The Chameleon Slime lived up to its reputation. It was sticky, it smelled like wet socks, and it effectively turned the Twilight Stable team into walking, breathing clumps of moss.
They lay flat on their stomachs on the ridge overlooking the Northern Gorge. Below them, the excavation site was a hive of dark industry. Dozens of Dark Beast Sect cultists in black robes were scurrying around a massive wooden scaffolding built against the ancient stone wall.
In the center of the chaos sat the Void-Borer. It was a terrifying machine—a massive, spinning conical drill bit made of dark, enchanted steel, powered by a throbbing purple crystal the size of a man. It ground against the rune-covered wall with a screeching roar that vibrated in the teeth.
GRRRRZZZZZ.
"My ears are bleeding," Lin Fan whispered, his voice muffled by the slime covering his face. "That frequency... it's tearing at the structural integrity of the stone. They aren't unlocking the door; they're smashing it down."
"Look at the leader," Su Ye pointed.
Down in the pit, Elder Wraith stood on a raised platform. He wasn't just watching; he was conducting. He waved a bone staff, channeling streams of dark Qi into the drill, forcing it to spin faster. Behind him stood a creature that looked like it had been stitched together from a graveyard—a Bone Chimera, a skeletal lion with the tail of a scorpion and wings of tattered leather.
"That's a Tier-5 Beast," Luo Bing noted, her grip tightening on her sword. "Maybe Tier-6. Its aura is necrotic. If we engage, it will rot our flesh before we get close."
"Then we don't engage the beast," Su Ye said, wiping a glob of green slime from his eye. "We disable the machine. That drill bit is made of Star-Steel. It's harder than diamond. We can't break it."
He looked at the golden chicken, Little Sun, who was currently disguised as a mossy rock on Su Ye's shoulder.
"But we can digest it."
Su Ye pulled out a small bag of dried worms. "Little Sun. See the big spinning shiny thing? It's the ultimate treat. But you have to be fast. Fly in, peck the drive shaft, eat the bit, and get out."
The chicken looked at the drill. It looked at the worms. It narrowed its eyes with the determination of a soldier going behind enemy lines.
Mooo. (Translation: Challenge Accepted).
"Gao Ming," Su Ye commanded. "We need cover. The slime hides us from sight, but not from the Bone Chimera's smell. I need you to create a diversion on the east flank.
Something that smells worse than us."
Gao Ming grinned beneath his slime mask. "Master, I have been saving a jar of Fermented Skunk-Weed for a special
occasion."
"This is the occasion. Lin Fan, when the drill stops, the feedback loop will destabilize the crystal. Be ready to contain the blast with a sonic counter-pulse. Luo Bing, you're on crowd control. Freeze the cultists."
"And you, Master?" Lin Fan asked.
"Me?" Su Ye pulled his shovel from his back. "I'm going to have a chat with the Bone Elder about noise complaints."
Down in the gorge, Elder Wraith was ecstatic. The ancient runes were cracking. Purple sparks flew from the wall as the Void-Borer chewed deeper.
"Almost!" Wraith screamed over the noise. "The Seal weakens! The Hunger stirs!"
Suddenly, a glass jar sailed through the air from the eastern ridge. It smashed against a rock pile fifty meters away from the main group.
POOF.
A cloud of yellow gas exploded. The smell hit the gorge instantly. It was a scent so foul, so pungent, that even the undead Bone Chimera gagged.
"Intruders!" Wraith roared, covering his nose (or where his nose would be under the mask). "East ridge! Chimera, destroy them!"
The Bone Chimera roared and leaped toward the yellow cloud, distracted by the overwhelming biological assault.
"Now!" Su Ye whispered.
Little Sun launched.
Because of the deafening drill and the chaos of the skunk-bomb, no one noticed the small, moss-covered streak of gold diving from the western ridge.
Little Sun hit the Void-Borer. It didn't attack the cultists. It landed directly on the spinning drive shaft, its talons gripping the metal with impossible strength.
The chicken looked at the massive, spinning Star-Steel drill bit.
Peck.
It struck with the force of a hydraulic press. A chunk of the indestructible steel vanished.
Peck. Peck. Crunch.
The cultist operating the machine stared in horror. "Elder! The drill! Something is... eating it!"
"What?!" Wraith spun around.
He saw a golden chicken standing on his doomsday machine, treating the most expensive alloy in the kingdom like a buffet.
CRUNCH.
Little Sun swallowed the tip of the drill. Without the point, the machine lost traction. The drive shaft spun wildly, unbalanced. The metal screamed.
"Kill the bird!" Wraith shrieked, firing a bolt of dark magic.
Little Sun burped, hopped into the air, and dodged the bolt.
The machine, now spinning out of control without its drilling head, began to shake violently. The purple crystal powering it pulsed with unstable red light.
"Lin Fan! Now!" Su Ye shouted from the ridge.
Lin Fan stood up, shedding his slime camouflage. He slammed his gauntlets together, aiming the Echo Bone at the unstable crystal.
"Sonic Lance!"
PING!
The sound wave hit the crystal at the exact moment of its peak resonance.
BOOM.
The Void-Borer exploded. It wasn't a fire explosion; it was a gravity implosion. The machine crumpled inward, turning into a ball of twisted scrap metal. The shockwave knocked the nearby cultists off their feet.
Elder Wraith shielded himself with a barrier of bone magic, but he was thrown back, sliding across the dirt.
Dust filled the gorge.
"You..." Wraith hissed, standing up, his robes torn. "Who dares?!"
"Twilight Stable Pest Control!"
Su Ye jumped from the ridge, sliding down the scree slope on his shovel like a sled. He landed in the center of the gorge, flanked by Luo Bing and Zhu Zhu.
Little Sun fluttered down and landed on Su Ye's shoulder, looking heavier and very satisfied.
"You broke my drill," Wraith whispered, his voice trembling with rage. "That cost... four million Spirit Stones."
"Send me the bill," Su Ye said, resting his shovel on his shoulder. "Though I usually charge extra for recycling services."
Wraith's bone mask seemed to darken. The air in the gorge grew cold. The Bone Chimera, realizing it had been tricked by a stink bomb, leaped back into the pit, landing behind its master.
"You think this is a game?" Wraith raised his staff. "You think destroying a machine stops the inevitable? The Seal is already fractured. The Void bleeds through."
He slammed his staff into the ground.
"Bone Chimera! Necrotic Fusion!"
The massive skeletal beast didn't attack. Instead, it collapsed, its bones flying apart and swirling around Elder Wraith. The ribs wrapped around his chest, the skull formed a helmet over his mask, and the scorpion tail attached to his spine.
Wraith grew three feet taller. He was now encased in a suit of living bone armor, radiating a terrifying, green necrotic aura.
"I will flay the skin from your bones and use it to wipe the Seal clean," Wraith roared, his voice now a dual-tone nightmare of human and beast.
Su Ye looked at the armored giant. He looked at his shovel.
"Luo Bing," Su Ye said calmly. "Can you freeze him?"
"He's covered in death energy," Luo Bing said, her face pale. "My ice will rot before it touches him."
"Lin Fan?"
"My sonic waves won't penetrate that bone density," Lin Fan called out from the ridge, looking at his readings. "He's a walking tank."
"Right," Su Ye nodded. "Zhu Zhu?"
The pig hid behind Su Ye's leg. The necrotic energy tasted like spoiled milk. He didn't want it.
"Okay," Su Ye sighed. "Plan B."
"What is Plan B?" Luo Bing asked.
"We run away," Su Ye said. "And we let the landlord deal with the tenant."
Su Ye suddenly turned and sprinted toward the Sealed Wall.
"What are you doing?!" Wraith laughed, chasing after him with heavy, earth-shaking steps. "There is no escape that way! The wall is solid!"
Su Ye reached the wall. He didn't try to break it. He slapped the Concentration Stone (the one he stole from the Vault) against the surface of the runes.
Zzzzt.
"WAKE UP!" Su Ye screamed mentally into the stone. "INTRUDER ALERT! SOMEONE IS DRILLING HOLES IN YOUR LAWN!"
The connection slammed open.
Su Ye wasn't speaking to the Seal. He was speaking to the consciousness trapped inside the Concentration Stone—the Stone-Eater Badger he had met in the vault.
"I WAS SLEEPING!" the Badger Spirit roared in Su Ye's mind. "WHY IS IT SO LOUD? WHY DOES IT SMELL LIKE DEAD LION?"
"There's a Bone Man trying to break the wall!" Su Ye shouted. "He says your barrier technique is trash!"
"TRASH?!"
The Concentration Stone pulsed. It wasn't just a battery; it was a key. The Stone-Eater Badger was the original guardian of the earth formations.
The ancient runes on the wall didn't just glow; they flared blinding white. The stone of the wall rippled like liquid.
From the wall itself, massive hands made of solid granite emerged. They weren't summoned golems; they were the wall itself coming alive.
Elder Wraith, mid-charge, stopped. "What?"
The Granite Hands, each the size of a carriage, clapped together, catching Wraith between them.
WHAM.
Wraith screamed as his bone armor cracked under the pressure of the mountain itself.
"GET OFF MY LAWN!" the Badger Spirit projected through the wall, shaking the entire gorge.
The Granite Hands threw Wraith backward. He flew through the air like a ragdoll, crashing into his own ruined drilling machine.
Su Ye peeled the Concentration Stone off the wall. "Thanks, Senior."
"Keep it down," the Badger grumbled, the wall solidifying again. "And bring me a snack next time."
Su Ye turned to the stunned cultists. "Anyone else want to criticize the architecture?"
The cultists looked at their broken leader, the exploded drill, and the angry wall. They dropped their weapons and ran.
Su Ye let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Okay. That worked."
But just as the dust settled, a low, guttural sound echoed from the cracks in the wall—the cracks that the drill had made before it was destroyed.
It wasn't a roar. It was a whisper.
Hunger...
A single drop of black liquid oozed from the crack. It hit the ground and sizzled.
Zhu Zhu's ears perked up. He stepped forward, sniffing the black liquid. His eyes, usually fearful, went wide with a strange, hypnotic desire.
"Zhu Zhu, no!" Su Ye warned.
But the pig was entranced. He licked the black drop.
FLASH.
Zhu Zhu froze. His pink skin turned jet black. His eyes rolled back, glowing with a terrifying violet light. He didn't grow in size, but his shadow... his shadow expanded, covering the entire floor of the gorge in seconds.
The pig opened its mouth, and a voice that was not Zhu Zhu's spoke.
"Free..."
Su Ye stared at his pig.
"Uh oh," Su Ye whispered. "I think the landlord just possessed the tenant."
Elder Wraith, pulling himself out of the wreckage, saw the black pig. He started laughing, a wet, bloody sound.
"You fool!" Wraith cackled. "You stopped the drill, but you brought the vessel! The Void King doesn't need a door anymore! He has a body!"
Su Ye looked at the possessed Zhu Zhu, whose shadow was now beginning to eat the light of the sun.
"Little Sun," Su Ye said slowly. "I hope you have room for dessert."
Little Sun looked at the Void Pig. It fluffed its feathers. It didn't moo this time.
It let out a war cry.
Cock-a-doodle-DOOOO! (Translation: It's on.)