Wen Qiao thought through everything that had happened, but she was still somewhat confused about her current situation.
When the demonic beast had attacked them in the maze, she had been seriously injured and had immediately lost consciousness. She did not know what happened afterward, nor did she know what had happened to Ning Yuzhou, or how she had ended up here.
Thinking of this, she felt somewhat worried about her husband and could only hope that he was safe.
Then Wen Qiao used her divine sense to examine the surroundings. She discovered that this was an underground cavern. A few fluorescent stones were scattered along the walls, allowing her to vaguely see the surrounding environment. The air here was moist, and the climate was warm, very suitable for spiritual plants to grow. As a plant herself, Wen Qiao naturally felt that the current temperature and humidity suited her very well, making her feel extremely comfortable.
Still, she felt troubled. She did not know where this place was, or whether she was still inside Lin Tai Hunting Valley.
Wen Qiao’s gaze once again landed on the demonic rabbit guarding beside her, drooling at her.
This demonic rabbit had flawless white fur and a pair of ruby-like red eyes. It looked like a snowball and was extremely cute. But to Wen Qiao, who was currently only two inches tall, even a fluffy little rabbit seemed like a colossal creature.
If she were still human, she would naturally like a snowball-like little rabbit. But now that she was a little seedling and had become the other party’s food, she no longer liked it.
Perhaps because it wanted to eat her too badly, the demonic rabbit finally could not resist opening its mouth at her. Its two large front teeth gleamed brightly. Without even testing them, Wen Qiao knew its bite force would have no problem chewing her tiny seedling body to pieces.
Just when Wen Qiao thought the demonic rabbit was going to nibble away her demonic body as food, the rabbit licked her two little leaves, leaving behind a wet trace.
Wen Qiao: “…………”
She wanted to eat the bunny!
The demonic rabbit lovingly licked her two little leaves several times before finally stopping with lingering reluctance. Then it lay down beside her and carefully guarded her.
A strange feeling rose in Wen Qiao’s heart.
With no one disturbing her, Wen Qiao continued studying her demonic body.
She wanted to transform back into human form as soon as possible and leave this place. However, the inheritance she had received was incomplete. She searched through the fragmented inheritance in her sea of consciousness for a long time but still could not find out how to change from her demonic body back into human form. She could only slowly explore it herself.
After successfully transforming into her demonic body, Wen Qiao belatedly discovered that she could actually use divine sense.
Divine sense was a power cultivators could only use after cultivating to the Yuan Martial Realm. This was because, after reaching the Yuan Martial Realm, a cultivator’s sea of consciousness expanded and their primordial spirit condensed to a certain degree, only then giving rise to divine sense. Cultivators below the Yuan Martial Realm could not activate divine sense and still relied on their eyes.
Although she was now only a tiny seedling, she was still an intelligent half-demon. She had inherited some kind of miraculous bloodline, giving her more advantages than humans. Divine sense was one of those advantages. Her divine sense could now replace her eyes, allowing her to see dozens of zhang around her, roughly equivalent to the divine sense of a Yuan Martial Realm cultivator.
After studying herself for most of the day, Wen Qiao finally discovered that, apart from divine sense, she seemed to have no other advantages =口=!
What use was this demonic body?
Or was it because she was currently only a little seedling? According to the growth speed of plants, she was now just a young sprout, which was why she had no abilities?
Wen Qiao could not help shaking her leaves.
When the tender green leaves trembled, the demonic rabbit opened its eyes and looked at her, then licked her a few more times.
Wen Qiao: “…………”
Wen Qiao stiffened her leaves. After the demonic rabbit finished licking her and she was just about to shake the saliva off her leaves, she suddenly saw the rabbit jump up. Its red eyes stared warily at the cavern entrance, and its entire body entered a state of alert.
Wen Qiao’s heart stirred, and her divine sense spread outward.
A third-rank Fire-Gnawing Rat appeared at the entrance of the cavern, its eyes fixed directly on the little seedling guarded by the demonic rabbit.
Wen Qiao’s leaves trembled again. She was far too familiar with that gaze. The demonic rabbit had stared at her with that same drooling gaze, treating her as delicious food.
Then Seedling Wen Qiao witnessed a rabbit-rat battle and also saw the demonic rabbit’s fighting strength.
Although it looked like nothing more than a fluffy little bunny, when facing the third-rank Fire-Gnawing Rat several times larger than itself, it did not fall behind at all. Its speed was terrifyingly fast. In one swift leap, its two rabbit claws swiped out, tearing the Fire-Gnawing Rat so badly that its fur flew everywhere. The rat squeaked miserably and fled wounded.
The demonic rabbit made a contemptuous grinding sound with its teeth, then lay back down beside Wen Qiao and licked her a few more times as a garnish for its victory.
Wen Qiao had already gone numb.
Not long after the Fire-Gnawing Rat fled, wounded, a fourth-rank White-Scaled Snake arrived. The coiled White-Scaled Snake blocked the cavern entrance, and compared with it, the demonic rabbit looked like the difference between an elephant and an ant.
The White-Scaled Snake had also come for Wen Qiao’s demonic body.
The demonic rabbit was not careless in the slightest. It let out a hissing warning and pounced toward the White-Scaled Snake.
Its speed was extremely fast, nimble and unpredictable. By the time the White-Scaled Snake reacted, the demonic rabbit had already kicked it away with both legs. The whole mass of snake flew sideways and smashed into the cavern wall. Stalactites fell from above and crashed onto the snake’s body.
Wen Qiao witnessed this miraculous moment. A little rabbit barely bigger than a palm had actually pinned down a fourth-rank White-Scaled Snake and beaten it until it hissed in agony.
In the end, the White-Scaled Snake also fled injured.
The demonic rabbit licked Wen Qiao’s leaves, letting the defeated beasts escape without any intention of pursuing them to the end.
Wen Qiao studied this demonic rabbit. She could not tell what rank it was. Apart from its shorter ears, it was no different from those first- or second-rank demonic rabbits outside. To many cultivators, such low-rank demonic beasts were nothing more than a dish.
After that, several more demonic beasts sneaked over.
The way they looked at Wen Qiao was exactly the same, filled with intense greed. But strangely, whenever they fought, no matter how fiercely, they all seemed to deliberately move away from where she was. Rocks flew everywhere around her, yet she was not harmed in the slightest.
The premonition in Wen Qiao’s heart grew stronger and stronger.
Her demonic body seemed to have become some kind of heavenly treasure, attracting a group of demonic beasts to compete over her.
Wen Qiao knew that many heavenly treasures had companion beasts guarding them. When the heavenly treasure matured, the companion beast could obtain its benefits: either swallowing the treasure to evolve, or living alongside it in mutual dependence, not allowing anyone else to covet it.
So, were these demonic beasts that came knocking actually fighting over the position of her companion beast?
This guess made Wen Qiao’s entire grass-body go numb. She felt that the other half of her bloodline must be extraordinary. Otherwise, so many demonic beasts would not have come running over to fight for her as soon as she transformed into her demonic body.
Perhaps because her current demonic body was still young, the demonic beasts she attracted were not very high-ranked. Every time, the demonic rabbit won a complete victory.
This demonic rabbit was seriously ridiculously strong.
After observing several of the demonic rabbit’s battles, Wen Qiao realised it was a wind-type demonic beast. It could fly with the wind, was extremely fast, and had great strength. These two abilities alone were enough to crush other demonic beasts.
Speaking of which, could this demonic rabbit actually be a mutated demonic beast?
For demonic beasts, bloodline rank was innate. If they wanted to break through the limits of their natural bloodline, mutation was the only way. Once a demonic beast mutated, regardless of its rank, it would be stronger than others of the same rank. If it could then be continuously nourished with all kinds of heavenly treasures, it could eventually shed its old form, transform, and ascend.
As Wen Qiao was thinking, she discovered that the demonic rabbit had dragged out a storage pouch from somewhere and was pulling out spirit pills to eat.
She stared at that familiar storage pouch and immediately wanted to gnaw the rabbit raw.
That was her storage pouch. It was the one her husband had hung on her, so she could take things out to eat whenever she needed. Now, this storage pouch stuffed full of spirit pills had become the demonic rabbit’s private property. Seeing it happily pull out spirit pills and eat them made her truly angry.
The demonic rabbit seemed to like spirit pills very much. After eating more than ten, it was finally satisfied. It hid the storage pouch away, continued guarding beside her, and closed its eyes to rest, waiting for the next battle.
All the demonic beasts coveting Wen Qiao were driven away by the demonic rabbit.
It had to be said that this behaviour gave Wen Qiao quite a sense of security.
Now, she was only a fragile little seedling. She could not move or run. If a few herbivorous demonic beasts came and could not wait for her to grow up before chewing her as food, that would be tragic.
In the two days after Wen Qiao woke up, she saw the demonic rabbit drive away many demonic beasts.
These demonic beasts ranged from third-rank to fourth-rank, then fifth-rank and sixth-rank. The challengers became increasingly high-ranked. When a sixth-rank Armour-Eating Beast appeared, the demonic rabbit had an extremely difficult time dealing with it. It suffered serious injuries before finally defeating the beast.
After throwing the dead Armour-Eating Beast’s corpse to the cavern entrance, the demonic rabbit rummaged through the storage pouch, swallowed several healing spirit pills, and quietly guarded beside her while recovering.
With the corpse of that Armour-Eating Beast serving as a deterrent, no more demonic beasts appeared for the time being.
Wen Qiao originally thought they would have a few peaceful days. Unexpectedly, the injured demonic rabbit suddenly pricked up its ears, its red eyes staring warily at the cavern entrance. It turned its head and glanced at her. After hesitating for a moment, it slipped into a crack covered by dense vines and hid.
Wen Qiao soon understood why the demonic rabbit had hidden.
“Look, there’s a demonic beast corpse here,” a gentle female voice sounded.
Then came a male voice. “Miss Wen, be careful. That is a sixth-rank Armour-Eating Beast.”
Wen Qiao released her divine sense and quickly saw a group of cultivators outside the cavern, about ten people in total. Among them was her cousin Wen Xian, as well as disciples from other Dongling families. They had temporarily formed a group to train together. Now she understood why the demonic rabbit had hidden this time. It had just gone through a major battle and was seriously injured; against ten cultivators, it had no chance of winning.
Wen Qiao was somewhat worried about herself.
Without a companion beast guarding her, would she, who was still just a little seedling, be mistaken for some kind of spiritual herb and dug up by cultivators?
The cultivators led by Wen Xian stood in front of the cavern and looked inside.
The cavern was around twenty zhang deep and could be seen to the end at a glance. Some shade-loving vines grew near the walls, their dark-green leaves clustered together and covering most of the area.
Ever since they had fallen from the maze into this underground space, they had discovered that the terrain here was winding and vast. There were more varieties of demonic beasts and spiritual herbs than outside, and they had gained quite a lot. There were many caverns like this too, filled with shade-loving spiritual plants. Occasionally, they could find some decent-grade spiritual herbs, but there were too many demonic beasts, and fighting them for spiritual herbs was extremely difficult.
Because of the Armour-Eating Beast’s corpse at the cavern entrance, they did not rashly enter.
Among this group, Wen Xian and a Zheng clan disciple named Zheng Haoran were the leaders. After Zheng Haoran examined the Armour-Eating Beast’s corpse, he said, “This Armour-Eating Beast has many injuries. Most of them are from wind blades and brute force. The one that killed it should be a wind-type demonic beast.”
Fights among demonic beasts over territory and resources were extremely common. After knowing the cause of the Armour-Eating Beast’s death, everyone relaxed slightly.
As long as it was not a trap deliberately set by humans, it was fine.
“The Armour-Eating Beast is a sixth-rank demonic beast. The demonic beast that killed it cannot be lower than sixth-rank. Everyone, be careful,” Wen Xian said softly.
“Why did that demonic beast throw the Armour-Eating Beast’s corpse here?”
“Maybe that demonic beast was seriously injured too and had no choice but to hide somewhere and recover first, to avoid the bloody smell attracting other powerful demonic beasts.”
The world of demonic beasts was even more brutal. The strong ruled. After being injured, if they did not hide quickly to recover, they could easily be attacked by other beasts hoping to take advantage.
Everyone guessed for a while, then entered the cavern to investigate.
Wen Qiao worked hard to pretend she was a weed, not even daring to shake her leaves, afraid they would discover her.
Fortunately, there were also some weeds growing nearby. Mixed among them, she was not discovered. Because the place where she had rooted herself was close to the side, several pairs of feet walked back and forth nearby, but no trampling incident occurred. Her leaves and seedling body remained intact.
Seeing the other weeds that had been stepped on and broken, Wen Qiao, out of fellow-feeling, could not help feeling some sympathy.
Wen Xian and the others did not discover any high-value spiritual herbs in the cavern. After collecting the sixth-rank Armour-Eating Beast’s corpse, they soon left.
Wen Qiao let out a breath of relief.
A while after they left, the demonic rabbit crawled out from its hiding place. Its white fur was still stained with blood and dust. It looked weak, pitiful, and helpless, completely lacking the former majesty of a single rabbit challenging ten thousand beasts.
The demonic rabbit dragged its weak body back to guard beside her. Its rabbit ears trembled, and it could not resist licking her leaves a few more times.
Wen Qiao was already numb to it.
While it was licking her, the demonic rabbit’s ears suddenly stood up again, and it swiftly hid itself.
Seeing this, Wen Qiao thought Wen Xian’s group had returned, so she quickly continued pretending to be a weed, trying her best not to be dug up.
A group of cultivators walked in.
When Wen Qiao “saw” the person walking at the front, her leaves trembled with excitement.
Her husband had come!
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