Chapter 2026: Chapter 2026: Fanged Cicadas

The deeper they dove in, the stronger the stinky smell got.

Yan looked around with vigilance. “Brother, it's dangerous below. You should slow down,” she reminded Zen in a low voice.

With that, she gently tapped with her tiptoes and moved her sword downwards.

By doing so, she could quickly block and defend Zen if any danger arose suddenly.

Zen, however, looked speechless at Yan's actions. Was he that weak in his sister's eyes?

After they descended for another five thousand feet, they finally found the source of the rotten smell.

“Oh my God! It's a dead giant worm!”

“It's rotting, so that's where the smell came from!”

Those giant worms had a green colored body and they normally looked like cabbageworms, only tens of millions of times larger.

The dead giant worm in front of them, however, had turned greyish-brown. Its hard shell was severely damaged and was covered with numerous holes of various sizes.

“How did this giant worm die?” some of them asked curiously.

“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!”

At that moment, their musings were interrupted by a swishing sound that came from above them.

It turned out to be the members of the Sword Clan that came at a later time.

As their leader, Reinhard, arrived, he looked around until his gaze rested on Zen and Yan. His lips curved into a faint smile and nodded at Zen.

Zen didn't know about Marsh's plan, but he knew that the Sword Clan had decided to cooperate with Harold this time, so he nodded in response.

“This is a larva of its kind. They usually take dozens of divine eras to mature, and they never move while they're still larvae,” Reinhard explained as he eyed the dead worm with a frown. He added, "This larva… It wasn't able to resist the other creatures that must've paralyzed it.

Some of its flesh and blood had been eaten, and its body began to rot after it died...“”What creatures?" a True God asked warily.

“Fanged Cicadas,” Reinhard replied in a calm voice.

“Cicadas? Aren't all cicadas very noisy? Can't the Fanged Cicadas make any noise?” another True God asked. Generally speaking, most species of cicadas in the divine land were quite strong.

Their most lasting impression on people, however, were their noisy sounds.

It was especially true for the type of cicadas whose most powerful method was their suicide attacks.

Those fist-sized creatures would detonate their own bodies, which caused sound waves that could shatter everything into smithereens within a hundred mile radius.

If even a single cicada of such kind was put into a universe, its power would be enough to destroy an entire supreme world.

Now, many of them doubted Reinhard's words because the place was too quiet, without any signs of cicadas.

“You're right,” Reinhard stated. He knew that many of them would hesitate to believe what he said. Thus, he patiently reminded them, “The Fanged Cicadas can't make a sound, but they are more troublesome than other ferocious bugs. Even the members of our Sword Clan are only able to protect ourselves. Everyone, please be careful...”

Suddenly, the dead, rotting body of the giant worm emitted a light explosive sound the moment he finished speaking.

Everyone was already nervous in such an environment, and Reinhard's words made them even more alert.

They couldn't deny that the abrupt sound frightened all of them.

Just then, one small part of the giant worm's body exploded and released a fluid-like, brownish-yellow stench.

“It's just corpse miasma, nothing to be afraid of!” laughed an old man with a dark face.

Corpses usually emitted a stinky, dark colored fluid and odor after being left alone for a long time. The dead worm's organs were already filled with miasma after they rotted. Furthermore, it was so huge, so it was normal for its body to break because of the pressure. ꞦＡƝȮ𝖇ÊṤ

Just as the old man finished his words, a beam of black light flashed in the darkness at an astonishing speed.

“Phew! Crack!”

The old man trembled slightly, and then his arms drooped to his sides. There was a round hole on his forehead where blood bubbled out.

“Hahaha!” the old man laughed all of a sudden.

Then, his body began to sway unsteadily on his flying sword.

Whoosh!

At the same time, the others felt an extremely powerful energy that came from his belly — it was a sign of suicide explosion!

It was known that a top-rank True God possessed an already perfect and immensely spacious inner world. Therefore, it would unleash an unimaginably enormous amount of power if it exploded.

After the black light shot into the old man's head, everything including the explosion of his belly, happened in just a blink of an eye. Nobody had the time to stop it.

“Hurry up! Get away from him!”

“This guy is going to explode himself!”

The other True Gods wasted no time as they immediately fled and plunged downward.

Some of the top-rank True Gods even abandoned their flying swords. Flying was not prohibited in the Killing Zone, so flying on the swords was actually unnecessary for them.

Puff!

Just as the man was about to explode, someone rushed over to the man and ripped his head off!

After the old man's head was torn away from his body, the violent energy in his elixir field slowly dissipated, and his suicide explosion was stopped.

The headless body gently keeled over the flying sword, before it finally fell into the endless abyss.

Only then did everyone clearly see the face of the man who had stopped the disaster. It was Duke, the top-rank True God from the Dongfang Clan!

“Once the Fanged Cicadas have entered your brains, they can eat up your souls very quickly and control your bodies. After that, they would detonate your elixir fields straight,” Duke explained to the crowd and finally looked at Zen. “If the Fanged Cicadas parasitized anyone of you, don't blame me if I have to kill you mercilessly,” he added.

Duke secretly thought that it would be best if such a thing happened to Zen or Yan, so he would have a reason to kill them.

Everyone looked miserable upon hearing Duke's words.

No one wanted to become a headless corpse like the old man.

The Fanged Cicadas, however, moved so fast that they barely had time to react. Even though the giant worm was still a larva, it was tens of thousands or even millions of feet long. It was too dangerous to continue downward!

A frown made its way to Reinhard's face as well.

He knew he had to be more careful about Duke. Since Duke was a top-rank True God from the Dongfang Clan, the True Gods of the other large clans on the Floating Islands might obey his words without question. Duke had moved so fast just now that Reinhard was even wary of his strength.

At that point, everyone heard another light explosive sound.

Almost all of the top-rank True Gods breathed quickly at the same time. Everyone's nerves were on edge.

Phew!

Another beam of jet black light flashed in the air!

Swish!

This time, Reinhard had seen it clearly.

He already launched an attack while the black light was still in the air.

He slashed with his sword so fast that his movements looked almost blurry.

A sword slash had three steps: unsheathing the sword, slashing the sword, and then returning the sword to the sheath.

When Reinhard did it, it was so fluid that all three steps looked like only one step.

The rest of them heard a crisp sound as soon as he returned his sword to its sheath. He had cut the black light in the air into two with his sword.

When Duke, who was still holding the old man's head, saw Reinhard's sword slash, his eyes were filled with caution.