"Don't kill me." A hoarse, terrified voice rang out.
The monster, which had been spun around like a wind wheel, suddenly stopped. Bei Bei was still gripping one of its roots and shouted, "What, scared now? But... it's too late! Boss, this thing needs to die anyway. Let me finish it off."
Lin Lei gave a slight nod. Deslie and the others remained silent. The monster had clearly been trying to kill Deslie just moments ago. There was no way anyone would let it off lightly.
"Stop!" the monster screamed through its gaping maw, its voice shrill with anguish.
Bei Bei let out two chuckles and looked at the creature. "Stop? You're afraid of dying?"
"Bei Bei, don't waste your breath on it," Lin Lei said.
"You can't kill me! If you kill me, you'll all die!" the monster shrieked in its hoarse voice.
Lin Lei, Deslie, Faen, and the others exchanged glances, then all looked with amusement at the captured plant life. Faen laughed heartily: "We kill you, and we all die? Go on then—tell us, how exactly would you kill us?"
The monster let out a breath of relief. Seeing everyone's attitude, it settled down, and then spoke in its hoarse voice: "If you kill me, I can't personally take my revenge. But... you should understand—this seventh floor of the Divine Tombs doesn't have just me, one exile, does it?"
Lin Lei's brow furrowed.
On the sixth floor they had encountered the Flame Lord, and quite a few people had died on that level. In the end, killing the Flame Lord had been extremely perilous. The seventh floor should be no less dangerous than the sixth. It certainly wouldn't be as simple as just this one plant creature.
"Speak!" Faen snapped with a frown.
All the strong fighters stared at the monster.
"On the seventh floor of the Divine Tombs, I'm merely an ordinary creature. The truly powerful one is the Mother Empress!" There was a hint of pride in the monster's voice. "I advise you to let me go. If you kill me, the Mother Empress will definitely kill you."
"The Mother Empress?" Lin Lei's brow creased in puzzlement.
One of the Six-Eyed Golden Beasts nearby explained to the group: "In certain other planes, some peculiar life forms are divided into a mother body and offspring. All offspring are born from the mother, and the mother's strength can be hundreds or thousands of times that of its offspring. In fact, among magical beasts the Hornet-Fly clan works exactly this way—an entire clan has just one Mother Empress, and all the other magical beasts are her children."
"Mother body... offspring... Mother Empress?" Lin Lei and the others were all inwardly alarmed.
If that was the case, that Mother Empress's power would be far more terrifying than this offspring's.
"Exactly. The relationship between me and the Mother Empress is that of offspring and mother," the monster said quickly. "You should let me go. If you kill me, the Mother Empress will definitely sense it. And when that happens... you will face the Mother Empress's fury. You'll all be dead for certain."
The monster was extremely confident.
The Mother Empress's power was not something an "offspring" like it could be compared to.
"What do we do?" Deslie looked to Lin Lei for his opinion.
Among this group, especially after the sixth floor, Lin Lei's status had quietly risen. His strength was clearly greater than anyone else's. Moreover, people like Tu Lilei had received direct benefits from Lin Lei.
"Do we kill it or not?" Lin Lei was also somewhat hesitant.
He couldn't tell whether the monster was lying or telling the truth.
"Whoosh—" A gust of violent wind, and one of the Six-Eyed Golden Beasts rocketed toward the monster. At the same time, the Six-Eyed Golden Beast's body rapidly swelled until it was as large as a giant dragon. Its golden-furred claws elongated to several meters thick, and the massive claw struck down savagely at the monster.
The monster let out a terrified scream it couldn't suppress.
All three pairs of eyes on the Six-Eyed Golden Beast shot out beams of black light simultaneously. The six rays enveloped the monster, and it froze, unable to move.
"Snap!"
The claw, wreathed in faint spatial cracks, struck the monster's main body, paused for just a moment, and then the body shattered apart like bricks smashed by a sledgehammer. The monster's body split in all directions, and green liquid spilled out.
The whole thing sounded slow, but in reality it took only an instant. The Six-Eyed Golden Beast had already killed the monster.
"Why did you kill it?" Rosalie's eyes, faintly glowing with a jade-green light, fixed coldly on the Six-Eyed Golden Beast. "Aren't you afraid of luring the Mother Empress here?"
"If you don't want the Mother Empress hunting us down, follow me." The Six-Eyed Golden Beast offered no further explanation and flew off in a specific direction. The other two Six-Eyed Golden Beasts immediately followed. Lin Lei, Deslie, and the rest were bewildered but still flew after them.
After traveling roughly a hundred li, the three Six-Eyed Golden Beasts stopped.
"What exactly is going on?" Lin Lei asked.
"If we kill it, the Mother Empress might come after us," Latherford said with a frown.
The leading Six-Eyed Golden Beast let out a scoffing laugh, baring its fangs: "You really are gullible. That monster said a few words, and you actually believed it? It spouts two lines of nonsense and you don't dare kill it?" The two other Six-Eyed Golden Beasts also had amusement in their eyes.
These three Six-Eyed Golden Beasts had followed Dillin through extremely long ages, and their experience far surpassed what Lin Lei's group could match.
"What? Are you saying the monster was lying about being an offspring, about a Mother Empress existing on this seventh floor?" Faen asked.
"No, that part is probably true." The Six-Eyed Golden Beast nodded its large head. "This kind of plant life—we three brothers encountered them back in the Gobata Plane Prison. Plant life forms generally do have a Mother Empress, and the Mother Empress's strength is indeed a hundred or a thousand times that of its offspring!"
"Then why did you kill it?" Karosa asked with a frown.
Lin Lei was also somewhat puzzled.
The Six-Eyed Golden Beast snorted: "You still don't get it? The Mother Empress can give birth to hundreds or thousands of offspring. To the Mother Empress, each offspring is nothing more than a foot soldier. Have you ever heard of a king immediately marching out to take revenge because someone killed one foot soldier?"
The Black-armored Giant Scorpion also droned: "Among magical beasts, the Hornet-Fly clan—their ordinary beasts die all the time, and the Mother Empress truly doesn't care."
"That's only the first reason. The second reason is that it would be good for the Mother Empress to come chase us," the Six-Eyed Golden Beast said.
"Oh?"