The Era of Gods

Chapter 619: Chapter 619: Two-Headed Scorpion Giant

The carriage driver whipped the horses, and the sound of hooves clattering against the gravel path went ‘clip-clop, clip-clop,’ as Lin Xiao sat inside, resting with his eyes closed.

“Master, there’s a small town up ahead. Do you want to take a break?”

Hearing the driver’s voice, Lin Xiao slowly opened his eyes, drew back the carriage curtain, and looked ahead, seeing a very ordinary town called Small Town Edge.

He nodded and said,

“You can leave when we get to the town.”

Passing through the town meant entering Other Races territory, and the driver, while slightly martial, was an ordinary person who could easily die if he went on.

The driver acknowledged and hastened the carriage into the town.

“Wanted: the fugitive wizard apprentice Leng Lan!”

With a fleeting glance at the reward poster pasted on the town’s entrance wall, Lin Xiao snorted coldly without saying a word.

Half a day later, a figure in a black robe left the town and disappeared into the wilderness.

The sky was as gloomy as ever, with thick clouds hanging oppressively low. The border between the northern Wizard Empire and the Other Races was a vast, unbroken expanse of Wasteland Wall.

According to the documents Lin Xiao had previously seen at the Morning Star Spire, this area used to be part of the Empire and was a very fertile land. Later, humans and Other Races fought over it, and in the later Battle of Azshara, the Wizard Emperor himself launched an offensive here against the four major Other Races Leaders.

The earth-shattering witchcraft wrought destruction on this land, altering its very rules, gradually rendering it barren. What was once the Empire’s granary turned into a desolate, unpopulated desert where even the Other Races are reluctant to linger.

It is said that those who traverse this land may still see the ruins of ancient towns and cultivated fields, as well as the residual energy and effects of ancient destructive witchcraft.

Some wizards even found twisted spaces and rifts to other worlds in the center of the battleground, occasionally seeing otherworldly creatures that had come through the rifts, some of them terrifying beings.

Fortunately, those formidable creatures generally stayed at the center of the battlefield, seldom straying to the outskirts. As long as he himself did not recklessly venture in, with his current Strength, he would not likely encounter any dangers.

Half a month later, Lin Xiao delved far into the wastelands, having crossed the war zone within. The influence of the Chaos Witchcraft was gradually diminishing, and here, one could occasionally encounter Other Races out to forge themselves in the wilderness.

The Other Races in this world were diverse, with most finding their original forms in other worlds.

Such as Beastmen, Harpies, Half Beastmen, Exotic beastmen, and so on.

Actually, Beastmen is a very broad category. Any race that bears a slight resemblance to both non-humans and beasts could be categorized as such, which means the races called Beastmen in the Wizard World might have no relation to Beastmen in other worlds.

Like Humans, the Other Races’ Wizard Transcendent System is also a rare high-end system. They, too, can give birth to Wizards or similar transcendent beings.

However, it is rare to see powerful Other Races Wizards among those who live on the fringe of the wilderness. Since Lin Xiao did not venture into the heartland of the Other Races, he was virtually invincible in this area, hunting Other Races Beastmen in the wastelands, collecting Souls while also extracting some interest.

The Other Races that had destroyed his Clan were called the Half-Scorpion people, not large in number but individually very powerful. They looked like the Scorpion Emperor, with the upper body of a human and the lower half of a scorpion, and on average, they were far stronger than Humans.

It was said that the Half-Scorpion people were not indigenous to this world but came from a Different Domain, having escaped through the twisted space rifts in the battlefield.

Their settlement had moved to an oasis somewhere in the wasteland, and having lived in this world for many years, they had become a local Race, but they still maintained some connection to the central twisted space on the battlefield.

Lin Xiao planned to slowly eliminate the Half-Scorpion people as revenge at first, reaping Souls in the process to fulfill the first stage of a deal with a terrifying entity in Mysterious Valley, thus enhancing his own Strength—a three-pronged gain.

Once he completed the first stage of the deal, he would be able to free himself from that terrifying and peculiar entity, no longer under anyone’s control.

Lin Xiao’s intuition strongly told him that he must break free from that terrible being as soon as possible and not become addicted. Otherwise, his fate would be miserable.

“Whoosh!”

A rock as large as a human head flew dozens of meters and hit a tall figure who, unflinchingly, swung his sword with Continuous Chop, severing the dual claws and scorpion tail of a Half-Scorpion person over two meters tall. He reached out his left hand and pressed it against the forehead of the Half-Scorpion person, his fingers digging deep into the tough Skull. His finger bones shuddered, and a slight ripple concentrated inwards around his palm. A transparent Half-Scorpion person phantom was forcibly pulled out as the body slumped and fell to the ground.

The remaining Half-Scorpion people grew even more Wrathful at this sight, hurling spears and even shooting out black stingers from their tails.

But the attacks that hit the robed figure were all deflected, and even the thick Crossbow Arrows fired by the tribe’s warriors couldn’t harm the target. Instead, one after another, the Half-Scorpion people were pressed by the robed figure and had their Souls extracted until they died.

The Half-Scorpion people were anguished and tinged with fear, but no one fled. Instead, they continued to fight bravely.

Minutes later, dozens of Half-Scorpion people had been killed, but a large Half-Scorpion Priest in the center of the tribe had completed a Spell. A massive black door opened, and an angry roar came from within. The door was torn, and out of it, a huge Skull with a nearly two-meter diameter peeked through.

No, not one, but two skulls.

As the giant head roared incessantly, a powerful force pried open the black gate, and from it emerged a dual-headed scorpion giant, over fifteen meters tall with six scorpion limbs and a tail over a dozen meters long.

The creature’s appearance was extremely ferocious; its two heads looked as though they had been haphazardly shaped by the door, and its body was covered with a layer of thick black carapace, similar to armor. Numerous skull-like growths protruded from its back, each with several holes from which black gas spewed feet long, revealing souls bound within.

Underneath the slit of the dual-headed scorpion giant’s open mouth were blackish-yellow, irregular teeth, and viscous yellow saliva drooled from the corners, emitting a foul stench.

This creature was incredibly brutal, immediately seizing a nearby scorpion and stuffing it into its mouth upon emerging. The crunchy chewing of the hard scorpion shell and the mixture of blood and green innards flowing from the corners of its mouth was disgustingly revolting.

The aura emanating from the dual-headed scorpion giant was extremely powerful, more terrifying even than the Crystal King Snake Lin Xiao had seen before; it felt like it had stepped into Rank 3, and yet something seemed slightly off.

The rational thing to do was to leave immediately, as Lin Xiao was merely a Rank 1 wizard now, and although he had activated the bloodline of the Titan Ancient God, he had not yet stepped into Rank 3. Taking on this giant would be a significant risk.

However, the enormous souls accumulated within the scorpion giant firmly captured his attention.

He surmised that the creature likely possessed a talent for soul trapping. The thick carapace on its back, with those skull holes from which black smoke issued, were all contaminated with Soul Power.

Upon sensing it, he realized that beneath the tainted black Soul Power were densely imprisoned souls, in considerable numbers.

He was in dire need of souls, and given the volume contained by this beast, it was a veritable treasure trove.

Therefore, Lin Xiao was immediately tempted and decided to take a risk to see if he could take down this behemoth.

Before making his move, he hastened his rate of killing the regular half-scorpions.

Until now, he had been holding back, but with his full strength unleashed, the half-scorpions, only marginally stronger than ordinary people, were no match for him. He killed them off one after another with swift sword strikes.

The dual-headed scorpion giant did not interfere with his killing; this creature simply ignored the lives of its kin. In fact, while Lin Xiao was engaging in his slaughter, it continued to consume the corpses of its kind on the ground, as if it hadn’t eaten in a very long time.

Only when the remaining half-scorpions could no longer hold back their despair did Lin Xiao stop and observe the dual-headed scorpion giant still gorging itself.

Seeing it had no intention of attacking, he retreated to the side to rest and recover his physical and spiritual strength.

However, his retreat immediately drew the attention of the dual-headed scorpion giant, one of whose heads sharply looked up at him and shouted,

“You are food for Taim!”

Stuffing the half-scorpion corpse in its mouth, it took colossal strides and thundered towards Lin Xiao.@@novelbin@@

Clearly, it had been aware of Lin Xiao all along and considered him prey; it simply had been too busy snacking to act. But now, believing Lin Xiao was about to flee, it was ready to attack.

Lin Xiao calmly cast the Moon Shadow Technique to enhance his speed and evasion, and then attempted to quickly recite an incantation to cast a Binding Technique.

The dual-headed scorpion giant abruptly stumbled, nearly falling. The face on the left radiated immense wrath, and its over ten-meter long tail rose, emitting a faint glow at the tip. Lin Xiao swiftly sidestepped a dozen meters, barely avoiding the spot he had just occupied, which exploded as if struck by an air cannon, creating a two-meter-wide pit rimmed with green. The soil crumbled and melted into a pool of black-green liquid at the bottom of the pit—this attack was not only powerful but also venomous.

“Hiss ma….”

With another gesture, an invisible Qi Blade flashed by, and a chunk of black carapace burst open on the forehead of the scorpion giant with a ‘bang.’

“Effective?”

Its carapace defense was lower than he had expected.

Lin Xiao’s eyes lit up as he again quickly recited an abridged incantation to repeatedly cast the Qi Blade Technique at the dual-headed scorpion giant.

Abbreviated incantations involve casting a spell by only uttering two key phrases from the entire chant. Typically, only an Official Wizard would master this, an apprentice wizard would find it difficult, except for those who are prodigies.

A single Qi Blade Technique consumed 1.5 spiritual power and 2.1 mana. With nearly sixty points of spiritual power and over seventy of mana, Lin Xiao could cast it over thirty times in one go.

However, judging by the spell’s damage, he felt that even thirty direct hits would likely not kill the dual-headed scorpion giant, simply because the creature was so large and its Vitality so immense.

But he wasn’t counting on this spell to deliver the killing blow. He just meant to weaken it first.

Then, relying on his speed and Agility, which far exceeded that of the dual-headed scorpion giant, he kept kiting, continuously using the Qi Blade Technique from a distance to target the giant’s tail, chopping off pieces of its carapace until he reached flesh.

However, just as he had almost severed the tail, the scorpion giant let out a roar. Its body erupted with black Soul Power, which enveloped it entirely.

After a while, the black mist dissipated, and the dual-headed scorpion giant’s injuries were wholly healed.

Lin Xiao….