On the base's second basement level.
Yu Xian sat inside his spatial bubble shield, eating chicken drumsticks with Little Nora.
With the spatial bubble shield active, nothing in this base could threaten him anymore, allowing him to relax completely.
"Big Bro, do you hear something?" Little Nora asked after swallowing a bone.
Yu Xian nodded. "Wangcai and the others are probably coming. Looks like they couldn't endure it either."
Just catching a faint whiff of that stench had already been unbearable to him.
Judging by his own limits, he truly doubted Ximen Wangcai and Situ Xingye could keep fighting in such an environment.
Sure enough, a minute later, Ximen Wangcai and Situ Xingye came sprinting from the other end of the corridor, faces deathly pale. The moment they saw Yu Xian, their eyes lit up, and they shouted in unison, "Leader, we're leaving the Combat Chief behind us to you! We'll head out first, see you later!"
With that yell, the two abruptly accelerated, dashed past Yu Xian, and vanished into the darkness at the other end of the corridor.
"Little bugs, don't run!"
Shikelang's roar echoed from ahead, followed by a Super Dung Bowling Ball rolling rapidly toward them.
Upon seeing the Super Dung Bowling Ball, Xielina loosed an arrow without hesitation. The shaft slammed into the rolling sphere, detonating it on impact and splattering pitch-black, sticky dung in all directions.
"..."
At the sight, the chicken drumstick in Yu Xian's hand suddenly lost all its flavor.
He tossed the drumstick aside, spat out the meat in his mouth, and ground his teeth. "I didn't think this monster literally played with shit..."
He then steered the spatial bubble shield backward. His retreat was not particularly swift, and before long, the pursuing Shikelang came into view—just as Yu Xian got a clear look at its appearance.
Shikelang's wolf head was not an actual wolf head; its shape merely resembled one. In reality, its entire skull was encased in thick exoskeletal plate armor, granting it formidable defense.
Moreover, its body was quite round and excessively bloated compared to its head. This made its movement sluggish, though its tremendous defense more than compensated for the flaw.
After all, this beast was a ranged attacker. It had no need for high mobility; as long as its defense was tough enough and its attacks packed enough punch, it was more than qualified.
"New little bugs? Go to hell together!"
Shikelang glanced across Yu Xian, Little Nora, and Xielina. Spreading both hands, it gathered a massive amount of black dung, compressing it into bowling balls.
Given its colossal build and even larger palms, these "bowling balls" were roughly two meters in diameter.
In such a cramped passage, its attacks could achieve maximum effectiveness.
One could say this underground base was its ideal battleground; had it fought on the surface instead, it would have been at a disadvantage.
Super Dung Split Bowling Ball!
Shikelang hurled both hands forward, launching two massive Super Dung Split Bowling Balls from its palms.
In the narrow corridor, the two spheres inevitably collided. The moment they crashed together, they fractured apart, instantly spawning countless dung bowling balls the size of ordinary bowling balls.
Furthermore, these smaller dung spheres possessed startling elasticity, bouncing violently against the walls as they surged toward Yu Xian. In an instant, hundreds of dung bowling balls converged on him from every angle.
Witnessing this, Yu Xian quickly backed the spatial bubble shield away. Yet Shikelang's onslaught arrived too fast, and countless dung bowling balls slammed into the barrier in a heartbeat.
Fortunately, the spatial bubble shield was fundamentally composed of spatial barriers, meaning the filth could not stick to it. Otherwise, the shield would have been coated in foul sludge in an instant.
Moreover, Shikelang's barrage triggered the counterattack effect of Chaos Shield.
Even as countless dung bowling balls struck the spatial bubble shield, the barrier incessantly retaliated, firing all manner of bizarre light orbs back toward Shikelang in rapid succession.
The first was a fireball, which Shikelang easily parried by coating its arm in dung. Next was an orb of water, which struck its heavy exoskeletal armor without leaving so much as a scratch. The third was a rock orb; when it hit Shikelang, it merely left a faint scrape upon the plate.
Just as contempt welled up in Shikelang, an orb of light distorting the surrounding space struck its shoulder. In an instant, a hole was pierced clean through. The puncture was unnervingly smooth, and only after a long pause did blood begin to seep out.
Shikelang stared at its shoulder in disbelief, only realizing its defense had been breached once the sharp pain registered.
In the next second, even more light orbs rained down. It hurriedly smashed a fist into the corridor wall, ripping out a massive chunk of stone to hold before itself as a shield. Yet the swarm of light orbs blasted the stone slab to pieces in an instant.
Another orb struck its abdomen—this one containing an explosive.
A deafening blast rang out.
The shockwave threw Shikelang backward, sending fine cracks spiderwebbing across the exoskeletal armor on its belly. Coughing up a mouthful of blood, it realized things had gone terribly wrong.
Faster than words could tell, it unleashed a savage roar, plunging both hands into the flanking walls to rip out massive boulders and fling them toward Yu Xian. It retreated swiftly, tearing out stone and hurling it with every step backward.
In truth, barely ten seconds had elapsed from the moment it launched its attack to taking the brunt of Chaos Shield's counterattacks.
*If I can't tell which ones are dangerous, I'll block them all!*
Shikelang watched the oncoming orbs blowing through the flying boulders, thoughts racing.
Not all of these light orbs carried devastating power, but Shikelang had no way of distinguishing which ones were lethal. Under these circumstances, it had to treat every single one as a mortal threat.
Only by avoiding getting hit could it survive unharmed.
The problem was that its Super Dung Split Bowling Ball had broken into hundreds of smaller projectiles to pelt Yu Xian. Every single hit against Yu Xian's spatial bubble shield triggered a counterattack, meaning it now faced just as many light orbs as the strikes it had landed.
This was not a chance-based trigger; it was a guaranteed, one-hundred-percent reflection.
Though Shikelang retreated swiftly and used chunks of the corridor walls for cover, the sheer volume of light orbs was overwhelming. It could intercept some, but stopping them all was impossible—much like how Yu Xian's steady retreat only bought time before hits landed in such tight quarters.
*Pfft!*
Another orb struck Shikelang—this one a venom orb that landed square on its abdomen.
Under normal circumstances, the attack power of this venom orb was modest; against Shikelang's intact heavy exoskeletal armor, it would never have breached its defense to deliver the poison. But its belly had just been cracked by the explosion, allowing the toxins to seep directly through the fractures into its body.
Agony seized Shikelang, freezing its movements for a split second just as a dense cluster of light orbs bore down on it.
"No—!"
Reflecting nothing but blazing light in its pupils, Shikelang let out a final, despairing shriek.
On the other side, Yu Xian was still backing away, completely unaware that the counterattacks from Chaos Shield had already snuffed out Shikelang's life.
Chapter 469