264: Group evolution

Three minutes passed in a flash.

As a series of explosions echoed in Yang Dian's ears, the ground began to tremble slightly.

A moment later, the smoke and dust cleared, revealing a giant sinkhole with a diameter of nearly 800 meters before Yang Dian's eyes.

After waiting three minutes and seeing no movement within the sinkhole, Uncle Lei, accompanied by an Awakened in his twenties, flew to the edge of the sinkhole.

Yang Dian only saw the Awakened take a deep breath, perform an epic lungful over the sinkhole, and then start coughing madly.

A moment later, Uncle Lei brought the Awakened to the group of Awakened, then approached Yang Dian and the other two.

"Li Gu smelled 11 unknown creatures at the mouth of the sinkhole."

Perhaps fearing that someone wouldn't know Li Gu's talent, he added:

"He Awakened a smell-based talent, allowing him to distinguish creatures through scent."

The three exchanged glances, then Yang Dian spoke:

"Uncle Lei, just proceed according to the plan."

"City-Level and below underground creatures will be handled by you or the anti-aircraft guns; City-Level underground creatures will be handled by us. If we're overwhelmed, we'll use satellite strikes."

Uncle Lei nodded, then transformed into a bolt of lightning and flew to the edge of the sinkhole, pulling out an oversized speaker and lowering it into the sinkhole. Then he took out a spatial bracelet and shattered it directly.

"Whoosh~"

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cubic meters of pig's blood poured from the bracelet, directly filling the sinkhole.

As the scent of blood diffused, a harsh, irregular, high-frequency noise also emanated from the speaker.

Listening closely, Yang Dian could hear a rhythmic flapping sound mixed with the noise, and the sound was getting closer.

"Something is coming out."

As soon as he spoke, the bats he had seen in the Shennongjia sinkhole not long ago flew out of the sinkhole again.

But upon closer inspection of the bats that were cut into several pieces by wind blades as soon as they flew out of the cave, Yang Dian noticed differences.

Firstly, these bats were not afraid of light.

Secondly, these bats had scales on their bodies, and their wing claws were huge and sharp.

The bats in Shennongjia had fur on their bodies, smaller wing claws, but longer canines than these bats.

'It's normal for the same species to exhibit different characteristics in different regions...'

As thoughts spun in his mind, another rustling sound came.

Soon after, a group of underground creatures, black-bodied, standing about a meter tall, resembling mantises with sharp bladed limbs but no wings, rushed out of the sinkhole.

These black mantises possessed extremely strong jumping abilities.

With a light leap, they jumped dozens of meters into the air.

Then... they embraced the bat corpses, which had been cut into several segments by wind blades, and began to devour them.

Upon seeing this scene, Yang Dian couldn't help but exchange glances with Old Daoist Qingfeng and Old Master Tang Shichang.

This scene could only be described as unexpected, yet within reason.

At the same time, a female Awakened who had just ascended the city wall suddenly spoke:

"Don't attack those black mantises yet; they can communicate."

"Food, water, combat."

"This is the information they are conveying."

Uncle Lei frowned upon hearing this:

"What does that mean?"

"Does it mean if we give them food and water, they'll help us fight?"

"Or does it mean they want food, water, and also combat?"

No sooner had Uncle Lei finished speaking than a blur of motion shot out from the edge of the sinkhole, snatched three wingless mantises, and quickly retracted.

Focusing his gaze, Yang Dian realized that a chameleon-like creature, capable of camouflaging with its surroundings but over 10 meters long, had climbed to the edge of the sinkhole at some unknown point.

No, not just one.

As the first chameleon made its move, four more blurs appeared from the edge of the sinkhole.

Looking towards the source of the blurs, one could see that they were four chameleons, some as short as 5 meters, others as long as 20 meters.

In the eyes of one of the chameleons, Yang Dian even saw a familiar blue light.

'An underground creature that can use that kind of energy pulse?'

'However, its strength seems weaker than the giant lizard, the salamander, and that two-headed Pterodactyl; it's far from reaching City-Level.'

Just as Yang Dian was pondering, blue patterns suddenly appeared on a black mantis about 1.3 meters tall.

Its already incredible speed suddenly doubled, turning into a blur as it leaped to the side of the smallest chameleon, swinging its forelimb and severing the chameleon's head.

"Daoist priest, do you think there might be some Ore underground that could alter the genes of underground creatures that consumed the Ore veins?"

"That giant lizard I encountered in Shennongjia, that salamander in the Kunlun Mountains, that two-headed Pterodactyl in the Tanggula Mountains, and this mantis..."

Yang Dian hadn't finished speaking when blue flashing lights abruptly flickered on the back of the 20-meter-long chameleon.

Then it opened its mouth and spat a blue beam of light towards the black mantis, which was 1.3 meters tall.

"Bang~"

The blue beam missed the mantis, which had sensed danger in advance, but grazed the ground and struck the city wall, constructed of reinforced concrete.

Looking at the 30-meter wall, which was almost completely penetrated, Yang Dian's pupils contracted involuntarily.

In terms of individual destructive power, it was already stronger than most Block-Level Awakened.

At the same time, the female Awakened responsible for mental communication spoke again:

"The chameleon cannot be communicated with; its consciousness only contains the concept of eating."

No sooner had she finished speaking than, not far from Yang Dian, the muzzle of an anti-aircraft gun spewed flames, directly pulverizing the heads of the four chameleons.

Behind the anti-aircraft gun, a fully armed soldier, seeing Yang Dian's gaze fall upon him, immediately revealed a simple, honest smile.

Yang Dian gave him a thumbs-up, then turned his attention back to the edge of the sinkhole.

The anti-aircraft guns were newly manufactured old-model anti-aircraft guns.

They required a manual crank or spring to drive the turret rotation, used gravity to assist in loading ammunition, and employed a mechanical aiming System.

In short, everything was manual.

The downside was that the rate of fire was limited by manual loading, requiring visual observation of targets, and precision was limited.

The advantage was that they would not be destroyed by pulse waves; before a shield capable of defending against pulse waves could be created, they could be used in emergencies.

'Dr. Bai doesn't seem to be very effective this time.'

'How long have the underground caves been appearing, and he still hasn't created a pulse wave defense shield.'

'Is it that the technology hasn't advanced in that direction, or is he busy with other things?'

As Yang Dian pondered, the number of underground creatures rushing out of the sinkhole gradually decreased.

Of course, from what he could perceive, there were still many underground creatures inside the sinkhole.

However, many underground creatures were photophobic and dared not rush out to the surface.

Some underground creatures seemed to be natural enemies; they fought when they encountered each other.

Still other underground creatures only knew how to eat; upon reaching the sinkhole, they began to lick the pig's blood and devour the bat corpses that had fallen from above.

It wasn't until a chilling low growl echoed from the depths of the sinkhole that those underground creatures scattered in panicked roars.

Even the black mantises, which had always shown great courage, vanished in an instant.

Old Daoist Qingfeng, hearing this, uneasily rubbed the goosebumps that had appeared on his arms.

"Something seems to be wrong."

No sooner had he spoken than, amidst a rustling sound, the two sides of the sinkhole began to collapse...