This Spiritual Energy is Lethal!
Chapter 417: Divine Blood Monster

Chapter 417: Chapter 417: Divine Blood Monster

The ancient voice wafted through the crack of the door, sounding like someone with a throat condition, yet it was strangely steady and powerful.

Chen Ke and Xu Jing looked at each other. Since the other party was so composed, they must have set a trap.

Antagonists always talk too much before they die. For Xu Jing and Chen Ke, before descending to the bottom of the academy, they didn’t take the villains of this era seriously; after all, there was no large-scale Spiritual Energy utilization in 1859.

As Transcendent Spiritual Ability Users, they were overwhelmingly powerful compared to any armed unit of this era.

However, once they reached the underground, and saw everything before them, they realized things weren’t so simple.

Even though the human authority had not yet extensively utilized this power, they had clearly discovered it, and the actions of many small groups were much faster and more aggressive than those of the state machinery.

In the absence of national regulation and standards, those who first touched the Transcendent inevitably misused this non-human power without thorough research.

Chen Ke held a gun in his right hand while gently pulling the door open with his left, stepping inside sideways, and Xu Jing followed behind him.

The room beyond the door was empty, like a chapel, with bare walls and a staircase extending deeper in, leading to a small sacrificial altar at the end.

The ceiling of this room was much higher than the previous ones, probably over ten meters. Chen Ke and Xu Jing activated their Spiritual Vision to scan the area, but found no trace of anyone.

"So, you’re not planning to show yourself?" Chen Ke asked while observing the surroundings.

"I offered you the chance to ask questions, not to ask such obviously stupid ones," the ancient voice chuckled.

"I’ll only ask you one question. Have you recently seen an Asian man like us?" Chen Ke spoke again, trying to discern the direction of the sound.

"Hmm... He was right, there really is a tag-along who came here with him," the voice sounded as if talking to itself.

"So you’ve seen him," Xu Jing said.

"He brought me a revelation. A better path," the voice intoned.

"Where is he?" Xu Jing asked.

"He is in a place you do not know, where he believes he won’t be disturbed," the voice replied, cryptically as if posing a riddle.

"It seems you have no intention of telling us," Chen Ke shook his head.

"Because I don’t know where he is," the other laughed.

"What have you done to the civilians down here?" Chen Ke asked.

"I needed their blood, that’s all," the voice said indifferently, as if the action was not the least bit disgusting. "It appears there’s nobody here. Maybe there’s a secret passage leading to his location," Chen Ke whispered to Xu Jing.

"Wait... I have another question," Xu Jing whispered back with a contemplative and heavy heart.

"What else do you wish to ask?" the voice inquired.

"Do you know the Divine Descent Sect?" Xu Jing asked.

Chen Ke was startled. Xu Jing just blurted it out? Was that really okay?

The voice fell silent for several seconds, seemingly pondering the question carefully.

"I’ve never heard of it," the voice answered.

Xu Jing’s question might have led the other party to interpret her words as though she was revealing their affiliation.

"Do you really not know?" Xu Jing asked again.

"I initially thought you were sent by the Secret Keepers, but it seems I was ridiculously wrong. Turns out you’re just the lackeys of some obscure group. Are you here to pry into my research?" the voice scorned.

Indeed, the other party had taken them for members of the Divine Descent Sect, although, according to Xu Jing, the sect didn’t exist in this era.

"If your achievement is just drawing blood, then there’s nothing worth spying on," Chen Ke responded with a smile.

"Oh... You’re underestimating me, excellent. Let me show you the power of the Divine Blood," the voice laughed, followed by the heavy sound of hinges turning.

Clang clang clang...

Chen Ke and Xu Jing felt something rolling behind the floor beneath their feet, the sensation extending all the way to the wall behind them.

Following the feeling and looking toward the right side of the wall ahead, they saw the gray stone wall recede half a step, then it was pulled entirely upwards.

The stone wall was lifted by chains, revealing a stone gate six meters tall.

That wall looked as if it weighed hundreds of kilograms; it was a mystery what kind of transmission system could provide such powerful kinetic energy.

Was it steam? Chen Ke couldn’t believe it; even in the early industrial era, steam engines weren’t built just anywhere, let alone deep beneath the ground where leveraging steam power should have been impossible, right?

"Something’s coming out, be ready," Xu Jing warned, picking up her gun and aiming at the pitch-dark space behind the stone wall.

As soon as she spoke, a revolting noise emerged from the darkness—the sparse sound of multi-legged insects crawling mixed with an inhuman panting.

The two gazed at the hole; Chen Ke’s right hand was already beginning to condense a soul gun.

At that moment, a huge insect-like creature emerged from the dark space behind the stone wall. It was a grotesque hybrid of a cockroach and a caterpillar, the top half sporting the black shape of a winged beetle, and the lower half resembling the thick flesh-colored body of a worm.

Contrary to what Chen Ke imagined, this creature didn’t slither on its belly like a caterpillar; it crawled using countless small but sharp black legs that sprouted from its worm-like body, the source of the sounds they had just heard.

The roach-shaped upper body wasn’t entirely the shape of a cockroach either; at least it was much thicker than any roach, and it occasionally flapped its glossy wings, making an annoying whooshing sound.

The belly of the insect transitioned disgustingly from a meaty pink to a dark brown, the hard shell-like abdomen growing softer towards the bottom and changing color, slowly softening as it lightened. Its upper half stood erect, and in the place where a cockroach’s head should be, there protruded an abnormal human face.

The monster had three pairs of arms; two were mutated insect limbs with sharp stingers that glowed a poisonous green. The other pair were deformed human arms, hanging limply at the sides of its insect body, as if broken.

What caught Chen Ke’s attention the most was something that appeared to be carried on the creature’s back.

"+50 hours"

"+50 hours"

"+50 hours"

"+50 hours"

"+50 hours"

...

The monster’s murderous intent surged; this one wasn’t bad in terms of level.

"This is a Transcendent monster..." said Chen Ke, a window of information popping up in his vision, and to his astonishment, this creature came with numerous prefixes.

[Mutated Level: Transcendent]

[Magic Resistance: 60%]

[Diseased Blood]

[Strength Enhancement]

[Justice Enhancement]

==================

[Flame Weakening]

"Chen Ke, leave it to you; I’m going to check the back," said Xu Jing.

Chen Ke glanced at Xu Jing, looking quite surprised. Xu Jing pointed in the direction of the stone wall where, with the movement of the chains, the stone gate was slowly closing.

"It’s nothing for you; I don’t want that guy to get away," said Xu Jing.