Published: February 11, 2025
“What are you thinking?”
Garan felt helpless at Ye Zhongming's calm demeanor in the face of danger. However, upon hearing the man's question, she seriously pondered for a moment before replying, “Are you referring to the corpses of those frost beasts outside?”
Garan wasn't foolish; after all, anyone who had survived for over two years in the apocalypse wouldn't be too dim-witted. Since Ye Zhongming had asked with a clear purpose, she naturally linked it to the strange situation they had encountered earlier.
Ye Zhongming nodded. He had thought the same when he saw the scene here earlier.
The area of activity for the frost beasts outside resembled a large solar panel with its grayish-white ground, while the corpses of the frost beasts acted as sunlight, absorbed by the ground. Where would the final destination of all this be?
If he hadn’t seen those passage-like patterns, Ye Zhongming might have thought that the ground simply absorbed the corpses. After all, the brightwater realm was not like Earth; it wouldn’t be strange for incomprehensible things to happen.
But having seen this, he no longer thought so. This enormous egg was the ultimate destination for the energy transformed from those corpses.
At this moment, the shell of the giant egg had been punctured in several places, with a few sharp white conical objects piercing out and then retracting. After several repetitions, huge cracks appeared on the eggshell, signaling that the life inside was about to emerge.
“Kill it!” Garan couldn’t help but urge Ye Zhongming to take action.
But Ye Zhongming shook his head, “I want to see what it hatches into.”
Garan rolled her eyes and fell silent.
Ye Zhongming wasn’t being reckless; he genuinely wanted to see what kind of surprise this magical place would ultimately provide him. Moreover, he had a certain level of judgment regarding the life within this giant egg.
Firstly, this was an adventure area in the brightwater realm. Ye Zhongming had no idea if this was the most dangerous or highest-difficulty area, but it probably wasn’t far off. Even so, considering the numerous Cat Ear Caves, and having confirmed that almost every Cat Ear Cave below was a combination of the Ice Passage and frost beasts, he didn’t feel that a formidable boss would suddenly appear to give him no way to respond.
Secondly, not to mention the Ice Passage, but even the frost beasts were roughly on par with five-star evolvers. By extension, the monster that was about to hatch in front of him should be around level six. Even if this adventure area was the highest difficulty, it could be considered level seven, but for Ye Zhongming now, that was just a minor inconvenience and did not pose a threat to him.
With such a judgment, Ye Zhongming naturally wasn’t afraid, while Garan was, of course, scared.
Crack, crack.
The sound of the shell breaking grew increasingly louder, and large chunks of eggshell began to fall away. It was vaguely visible that the previous conical objects were likely the monster’s limbs.
Though Ye Zhongming wasn’t frightened, he still waited in place and didn’t approach.
Garan, under Ye Zhongming’s instruction, retreated several meters back, while two ice birds curiously flew closer to observe the hatching creature below.
About ten seconds later, the giant egg let out a loud crack, then shattered into pieces, revealing a half-human, half-beast monster in Ye Zhongming and Garan’s sight.
Ye Zhongming merely glanced at the monster before shifting his gaze to the ground, where, indeed, no more unknown substances flowed within those patterns.
“Gah!”
A strange cry drew Ye Zhongming's attention back to the monster.
But after observing it, a strange expression surfaced on his face.
The monster was lying belly-up.
It turned out that the egg had been upright with the larger end on top, while the monster’s body was narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. After hatching, it fell directly headfirst onto the ground.