Preview: Sigh, let’s just get back to work. He moved towards the demons and helped them arrange themselves orderly as they prepared for the eventual exploration. For the upcoming descent.
Figures shuttled in the darkness as they rushed towards the borders. One destination and goal echoed in their minds, The Third Level of Hell! As they courageously searched the Underworld.
Darkness ebbed in the edge and nothing could be seen. It was as though exploring an ocean of darkness while blindfolded.
The demons had no choice but to navigate carefully in order to see any signs of space fluctuating and opening a gate. This caused them to spend a lot of time. Thankfully, it wasn’t just them who were searching around the edges.
During the time they took action to actively look for the passageway, roughly half a year has already passed. And during that time, the trio managed to accumulate enough blood to hatch the Cockroach King and catch prey for him to consume and produce other cockroaches.
The Cockroach King is a unique specimen that doesn’t need to mate with an opposite sex of the same species to lay eggs. It only requires the flesh and blood of a creature to convert the DNA, soul power, biomass and all of the essence contained into a different substance. This allows the Cockroach King to be able to produce millions of cockroaches if there are enough resources to lay eggs.
Although this ability makes it greatly resourceful, it also compromises combat strength as it has no combat-oriented organ or gland. It has only one advantage and it maximizes it to the extreme by having an organ that allows for communication in long distances.
It copies the similar abilities of ants to produce pheromones to leave behind messages and create trails to follow and know what's in it. This allows their exploration and search to go smoothly.
Despite the long distance traversed and wide area to cover, with tens of thousands of cockroaches, it became possible to find the passageway in a short amount of time.
Usually, only very lucky Low-Rank Demons could have access to the passageway and most Level 3 Demons are natives and didn’t have to descend.
The Levels of Demons correspond to the floor or level they were in, and Level 2 Low-Rank demons are usually very weak and have limited potential to descend to the Third Level.
Now, being granted the chance to descend, the troops under Sunirae and the rest were very happy and excited. They couldn’t wait to begin another slaughter after not fighting for half a year and consuming more flesh and blood.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
The teams each possess a cockroach demon to help with communications and each team possesses at least 8 members. While most unused cockroaches were sent to look for the passage on their own with their overwhelming numbers. Of course, with their weak constitutions, there were many weak demons who took advantage of the situation and slayed them. But it couldn’t affect the overall situation as they finally found the gate.
The signal was sent to the Cockroach King, now named Megaloblatta longipennis(Yes😆). The name Pendra came up after waking up. Because the name was too long, they unanimously decided to call him Pennis for short.
“Master, my children said they have found the passageway and changed the message of a certain pheromone trail for us to follow.”
Pennis relayed the information sent to him as the advantages of producing a pheromone gland and corresponding antennae shows its benefit. That Artho who created Pennis was truly a genius, Yhaele thought.
Sunirae whose roots are now completely covered in black squirmed a little. She had been staying in one spot for half a month without moving. Partly, to integrate the energy in her body and to wait for Pendra to wake up. Now, Pendra is awake and has evolved further than before.
Pendra initially hit a bottleneck during the time in the 2nd Level of Hell when they were hunting Magma Golems and other races. But now, he has finished shedding his old self and managed to acquire a new and stronger body than before.
His body didn’t have any obvious difference but he gained the common ability among Low-Rank Demons, which was to control their body size. Now he could expand and shrink at will, but there are still limitations and he couldn’t go beyond it. He also gained a clearer sensing ability and stronger defense. Best of all, he also gained the ability to spin his legs around his body just like a chainsaw chain. It was a weird ability and he didn’t understand why he gained it. His only guess was it was due to him using his legs to skittle away quickly from the enemy and killing his prey with his sharp legs while constricting them.
His sharp increase in strength and having more ability to use made him overjoyed while Sunirae was sulking.
She couldn’t find the trick in mixing and integrating with the energy she accumulated. Because of the many types of energies mixing together, with some being conflicting, it makes the assimilation process keep failing at the last step.
Even though she spent half a year trying to break through, she couldn’t do it. She guessed that it has something to do with her current understanding of Mana and other energy, as well as her current strength and mana concentration in the air.
She figured that the trick to fully integrate and control Mana and other powers was probably in the lower levels. She needed the thick mana concentration of the lower levels and come into contact with more types of energy. She also needed to find stronger and better prey to strengthen herself as she hit a bottleneck in this floor, same with the other two.
They discussed their situation many times and gradually came to the same conclusion. This is also why they are so eager and desperate to descend besides the looming danger they couldn't see.
“Let’s get moving and go down!” Sunirae excitedly shouted as her roots retracted from the ground and Pendra jumped back on her stem. Yhaele followed suit and stopped his training and swung his spear. A hum sounded from the swing as flames danced. The three had obvious excited looks on their faces as they looked forward to the upcoming journey.
Sunirae’s roots moved and wrapped Yhaele then brought him towards the place Pennis was guiding them to. She also asked him to change the pheromone message and inform the others, especially the three chiefs.
She planned to bring them along with her as they descend in order to have subordinates to order around and dispatch. During this period of time, she realized how good it was to have such people around her.
Especially for doing tasks like looking for something, she could just send out a bunch of them instead of doing it herself which wastes time.
As they traveled rapidly through the endless crimson and volcanic sceneries, darkness greeted them as they finally reached the border. The edge of the Second Level of Hell.