26: Chapter 26 The marking stopped working.

After taking several deep breaths amidst the clouds, Lin Sheng slightly calmed his anxious mood.

At the thought of having encountered that kind of thing at such a close distance just now, Lin Sheng still felt a lingering fear in his heart.

This world was still too dangerous; he would need to act with even more caution in the future.

While thinking this, Lin Sheng slowly lowered his flight altitude.

Looking at the densely packed scorpions below, Lin Sheng silently calculated in his mind.

The energy contained within these scorpions was incredibly rich; for the same body size, they provided several times more evolution points than other creatures.

If he were to simply remove them from his menu like this, Lin Sheng was naturally unwilling.

But if he really wanted to prey on them, that Giant Scorpion in the sand pit was a hurdle that could not be bypassed.

Furthermore, from the last encounter, it seemed that as soon as these scorpions ran out of rays, they would inevitably return here.

In this way, the difficulty of Lin Sheng's hunting would bound to increase greatly.

To hunt these scorpions at will, he had to deal with that Giant Scorpion.

And if Lin Sheng could deal with that Giant Scorpion, it seemed he wouldn't need to hunt these small scorpions anymore.

For a moment, Lin Sheng's hunting targets fell into a closed loop.

"Forget it."

Lin Sheng shook his head, tossing this problem of the century out of his mind.

Since this group of scorpions had a boss and he couldn't do anything to them now, Lin Sheng intended to follow his previous example with the Plain and place a mark here as well.

Once his strength was great enough, he would return here to enjoy the buffet.

With this idea in mind, Lin Sheng descended a bit further.

He then used his "Mark Tracking" talent to place a mark inside the sand pit.

However, just as Lin Sheng finished marking and intended to leave, a dangerous aura suddenly emanated from within the sand pit.

Lin Sheng only felt a sudden flash of light inside, and then...

And then the mark he had made simply vanished.

Lin Sheng was surprised for a moment, then he marked the sand pit again.

The same thing happened again; after the mark was made, a bright light flashed in the sand pit, and his mark disappeared.

Refusing to believe it, Lin Sheng marked the sand pit for a third time.

This time, the mark did not disappear immediately.

Just as Lin Sheng thought he had succeeded, a sudden change occurred.

At the entrance of the sand pit, a scorpion with a body roughly the size of four football fields suddenly crawled out.

This Giant Scorpion had a tail that was nearly twice as long as its body.

The moment Lin Sheng saw this scorpion, he had already hidden back into the clouds.

After the scorpion emerged, it appeared to be extremely furious.

It kept roaring at the Sky, the "du-du" sounds penetrating the clouds, nearly shattering Lin Sheng's eardrums.

Seeing that it couldn't find the fellow who had marked its nest, the Giant Scorpion danced its tail wildly in rage.

Rays thicker than Lin Sheng's waist shot out from the tip of its tail, directly shredding the clouds near Lin Sheng to pieces.

Vaguely, Lin Sheng could see several massive creatures falling out from the clouds.

He silently noted the locations where these creatures fell, intending to go there and scavenge the corpses after marking this place.

After a while, perhaps having vented enough, the Giant Scorpion glanced toward where Lin Sheng was and silently returned to the sand pit.

Meeting that hateful gaze from the Giant Scorpion, Lin Sheng had no doubt that if the Giant Scorpion could fly, he would have died countless times by now.

Fortunately, however, it could not fly.

Lin Sheng cautiously approached a spot not far from the sand pit; he was smarter this time, knowing that the previous marks were erased by the Giant Scorpion, he no longer intended to mark inside the pit.

After placing a mark not far from the sand pit, Lin Sheng left and went to find the corpses that had fallen from the Sky earlier.

...

When Lin Sheng reached the nearest corpse, he saw a "Devil Ray" of the kind he had encountered before dragging the corpse into the sand.

Fortunately, the creature's corpse was quite large, so the "Devil Ray" couldn't drag it down immediately.

But even so, seeing his food about to be stolen, Lin Sheng naturally wouldn't sit idly by.

He rushed forward and severed the tube connected to the back of the "Devil Ray" with one claw.

After the tube disconnected from the "Devil Ray," it quickly retreated back underground, not giving Lin Sheng a single moment to react.

Seeing this, Lin Sheng instead began to grow curious about this thing.

All signs indicated that these "Devil Rays" likely didn't have their own independent thoughts.

They were likely parts of a certain creature, or a single collective entity.

If they were parts of a certain creature, then those tubes connected to their backs must be vital organs of that creature.

Otherwise, why would those tubes immediately flee when Lin Sheng captured a "Devil Ray"?

And if they were a single collective entity, Lin Sheng looked at the dead "Devil Ray" on the ground and felt that didn't quite make sense.

Because the "Devil Ray" seemed to have its own thoughts.

Looking at it this way, the possibility of Lin Sheng's first guess was very high.

These "Devil Rays" were very likely parts of a certain creature or several creatures.

And that creature or those creatures grew underground, using these "Devil Ray"-like organs to forage on the surface.

As for why they didn't come up personally?

Lin Sheng had two guesses here.

Either they were too lazy to come up, or it—or they—were too weak and would surely die upon surfacing.

Thinking of the highly possible second guess, Lin Sheng felt a bit of an itch in his heart.

But reason told him it was too risky.

If he went through all the trouble to drill underground only to encounter not a weak food source but a monster like the Giant Scorpion, that would be a huge disaster.

After thinking it over, Lin Sheng immediately tossed that reckless thought out of his mind.

He glanced at the corpse beside him, which had sunk slightly more than before, and suddenly had an idea.

Lin Sheng first swallowed the "Devil Ray," then swallowed more than half of that unknown creature's corpse.

evolution points +542

evolution points +5421

Then, looking at the large chunk of meat in front of him that was oozing blood, Lin Sheng quietly backed away a certain distance.

Just as Lin Sheng retreated about ten meters, the chunk of meat he had left on the ground moved.

The sand around it showed a slight depression, which then grew deeper and deeper.

A "Devil Ray" suddenly burst out of the sand, its body wrapping around the meat before it nimbly bored back into the ground.