Chapter 266: Orbital Bombardment

Chapter 266: Orbital Bombardment

"I never thought that my first time on another planet would be like this."

"It's not that different from Earth."

Ji Xinghuo stood atop a mountain peak.

The sky was clear and cloudless, with a bright, warm sun hanging overhead. Three moons of varying sizes and shapes could be seen as well.

Looking ahead, there was an endless expanse of lush forest in the distance, with verdant grasslands at the foot of the mountain. Colorful flowers bloomed, creating a breathtakingly beautiful scene. As a gentle breeze blew, the branches and leaves rippled like waves, carrying with them a refreshing floral fragrance that made it feel like paradise.

It was hard to believe that beneath this picturesque natural scenery lay deadly dangers.

The air was filled with poison, and even the sunlight was harmful.

Although the Jingying Clan had assured them that it was only toxic to their kind and that other races could breathe, Ji Xinghuo dared not inhale even a mouthful of air.

He kept his internal circulation system running at all times.

He turned to glance back, the elevator exit hidden within the rocky wall. Once closed, it was concealed by a camouflaged stone slab.

The mountain beneath his feet wasn't particularly tall, measuring less than a kilometer in height, and was covered in lush vegetation.

Using his electromagnetic induction, Ji Xinghuo scanned the entire mountain peak and discovered many strange plants, but no signs of wild beasts or monsters. It seemed eerily quiet.

However, this was merely an illusion.

The biggest deception on Diyuan Star was its flora. Every plant concealed a hidden danger. What seemed safe one second could turn into a deadly trap the next.

"Let's get away from the exit first to avoid exposure."

Ji Xinghuo leaped lightly, his internal magnetic field rotating as he manipulated the Magnetic Spirit Xing Core to reverse its magnetic poles. By creating a repulsive force with Diyuan Star's magnetic field, he propelled himself into the air.

He didn't fly too high, as magnetic field flight consumed a lot of starlight.

The higher he flew, the more starlight was expended.

Several kilometers away, Ji Xinghuo landed in a clearing.

He was surrounded by tall forests that, due to varying light conditions, were distinctly layered from top to bottom. Numerous strange plants that he had never seen before—vines, flowers, ferns, and more—thrived in this rich and complex ecosystem. With his limited knowledge of botany, he couldn't identify any of them.

"It's normal not to recognize extraterrestrial plants."

"Even Earth's botanists would be stumped here," Ji Xinghuo thought.

He chose a random direction and started walking.

This was a Level One zone, relatively safer compared to other areas. However, after walking just a few hundred meters, Ji Xinghuo felt something amiss. It was as if he was being secretly watched, though he couldn't detect any enemies through his electromagnetic induction.

"Strange..."

Ji Xinghuo was certain it wasn't his imagination. Ever since obtaining the Myriad Phenomena Star Pupil, his premonitions had never been wrong.

He became even more cautious, keeping his surroundings under constant electromagnetic surveillance.

However, after walking for several hours, as the sun sank towards the western horizon, he still hadn't encountered any danger.

Nor had he come across any other Eternal Day guards.

He even ate some fruit, which tasted delicious, making him feel like he was out on a picnic.

"I need to reach a shelter before nightfall."

The Eternal Day badge projected a satellite map, and Ji Xinghuo located the nearest underground shelter, about thirty kilometers away, and planned a route to get there.

The Diyuan Star became even more perilous at night.

Due to the inability of the satellites to detect movements of monsters on the ground after dark, the Eternal Day guards couldn't be warned in time. Regardless of the zone's level, the danger increased by one level at night. A Level One zone became Level Two, Level Three became Level Four, and so on.

The Jingying Clan had constructed underground shelters worldwide to ensure the safety of the Eternal Day guards during the night.

As dusk fell, Ji Xinghuo was still about ten kilometers away from the shelter when he suddenly sensed something amiss. He turned to look north, where a patch of cloud was moving. Due to the fading light, he hadn't noticed anything amiss earlier, but now he realized that it wasn't a cloud at all.

It was a swarm of "bats."

They resembled birds, with grayish-white leaf-like wings spanning about a meter wide. Their bodies were smooth and dark green, with long, slender tails that emitted a firefly-like glow at the tip. With a gentle flutter of their wings, they could glide effortlessly in the wind.

"Spore Bats!"

Ji Xinghuo recognized them instantly, and his scalp tingled.

He had read about these half-plant, half-animal monsters on the forums. Individually, they weren't much stronger than the average monster in the Xing Realm, and some were even weaker.

But Spore Bats never appeared alone; they always came in swarms, numbering in the hundreds at the very least.

However, this cloud of Spore Bats stretched for over a thousand meters in width and several kilometers in length, blending seamlessly with the actual clouds in the sky.

There had to be at least a hundred thousand of them!

"Holy sht!"

Ji Xinghuo cried out in alarm and turned to run, sprinting through the forest towards the underground shelter.

"I should make it in time," Ji Xinghuo thought, gauging the distance between them. He estimated that he would reach the underground shelter about half a minute before the birds could launch their assault.

When he was less than three kilometers away from the shelter's entrance, his gaze suddenly froze.

Ahead, the forest floor seemed to be rolling and churning.

One after another, emerald green figures burst through the soil and rose to their feet. They resembled upright praying mantises, standing about two meters tall with a humanoid form. Their limbs were segmented, clad in chitinous armor, and their arms were a pair of massive serrated blades. Their heads were grotesque and fearsome.

Serrated Mantises!

These insect-like monsters were common on Diyuan Star and far stronger than Spore Bats.

In just a few seconds, more than a hundred Serrated Mantises had blocked his path.

Ji Xinghuo didn't slow down his sprint. As soon as he spotted the mantises, he gripped the Crystal Light Gun in his hand and began firing at them.

Hsss! Hsss! Hsss...

Streaks of light flashed by, too fast for the naked eye to follow, like fleeting traces of indigo thread.

The beams instantly blasted apart several Serrated Mantises.

Simultaneously, the other mantises brandished their blades and charged forward relentlessly. Undeterred, Ji Xinghuo continued firing with the Crystal Light Gun.

With his hyper-frequency thinking activated, the world around him seemed to slow down.

Energy coursed through the crystal gun in his hand, and the beams of light poured into the forest like splashing water. Each laser beam could take down at least one Serrated Mantis, and under the intense heat, these insect-like monsters were as fragile as paper, easily pierced through, with the beam continuing to wreak havoc on the mantises behind them.

As he raced forward, the Serrated Mantises fell one after another.

The distance between the two sides was rapidly closing in.

Soon, Ji Xinghuo aimed the gun straight ahead and fired continuously for a few seconds, creating an opening in the horde of monsters before rushing through it.

He glanced northward, noticing that the Spore Bat swarm was now less than a kilometer away from him.

While firing at the surrounding Serrated Mantises, he dashed toward a low-lying hill and located the underground shelter with the help of the Eternal Day badge. The soil on the hill slid away, revealing a cave entrance.

Ji Xinghuo rushed inside and found a verification panel on the cave wall.

"Block them!" he shouted as he threw Qinghong forward. Qinghong landed at the cave entrance, its body expanding to block the passage while facing the oncoming Serrated Mantises, its mouth agape.

Boom!

Qinghong unleashed a Thunderclap Hand, sending a massive lightning bolt sweeping across a hundred-meter range, turning dozens of Serrated Mantises into ashes.

Ji Xinghuo's Eternal Day badge was verified, and a passageway opened up.

"Come back!"

Qinghong immediately shrunk and leaped back into his hand. Ji Xinghuo stepped into the passage, and the heavy alloy gate slammed shut behind him as the elevator cabin swiftly descended.

A few seconds after the passage closed, the Spore Bats poured into the cave, their bodies filling every inch of space. Then, like bursting sauce, they simultaneously exploded, releasing countless streams of green toxic liquid that inundated every corner of the cave.

Outside the cave, tens of thousands of Spore Bats swarmed around the hill, taking turns to dive into the cave and detonate themselves.

Boom! Boom! Boom...

Ji Xinghuo, inside the elevator, heard the relentless sounds echoing from above, each explosion as dense as raindrops.

"Terrifying..."

This was the attack method of the Spore Bats—to fly toward their target and self-destruct.

Even if their explosions couldn't penetrate his sacred scale armor, being blasted thousands or tens of thousands of times would likely take away half his life, if not kill him outright.

"Thankfully, I ran fast enough."

"And this is only a Level One zone?" Ji Xinghuo thought, realizing the danger of the situation. He could only imagine how much more perilous the higher-level zones would be.

The elevator quickly descended to the bottom and then passed through a gate, leading to a hall with an area of about two hundred square meters.

As he entered, the lights came on, illuminating a resting room, a food storage room, an armory, and equipment for communicating with the Jingying Clan.

Ji Xinghuo breathed a sigh of relief and sat down.

This shelter was located about three hundred meters underground. From the elevator shaft and passageway, he could see that the entire underground space had walls and floors made of alloy, over ten meters thick, and was infused with abundant energy, resembling a fully enclosed fortress that ordinary monsters couldn't breach.

Only now did Ji Xinghuo have the opportunity to open the Myriad Phenomena Star Pupil interface.

[Spiritual Source Energy: 323]



He watched as the spiritual source energy continued to rise, and with each jump in the number, it increased by +1+1+1... This was the spiritual source energy he had acquired from the self-destructing Spore Bats.

"How strange." Ji Xinghuo was perplexed. Serrated Mantises and Spore Bats differed by an entire tier. Logically, the spiritual source energy obtained from them should be distinct, yet the amount was the same.

He extended his electromagnetic induction over the shelter, and the Spore Bat swarm was quickly dispersing.

Suddenly, several massive beams of light descended from the sky, bombarding the Spore Bat swarm and leveling the surrounding forest to the ground.

The ground shook violently, and the shelter trembled.

This was a space-based weapon of the Jingying Clan, a type of turbine laser cannon launched into low orbit.

"What swift firepower!" Ji Xinghuo exclaimed, guessing that his locator chip had triggered the Jingying Clan's alert system. As soon as he entered the shelter, the orbital laser cannon opened fire on the enemies. And those Spore Bats, aware that they would be bombed, scattered promptly.

Nonetheless, the orbital laser cannon inflicted considerable damage.

The spiritual source energy value surged wildly.

Although it still increased by +1 with each addition, the frequency of these increments was high, and before long, it surpassed 5,000 points of spiritual source energy.

More Spore Bats perished outside the absorption range, causing the spiritual source energy to plateau at around 5,500 points.

"Not bad, not bad at all!" Ji Xinghuo was highly satisfied.

To acquire over five thousand points of spiritual source energy on his first day on Diyuan Star was quite an accomplishment.

He decided to keep this energy for now and activated his Eternal Day badge to check his merit points. As the Jingying Clan had mentioned, the locator chip would automatically detect slain enemies and record the earned merit points. Although he didn't understand the principle behind it, he believed it to be reliable.

Ji Xinghuo soon saw his merit points.

"It's only 5 points."

Previously, when browsing forum posts, he had learned that earning Eternal Day merit was extremely challenging, and the Jingying Clan's calculation method was very strict.

Each type of monster had a corresponding value.

Spore Bats and Serrated Mantises were among the most common monsters, yielding very few merit points. One had to eliminate 120 Spore Bats to earn 1 merit point, and for Serrated Mantises, the requirement was 24.

Moreover, one had to defeat them personally for them to count.

The Spore Bats killed by the orbital laser cannon earlier did not contribute to his merit.

Other common monsters on Diyuan Star, such as the Thorn Ball (12 kills), Briar Viper (18 kills), Wolf Soulwood (24 kills), Swamp Crawler (24 kills), and Man-Eating Devil Flower (6 kills), would only grant 1 merit point each according to the forum posts.

The Jingying Clan used a base-six number system, hence the requirement for the number of monsters to be a multiple of six.

The danger far outweighed the rewards.

"That's outrageous..." Ji Xinghuo shook his head.

No wonder during the auction at the Rare Qi Zhao Bid, participants offered such meager amounts of Eternal Day merit. A single merit point was valued as highly as Aether Crystals.

He wondered how many Eternal Day guards had lost their lives in pursuit of these merit points.

Eternal Day merit could not be traded.

The accumulation of merit points would lead to promotions for the Eternal Day guards, granting them certain privileges and benefits, such as an upgrade to a Blue Crystal badge, reduced handling fees, or access to purchase items not available at the Rare Treasure Auction.

The Paradise Treasure Diamond he coveted had a starting bid of 55 Aether Crystals + 100 Eternal Day merit points, and the final price would undoubtedly be more than double that. He would need to fight on Diyuan Star for at least a month or two. The same went for the cloned heterogene of other weapons and equipment, which would require even longer adventures.

"Slow and steady," Ji Xinghuo muttered to himself. After having a meal, he retired to the resting room to sleep.

A day on Diyuan Star lasted only about 15 hours, and it soon grew light outside. Ji Xinghuo used electromagnetic induction to scan his surroundings and, finding no monsters, took the elevator up.

The walls and floor of the cave were coated with a thick layer of toxic liquid, emitting a putrid stench.

Fortunately, Ji Xinghuo no longer needed to breathe, so he flew out directly.

Outside, there were several craters with diameters of dozens of meters on the ground around the hill, but there were no traces of Spore Bat or Serrated Mantis corpses. In just one night, the distant vegetation had grown back, and the pits bombed out by the orbital laser cannon were now filled with roots and green leaves.

"Their vitality is too tenacious!" Ji Xinghuo was secretly astonished.

In less than two or three days, the marks left by the orbital laser cannon would disappear, and the area would revert to a lush forest.

He identified his direction using the satellite map and set out for the day's journey. This time, he hadn't ventured far when he encountered monsters.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end