Staying here meant certain death, but not all demon descendants could face death with such resolve.
While Shou was still hesitating after being ordered to flee, another senior warrior took the lead, suddenly turning and breaking away from the formation, frantically running toward the passage they had come from!
"I said we should have migrated south, I said... it's all your fault! Rangyan! It's all your idea, you take responsibility yourself!"
The desertion of a senior warrior directly ignited the fear that had been weighing on everyone's hearts. Several more terrified warriors began crying and screaming, shoving aside their comrades blocking the way as they followed suit.
"Cowards!" spat one of the warriors who remained.
But Rangyan didn't even glance at those fleeing. His gaze was locked on those two massive evil eyes.
The Chiss seemed to have finally completed their assembly and begun the hunt. Six-clawed shadows disappeared into the darkness while beetles covered the ground like an approaching tide.
"Shou! Run!"
Under his urging, Shou could only grit his teeth and turn around.
But before Shou could lead the few remaining people more than a few steps, disaster struck.
The warriors who had fled toward the passage had barely disappeared into the tunnel's darkness when sharp screams suddenly erupted from within!
Immediately after came the tooth-grinding sounds of tearing and greedy chewing!
Several six-clawed creatures emerged from the passage, their bodies soaked in fresh blood. Even senior warriors, once they lost their composure, would die just as cleanly under this level of ambush.
Their escape route was also blocked. The Chiss's true encirclement had now completely closed, and everyone had truly become trapped prey.
"Kill—!" Rangyan roared, charging out first!
Despair ignited their final madness, and the battle instantly entered its most brutal phase.
The warriors howled, each slash and thrust carrying the momentum of mutual destruction.
Flesh flew everywhere as severed limbs mixed with the Chiss's purple blood, splattering in all directions.
Demon descendants kept falling.
One warrior rolled and thrust upward, killing a six-claw that had been exposed by the blood covering the ground. Before he could withdraw his spear, three other Chiss pounced on him, instantly tearing him to pieces.
A senior warrior wielded his weapon in a storm of death, reducing any approaching Chiss to fragments, yet under the combined "attention" of two evil eyes, his joints petrified, his weapon fell from his hands, and he was immediately overwhelmed by swarming Chiss.
The cave quickly accumulated a layer of bloody mire mixed with the remains of both demon descendants and Chiss, while the air filled with the nauseating stench of death.
Shou, covered in purple blood, felt his arms heavy as lead. Each swing felt like his bones might fly out.
Behind him, Qiong held aloft a brilliant orb of light that dispelled invisibility while continuously casting potential activation on his companions. The dizziness from high-intensity magical strain came in waves, and he mechanically cast another clarity spell on himself.
This was a hopeless battle, with nothing but endless insects before them.
Just as everyone was about to be crushed by this meat grinder—
"Chiss... I... gah..."
Indistinct voices came from some tunnel, layered and strange.
Shou couldn't understand the meaning and assumed it was some Chiss's roar, but an old warrior muttered in confusion: "Human?"
And after the voice appeared, an even more bizarre scene unfolded!
The Chiss army that had been attacking frantically and maintaining perfect order the moment before suddenly froze as if someone had pressed a pause button!
Whether they were swinging claws, spraying acid, preparing to turn invisible, or even those two evil eyes radiating terrible pressure—all completely stilled in the same instant!
Their movements frozen, even that annoying "hiss-crack" sound abruptly ceased!
The entire cave fell into deathly silence, with only heavy breathing and the drip-drop of blood remaining.
This sudden quiet was even more bone-chilling than the previous chaos.
"What... happened?"
An opportunity!
While some clansmen were still bewildered, Rangyan was the first to react. The despair in his eyes was instantly replaced by the madness of grasping at a final straw!
"Go that way!" he roared frantically, using all his strength to swing his hammer, stained with blood and gore, toward the weakest direction of the swarm, forcibly tearing open an escape gap in the frozen insect wall!
Shou didn't hesitate for a moment. He grabbed the dazed Qiong and rushed toward the bloody path Rangyan had carved!
He didn't care about the others anymore—only the two of them remained among the young people who had persisted this far.
The two evil eyes were the first to "awaken" from their rigidity, pale beams erupting from their massive eyeballs!
The beams swept across the group. Shou was fortunate enough to avoid them and successfully dove into the passage.
The other Chiss also recovered, but they were no longer as composed as before. Some Chiss charged toward the group, clearly unwilling to let this prey at their lips escape, but more Chiss turned in unison toward one direction, and Shou seemed to hear distant rumbling sounds.
Though only a small portion of Chiss remained, they were still deadly for the team now reduced to fewer than ten people.
Rangyan and several warriors too severely injured to flee turned back to block the narrow cave entrance.
"Go—!"
Sounds of cracking carapaces, frenzied Chiss hissing, hammers striking with dull thuds, distant rumbling... all mixed together behind them.
In Shou's final backward glance, he only saw Rangyan's blood-soaked figure completely swallowed by countless Chiss.
The dark passage stretched ahead, hell-like screeching behind. Shou gritted his teeth and continued forward, dragging the nearly unconscious Qiong.
When he finally crawled out of the underground hole and returned to the stone fortress, only Qiong remained beside him.
Having assembled nearly the entire tribe's strength, close to forty of their strongest warriors... in the end, only he and Qiong had made the return journey?
They couldn't even bring back the broken demon cores of their fallen clansmen!
And when he looked at Qiong beside him, even more pain struck. Qiong's hand and foot were now missing, with only fragments from post-petrification crumbling remaining at the edges.
"Qiong..."
Just then—
*Click-click... click-click... click-click...*
Dense, crisp, scalp-numbing sounds of arthropod legs striking stone came from all around.
The sounds approached from far away at tremendous speed, and soon numerous figures surrounded the two of them.
It's over!
This thought clearly surfaced in Shou's mind.
Shou supported Qiong with one hand and raised his broken bone spear with the other, preparing for this final battle.
There was nothing to regret—he had done his best. From the moment they entered the stone fortress, everything had been predetermined.
However, the expected attack never came.
After completing the encirclement, an eye-worm glowing green floated over, and a voice appeared simultaneously in both Shou and Qiong's minds.
"I, love, peace. Talk?"
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