Chapter 9: Floating Mountains (Part 2)

This continent is quite peculiar—there is no solid land, only countless fragments floating in the air, forming floating mountains stacked one atop another. The larger fragments cover thousands of square kilometers, while the smaller ones are just a few square kilometers. Guo Shieru exclaimed, “The entire continent has shattered… This layer of land is truly strange.”
As far as the eye could see, there were endless floating mountains. Some were covered in vegetation, some were utterly desolate, and many were simply huge rocks, giving people an extremely stunning and bizarre feeling.
Flocks of birds circled in the sky, constantly flying between the floating mountains.
Guo Shieru sighed in admiration, “It’s so beautiful!” He had seen similar floating mountains before, but he had never encountered ones on such a scale.
A glint of excitement appeared in Li Ran and Qi Wu Zhen’s eyes. Such a shattered continent must contain many rare materials. After the continent broke apart, things hidden underground would come to light. As long as one searched carefully, they would surely find something valuable. Both Zhen Wuji and Goha and Yao Zebusong showed expressions of surprise.
This world was full of temptations for professionals. Guo Shieru still didn’t quite understand this, but the handsome old man did. Besides helping Guo Shieru take care of the altar, he spent his time studying the knowledge in the ancestral memories. After all, ancestral memories could not become the owner’s knowledge without being digested and absorbed.
Ezek and Meili showed no reaction. They had no concept of collecting materials, so they felt nothing special about such a continent. The only thing that puzzled them was why all the mountains here were suspended in the air.
Meili licked her lips and said, “It seems there aren’t any strong prey here. Sigh, we’ll have to use our stored meat. Really… this place is so poor.”
Halechi’s eyelids twitched. How could this woman be so selfish? She thought only about eating as soon as they arrived at a new place—truly a mutated talisman beast. He didn’t know that for mutated talisman beasts to advance, they had to eat—anything strong, including professionals.
Li Ran said, “Let’s stay here for a while. There are still two layers of continents left. There must be many good things here. Let’s find a floating mountain to settle on. Hmm, we can stay longer now—there’s no need to rush… That floating mountain is huge. Let’s go there.”

The group quickly flew down to that floating mountain. It was an oval-shaped floating mountain, with jagged rocks below and pointed peaks above—two and a half peaks in total. By “half peak,” it meant one peak had been forcibly split in two, with one half remaining on the floating land and the other half lost somewhere unknown.

As soon as Ezekiel stepped onto the peak, he exclaimed in surprise, “There’s a… hehe, a woman here. There’s food!”

Her beautiful eyes lit up as she asked, “Where?”

Ezekiel stomped his foot forcefully and laughed, “Right below the peak… no, in a cave on the peak. Hmm, a pretty good prey.”

Li Ran and Qi Wu Zhen exchanged a glance, both showing slight confusion, as they hadn’t sensed any strong soul fluctuations or detected any threatening mutated or aberrant talisman beasts. They were surprised that Ezekiel had found one. Li Ran asked, “In the mountain’s interior? What level?” With Ezekiel’s strength, even if it was food, it must be a high-level mutated or aberrant talisman beast.

Ezekiel said, “At least an aberrant talisman beast of level fourteen or above… Hmm, strange. Its soul isn’t strong, but its physique is very powerful. It’s different from the aberrant talisman beasts in our continent.”

The group was puzzled. Aberrant talisman beasts were known for their strong souls; they had never heard of ones with a powerful physique but a weak soul. Li Ran and the others were familiar with aberrant talisman beasts in the world of talismans and had never heard of such a type. Li Ran said, “Let’s go and take a look. We don’t know what kind of aberrant talisman beast it is.”

Ezekiel flew ahead, descending toward the mountain’s middle, with the others following closely. Soon, they saw a huge cave.

Halechi asked, “Should we enter the cave?”

Beautiful spoke gently, “No need. We can lure it out from the cave entrance.” She tried every chance to get close to Halechi, but he didn’t respond positively. Whenever she spoke, he would stay far away, which annoyed her greatly.

Ezekiel stood at the cave entrance and let out a roar. Sound waves like thunder rushed into the cave, causing rocks to fall from the entrance. He said, “Let’s step back. It’s about to come out.”

The cave entrance was huge, nearly seventy meters in diameter, with wisps of white mist rising from it, making it seem bottomless. As Ezekiel’s provocative roars continued, hisses came from inside.

A giant snake head emerged. It was a very long serpent; only when half of its body had come out did everyone realize it had legs—two thick forelimbs, quite different from those of a snake. Its chest and abdomen were relatively large, making it somewhat similar to a lizard, yet it lacked hind legs, giving it an extremely strange appearance.

Guo Shier asked, “What is this?” Whether they were mutated or aberrant rune beasts, they all evolved or transformed from their original forms. This thing wasn’t a snake nor a lizard. No one knew what its original form was, but everyone could sense that its soul was weak.

Yao Zebusong said in disbelief, “This… this thing doesn’t have any runes! How is that possible?”

Indeed, there were no runes visible on its body, which seemed unbelievable to professionals. Everything in this world was related to runes; otherwise, there wouldn’t be such highly skilled rune specialists.

Guo Shier, with his sharp eyes, noticed two protrusions on the creature’s back, like two tadpoles attached to it—one large and the other tapering from thick to thin. It was hard to tell what they were, but their color was darker. No one moved to attack; instead, they retreated and hovered in the air, waiting.

Qi Wuzhen said, “This thing is really strange. It can’t really be considered an aberrant rune beast.”

Li Ran shook his head slightly and said, “It has nothing to do with aberrant rune beasts. No wonder we couldn’t detect it at first. Ezekiel might have another way of knowing about its existence. Ezekiel, how did you know it was a level-14 aberrant rune beast?”

Ezekiel also looked confused. He said, “I don’t know either. I just had an intuition that this thing had the strength of a level-14 aberrant rune beast… Strange, this is the first time I’ve seen it either.”

When the creature fully appeared, everyone began to discuss it. Zhen Wuji said, “Maybe this thing belongs to the dragon lineage? But without natural runes, it’s hard to classify it.”

Guo Shier observed carefully, and the handsome old man also stuck out half of his body to take a look. He was very curious too. There were few things in this world that didn’t have naturally formed runes, so this creature was truly rare.

The creature was about a thousand meters long, with a massive body. Its upper body was upright, supported by two thick claws, while its long tail stretched to the mountainside, hooking onto the rocks. It hissed threateningly at the crowd.

Everyone retreated again. Just then, with a swish, the two protrusions on its back suddenly split open, revealing a pair of wings that fluttered, producing a buzzing sound. They were translucent silver wings, looking extremely eerie.

Guo Shierou shook his head and said, “I’ve never seen such a strange creature. It doesn’t look like a snake, nor is it a dragon-type beast. It even has wings… yet there are no runes. It’s something in between…”
Li Ran turned to look at him and said, “Regardless of what it resembles, Ezekiel, shall you attack or shall we?”
Ezekiel and Meili were already eager for action. Hearing this, they immediately said, “We’ll do it. Hehe, I like this thing!” The two rushed forward. Before they even got close, they reverted to their original forms. Without a altar or treasures, their most powerful attack method was close combat, the one they knew best.
Guo Shierou said, “Elder Shuai, look at the trees here… I don’t see a single rune tree.”
Elder Shuai nodded and said, “Mm, this place feels very strange. It’s not the continent we’re familiar with. Be careful.”
With Ezekiel and Meili’s strength, they were definitely stronger than their opponent, by a huge margin. Even though that creature was over a thousand meters long and could fly short distances, it was completely helpless under their attacks. In just a moment, it was beaten to the brink of death, witha large amount of blood spraying out.
Elder Shuai said, “Collect some of the blood. I want to see… what use this creature’s blood has.” In the world of runes, blood always contained runes, as well as soul power and life force. Without rune power or soul power, it was just an ordinary beast, the most useless kind.
Guo Shierou reached out and grabbed the blood spraying from the air, collecting it. There was a lump of blood about the size of a football. He asked, “Is this enough?”
Elder Shuai took out a rune bottle and put the blood inside. After a moment, he exclaimed in surprise, “There are no traces of runes, nor soul power. But… the blood contains a great deal of life force. It’s much stronger than mutated rune beasts and alienated rune beasts. It can be refined into high-grade rune pills. What a valuable find!”
Guo Shierou immediately started collecting more blood. That giant creature, over a thousand meters long, had plenty of blood. Even though it wasn’t dead yet, Ezekiel and Meili began devouring it frantically. They also realized that its flesh contained an enormous amount of life force. Given their habits, they certainly wouldn’t give up.

Then everyone started to act. First, they fought over the blood, and then over the flesh, skin, and bones. Li Ran and Qi Wu Zhen only collected a little blood before stopping; they disdained such plundering. But Guo Shier, Zhen Wu Ji, Ge Ha, Yao Zebusong, and Ha Lechi were not modest at all—they would grab whatever they could, useful or not.

Ezekiel held down the creature’s head and bit deep into its neck, gulping down the flowing blood. Meili became even more ferocious, ripping open its abdomen and eventually pulling out its heart before tearing and devouring it. Once its heart was removed, the creature stopped struggling and died silently. It probably never expected Ezekiel and Meili to have such terrifying strength.

Everyone collected only a small amount, each taking just a bit to understand the differences between this creature and the Abnormal Symbol Beasts. Only Guo Shier gathered a bit more. With its length of over a thousand meters, even Ezekiel and Meili couldn’t eat much, so they stopped eating soon. Ezekiel harvested some meat and stored it in his own space before also stopping.

Li Ran asked, “Ezekiel, how was it?”

Ezekiel replied, “It wasn’t very tasty, just a bit unique. Its soul was too weak…” He hadn’t consumed its soul, which was even weaker than that of a level six or seven Abnormal Symbol Beast—so it wasn’t worth much.

Guo Shier said with a smile, “Ezekiel, do you still want this carcass?”

Ezekiel asked, “What do you mean?”

Guo Shier couldn’t help but sigh bitterly. Did this guy still want to protect his food?