Chapter 42: Giant-eyed Snake Swarm, Sixteen Earth-piercing Dragons
Just as Su Mo looked toward the rooftop of the temple, the others also saw this huge strange eye, and they all couldn’t help but turn pale with fright, retreating backward one after another.
That huge strange eye, however, rotated in the air for a moment before directly falling to the ground.
Only then did everyone see clearly that this thing looked like an eyeball, but it was actually a translucent fleshy ball, wrapped in a layer of pale greenish membrane on the outside, with a dark mass in the middle, making it look like a huge eyeball.
After the strange ball fell to the ground, the membrane on top suddenly broke open, and hundreds of black strange snakes flowed out from inside!
These strange snakes were exactly the same as the strange snakes the group had seen at the valley entrance, all dozens of centimeters long, with black scales covering their bodies, and black fleshy balls on their heads.
They were precisely the crested snakes of the Jing Jue Ancient City, known as Jing Jian A Han!
With so many crested snakes flowing out of the fleshy ball at the same time, twisting and entwining with each other like a mass of flowing black liquid, they crawled toward the group, their bodies covered in sticky liquid, looking both terrifying and disgusting.
Wang Pang Zi hurriedly raised his gun barrel to fire, but at this moment Su Mo said in a deep voice:
“Don’t shoot, it’s useless!”
There were at least several hundred black snakes here. Even if they had enough bullets, and even if every bullet hit the snake’s body without waste, these snakes could still leap up and continue attacking even if their seven-inch vital spot was severed, and the venom in their teeth was extremely terrifying, enough to kill a person within seconds.
If they fired indiscriminately, someone was bound to get bitten!
After speaking, Su Mo took out a can of alcohol from his backpack and threw it into the middle of the snake swarm.
Wang Pang Zi immediately understood, raised his hand, and fired a shot.
Boom!
With a loud explosion, the solid alcohol was shattered by Wang Pang Zi’s shot and burst into intense flames.
Hundreds of black snakes were instantly ignited by the alcohol, writhing and twisting wildly in the flames.
Su Mo might be able to use the Buddhist Lion’s Roar or his kirin bloodline to force these crested snakes to retreat, but there were simply too many of them. If they were allowed to reach the Jing Jue Underground Palace, they might continue attacking the group.
It was better to burn them all at once while they were still twisted together, solving the problem once and for all!
After the solid alcohol was shattered by Wang Pang Zi’s shot, it turned into a sheet of flames burning in the snake swarm. Many black snakes in the middle of the swarm were soon burned to death, and the air was filled with an acrid smell.
But many snakes on the edges of the swarm were not reached by the flames and began scattering in all directions, some even crawling rapidly toward the group.
Seeing this, Xue Li Yang hurriedly led Chu Jian and the others to beat the black snakes with entrenching tools, then pick them up and throw them into the fire after killing them.
However, there were still too many venomous snakes not burned by the fire. Once they scattered, they surged toward the group like a tide, and their crawling speed was extremely fast, reaching Xue Li Yang and the others in the blink of an eye.
Although Xue Li Yang and the others swung their entrenching tools to beat them, there were too many strange snakes, and they simply couldn’t hold them back, forced to retreat step by step.
At this moment, Su Mo suddenly dashed in front of Xue Li Yang and the others in one arrow step, then gathered his inner energy and let out an angry roar:
“Retreat!”
He did not use his full strength in this roar.
After all, Xue Li Yang and the others were right behind him. If he used the full power of the Buddhist Lion’s Roar, it might instead injure them.
For frail people like Ye Yi Xin and Professor Chen, it might even scatter their minds.
Therefore, Su Mo only used half his power.
But even that ordinary power was quite impressive!
A powerful kirin bloodline holy might instantly spread with the roar, the sound waves causing the entire temple to tremble.
The black snakes seemed to sense the power of the kirin bloodline because of this, instantly scattering backward like waves crashing against a reef.
At this time, Wang Pang Zi and Hu Ba Yi quickly brought over two cans of gasoline, splashing a lot around the black snakes, then lighting another fire.
In no time, these snakes were surrounded by flames, with no path left for attack!
Hundreds of snakes were soon burned to charcoal in the flames, the air filled with an acrid smell that was very pungent.
Only then did everyone breathe a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, Su Mo made the judgment in time and burned them with alcohol. Otherwise, if these black strange snakes scattered and attacked, the archaeological team would definitely suffer deaths or injuries!
This was already the second time Su Mo had used the Buddhist Lion’s Roar, so everyone was no longer shocked.
But seeing that Su Mo could repel the snake swarm with a single roar, they were all deeply impressed.
Su Mo then had everyone check the surroundings to see if any black snakes had slipped through.
At the same time, he was carefully observing the rooftop.
The rooftop was very smooth and flat, with no passages visible, so it was unknown where this fleshy ball-like huge snake egg had come from.
Upon closer inspection, he discovered some unusual things inside the temple.
There were sixteen stone pillars inside the temple, each giant stone pillar bearing a pattern of six eyes, with hexagonal bases, and on the outer five sides, each face engraved with tiny symbols: hungry ghost, sheep head, Hu person, giant-pupiled person, and the snake-bodied human-faced beast representing the guardian god.
Hu Ba Yi carefully examined these stone pillars and said to Su Mo:
“Master, the arrangement of these stone pillars matches the Through-Earth Sixteen Dragons formation. It looks like a kind of ji guan!”
Hu Ba Yi possessed the Sixteen-Character Yin Yang Feng Shui Secret Technique, so from the arrangement of these sixteen stone pillars, he discerned the hidden Through-Earth Sixteen Dragons ji guan array.
Among these sixteen stone pillars, only one was the true dragon connected to the earth vein.
To open the underground palace, only this stone pillar could activate the ji guan!
Although Su Mo had mastered the first level of the Seven-Level Pagoda Skill, and using it together with the Zi Wei Guan Xiang Fa, he could discern the true earth dragon’s location through the magnetic field and earth vein’s aura.
But he was not skilled in this kind of ji guan.
This kind of ancient metaphysics ji guan often contained hidden traps, and if operated incorrectly, it could lead to danger.
He knew that Hu Ba Yi had studied the Sixteen-Character Yin Yang Secret Art for a long time and had considerable knowledge of these ji guan secret techniques, so he nodded and said:
“I can tell that pillar below hides earth vein energy. You can try that side first!”
Hu Ba Yi was overjoyed to hear this.
If Su Mo hadn’t discerned the aura in that pillar, Hu Ba Yi would have had to tap each stone pillar one by one, distinguishing by sound whether there were hollows inside.
But Su Mo, using the Zi Wei Guan Xiang Fa and the first level of the Seven-Level Pagoda Skill, had spotted the true earth dragon’s location at a glance, saving a lot of effort.
Hu Ba Yi then went to that stone pillar and gently tapped the nearby floor tile with a small geological hammer, and sure enough, it produced a hollow sound.
He then called over Wang Pang Zi, and according to the incantation in the Sixteen-Character Yin Yang Secret Art, muttered softly:
“Travel a thousand li seeking the dragon, look left and right, follow yang against yin, five out of one…”
As he spoke, the two rotated the hexagonal stone slot, turning it several notches, and then a series of clicking sounds came from under the floor tile. Immediately after, the two hollow floor tiles sank down, revealing a dark tunnel entrance!
