Rise Of The Worm Sovereign

Before leaving, Lin Wu had placed the communication crystal in the wall. He knew that if he directly gave it to Tim, there was a 99% chance he would have eaten it the moment he left. 

Thus, it was a better option to hide it somewhere nearby. Since Lin Wu didn't have the same communication link as he did with his servants and subordinates, he needed to use this method.

Plus, adding a link to Tim was not an option either as it would likely mess up the unique change and chaotic balance that his body had achieved. It was important that it was kept as it is so that the system could continue to analyze it.

"Humans, Eat? YES!" Tim said in agreement and quickly pulled out the crystal and shoved it into his mouth without blinking.

He then scampered onto the place where he could smell the nearest humans at. 

~crunch~crunch~

And during this all, he kept on chewing the communication crystal. It was harder than the crystal that Lin Wu had given him specifically for eating. But even then it wasn't as hard as the Earthen Depths Obsidian and could be eaten by him.

The only thing that he needed was time, and that was no problem for him. He quickly made his way to the third level, where the six humans were and soon reached them.

"Elder brother, did you hear that?" The younger brother of the two suddenly said.

"What?" The elder brother asked.

"There was some sound… something breaking." He replied.

"Something breaking? I didn't hear that." The elder brother stated.

"Are you sure you're not just getting delirious?" The third man questioned.

"No, I'm sure I heard it. It was like… glass or rocks breaking." The Younger brother answered.

"Hmm… perhaps it is just some rocks in the mines cracking. I've heard that some of the loose ones can do that. We should change the route we are taking. The sound may mean that this shaft may collapse.

If any rocks have gotten loose, they may fall on top of us or block our way out." The senior brother recommended.

"But that'll take us long to reach the next level. We can't change it like this," The third man protested.

"Do you really want to risk getting trapped here? Besides, we have the map, we can take an alternate route." The elder brother said and took out the map. "Look! There is another route there, it's not that long either." 

Seeing this, the two of them nodded their head in agreement and changed their path. The three cultivators that were stalking them silently communicated amongst themselves and waited for the three men to turn around the fork before continuing behind them.

"Huh?" But the moment they peeked into the new path, they saw that the three men had disappeared into thin air. 

"How's this possible? The tunnel is straight for quite a long way." One of the Qi refining realm cultivators said in confusion.

They were sure that no matter how fast the three of them were, they wouldn't be able to cross such a long distance in less than five seconds. Plus, they had not heard them run either.

Running in a mine shaft like this would create noise that would echo and spread all around. They would have known that they were running if that truly happened.

"Stay alert… we may not be the only ones here." The core condensation realm stalker spoke.

The other two understood what this mean and took out their weapons. And along with that, they also took out what looked like a small net. The net was barely thirty centimeters wide, but the intricate runes carved on its fine threads showed that it was anything but simple.

~CRUNCH~

Just as the three stalkers got ready, they heard a loud crunch. It was a sickening sound and made them feel goosebumps for some reason. It was like hundreds of bones breaking all at once and being ground.

The core condensation realm cultivator immediately took out a communication jade slip and tried to contact the others on the surface, but suddenly realized that he couldn't do it at all.

"What?!" The man was confused.

~WHOOSH~

In the second he had taken to do this, a strong gust of wind blew past him and one of the men disappeared. He snapped to look at him, but then another gust of wind blew past his back.

~SWOOSH~

The man knew what was happening by now and swallowed the saliva in his mouth.

~gulp~

His spirit sense finally detected the culprit.

~SHING~

He swung his sword at his full power but missed the attacker. 

"The beast?" The man recognized.

He had managed to catch the silhouette of the beast while it was moving past him. Right that moment, he knew that he would be unable to do anything to the beast.

"Dammit, the original plan was useless. They couldn't even delay it enough to use the nets." The man cursed his luck.

But he didn't get to do that for long as a second later, he felt the world spinning.

~CRACK~

~SNAP~

The spinning feeling only lasted a second, and his vision went dark after that. 

~drip~drip~drip~

The sound of blood dripping could be heard as Tim stood there with half the body of the cultivator in his mouth. 

~Crunch~

~Crunch~

He continued to chew and pushed the body into his mouth with his hands. About five seconds later, he was done eating him entirely.

"Ahh~ Good humans…" Tim said in pleasure.

It was his first time eating humans after the effect of the Agitation jade had been removed and he got to fully enjoy the taste. Earlier, he had always been in a constant state of anger and could not taste the things he ate.

At most, it would satisfy his hunger a bit and provide a little sense of relief, but that was only a brief thing.

For the first time in ten years, he felt calm.