Chapter 135: Deep in the Tunnel

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

From the partitioned rooms and decorations around him, Xia Fei could tell that this building was an important facility like the city hall or the congress assembly.

At the center of this building was a large, open courtyard, and it appeared that he was somewhere five floors above that.

He saw numerous, dug-out holes on the first floor, each roughly about an adult man’s height. It was unknown where the closely packed entrances led to.

That murderous aura was coming from these countless tunnels, and Xia Fei reckoned that they should all be connected, with some unknown insectoid living within this network of tunnels.

Taking a look around him, there were actually no other insectoids inside this huge building, most likely because a high-level insectoid had taken up residence here, so every other insectoid was giving it a wide berth.

It could be seen that the one here was not just above the insectoids outside in terms of their level but was also likely the leader of City 02.

Xia Fei went down one floor via the stairs, ducking behind a broken office desk for cover. He kept a close eye on what was below him, hoping to catch sight of the insectoid leaving the tunnels so that he could determine whether he could kill it or not.

An hour passed in this manner, and that insectoid Xia Fei was hoping to see did not leave its resting place at all.

The situation remained unchanged after two hours.

After three hours, that violent aura diminished by some, and Xia Fei reckoned that it might be a sign that the insectoid had fallen asleep in its nest.

Pondering over this quickly in his mind, he decided that this was a rare opportunity and that he must capitalize on this stroke of fortune to venture into the tunnels and kill the insectoid.

He got up and was just about to make his way into one of the tunnel entrances when, all of a sudden, he heard skittering noises of seemingly several insectoids rushing to the location from outside the building.

Xia Fei once more crouched low and kept his eyes peeled on the entrance.

After a while, he saw four five-colored beetles, which were dragging in a carcass of an insectoid and some fresh grass, crawl in from the outside.

Xia Fei was quite surprised. He recognized the carcass these insectoids had brought in as the sawtooth he had killed earlier. In fact, the diamond-shaped crystal from its head was sitting quietly in his spatial ring at this very moment.

The four five-colored beetles used their mandibles to drag the carcass and fresh grass into the tunnels, ignorant of Xia Fei’s presence.

‘Could they be sending in lunch for the insectoid in the tunnels?’ Xia Fei wondered to himself.

There were many types of insectoids capable of thought, doing work, and developing their language just like humans; some were even able to drive insectoids with lower IQs to do work for them.

‘Could there be a high-level insectoid in the tunnels?’ Xia Fei’s suspicions grew. It must be mentioned that high-IQ insectoids were classified as at least level 4 or above by the Pan-Human Alliance, yet Bosingwa had told all the cadets, including him, that there were only level 1 and 2 insectoids on this planet. Just where had the highly intelligent insectoid come from if it was truly residing here?

With his Breath Control still active, Xia Fei surreptitiously tailed those four insectoids as they entered one of the tunnel entrances.

These five-colored beetles were hardly a threat to Xia Fei, having already killed almost a hundred of them while he was outside. The only thing that might be a threat to him was that insectoid he had not yet met inside these tunnels.

Xia Fei had already perfected his Breath Control technique, so these five-colored beetles were unable to sense that a human was right behind them. Xia Fei maintained a two-hundred-meter distance from them, using the uneven terrain within as cover while he tailed these insectoids that were going deeper underground.

The tunnel was pitch-black inside, and the air was cold and stale. The strong smell of decay was everywhere as if a pile of rotten fish had been placed somewhere in these tunnels.

Xia Fei turned on his Windshade Mark IV combat suit’s night built-in vision goggles and kept the environmental monitoring instrument into his spatial ring. This planet’s environment was exceptionally bad, and the instrument should logically be stored away somewhere on his body just in case of emergency, but the instrument would beep endlessly the moment it detected danger, and that would expose Xia Fei, endangering him as a corollary.

Fortunately, the legendary-grade defensive capability of his Windshade Mark IV combat suit had fairly decent protection against all sorts of hazardous materials, so there was no need for Xia Fei to worry about the environment he was in.

The length and complexity of the tunnels went well beyond what he had imagined; half an hour had already passed ever since he entered the tunnels.

Xia Fei reckoned that he should be over two kilometers below the surface at this moment, and to have dug such a deep and complex tunnel system was a testament to the depths of understanding the insectoid possessed over digging.

The smell of rot in the air was becoming more and more distinct as well, seemingly filling every corner of these tunnels.

There was another bend in front of him, and with these many tunnels all starting to converge in one point, he could infer that the insectoid’s nest was not too far away from his location.

Moving forward, Xia Fei abruptly discovered that one tunnel was a lot colder than those he had been in thus far, and there were even icicles that had condensed on the rocky wall surfaces.

The path was very slippery, so Xia Fei pushed a button to activate his combat boots’ ice spikes underneath.

He continued along for another five-hundred meters, and the way ahead gradually opened up to a cavern.

In response, Xia Fei completely activated the spikes on his combat suit, using these to scale the wall like an agile gecko.

Several minutes later, Xia Fei silently appeared at the highest part of this cavern and spotted a sleeping, maroon-colored insectoid.

The four five-colored beetles seemed to be very afraid of it, for they took care to toss that sawtooth carcass on the ground, leaving the bundle of green grass to the side, very quietly before quickly retreating to where they had come from. Once they were a good distance from the maroon-colored insectoid, the four beetles scurried away as fast as they could, looking as if they had just survived a meeting with death.

By now, the only ones left in this cavern were that maroon-colored beetle and Xia Fei. This insectoid was not particularly large, only about 1.5 meters in length, not even reaching Xia Fei’s height.

From its outward appearance, it appeared to be a super-sized woodlouse; its body was long and narrow, with a smooth and hard carapace covering its back. There were plenty of soft feelers on its abdomen, most likely what it used to move. A pair of blood-red orbs were growing on its head and tail, making it hard for anyone to determine which was which.

Its body was tightly curled up into a ball, and some of the longer feelers even extended at times to scratch itself.

This insectoid did not look special on the outside, hardly seeming vicious no matter how Xia Fei stared at it. Nevertheless, the aura around it was extremely ferocious.

Xia Fei clung tightly onto the ceiling, using his left hand to pull out his communicator and aim it at the insectoid, hoping to get a read of what type, level, characteristics, habits, et cetera it was.

The communicator was actually a miniature computer, and while communication was its main purpose, it had plenty of other functions as well.

Technology had developed to a point that pretty much all devices used computers at their cores, though they had different fortes, just like how Xia Fei’s microcomputer’s main use was to access the interplanetary internet and his communicator to conversate across the various frequencies.

The maroon insectoid’s physical attributes were swiftly inputted on the communicator, which quickly scoured through the insectoid database then gave Xia Fei the results in a few seconds.

The result he got back was that there were zero matches for this particular insectoid; the word ‘unknown’ was prominently shown on the screen.

Xia Fei stored his communicator into his spatial ring; he was ready to continue his observation so that he could completely comprehend its true visage, but this was unfortunately cut short by the maroon insectoid waking up. It uncurled itself and slowly crawled to the food, dining on it with great relish at the unidentifiable insectoid’s pace.

It even took several minutes of break from eating before resuming its slow-pace digging in; It pulled the meat off the sawtooth carcass twice before taking in two heaps of green grass, demonstrating its knowledge of mixing meat and vegetables when eating.

“Thoughts?” Xia Fei asked Phantom through his consciousness.

“I’m not sure, but from what we’ve seen thus far, this insectoid doesn’t seem to be of any threat, but how to explain that very intense aura we’ve felt from it before?” Phantom was scratching his head in puzzlement.

Xia Fei gritted his teeth, then revealed a mirthless smirk. “An easy way to find out if this insectoid just faking it is by killing it.”

With that said, Xia Fei let go of the cavern’s ceiling and went plunging toward the maroon insectoid. His Chasing Light was held high in his hands as he sent a horizontal cut on its body.

The low *thunk* produced by metal meeting metal echoed in the cavern.

The insectoid’s thin layer of the carapace was far more resilient than Xia Fei had expected. Not only did Chasing Light fail to penetrate it despite Xia Fei using all his strength, his arm even went numb from the impact.

All of a sudden, that wild and violent aura became even greater, and the maroon insectoid demonstrated an unbelievably fast speed to turn around, its two, blood-red orbs eyeing Xia Fei rather inhumanly.

It was hard to imagine that, just minutes ago, this insectoid was still very slowly munching on its food, yet the instant it was attacked, this creature would demonstrate a hundredfold increase in speed.

Though it adopted a stance that exuded rage, it did not unleash any substantive retaliation.

Xia Fei ignored its stance. Since the attack had yet to begin, he was not about to let up until the insectoid died.

He used his speed to put some distance between himself and the insectoid. Xia Fei circled his target, his concentration pushed to the limits. Right now, he needed to avoid that hard carapace and find a way to land his attacks on that soft abdomen.

Meanwhile, the maroon insectoid used its fast speed to shift its gaze accordingly, moving as Xia Fei did. This made for a fairly peculiar sight, with him going in circles around the cavern and the maroon insectoid spinning from where it stood.

“Chance.”

Xia Fei abruptly kicked the cavern wall and using that powerful counterforce, his entire body went hurtling like a released arrow toward his target.

Xia Fei was skirting close to the ground, looking like a fish that was swimming on land. His Chasing Light performed a sweeping blow on that insectoid’s body.

*Klunk*

Chasing Light formed a cyan streak of electricity as it passed through, slicing off feelers after feelers, the maroon insectoid’s abdomen.

No, it was more precise to say that an entire row of feelers had been chopped off by Xia Fei.

The maroon insectoid depended on the soft feelers on its abdomen to support its body. Having all of the feelers from one side severed by Xia Fei caused the insectoid to lose its balance, falling over on one side as a result.

This was a great opportunity; its soft abdomen was completely exposed at the same time that the insectoid’s body fell to one side.

“Another one!”

Xia Fei did it once more, burrowing the counterforce from the wall once more as he lashed out anew, his Chasing Light pointed to the creature’s weak abdomen.

The maroon insectoid, which had lost its balance, was completely incapable of defending from this attack.

The sound that rang out was similar to that of a piece of cloth being ripped in half.

Chasing Light gave a steady cut that ran across its abdomen, gutting its underbelly.

Green liquid intermingled with plenty of its internal organs as it slowly oozed out. No matter how strong the insectoid’s carapace was, the abdomen remained as its fatal weakness.

Xia Fei came to a halt by a corner of the cavern, pulling out a stick of Hongtashan as he lit it. Right now, what he needed was to wait for that maroon insectoid to die, so he could collect what valuables it had.

He was involuntarily sneaking a peek at that insectoid when, all of a sudden, something strange occurred.

A gust of frosty breeze came.