Rise Of The Worm Sovereign

Lin Wu read through the system's description and found it to be reasonable.

"Hmm… now that I think of it, a lot of common beasts are just descendants of much stronger beasts. The only difference being that their bloodline kept on getting diluted till it morphed into something completely different and they became a different species.

Though this also gives rise to the question… can a common beast progress his own cultivation far enough without a good bloodline or not? If humans can do it, then technically beasts should be able to do it as well." Lin Wu muttered to himself while flying behind the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle.

The two beasts flew for over eight hours before they reached the location that the Eagle Beast was talking about. The strange thing was Lin Wu had been here before. There were literally the track marks left behind by his large body in the mud, along with the trees that were destroyed.

"Are you sure it's here?" Lin Wu questioned.

"Yes, I can sense it deep within the ground here. But I can't exactly tell where." The Eagle Beast replied.

"Hmm… alright. I'll go down and see." Lin Wu said before landing on the ground and digging in.

~Rumble~

Lin Wu's large body pierced through the dirt and soon disappeared beneath the ground. The eagle beast couldn't help but raise its brow feathers.

"He truly is a worm alright…" she said upon seeing the efficiency with which Lin Wu dug into the ground.

Lin Wu traveled through the ground and used his own spirit sense to check for the temple. Since the system was unable to provide him with coordinates, this was all Lin Wu could do for now. He started from the point where he entered the ground and dug in circles, covering a large radius of area.

It took him over two hours to cover the entire area before he had to move deeper. He repeated the same thing, moving in circles before going even deeper.

"Damn, just how deep is it?" Lin Wu wondered.

The previous temple that he saw was not as deep as this one. In fact, that one was at barely half the depth at which Lin Wu currently was. Still, since the eagle beast had said that the temple was here, Lin Wu continued his hunt, until an entire six hours passed. 

"How far deep am I even?" Lin Wu wondered.

~Ding~

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ANSWER: The host is 12641.23 meters deep under ground.

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"Goddamn… if it was the previous world of mine, I would have already hit oil at this point." Lin Wu said.

This was in fact the farthest Lin Wu had dug until now. But just when he was about to give up, his spirit sense picked up something.

"Huh? Is that it…?" Lin Wu wondered and got closer to the area.

"It really is!" Lin Wu exclaimed.

Lin Wu's spirit sense scanned the large structure and found it to be the same as the temple he had seen before. It had the same kind of platform on top of it along with the trap door, which was technically its roof. 

"Now then… how do I actually get the Eagle Beast here?" Lin Wu wondered.

The depth of the temple was quite far and Lin Wu's original method was going to be just digging the soil to make a large tunnel for the Eagle beast. But now he couldn't say the same. While he could really use the same method of just digging the soil, he didn't know how long it would end up taking.

"Maybe I can find the mechanism that makes the temples rise up from the ground. If I can trigger it, I may be able to get it to ascend to the surface." Lin Wu said to himself.

Having thought of that, he got close to the entrance of the temple and shrunk himself. There were the same carvings on the tiles that Lin Wu had seen before, along with the ones on the doors of the trapdoor.

Lin Wu infused some spirit Qi into the formations of the trapdoor and managed to unlock it.

~creek~

The trap door opened and Lin Wu walked, or rather slithered, down the stairs while making his body glow. When he got to the very bottom of the stairs, he reached the same kind of a hall from the previous temple.

"So they really are just replicas of each other." Lin Wu stated.

He walked ahead and saw all the statues of the vermilion bird decorating the hall. Lin Wu avoided triggering any traps that may be present and got to the door of the inner hall. Pushing them open, Lin Wu caused the torches in the inner hall to light up.

~Shua~shua~shua~

The talons that were holding the crimson flames illuminated the hall, revealing the entirety of the hall. There Lin Wu saw the large statue of the vermilion bird at the very end. This statue was also damaged, like the previous one, but in different parts.

The crumbled and broken fragments could also be seen lying around and Lin Wu reckoned this was due to age. Though there were some peculiar things that Lin Wu noticed there.

"Huh? Scratch marks?" Lin Wu observed.

Lin Wu got closer and then suddenly heard a growing sound from behind.

~Grrrr~

His spirit sense spread around, but he could not sense anything. 

"Who?!" Lin Wu's body whipped at a blinding speed as he hit whatever was approaching him from behind.

There Lin Wu saw a large six legged beast that had a featureless, mask like face, with only a mouth that was filled with sharp teeth. As soon as he saw it, he recognized what beast it was.

"The Specter Skull Hound? What is it doing this far deep?" Lin Wu wondered. "No, wait… its size is also much bigger than the previous one…" Lin Wu added.

~Ding~

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ANSWER: This is a mature Specter Skull hound that is at the Nascent Soul realm. Host should proceed with caution!

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