Chapter 157: Hundred-Eyed Monster

"Pick one that looks acceptable as your second spirit ring." Wen Qiang said from behind Huo Yuqing.

No… none of them look acceptable! Huo Yuqing screamed internally.

For a moment, the other three teenagers present all looked at her with sympathy.

Even though spirit rings all looked the same, these creatures were just too disgusting!

"What… what exactly is this thing?" Huo Yuqing felt her skin crawl and involuntarily took two steps back.

To be fair, this thing didn't even look like it could produce a spirit ring… Even if it could, absorbing its spirit ring would clearly require an exceptionally strong mental fortitude.

"A type of pest." An Wen muttered unhappily, raising her gun and stabbing forcefully at a massive eyeball. The huge eye burst open, spraying fluid in all directions. As soon as the liquid hit the endlessly churning black sludge, it immediately transformed into even more spinning little eyeballs, making Huo Yuqing feel utterly nauseous. "These things are disgusting and hard to kill… My entire vacation has been wasted on this."

Huo Yuqing suddenly felt a faint wave of nausea and dizziness.

"I've been here for two months." Another unfamiliar young man grumbled. He held three bright green begonia flowers in his hands, but the nine stamens in the center of the flowers were an intense shade of deep purple. The combination of these two colors made them look extremely poisonous.

With a wave of his hand, a streak of eerie green light landed on the writhing eyeballs. Instantly, the black sludge wrapped around the eyeballs churned violently, and grotesque protrusions began to grow on the eyeballs' surfaces, multiplying into even smaller eyes before bursting one by one.

"I've been stuck here for three months… testing soul tools." He Caitou raised his cannon with a numb expression and blasted a shot at the newly formed small eyeballs, sighing as he coldly exterminated them.

"Less talking, more working—that's what really matters." Wen Qiang said lazily. "Training down here helps increase spiritual power. Most people don't even get the chance to come."

Hearing this, Huo Yuqing, who had been disgusted just moments ago, suddenly brightened up.

In reality, these wriggling eyeballs couldn't exactly be considered conventional life forms.

Just like how the extreme north, with its dense ice elements, gave birth to ice elemental creatures—eventually forming the Snow Maiden race after a series of transformations—the depths of the underground, filled with dark elements, could also produce dark elemental beings.

Although elemental beings were called "living creatures," they didn't need to eat and couldn't reproduce. Except for a few special individuals, most of them required billions of years to develop a clear self-awareness. Until then, they would simply wander their place of origin—unless they fused with an external spiritual force. For example, the soul of a human who died in the extreme cold might fuse with an ice elemental creature and transform into a Snow Maiden. In a way, ordinary Snow Maidens could even be considered a type of undead.

Meanwhile, this wriggling, eyeball-filled black sludge was a fusion of newly formed dark elemental creatures and the lingering spiritual power of the Evil-Eyed Tyrant Lord.

Years ago, after the alliance between the Star Dou Forest and the Evil Demon Forest, Wang Rui had invited the Evil Emperor to Star Dou to assist in constructing the Ant Nest. With his spatial and temporal abilities, he reinforced and expanded some of the crucial planting chambers, even setting up formations to accelerate crop growth.

Spatial and temporal abilities are so useful.jpg

Wang Rui had even wished he could keep the Evil Emperor in Star Dou permanently, but unfortunately, the Evil Emperor couldn't abandon his brood of evil offspring. The two had engaged in some rather questionable deals to arrange for the Evil Emperor to return periodically for reinforcement work, but that was a separate matter.

Afterward, however, areas within the Ant Nest that retained traces of the Evil Emperor's spiritual power started spawning wave after wave of eyeball-infested black sludge.

Thus, the fusion of eyeballs and sludge—classified as the Shadow Hundred-Eyed Monster soul beast—was, in a way, also one of the Evil Emperor's "descendants."

This was pure nightmare fuel.

The Evil Eyes were soul beasts from another realm, possessing a strange trait: prolonged exposure to their unique spiritual energy radiation could mutate weak newborn creatures into multi-eyed monsters.

In the Evil Emperor's domain, the Evil Demon Forest, remnants of Evil Eye spiritual power often gave rise to Hundred-Eyed Monsters. Unlike the ones in Star Dou, however, those creatures could actually cultivate and reproduce normally. It wasn't incorrect to call them a companion species to the Evil Eyes.

But here in Star Dou, the underground Shadow Hundred-Eyed Monsters were different. Though they had primitive awareness, the spiritual power that awakened them was only a faint trace of the Evil Emperor's consciousness. As a result, they were inherently flawed and could never become truly independent beings.

No matter how powerful a Shadow Hundred-Eyed Monster grew, it would only ever do two things: attack and consume.

They couldn't communicate, they couldn't think, and worst of all, they were even harder to get rid of than weeds. No matter how many were killed, more would always sprout up to replace them. Their infestation threatened the underground food supply, making them even more of a menace than locust-type soul beasts.

Unless all traces of the Evil Emperor's energy were purged, the Shadow Hundred-Eyed Monsters would continue to spawn endlessly, devouring the crops the ants had painstakingly cultivated.

However, the crops grown in the Ant Nest were needed to feed both humans and soul beasts in multiple cities. Removing the Evil Emperor's spatial and temporal energy wasn't an option, so annual extermination missions became necessary.

Thankfully, the laws of the Douluo world classified these Shadow Hundred-Eyed Monsters as soul beasts, meaning they could produce high-quality spirit rings.

As revolting as they looked, their spirit rings offered strong spiritual enhancements, making them an excellent choice for Huo Yuqing… if only they weren't so hard to kill.

Hadn't all these attacks landed on the Shadow Hundred-Eyed Monster? Why hadn't a spirit ring appeared yet?

"Well, you young folks work hard. I won't get in your way. Once you clear out planting chambers #300 to #400, you can head back up." Wen Qiang waved lazily and strolled out of the planting chamber.

"There are still forty more… Good luck, everyone." He Caitou tried to encourage the group, but his words fell flat.

With the supervisor gone, it was time to slack off.

The unfamiliar young man retracted his martial soul, grabbed a broom to sweep the black sludge remnants to the side, then leaned against the wall and stared blankly at the ceiling.

Han Wen also dismissed her martial soul, flopping down next to Huo Yuqing with zero grace, fully embracing the art of slacking off.

He Caitou let out a long sigh and pulled out a few cigars, handing them to everyone.

"The Hundred-Eyed Monsters have a rather peculiar ability, and everyone's exhausted." He exhaled a cloud of smoke while explaining. "You're a spirit-type soul master, so maybe you don't feel it as much, but just standing here puts a lot of pressure on us."

Huo Yuqing recalled the lingering nausea and dizziness that had been present since she entered the room and suddenly realized something.

Meanwhile, Han Wen lazily squirmed on the ground and gave Huo Yuqing a pat on the shoulder before nudging the unfamiliar young man. "This is Huo Yuhao." She said sloppily. "And this is Du Gu Shuke. Great, you two know each other now."

Huo Yuqing suddenly realized whose facial features he resembled.

"I know you." Du Gu Shuke tilted his head to look at her. "Even though you're my great-aunt's disciple, that's a separate matter. I'm two years older than you, so you have to call me 'big brother.'"

His facial features bore a strong resemblance to Lu Mingyou's, though partly obscured by a birthmark.

For some reason, Huo Yuqing suddenly thought of a certain talkative white-haired person—though she had no idea that, with Wang Rui around, she was actually being forced into an even more complicated family hierarchy.

"Alright, Brother Du Gu." Huo Yuqing nodded.

Du Gu Shuke looked rather satisfied.

"Hey, is the Extreme North fun?" Han Wen poked Huo Yuqing's ribs again. "I've never been there. Oh right, show me your second martial soul!"

(End of Chapter)