its body suddenly stiffened. Sensing a "new" presence, it froze in place.
The cultivator who had suddenly blown himself up had appeared before it again.
With the limited intelligence of a first-tier Demon Beast, it could not comprehend the sight before it at all.
Hadn't that tiny bug already died? How had he appeared here again without a scratch?
Thirty seconds earlier.
As his body was destroyed in the self-detonation, the scene before Chu Mo's eyes instantly turned gray.
Unlike last time, when his soul had remained and been drawn into the Darkworld Grotto-Scenery Banner, his entire field of vision was occupied by a crimson word: "DEAD."
Streaks of blood slid down the enormous word.
Chu Mo was all too familiar with this sight. "Isn't this the death screen from the game?"
He glanced at his character panel. [Yin-Yang Jade: 2].
"Only one was used?" He was slightly surprised. He had thought burning his blood essence and soul together would deduct two resurrection coins outright.
Apparently, the panel had counted it as a single death event.
The thirty-second countdown ended.
An indescribable, inexplicable power emerged and poured into the very concept of his "existence." Flesh reassembled, his soul reshaped-Chu Mo had returned once more!
The first thing he did after steadying himself was turn his gaze toward the Mutated Black-Scaled Flood Dragon.
Its aura was now feeble to the extreme. There was scarcely a patch of intact flesh left on its body, old and new wounds crisscrossing everywhere. The wound left by Lu Xiuyuan's final sword beam, in particular, had nearly severed it at the waist.
"Well, damn. You really know how to stay alive." Chu Mo could not help marveling at the surviving Ink Flood Dragon.
"Roar!" At the sight of the "bug" that had inflicted such terrible injuries on it, the Ink Flood Dragon's fury exploded, driving all questions about his return from the dead out of its mind.
It thrashed through the water and lunged with towering hatred, determined to tear him apart.
"Just what I wanted." Rather than alarmed, Chu Mo was delighted. He neither dodged nor evaded. His blood essence and soul burned again as he activated [Life-Ending Curse]!
[Health: 0%] [You have died] [Yin-Yang Jade -1. Remaining: 2] [You will revive in 60 seconds]
Boom!
Light and fire erupted once more in the dark depths. The Ink Flood Dragon could not dodge in time—or rather, it had never expected him to use the same trick again—and took the blast squarely.
Its massive body was blown apart through the middle. Countless scales peeled away and scattered, leaving its heart exposed. The entire flood dragon was a gruesome sight.
Before it could recover from the lethal agony, the remnants Chu Mo had left behind swiftly gathered together, and the exploding "bug" appeared before it again.
"Wooaar..." This time, the Ink Flood Dragon's cry held not rage but terror. The repeated devastating injuries had utterly broken its ferocity. It was truly afraid.
Not even bothering to take the rear half of its body, it scrambled toward the fissure in the seabed.
Having reappeared, Chu Mo watched the Ink Flood Dragon flee and sucked in a sharp breath. "Even that didn't kill you? Are you a cockroach or something?"
[Level 10 · Mutated Ink-Scaled Flood Dragon (Boss)] [Health: 4%]
Seeing that the Ink Flood Dragon's health was nearly depleted, Chu Mo swallowed a handful of Qi-Restoring Pills, took a deep breath, and darted into the fissure after it.
"You cost me two lives, and now you think you can run?"
He had already sent the Banner Spirit to investigate the fissure. There was nothing below besides this Ink Flood Dragon. Why should he fear the might of a mutilated flood dragon on the brink of death?
As he pursued it, he reflected on the "experience" of detonating himself twice. "The power of this [Life-Ending Curse] is worth the price. Senior Brother Luo Shan really does sell quality goods."
Wasn't this another way of fighting above his tier?
Just as Chu Mo resolved to gather more of these life-staking spells in the future, the Ink Flood Dragon ahead stopped at the bottom of the fissure.
It did not turn back to attack. Instead, it kept ramming the ground below, as though trying to break through the strata and burrow somewhere.
How could he let such a golden opportunity slip away?
Chu Mo's gaze sharpened. A brilliant ray of radiant light gathered in his hand and shot out instantly, aimed straight at the Ink Flood Dragon's exposed heart.
There was no earth-shaking explosion. The radiant light sank soundlessly into its heart.
The Ink Flood Dragon's massive body abruptly stiffened. All movement stopped at once, and the light in its eyes swiftly faded.
[You have slain Level 10 · Mutated Ink-Scaled Flood Dragon (Boss)]
"It's dead, just like that?"
Chu Mo was slightly taken aback. He had not expected the Ink Flood Dragon to do nothing but try to "burrow underground." Where had its earlier ferocity gone?
The Ink Flood Dragon dropped very little after its death—just one golden orb of light. Chu Mo cautiously approached and picked it up.
[Obtained [Mutated Flood Dragon Pearl] x1] [Mutated Flood Dragon Pearl] [Description: A second-tier flood dragon pearl formed by a Black-Scaled Flood Dragon that underwent an unknown mutation. Contains pure yin energy and death energy.]
"Second tier?"
Chu Mo's eyes suddenly widened. Second-tier Demon Beasts corresponded to Foundation Establishment cultivators, and their intelligence was no lower than a human's.
By his calculations, levels 1-10 on the panel corresponded to the first through tenth layers of Qi Refining, while levels 11-25 corresponded to the early, middle, and late stages of Foundation Establishment.
The level 10 Ink Flood Dragon was undoubtedly a first-tier Demon Beast, and it had hardly seemed intelligent.
"Strange... a second-tier Mutated Flood Dragon Pearl. So was it the reason the coldwater clams' yield declined?"
Ink-Scaled Flood Dragons already liked to eat coldwater clams. Combined with the erosion of death energy brought on by its mutation, that explanation made sense.
Chu Mo suppressed his doubts and waved a hand, storing away the flood dragon's corpse, which remained enormous even after being partially dissolved by the radiant light.
Then his gaze fell on the ground the Ink Flood Dragon had been frantically ramming, and two lines of blood-red text appeared in his vision.
[Instance: Snow Reflection High Person's Dharma Estate] [Recommended challenge level: 10]
"This is... an instance?!"