During the chaos, Fang Yuan slipped away unnoticed.
He returned to the Yaksha Octopus settlement. Half of the Yaksha Octopus colony still remained.
Fang Yuan repeated his earlier trick, luring the rest of the Yaksha Octopes out as well.
"Damn it! Another ancient-level Yaksha Octopus, plus ten wasteland-beast octopuses! They've practically mobilized the entire colony!" Yaksha Dragon Commander was trapped in the fray. Seeing the Yaksha Octopus reinforcements arrive, he was utterly miserable.
What kind of grudge was this? What kind of enmity?
The other Immortal Zombies also cried out in grievance. What was going on?!
Yet they still had to rescue Star Constellation first.
"Hold on!" Yaksha Dragon Commander roared, no longer stinting on Immortal Essence as he burned through his reserves at a frantic pace.
Burning Heaven Demoness carried immense authority. The Immortal Zombies dared not defy her orders and could only grit their teeth and endure the chaotic battle.
What they were grateful for was that this giant Earth Worm hadn't burrowed beneath the heavy earth layer. Instead, it fought with wild abandon, its massive body twisting and lashing about, sending waves of fierce wind rippling outward.
The Immortal Zombies didn't dare take its attacks head-on and could only strike from a distance. Bit by bit, their accumulated damage soon left the Earth Worm torn and bleeding.
Under normal circumstances, the situation would have been straightforward.
Though the Earth Worm was an ancient wasteland beast, it was no match for Yaksha Dragon Commander and the others.
But the arrival of the Yaksha Octopus colony threw everything into disarray, creating a three-way melee.
They hit each other, everyone hit everyone else, mutual restraint and interference turning the whole scene into utter chaos.
The Yaksha Octopuses were the most numerous, wrapping around both the Immortal Zombies and the Earth Worm, forming an incredibly thick ring of encirclement.
"Star Constellation, you must hold on!" the Tower Master of Thunderstorm Tower shouted.
Though he was deeply displeased with Fang Yuan, the thought of Fang Yuan perishing here made cold sweat break out across his entire body.
Fang Yuan's safety had every Immortal Zombie on edge.
Meanwhile, Fang Yuan himself was calmly infiltrating the Yaksha Octopus colony's lair.
Yaksha Octopuses typically lived on the cliff faces flanking the canyon.
On the cliff before him rose a massive protruding rock formation. This enormous colony of Yaksha Octopuses had bored countless caves into the rock, turning it into their home.
Fang Yuan masked his presence and slipped into a large cave entrance.
The entrance was wide — after all, it had to accommodate the passage of Yaksha Octopuses. A wasteland-beast-level Yaksha Octopus was already enormous, to say nothing of the ancient wasteland-beast Yaksha Octopus King.
The moment Fang Yuan entered, a thick, greasy smell assaulted his nostrils.
The underground tunnel stretched forward into the darkness. Peering inside, one could see nothing but black.
But Fang Yuan's methods of investigation were extremely rich. This amount of darkness was no obstacle at all.
He reached out and ran his hand along the tunnel walls.
The walls were coated in a thick layer of black oil — viscous and slippery.
Why would a normally dry underground tunnel have black oil?
This had to do with the Yaksha Octopuses' habits.
Yaksha Octopuses were fierce beasts that loved to frolic and hunt in the canyon's black oil river. As a result, their bodies were perpetually covered in thick, sticky black oil.
When they passed through these tunnels, the black oil rubbed off their bodies and onto the walls in every direction.
The greasy smell Fang Yuan had detected earlier came precisely from this black oil.
Within the black oil, there were also many peculiar weeds and rotting thorny wood that had taken root in the tunnel walls. The black oil nourished them abundantly.
Glug, glug.
Just as Fang Yuan touched the walls and pulled away a long string of black oil, nearby on the surface of the black oil coating the cave wall, bubbles suddenly began to form.
Then dozens of tiny beetles, smaller than a fingernail, emerged one after another from the bubbles.
Startled by Fang Yuan's movement, they flew off rapidly and soon landed on the black oil on the distant cave ceiling.
This black oil was like a colloid, possessing tremendous adhesive properties that clung firmly to all four walls of the tunnel. Within it lurked not only decaying vegetation but vast swarms of insects.
With insect populations this massive, it was inevitable that some wild Gu Insects would emerge.
A casual sweep of his senses told Fang Yuan that at least four wild Gu Insects were nesting in his immediate vicinity — two earth-path Gu Insects, one dark-path Gu Insect, and one water-path Gu Insect.
Of course, these were all mortal Gu, and Fang Yuan had zero interest in collecting them.
"Yaksha Dragon Commander can raise enormous numbers of Yaksha Octopuses. Could his Immortal Aperture be built on a similar structure?" Fang Yuan's thoughts wandered, speculating.
Yaksha Dragon Commander's cultivation secrets also piqued Fang Yuan's curiosity.
After all, an Immortal Zombie's Immortal Aperture was dead, saturated with death energy. Keeping living creatures inside it seemed completely incompatible.
How had Yaksha Dragon Commander accomplished it?
Perhaps a deeper study of this environment could reveal a glimpse of Yaksha Dragon Commander's secret. But now was not the time for deep investigation. Fang Yuan set those thoughts aside and pressed onward.
Half a cup of tea later.
Aooo—!
A ferocious beast let out a piercing death scream.
But the cry echoed only within a very limited range before vanishing quickly.
Its killer was none other than Fang Yuan.
He had activated a Gu Insect to restrict the spread of the sound.
He had already penetrated deep into the Yaksha Octopus nesting grounds. Here, the black oil on the tunnel walls was seven or eight inches thick, and various beasts lived in the crevices and corners.
Most of these wild beasts were Dark-belly Dogs.
Dark-belly Dogs specialized in consuming rotting flesh and bones. When the Yaksha Octopuses returned from their hunts, they ate only fresh meat, leaving the bones and carrion untouched.
These Dark-belly Dogs fed on the food scraps the Yaksha Octopuses discarded. The Yaksha Octopuses were happy to have them around — they served as cleaners for the colony.
This was a remarkable example of symbiotic coexistence in nature.
The first time Fang Yuan discovered the mutual relationship between Dark-belly Dogs and Yaksha Octopuses, he had transformed into a Dark-belly Dog to explore deeper.
Unfortunately, each Dark-belly Dog had staked out its own territory, and their territorial instincts were even fiercer than the Yaksha Octopuses'.