Monster Paradise

In the unending darkness, a gigantic face that that blocked out the sun emerged slowly into view. The long-legged lady suppressed her auras as much as possible and curled her body up tight, hoping that the face would not notice her.

However, the next instant, the eyes in the massive face suddenly snapped around and locked onto her.

At that moment, she felt as if time had frozen. She was unable to move a single inch of her body, much less flee. She could not even move her fingers at all.

“I’ll ask the questions now, you answer.”

As the massive face spoke these words, the long-legged lady finally realized that she could move slightly now, and hastily nodded. At this moment, her mind was completely overtaken by terror with no room for any other thoughts.

“Who are you people?”

“I’m… I’m Teng Qing. I’m the deputy sect leader of the Thousand Snake Sect. We are all from the Thousand Snake Sect.”

‘The Thousand Snake Sect…’ Lin Huang was unfamiliar with this name; he felt that it would probably not be that much of a major organization. ‘I should get Bloody and the others to do some investigation later.’

“Why are you invading the gravel world?” The massive face asked a second question.

“Myriad Tribe Palace ordered it; I don’t know the specifics. Only the succeeding sect leader from the Thousand Snake Sect will be told.”

“Myriad Tribe Palace?!” Lin Huang was certainly familiar with this name. Myriad Tribe Palace was one of the top grade-6 organizations in the God Territory; their overall strength was not under that of Death Sickle.

“Who’s your sect leader?”

“My elder brother. His name is Teng Ran.” Before answering this question, Teng Qing made a strenuous effort to avoid giving a reply. However, she discovered that she had no means of resisting at all. Whatever the questions posed by the massive face, she would answer truthfully in the shortest time possible, as though she were a puppet whose strings were completely controlled by the person in front of her.

What she did not know was that Lin Huang had used a god rule called Heart-glimpsing that allowed him to read all the information he required directly from his target’s souls.

This scenario was merely an illusion. In reality, Lin Huang did not need her to open her mouth to answer—her soul would answer all of Lin Huang’s questions with no reservations.

However, this God Rule could only be used on people who were much weaker than the user.

Teng Qing fulfilled the necessary criteria perfectly. Although she had more than thirty types of god rule at her fingertips, she had not reached Control-level in any of them. Faced with the compounded effects from the Hypnosis God Rule combined with the Heart-glimpsing God Rule at Control-level, she was utterly helpless.

Lin Huang had chosen Teng Qing as his breach point because he had managed to sense that, among the few rank-9 True Gods, the rule fluctuation from her was the weakest.

“Is the Thousand Snake Sect responsible for the previous invasions too?”

This was one of the questions that Lin Huang truly wanted to know the answer to.

“Yes, clearing up this part of the gravel world has always been the Thousand Snake Sect’s responsibility,” Teng Qing blurted out the truth with no means of resisting. “Last time, it was our grandfather. Before that, it was our grandfather’s grandfather…”

“Are they still alive?” Lin Huang narrowed his eyes as he asked.

“They died as they were evolving into Heavenly Gods.”

Lin Huang was quite surprised to hear her answer but he soon felt relieved.

“How many people from the Thousand Snake Sect are here this time? How many stayed back?”

“All the True Gods and Virtual Gods are here.” Teng Qing tried her best to shut up but to no avail. “There are a total of twenty-three small worlds that we are monitoring. We gather all the True Gods and Virtual Gods together whenever it’s about time to harvest them and sweep across those worlds. Nobody is willing to give up on such opportunities to obtain resources.”

“What you’re saying is that all the cultivators below virtual god-level in the Thousand Snake Sect know that you’ve come out to harvest small worlds?”

“Some know, but most people shouldn’t be aware of this. This form of resource harvesting is the concern of the upper levels. Nobody in the lower positions is authorized to know. However, close friendships among the sect are unavoidable, so it can’t be helped if some news gets leaked. Even so, everyone knows their place and it’s impossible for them to reveal the list of small worlds and their coordinates. Their knowledge of this should be very limited.”

“Myriad Tribe Palace should know, shouldn’t they? About the list of small worlds under your surveillance, their coordinates, and so on…” Lin Huang could not help frowning when he asked this question.

He more or less knew the answer, but he wanted to hear his guess confirmed from Teng Qing’s own mouth.

“They do. Apart from the few small worlds allocated to us from Myriad Tribe Palace, we are required to report to them and register the small worlds we discover.”

A flicker of hope blossomed in Teng Qing’s heart as she answered this question.

No matter how powerful this fellow in front of her was, he could not possibly be strong enough to go up against Myriad Tribe Palace. If the Thousand Snake Sect did not get annihilated this round, it would only be a matter of time before the news reached Myriad Tribe Palace.

When that happened, these people would end up being the object of Myriad Tribe Palace’s wrath.

Teng Qing mustered up all her courage, wanting to spew this out to scare the man before her. Yet, she became aware that she was not able to speak a single word if she was not being asked a question.

“How long would it take for Myriad Tribe Palace to realize that something has happened to your harvesting expedition?”

Lin Huang understood that he could not prevent this matter from being revealed. The only thing he could do was to find out how much time he had so he could mentally prepare himself.

“Under normal circumstances, it will take around one year for us to finish sweeping across all the small worlds. Most of our time is spent traveling. If we take more than a year and three months to finish our harvesting, somebody in the Thousand Snake Sect will probably report this to Myriad Tribe Palace. Once the report is sent, within three days someone from Myriad Tribe Palace should be sent to investigate the matter… We have been away for more than two months now.”

‘Which means to say, we still have a year and a month of leeway at most,’ Lin Huang calculated mentally. His brows were now knitted together even more tightly. In the short span of a year and a month, he was not confident that he could improve his abilities to the level where he could take on a powerful organization like Myriad Tribe Palace.

After all, Myriad Tribe Palace was a grade-6 organization headed by a monstrous entity who was a half-step Lord. Under their command was a multitude of Heavenly God powerhouses who followed them.

Lin Huang collected himself and continued asking, “What’s your sect leader Teng Ran’s strength level? How many Strength Rules has he mastered, and at what level?”

“From what I know, Teng Ran has mastered a total of 67 types of rule. Out of these, 36 are at Adept-level and 11 are at Control-level.” No matter how reluctant she was, Teng Qing still could not help spilling out every truthful detail about Teng Ran’s true abilities.

Lin Huang nodded slightly. Teng Ran’s abilities placed him among the more outstanding True Gods in God Territory.

After obtaining information on Teng Ran, Lin Huang continued his interrogation.

Teng Qing answered everything without fail.

As Teng Qing’s position was rather special—after all, she was the younger sister to the Thousand Snake Sect leader—her knowledge of things was second only to Teng Ran. After his interrogation, Lin Huang was fairly satisfied with the information he had extracted.

Once he had ascertained that he had no other questions to ask, Lin Huang did not plan on letting Teng Qing live.

In the darkness, the gigantic face rapidly withdrew.

As Teng Qing breathed a sigh of relief, a massive palm appeared, blotting out the entire horizon.

An instant later, the palm descended as if the sky was falling.

Teng Qing was crushed out of existence, her expression still full of consternation and terror…