novelnext 060: Heart-Eating Leech
060: Heart-Eating Leech
What appeared before them was a colossal creature that terrified them.
First, there is the head, an oval sarcoma with a diameter of more than half a meter, covered with a thick, translucent, dark shadow-colored skin, under which dense, wriggling dark red blood vessels can be seen.
It has no eyes or nose, only a huge horizontal mouth split in the very center, almost spanning the entire "face".
The mouthparts are filled with dozens of spiraling, constantly wriggling flesh-colored suckers, each with a hollow, black bone spur at its center that gleams with a cold light.
The mouthparts secrete a viscous, iridescent digestive fluid that drips onto the ground with a hissing, corrosive sound.
Next comes the body.
A thick, long, segmented body emerged continuously, exceeding half a meter in diameter, with the exposed portion already exceeding five meters! The body surface was covered with dark, thick skin, covered with annular folds and tumor-like protrusions.
Scattered bits of grayish-white old leather, not completely detached, clung to the crevices and wrinkles.
It moves forward by undulating its muscles, crushing rocks in its path and leaving behind trails of sticky, foul-smelling, transparent slime on the ground.
ten meters.
Fifteen meters.
When the monster's body was completely detached from the cave, its total length exceeded eighteen meters!
It occupies a small portion of the depression at the blasted entrance, resembling a moving, death-laden mountain of flesh.
It's much bigger than it looks in the encyclopedia.
Lynch was amazed.
"Hiss—ho—"
The monster's enormous mouth opened abruptly, emitting a strange sound that combined inhalation with hissing. The suckers inside the mouth retracted, and hollow bone spikes extended out, gleaming with a deadly cold light in the dim light.
It "sensed" the group of vibrant lives before it—especially the one enveloped in scorching energy, whose spiritual power shone like a torch.
greedy.
hunger.
The instinct to eat overrides everything.
"Hiss...ho..."
The monster's mouth once again emitted that chilling sound.
Immediately afterwards, its massive body suddenly contracted, like a spring compressed to its limit!
Everyone's heart tightened!
coming soon!
Just as the Heart-Eating Shadow Leech's compressed body was about to burst forth like a spring—
Lin Qi's figure "melted" away from the spot without warning.
There was no afterimage, no sound, as if he had always been just a shadow cast on the edge of the swamp, now quietly swallowed up by the deeper darkness.
[Walking through shadows].
The Heart-Eating Shadow Leech's powerful attack missed its target, its massive body slamming into the spot where Lin Qi had just stood, sending mud and gravel flying into the air.
The next moment—
"Sizzle! Sizzle! Sizzle!"
Three jet-black arrows, condensed to the point of being almost tangible, shot out silently from the shadow of a twisted ancient tree behind the monster!
【Dark Element Arrow】.
The arrow struck precisely at a fold in the fleshy growth in the middle of the Shadow Leech's body, where the energy fluctuations were most chaotic and the thick shadow hide's defenses were relatively weak.
"Pfft pfft pfft!"
Three muffled thuds erupted almost simultaneously. The shadow arrows pierced the thick skin, unleashing a small-scale corrosive energy burst forth, spraying out a mixture of dark yellow, foul-smelling bodily fluids and charred flesh fragments.
The monster's massive body trembled violently, emitting a painful shriek. The struck parts quickly turned gray and withered, as if their life force had been forcibly drained away.
Before it could turn around, Lynch had already quietly emerged from the shadows of another rock.
He was still shrouded in a gray-black cloak, his hood hanging low, obscuring his expression; only his raised arm remained as steady as a rock.
With his left hand outstretched, he aimed at the Heart-Eating Leech, whose movements were slightly slowed due to its injury, and grasped it in mid-air.
【Shadow Binding】.
The distorted shadow cast by the monster's massive body suddenly "came to life"!
Countless slippery, cold shadow tentacles shot out from the shadows, like living vines, quickly wrapping around its thick body, focusing on binding the muscle joints that were contracting and expanding due to wriggling.
The Shadow Leech's momentum abruptly halted. The shadow tentacles, though intangible, possessed a powerful stagnant and corrosive effect, making its prized muscular strength feel as if it were stuck in a viscous quagmire, making each exertion incredibly difficult.
It twisted angrily, trying to break free from these annoying restraints, its thick shadowy skin rubbing against its shadowy tentacles, making a teeth-grinding "crunch" sound, and wisps of black smoke billowed out.
In that very moment when it was struggling and distracted...
A slight ripple appeared in the air above Lynch's shoulder, and a complex, icy blue emblem flashed by. Immediately afterward, a forest sprite, its body sculpted from ice crystals and radiating a chilling aura, took flight.
Its small figure drew an elegant arc in the air, hovering diagonally above the monster, its arms outstretched, and icy blue light rapidly gathered in its palms.
At the same time, golden-red flames surged in front of Lin Qi, and a pure fire fairy tore through the air and emerged. Its orange-red liquid flame body emitted terrifying high temperatures, and sparks rained down as its wings flapped.
"Ice Rain Technique." Lin Qi's mind stirred slightly.
The cold light in the forest fairy's palm exploded silently, turning into a rain of sharp ice crystals covering an area of several meters in diameter, which poured down on the area around the head and mouthparts of the Heart-Eating Shadow Leech!
Extreme cold instantly enveloped the area, freezing the iridescent digestive fluid secreted from the edges of the monster's mouthparts with a crisp "crack" sound. A layer of white frost also condensed on the surface of the wriggling suckers, making their movements stiff and sluggish.
"Hiss—!"
The Heart-Eating Shadow Leech let out a howl mixed with pain and rage. It suddenly swung its head, trying to break free from the frost's restraints. Its body was deformed by the entanglement of the shadow tentacles and the invasion of the icy cold, making it appear clumsy and frantic.
It focused all its attention on breaking free and gaining control, its mouth wide open, with gray-black negative energy churning and brewing within, ready to be expelled.
In that very instant.
A cold glint flashed in Lin Qi's eyes.
The pure fire fairy's wings suddenly stopped, hovering in mid-air. Its eyes, pulsating with platinum flames, locked onto the wound area in the middle of the Heart-Eating Shadow Leech's body, exposed by its struggle and pierced by dark elemental arrows and covered by icy rain.
"Blazing Nova." The command was clear and cold.
The pure fire fairy let out a high-pitched, ear-piercing roar, and its entire body, composed of liquid flames, shone like a miniature sun in that instant!
All the golden veins inside surged wildly, the surging fire elemental energy compressed to its limit, and then—
"boom--!!!!!"
The deafening explosion ripped through the valley's deathly silence!
A terrifying ring of fire, more than ten meters in diameter, with blazing white edges and churning golden-red and orange-yellow flames inside, suddenly erupted from the center of the pure fire fairy!
The ring of fire did not spread evenly, but under Lin Qi's precise mental guidance, it was like a giant, living maw of fire, fiercely "biting" at the wound in the middle of the Heart-Eating Shadow Leech's body!
The extreme heat and the previous extreme cold created a devastating energy clash and physical collapse at the wound!
"Sizzle—!!!"
The Heart-Eating Shadow Leech's tough, thick shadow hide emitted a chilling tearing sound as it was ravaged by the dual extreme forces of ice and fire.
The charred, carbonized, cracked, and frozen flesh peeled off and flew away in large pieces like weathered soil and rocks under the violent impact of the flames!
The dark red muscle tissue below instantly curled up and charred in the flames, emitting thick smoke and a foul stench.
The wound was completely torn open and enlarged by the blazing nova, so deep that the bone was visible, and one could even glimpse the writhing internal organs beneath, sizzling from the intense heat!
This is no longer just trauma, but a devastating blow to the body's structure!
"Hiss...ho..."
The chilling hiss of the Heart-Eating Shadow Leech suddenly became weak.
Its massive, mountain-like body convulsed violently, no longer a powerful writhing, but a spasm before death.
Soon,
The twisted body, stretching eighteen meters long, lost all its supporting strength and collapsed with a thud among the mud and rubble, stirring up a final, foul wave.
The remaining muscles twitched a few times nervously before falling completely silent.