Lord Shenxiu
Chapter 538: Steel Behemoth (Requesting Monthly Pass)

Chapter 538: Chapter 538: Steel Behemoth (Requesting Monthly Pass)

"Tentacle beetles, huh? Ugly little things, but no matter."

Zhong Shenxiu pointed at the enormous beetle charging towards him and laughed heartily, "Beetle, I will have you aid my cultivation!"

As he spoke, he misstepped, nimbly dodging the beetle’s charge as well as the following lashes from its tentacles, and circled to its rear.

In the next moment, he landed a palm on the beetle’s hard shell.

Crack!

A crisp sound echoed in the darkness, traveling far and wide.

Zhong Shenxiu, holding his hand which bounced back red and in pain, couldn’t help but swear under his breath, "The damn real me is such a pitfall... Does this mean that any random dog could become my nemesis of death?"

Calamities weren’t fixed and weren’t graded by strength.

To the Primordial Spirit Ancestor, perhaps only disasters at the level of the Dharma Body could be considered a tribulation.

But for an ordinary person, this terrifying and disgusting giant insect was a massive death calamity!

Zhong Shenxiu even felt that if he looked at its shell for too long, he would feel dizzy and nauseous.

’This is a pollution characteristic similar to the Evil God, but with a very low intensity. What the hell is this thing?’

Whoosh whoosh!

Suddenly, the tentacle beetle turned around, and countless tentacles shot out from its head.

Zhong Shenxiu rolled on the ground, evading the masses of tentacles, then with a sudden pounce got to the beetle’s softer underbelly, his right hand shooting out like lightning into a split crevice.

It felt like his arm had plunged into a swamp or as if he had touched a slippery, sticky catfish.

The tentacle beetle trembled violently, its limbs sharp and its tentacles about to strike.

However, Zhong Shenxiu burrowed his arm fiercely into the crack and suddenly grabbed a spherical object and pulled it out swiftly.

Though he didn’t know what it was, it was most likely one of the beetle’s internal organs, and removing it would surely inflict heavy damage.

The next moment, he saw that the tentacle beetle’s limbs and tentacles froze, and its massive body collapsed to the ground like a machine that had lost power.

"It seems I managed to accidentally hit the mark and pulled out its core organ?"

Zhong Shenxiu looked at his hand, among the mucus and blood was an orb resembling an eyeball.

"Such a creature is really strange... Why create so many fissures on the surface of a hard shell?"

"Could it be injured?"

"And... that polluting characteristic is really troublesome."

Zhong Shenxiu closed his eyes.

Even then, he could still visualize the insect’s form constantly appearing before his eyes, intensifying the feeling of nausea.

"In a bit more time, I might vomit... It’s almost like a kind of spiritual toxin."

"Damn it... If I retained even a hint of my stature, would I fear you?"

As an embodiment of a ritual, he was too weak now, and Zhong Shenxiu could only grumble about it.

What made him feel even more unwilling was that after fighting hard to kill this tentacle beetle, he felt no resonance whatsoever.

This also proved that this life-or-death battle didn’t count as a tribulation!

’Sure enough... is the hardest person to deceive oneself? Although I thought it was very tough... in reality, I am still somewhat different from ordinary people. Even without any stature, I am quite experienced in handling pollution, not becoming physically debilitated at first sight and unable to fight...’

’Add to that my extensive combat experience and stable mindset, I had an eighty percent certainty I could deal with it from the moment we met... and indeed, that’s exactly what happened.’

Zhong Shenxiu sighed, "Life... is truly lonely."

Just as he was preparing to quietly show off, rustling sounds reached his ears once more.

This time, the sounds overlapped, forming an ocean.

His face changed, and in a few strides, he climbed a gentle slope, only to see countless tentacle beetles converging into a black sea, seemingly migrating.

"Sorry for the intrusion, farewell!"

Witnessing this scene, Zhong Shenxiu, who did not want to become beetle excrement, quickly chose the opposite direction and started to flee for his life.

...

Several days later.

"This plain is really vast... and there are so many monsters..."

Zhong Shenxiu wiped the sweat off his brow with some difficulty and muttered to himself.

During this time, he had been surviving alone on the plain, without meeting any other intelligent beings.

But he had encountered plenty of disgusting monsters.

For example... creatures stitched together from the festering and incomplete limbs of various beasts.

For example... the giant black hounds that liked to collect heads and attach them to their own bodies.

For example... the grotesque flesh trees that were still during the day but came to life at night.

The list went on, nearly convincing Zhong Shenxiu that he had arrived in a monster’s playground.

The one thing they had in common was that they were all extremely bloodthirsty and mad and carried with them a strong pollution that could slowly drive the sane to madness.

Faced with these creatures, the current Zhong Shenxiu could not compete and could only stealthily keep moving.

"It feels... like these bizarre traits don’t come from the same source, right? Although they all look different... and the tentacle beetle I saw that day is the weakest of them all..."

Zhong Shenxiu lay near a water source, vigilantly watching herds of wild beasts come to drink.

’Killing a single beetle doesn’t count as a calamity, but living here for a while should, shouldn’t it?’

He looked at the terrifying figures and tried to amuse himself with that thought.

Time passed by, second by second.

Half an hour later, Zhong Shenxiu looked up in confusion; he thought he heard... explosions?

Boom, boom, boom!

Columns of black smoke, like the declaration of a civilization, accompanied by the sound of heavy machinery crushing the ground, drew closer.

On the horizon, a fierce and enormous steel beast gradually appeared.

It resembled a steel war chariot and a tank, with long treads, but was easily a dozen meters tall, covered in numerous large cannon barrels, looking like a steel fortress that was constantly advancing.

At the top, there were a few huge chimneys, spewing out the smoke columns that Zhong Shenxiu had seen earlier.

"It’s a creation of civilization... There are people!"

Zhong Shenxiu saw several shadows moving agilely atop the steel behemoth, thought for a moment, then suddenly burst out, shouting and waving his arms to attract attention.

’Well, if they are evildoers, then I’ll treat it as a tribulation.’

Woo, woo!

The huge steam monster didn’t stop at all, continuing at a steady pace and leaving a deep trench in its wake.

"Don’t go..."

Zhong Shenxiu watched its disappearing form and called out weakly.

Just then, a few of the shadows that had been agilely moving on its surface jumped down and started to jog towards Zhong Shenxiu.

’Hmm? Jumping from a height of a dozen meters, they’re clearly not ordinary people. The Transcendents of this world?’

Zhong Shenxiu looked over and saw a group of oddly-shaped people.

Most of them were wearing leather jackets, jeans, and peculiar metal ornaments, some with goggles, others with beak-shaped masks.

At that moment, a tall woman with the grace of a cheetah suddenly asked, "Vizepunk Yousel?"

’Well then, I guess we don’t speak the same language. I should have brought some of the Pastor’s abilities with me...’

Zhong Shenxiu’s expression turned to one of speechless frustration.