Chapter 235

Chapter 235: The Blood Snake Vertebrae

Translator: Cynthia Editor: CakeHermit

Huge amounts of elemental energy exploded within the limited space of the sinkhole . The scene was spectacular .

Boom!

It was as if the whole city had been struck heavily by a hammer deep underground . The earthquake knocked many people to the ground . From the sky, horrifying fissures could be seen stretching into the distance like old tree roots .

Flames and lights gushed out of the sinkhole like a volcanic eruption . They rushed into the night sky and lit up Central Pine City .

Everyone was stunned by the scene .

Even the flaming ape, mayor, and dean stopped fighting .

The ape suddenly looked afraid . It was not afraid of fire, but that soaring flame had awakened an instinctual fear .

It turned tail and ran .

The flaming ape’s reaction was totally out of the mayor and dean’s expectations . By the time they realized what had happened, they could only see the ape’s receding back . Even though it was escaping, its speed was no slower than their flying speed . Seeing its momentum, the elementalists along its escape route didn’t dare to stop it .

In the blink of an eye, it had rushed to the city’s defensive wall . Without slowing down even a little bit, it directly crashed into the wall .

Boom!

It knocked a big hole in the wall . Having rushed out of the city, the flaming ape looked back for a second and then disappeared into the darkness .

Most people gave a sigh of relief .

Elementalists of the earth and wood attributes hurriedly rushed to the big hole . They needed to repair it before the blood fiends attacked . The ape could break the wall so easily only because it had crashed into the wall from the inside . If it had been the other way around, then the wall would have been much more difficult to break .

The city defense had played an important role so far . Without it, the situation in Central Pine City would have been far more difficult .

Tian Kuan was dumbstruck . This was the first time that he had seen a battle that involved so many elementalists .

He looked at Ai Hui deeply . That guy was as outstanding as he’d expected .

Then Tian Kuan silently disappeared into the darkness .

Wang Zhen floated down from the sky and went to look for Ai Hui . He believed Ai Hui’s reminder had been the key to the battle . If the blood fiends had rushed into the city on a large scale, then the city would have been in great danger .

He believed more and more that Ai Hui was like the Ye Baiyi of that time .

In such a chaotic and dangerous situation, it was not easy to find an opportunity within such a limited timeframe . Even Wang Zhen himself hadn’t thought of using a diving attack, which had proven to be very effective .

As a veteran, Wang Zhen was sensitive to the tiny changes in the battlefield . The elementalists in the sky were all smiling proudly now .

He nodded and remarked on their status in his heart .

Morale was up!

So far, this was the most successful battle in Central Pine City . None of the elementalists who had participated in the diving attack were hurt or dead . Such a brilliant result definitely boosted the elementalists’ morale .

After the fight, Ai Hui, who had been the key to the whole battle, became well known throughout the city .

He was no longer an insignificant young student . The speed of his transformation was even higher and the process was even shorter than that of the blood fiends .

Heroes always emerged in trouble times . People would only show their startling brilliance at critical moments .

Each time he thought of this, Wang Zhen would feel his own age and weakness, but he was fortunate to be able to witness the splendid beginning of such a promising youth in this world .

As he had been looking for a long time without finding Ai Hui, he turned to someone nearby and asked curiously, "Where is Ai Hui?"

The elementalist looked jubilant . He answered, "He went to clean up the battlefield . "

"Won’t it be dangerous?" Wang Zhen was concerned .

"No . " The dean also landed . He smiled and said, "It should be safe now . The sinkhole is like a huge stove; everything inside should have been roasted . "

Hearing what he said, Wang Zhen also smiled .

Even iron and steel would have melted under such a terrifying attack .

It was a pity that such tactics could not always be used in the battle . If it were not in the special environment of the sinkhole, it would not be so powerful .

Ai Hui never fell behind the others when it came to battlefield cleanup .

While others were still worrying if there was still any danger, he had already jumped into the sinkhole with Lou Lan . Inside the sinkhole, it was sweltering hot . The earth was permeated with traces melted things and a burning smell .

Lou Lan was totally unaffected by the choking smells and smoke while Ai Hui didn’t care about them . He had seen worse cases when cleaning up battlefields before . Compared to the possible spoils, this adverse environment was not worth mentioning .

Most of the sinkhole had collapsed, but luckily there were still passageways for them to walk through . The sinkhole that the sandworms had dug was large enough .

Ai Hui walked carefully . As both of them could see in the dark, they noticed the dead bodies of sandworms everywhere on the walls of the passageways . The bodies were already scorched, but a tiny spot of red light like sand were left beside them .

"What is this red light sand?" Ai Hui asked .

Yellow light flickered in Lou Lan’s eyes . "They are the blood crystals of the sandworms . To be precise, they cannot be counted as blood crystals yet, but are something like a blood crystal that has just formed . Ai Hui, these sandworms must have blood-transformed not long ago . "

"Not long ago?" Ai Hui was surprised . Confusion flashed across his eyes .

"Yes . Therefore, the blood crystal sand is not valuable," Lou Lan explained .

Ai Hui followed Lou Lan closely with the grass sword in his hand . The underground was Lou Lan’s world, where Lou Lan could move freely like a fish in water .

Soon, Ai Hui saw the body of a blood fiend whose hair and flesh were all burnt into ashes .

Lou Lan’s eyes lit up . He stretched his hand into the ashes and pulled out a blood crystal .

"Look Ai Hui! Blood crystal!"

Ai Hui was overjoyed . "Finally!"

As they went further in, there were more and more dead blood fiend bodies, many of which were not totally burnt into ashes but still looked frightening due to dehydration . To Ai Hui, however, it was just a piece of cake . He didn’t feel uncomfortable at all .

Not every blood fiend had blood crystals, and some blood crystals were buried underground . Nevertheless, Lou Lan found them all .

Ai Hui grinned from ear to ear . Lou Lan was the best . He would never miss any blood crystals even if they were buried deep in the earth .

Having seen too many miseries, Ai Hui was a bit apathetic, but the piles of bodies and ashes made him fearful . If these blood fiends had rushed into the city from the sinkhole, it would undoubtedly have caused severe casualties .

Luckily, he had been quick enough to think of those tactics . Thinking of this, Ai Hui became complacent . After all, so many elementalists had been present . He’d never thought he could take control before, but now he’d done it .

On the other hand, Ai Hui felt he totally had no need to come down here .

Lou Lan was the one who was crazy at battlefield cleanup, and he was so careful that even Ai Hui felt ashamed for being inferior .

"Ai Hui, I got one!"

"Ai Hui, here here here!"

"Ai Hui, there’s one under your feet, about ten inches deep . "

. . .

"Lou Lan, good job!"

"Lou Lan, you are so great!"

"Lou Lan, you are the best!"

. . .

Apart from "good" and "great", Ai Hui could not think of any other words to praise him .

A former professional could only be a visitor in the sinkhole because Lou Lan was here .

Ai Hui was bored . He looked around casually, and suddenly some faint light came into his sight . He was surprised and fixed his attention on a pile of ashes not far away . There

seemed to be something glowing there .

Curious, he walked towards it .

To be honest, except for the blood crystals, almost all the other parts of the blood fiends were useless .

This was the big difference between blood fiends and wild beasts . The essence of a blood fiend was its blood crystal . Although it could be strong and solid, once it was dead, its flesh and bones would be crispy like biscuits and could not be used at all .

It was really a shame for blood fiends . Wild beasts were also beasts, but they were of great value from head to toe .

Ai Hui walked up to the ashes and rummaged around .

Then he touched something solid .

Ai Hui’s eyes lit up . He grabbed it and pulled it out .

As he was familiar with beasts, Ai Hui could tell at a glance that it was the vertebrae of a blood snake . The blood snake had not been long and its spinal column was only about two meters in length . It was white in color with a texture like jade and porcelain . Its surface was covered with thin, crisscrossed blood streaks like a densely-woven net .

The spinal column was flexible and could be curved at any angle . Each of the joints were closely meshed . Ai Hui was surprised at its weight . He roughly weighed it in his hand and it was at least forty-five kilograms . It was so heavy even though it was less than two meters long and as thick as one’s wrist . Ai Hui wondered if it was made of metal .

"These vertebrae are unique . " Yellow lights kept flickering in Lou Lan’s eyes . "They are almost as dense as thousand traces silverwood and brightlight iron . Bravo!"

Ai Hui was startled, as he knew both thousand traces silverwood and brightlight iron were rare and valuable materials .

Thousand traces silverwood was specially produced in Jadeite Forest . It was a kind of tree that grew slowly and needed wood elementalists to continuously infuse elemental energy into it . This material was white, bright, and very heavy . Before it grew to full size, each growth of one day and night would result in a silver ring in the horizontal cross section of the trunk . If the elemental energy infused into the tree was insufficient, then the silver ring would not form .

It reached its full size when the number of silver rings was one thousand, after which each attribute of the wood would be greatly improved . Even if the wood elementalist spared no effort to cultivate the tree without any negligence, it would still take three years to grow it into a useful timber . Besides, its consumption of elemental energy was far more than other plants . As a result, it was undoubtedly of high value and high price .

Brightlight iron was produced in the Brightlight City of the Silver Mist Sea . It could only be produced by an extraordinary craftsman using several materials . It was as light as a feather, but was extremely solid and shined with a saintly light .

That was why Ai Hui was so surprised to hear that the density of the vertebrae was similar to that of the thousand trace silverwood and brightlight iron .

He took a closer look at the vertebrae . The red blood traces on the white vertebrae were like a pattern; Ai Hui felt he must have seen it somewhere before .

Anyways, the blood snake must have been extraordinary when it had been alive, maybe similar to the blood ape .

The blood ape…

Ai Hui finally realized why he thought the pattern looked familiar; it reminded him of the flaming traces on the blood ape .

He observed the blood traces on the blood snake’s vertebrae . They were similar to the thunder traces mentioned in the swordplay manuals .

Thunder traces?

An idea suddenly occurred to Ai Hui . Could the vertebrae be a natural sword?