Chapter 166: First Exploration of the Underground World
The Dark Regions, as the name suggests, are not only dark and gloomy but also full of dangers. Even relatively powerful tribes like the Black-Scaled Lizardmen suffered many hardships when first entering the underground world.
Ordinary Black-Scaled Lizardmen stand over eight feet tall when upright. Their deep-set eye sockets and flat noses give them a skeletal appearance. These reptilian humanoids possess black, tough scales, upward-curving membranes that extend from their heads to their backs, curved and sharp claws, and sharp fangs in their mouths.
Like their close relatives, these primitive tribal humanoids have simple intelligence and cruel, violent temperaments. Once enraged, they become extremely dangerous. With combat skills roughly at the beginning stage of bronze level, Black-Scaled Lizardmen appear in groups, and armies from ordinary human territories simply cannot stop them, especially those magical beasts below level six.
After arriving in the underground world, this powerful race continued to lose members for various reasons. When their numbers decreased to a certain extent, they had to find other ways to survive in the Dark Regions and ensure the continuation of their race.
Thus, the elders of the Black-Scaled Lizardmen chose to worship a god named the God of Vipers.
It should be noted that the Black-Scaled Lizardmen have always claimed that their appearance is proof of their descent from ancient dragons, though there is little evidence to support this claim. Because of this, they refuse to acknowledge their other amphibious humanoid relatives, considering their own race superior. They despise even more those amphibious creatures without dragon blood, viewing them as inferior beings.
It is easy to imagine the great hardships the Black-Scaled Lizardmen endured, forcing them to turn to worshiping the God of Vipers.
Putting these matters aside for now, Donald learned from two captured Black-Scaled Lizardmen why they were here.
During the first invasion of the Abyssal Plane, spatial rifts formed when it collided with the main material world. Most of these rifts healed on their own due to the forces of the planes. However, various sized rifts remained in different parts of the main world, forming semi-stable natural pathways that allowed some less powerful abyssal creatures to infiltrate the main world through them.
These groups of Black-Scaled Lizardmen had such a dimensional portal near their nests in their territory. A few months ago, a sizable force of demons emerged from it, led by a powerful Silver Demon. Even with the strength and numbers of the Black-Scaled Lizardmen tribes, they were no match for these Abyssal Demons. To avoid becoming slaves or food for the demons, they were forced to flee their original underground dwellings, intending to find another cave to settle in.
Demons are inherently chaotic and evil creatures; they wouldn’t show mercy just because the Black-Scaled Lizardmen were also evil beings. Though not particularly intelligent, the Black-Scaled Lizardmen understood that dealing with demons would surely end badly. Thus, migration was imperative.
What they didn’t expect was that as soon as the demons arrived in the main world, they launched frenzied attacks on the creatures around the portal. Before they could locate a new nest and prepare for migration, they were forced to flee as a whole. In their desperate escape from the demons, the Black-Scaled Lizardmen accidentally opened a passage to the surface world.
This excited all of them.
Since childhood, they had heard from their elders generation after generation that their ancestors once lived on the surface, where the sunlight was bright and the land fertile—although their race naturally disliked the sun. Moreover, in the minds of the inhabitants of the dark regions, most races in the surface world were weak and incompetent creatures who would hand over their wealth and food at the slightest threat and even offer themselves as slaves or food to the stronger ones.
Many Black-Scaled Lizardmen fantasized about conquering the creatures of the surface world after arriving there and becoming great beings like kings or even gods.
However, these simple-minded creatures never considered why, if the creatures of the surface world were so weak, powerful races like Dark Elves, Gray Dwarves, and Minotaurs hadn’t gone there to conquer it. After all, although there weren’t many passages to the surface world, those powerful races basically controlled one or two of them!
Although the Black-Scaled Lizardmen were much stronger than humans individually, they lacked intelligence and were few in number. So after learning about this, Donald wasn’t overly worried. After all, this single Black-Scaled Lizardmen tribe consisted of only about fifty members. Even without using their territory or their own strength, sending a large number of adventurers would be enough to wipe them out completely.
What truly worried Donald were the races in other dark realms, as well as those abyssal passages mentioned by the lizard people. The creatures of the dark realms were mostly part of the evil faction, with most of their inhabitants worshipping evil gods or powerful abyssal demons and creatures from the outer realms. Lies and deception were their instinct; robbery and theft were considered normal for them, and killing on the slightest provocation was all too common. These races posed an extreme danger to the surface world, and if they spread, they would cause severe consequences for one’s territory. This suddenly appearing passage to the surface, once discovered by other subterranean creatures, could easily become a forward base for those underground raiders to plunder surface creatures. Even if he destroyed this exit, they would likely dig another—one must remember that many subterranean creatures were renowned for their digging skills. At least Donald knew of three such races: gray dwarves, cave dwellers, and ogres. Take ogres, for example; there were many natural miners among them, spread widely across the Material Plane. Often, ogres would dig into human mines and attack humans. As for that passage to the abyssal plane, Donald felt both joy and concern. He was glad that if there was such a passage near his territory, he could continuously obtain the soul power and materials of demonic creatures, bringing him great wealth and benefits. However, he was worried that although this had advantages, if demons powerful enough to defy him appeared, those advantages could turn into a disaster. He had not yet encountered spells for sealing dimensional passages, so he needed to consult a teacher. Thus, Donald took Uther with him and prepared to enter the cave leading to the underground world. Shortly after dealing with two useless captive black-scaled lizardmen, Donald located the cave in a mountain hollow through his observation of an owl. “It must be there. Let’s go!” Before teleporting to the cave with Uther, the two hesitated no longer and leaped into the cave entrance. The cave wasn’t as deep as expected—only about five or six meters from the ground below—followed by a downward-sloping underground passage. It was unclear whether it was naturally formed or a man-made passage so old that no signs of carving could be seen.
Soft footsteps echoed in the dark underground passages, and a beam of white light appeared in the distance. Donald and Uther, using their light magic, came from the other side of the passage. By now, they had gone deep underground for at least a dozen miles, but since the passages sloped downward in a spiral, they had no idea how deep they were from the surface. To avoid getting lost or being attacked suddenly, Donald sent three of the owls he had summoned earlier to scout ahead, with two more following behind to keep watch. Along the way, they saw no signs of any creatures, likely because this path had already been cleared by the Black Scaled Lizardfolk tribe, which explained its smoothness. After advancing another two or three miles, they came to a fork in the road. But this posed no challenge to Donald, who immediately summoned three more owls, leaving two in front and splitting the rest into two groups to explore the passages ahead. Soon, one group of owls reached the end of one of the passages, where there were two more forks. Donald ordered them to spread out and explore further. Meanwhile, the owls on the other side entered a dead end and were attacked by unknown creatures. Owls have excellent night vision, and creatures that live underground for years are likely no less adept. However, the attackers were too fast, and the ordinary summoned owls had little combat power—except against field mice. One owl wasn’t even able to react before it was torn to pieces and vanished as energy sparks. Donald didn’t bother going to that path to deal with the attacker and instead ordered the remaining two owls to return the same way to lure the creature toward him. Since owls could fly, as long as they stayed about three feet above the passage ceiling, the attacker couldn’t do much to them and could only chase them to the first fork where Donald and Uther were. Without letting Uther intervene, Donald dealt with the attacker with another Frost Nova spell. The only surprise was the attacker’s agility—it could turn mid-air to evade Donald’s mental lock, but it didn’t realize Frost Nova was a burst-type spell, so it was still hit by the expanding ice energy, half of its body freezing as it crashed to the passage floor. Uther, who had been protecting his master, stepped forward then, picked up the attacker, and brought it back.
Under the light spell, Donald couldn’t help but smile upon seeing the true face of the attacker. The creature was only three feet long from head to tail, covered in scales and bluish-gray skin with green spots. Long manes stood upright along its thin, elongated spine, and it had a sinuous tail and powerful forelimbs. Although its hind legs were relatively thick, it usually stood upright, still revealing that these creatures were killers accustomed to running on all fours. At that moment, the flesh-eating dragon held a ferocious posture, its broad, flat mouth typical of reptiles wide open, revealing a set of terrifying sharp teeth. At the ends of its limbs were pairs of six-inch-long hooked claws, making it seem as though it were ready to pounce on its prey even if its body was stiff and immobile. “Isn’t this the Velociraptor he saw in the Jurassic Park movies?” Donald thought to himself. In fact, the creature before him indeed resembled the Velociraptor greatly. From what he had read in books, Donald knew this was a small dinosaur species called a flesh-eating dragon. And judging by its size, it was still a juvenile flesh-eating dragon—adult ones usually stood seven feet tall. Calling them small was only in comparison to other dinosaurs. Note that these are dinosaurs, not drakes. Some dinosaurs indeed had dragon bloodlines, but dinosaurs do not equal drakes. Most dinosaurs were not drakes but another type of reptile distinct from amphibians. As for why some dinosaurs had dragon bloodlines, it was probably because several large dinosaurs resembled drakes in appearance. Drakes, with their inherited tendencies, would become ruthless when in heat and seek to vent their aggression whenever possible, which is why there are so many drakes in this world.