The Gold-Munching Mouse King had truly been swayed by Jiang Chen.
"Human, I respect you. You are the first human who has ever made me voluntarily withdraw my forces. However, I hope you will honor your promise."
As the Gold-Munching Mouse King spoke, it let out three short, sharp squeals toward the boundless tide of mice—the signal to sound the retreat.
Upon receiving the signal, the Gold-Munching Mice turned around en masse and began withdrawing.
In the span of a few breaths, every single Gold-Munching Mouse that had been swarming the hilltop had vanished completely. Looking at the hillside now, aside from yellow earth strewn everywhere, there was not a single intact tree in sight.
"I only have one month in this place, and what remains is less than half a month. Either you come with me, or I spend this remaining time teaching you everything I know!"
The Gold-Munching Mouse King furrowed its brow. It had some understanding of this Labyrinth world and knew that humans could not survive here permanently.
These humans had all come from the outside world. None of them could stay in here long-term.
"Perhaps leaving this place isn't such a bad choice?" the Gold-Munching Mouse King mused. "I've long heard that this is an isolated world, completely cut off from the outside. They say the world beyond is wondrous—endless resources, countless powerful beings, countless different races. Perhaps out there, I could find even more clues for bloodline evolution?"
"I choose to leave," the Gold-Munching Mouse King decided.
"I have so many that I obviously can't take them all. What do you suggest?"
"That's no problem. Our Gold-Munching Mouse clan possesses a unique living space called the Wanhao Stone Nest. Each Wanhao Stone Nest can hold millions of our offspring. The Wanhao Stone Nest involves spatial arts—it's one of our inherited abilities. Think of it like a beehive. No one outside our clan can understand it."
"The Wanhao Stone Nest? How big is one?" In his memory, Jiang Chen seemed to recall that the Gold-Munching King Mouse did indeed possess something called a Wanhao Stone, but he had never paid attention to what it actually was. So it turned out to be the nesting space of the Gold-Munching Mouse clan?
"It can be large or small. A small one is the size of a fist; a large one is about the size of this rock."
"This size?" Jiang Chen couldn't help but marvel. Every race had its own special abilities. Something like the Wanhao Stone Nest was simply inconceivable to humans.
These large rocks were each roughly the size of a water buffalo, but they weren't really that enormous in the grand scheme of things. To hold millions of Gold-Munching Mice—that was truly extraordinary.
"The Wanhao Stone Nest involves spatial arts, so inside it must be layered and folded, applying the laws of spatial manipulation to a level of exquisite perfection. It seems every race possesses remarkable wisdom and formidable divine abilities."
Of course, humans had their own version of this kind of ability. Take the Storage Ring, for instance—a tiny ring that could hold heaven and earth within, or carry people and objects. Wasn't that also an application of spatial arts?
In the end, the principle behind the Wanhao Stone Nest was essentially the same as the storage tools humans used.
It was simply a matter of different races, different wisdom, and different methods.
This clan of Gold-Munching Mice numbered roughly two to three hundred million. Even with the Wanhao Stone Nests, there were well over a hundred of them. Fortunately, Jiang Chen's Storage Ring was spacious enough to hold them all.
However, whether bringing this entire clan of Gold-Munching Mice out would prove a blessing or a curse, no one could say.
Jiang Chen reached an agreement with the Gold-Munching Mouse King: he would let the clan prepare first, then come to retrieve them. This sort of thing was best done out of sight.
Otherwise, if his companions found out he had just smuggled two to three hundred million Gold-Munching Mice out of the Labyrinth, it would scare them witless!
If word ever got out, every single king among the Sixteen Surrounding Kingdoms would lose sleep over it.
This was far more terrifying than the Golden-Winged Sword Bird army.
The Golden-Winged Sword Bird army, though large in number, had never reached this level of horror.
Moreover, the destructive capability of the Gold-Munching Mice surpassed even the Golden-Winged Sword Bird army. And this Gold-Munching Mouse King itself was equivalent to a late-stage human Spirit Realm cultivator—that is, the Heavenly Spirit Realm—making it not far at all from the Spirit King realm.
But since when had the Gold-Munching Mouse clan ever relied on individual strength to defeat their enemies?
Watching the Gold-Munching Mice rolling back like a tide and actually retreating before their eyes, Ye Rong and the others felt a sense of unreality, almost suspecting that what had just happened was nothing but a nightmare.
But gazing at the territory the mice had trampled—utterly ruined, not a single inch left intact—they had no choice but to believe it. The Gold-Munching Mouse tide had indeed come.
Whew!
The feeling of cheating death was truly wonderful!
Consort Dan noticed Jiang Chen's half-smiling expression and walked over, curiosity piqued. "Jiang Chen, you actually convinced the Gold-Munching Mouse King to withdraw?"
"How on earth did you manage that?" Consort Dan was genuinely curious.
Jiang Chen smiled. "I happen to know a few words of Beast Language. I just chatted with it for a bit. One thing led to another, and we got acquainted. It was hunting for whoever had killed its offspring. I told it we had nothing to do with it. It seems to have some special means of detection and confirmed we weren't the real culprits, so it withdrew."
This explanation was half true and half false, leaving Consort Dan unsure whether to believe it or not.
Then she suddenly remembered something and countered, "If they have detection methods, they should have been able to tell it wasn't Ye Dai and his people. So why were Ye Dai and his group eaten to the last one?"
"That's what happens when you don't know Beast Language. The price of ignorance." Jiang Chen was in excellent spirits. He hadn't killed Ye Dai's group, yet they had still met a grisly end—they were simply doomed by their own wickedness.
In equally good spirits was Ye Rong.
Surviving death was reason enough to be happy, but the fact that Ye Dai had truly perished this time gave Ye Rong an additional reason for joy.
Between brothers who had reached this stage, any bond of flesh and blood had long since dissolved. All that remained was an endless struggle unto death.