The Great Worm Lich

Sheila’s family operated the second-largest private construction company in the US that ranked top three in the world, with numerous mining rights for stone and building materials.

The extensibility of the huge industry naturally allowed the heiress to take the business over gradually and to learn a lot of secret information that ordinary people would pay no heed or one they wouldn’t even know about.

However, despite knowing her best friend’s background, Tina had another opinion about Sheila’s rebuttal, “My dear sister, even if you’re right, just this golden river alone is enough to make the global gold price plummet.”

“Not necessarily, Tina!” Trish who was by the side suddenly chimed in as she looked down at the gleaming underground Golden River. “Right now, it’s no longer a secret that there’s a small amount of gold in the light-alloy obtained from the foreign world used in the production of the Steel Warrior’s engines. However, very few people know that although there are few gold components in light alloys, its functions as adhesion precipitation isn’t something anything else can replace. This is the reason why this material inspired many militaries scientists, and they regarded gold as the heaviest inert natural metal element on Earth. We may universally apply this to all ‘worlds’. Based on this, it’s inferred that gold naturally possesses the characteristics of valuable ‘general equivalents’ recognized by all creatures possessing wisdom. It’s useful and rare. As long as society enters the stage of generating money, it’ll naturally become a ‘hard currency’. For this reason, it’s not only Earth that will use gold, but every world would also use it too! In this case, the market will be extremely vast.”

his lengthy explanation stunned Tina; she whispered, “Trish, you must have heard from Uncle Howick, right? He’s really an ‘informed person’.”

Zhang Lisheng’s eyes lit up right away as he stood behind her, prompting him to mutter to himself, “It’s no wonder that gold will always appear in ancient myths and legends. Looks like even in the Colossal World, it’s something valuable. In that case, looks like I’ve indeed looked down on the gold of this river.”

“I heard this news from the conversation between my dad and his friend.” Upon hearing Tina’s words, Trish nodded.

The instant the red-haired girl’s words left her mouth, Sheila, who was already kneeling on the shore, stretching the entirety of her arm into the river and taking out a handful of river sand from the shoal with great difficulty, looked down at the heavy gravel mixed with gold. Standing up, she opened her arms wide and shouted excitedly, “Tina, Trish! Come here and look! The sand in the river really has a high gold content! If these gold are made public, people would most likely rename the Shrimp B1 Island as the New San Francisco Island!”

The slowly flowing underground river had used several hundreds of millions of years to wash and strip off the rough and ugly appearance of the ore in the river, leaving behind only the gold that one could not wash away.

This massive gold mine right at their fingertips that they need not mine made the three girls gasp in admiration for a long time. However, since they were born into rich families, after having their lunch, they temporarily put aside the gold matter that they could not publicly disclose for the time being and started to experience the Hellfire tribal life excitedly.

They drew some drawings and asked the Tudenan craftsmen to direct Lohlos to build a unique-shaped bark house as their temporary residence. They wore the special leather armor and rode on the giant millispiders. When the thousands of native warriors had chased and exhausted their prey, they blew out poisonous darts through a blowpipe and killed ferocious giant beasts instead. They sat on the large ship that the aborigines made and sailed with the tides on the foreign world’s ocean, basking in the sun and eating raw fish.

Tina, Trish, and Sheila spent two weeks of dreamy and interesting life in the Tudenan and caused them to have a disappointed and regrettable expression on their faces when they returned to the human gathering place.

“My dear sisters, I can’t believe that these aborigines are actually so smart! Not only that, they’re so understanding as well, completely different from the tribe we encountered last time when we were stranded on this island on the Elizabeth Holiday. One was a short demon from hell while the other is ugly but kind and amiable. I’ve just left, but I’m already missing them. Oh, that’s right, living in the bark houses in the tribe makes me feel like the air has become fresher too!” Sheila rode on Ghostface and turned around to look at the dark woods behind her. As though her gaze could penetrate the trees and look at the magical aborigine city, she remarked longingly.

“I think so too, Sheila, and those sea fishes! They’re so delicious when it’s cut into thin slices,” Tina nodded in agreement and stared at Zhang Lisheng with an eager gaze. “Baby, can you take us to Tudenan again during the Christmas holiday?”

“Of course not, Tina! Tudenan is not a resort like Hawaii. First, there were these witchcraft descendants from China and then there was this Darkwalkers from the US! The situation on the Shrimp B1 Island is getting more and more unpredictable now! I can’t let the three of you come here to risk your lives again!” Zhang Lisheng refused without hesitation.

“But I feel that you’re the scariest person on this island! Now that this island has become your home ground, and that you even have 100,000 men under your command…” Sheila pouted and argued. Suddenly, a giant black shadow appeared to have broken out from the woods and took her by surprise, forcing her speech to come to a halt at once.

It was a huge red doll walking staggeringly but agile in an action that was three meters high that had stopped the wizard gu’s pathway. Dressed in a dirty and ruined tuxedo usually worn by Western aristocratic butler, it jumped into the air and held the giant wood branches. Looking at Ghostface that was standing on the invisible silk, a mechanical sound suddenly resonated, “Do you still remember me, oh powerful Darkwalker? I’ve been wandering in the woods for seven days and finally see you again.”

“I told you to never let me see you again, Witch Doctor.” On the back of the wizard gu, Zhang Lisheng’s body suddenly expanded to become huge, blocking the three girls completely.

At the same time, a snake shadow hovered around him for a few circles before transforming into a green wyrmdragon in the breeze. Winding back, it shielded the other three sides of the three girls completely.

“Oh, powerful Darkwalker, I came here with a kind invitation. On the evening of October 13th, after 17 days from this day, the Lord will host a merry party in New York with the theme of ‘Ancient Dark Gods’. If you’re interested in attending, just stop any of the taxis at Kelvin Street in Queens at 12 am and present your invitation. By the way, ‘Lord’ is looking forward to your visit!” The doll did not seem to have realized that it had already fallen into a great crisis. Its facial features on its face were still full of smiles. Suddenly, it loosened one hand and took out a huge lighter from its pocket on its clothes before igniting itself right away.

In the flames and smoke, the puppet turned into ashes while still wearing a vivid smile. In the end, it left behind a dry and stinky corpse and a pure black invitation card that dropped onto the forest floor.

“Sheila, now you know how dangerous it is here,” Zhang Lisheng looked down at the invitation on the ground but did nothing to it. He commanded the wizard gu to tread on the invisible silk thread and continue to crawl to the human gathering place.

After personally seeing the Witch Doctor, Hawk, who had escaped from the young man’s hand over ten days ago burned himself after passing a message. This seemed to have frightened the three girls for they remained silent for a while.

It was only until they had entered the ferry after Zhang Lisheng took them back to the gathering place and when the ferry had finally sailed all the way to the new New York port did Tina finally took his hand and whispered nervously, “Baby, I’ve pondered about it! That Lord is just too evil! He must have an evil ability like that Mind Flayer’s ability to control the soul of a person! Perhaps he has already seen our face through the eyes of the Indian…”

“Tina, Dungeons & Dragons is fictitious! Even if there really was a Mind Flayer, he would not be as powerful as you said. If it was on Earth, that Lord could just rent a satellite and install a remote monitor on the ‘doll’ to see our face, but now that we’re on the Shrimp B1 Island, he’d not have such ability to do so! Otherwise, we’d have been dead by now!” Zhang Lisheng comforted his girlfriend.

“Lisheng, why would you say so?” Sheila asked with a displeased expression.

“This is because it’s simple to use sorcery to devour the souls of others, but it is very difficult to control a person to do your bidding as you like. As for turning another person’s soul into an ‘intermediary’ you can attach your own senses into, I’m afraid only a God could do so. That Witch Doctor we came across in the jungle is actually equivalent to a self-propelled tape recorder. His only function is to find us by his residual intuition and play the recording of the ‘Lord’. So there’s no need for the three of you to worry too much. Let us go have lunch now; I’ll send the three of you to the airport and accompany you until you get on the plane. Everything is fine!” To reassure the girls, Zhang Lisheng explained the details detailedly through his own understanding while disembarking from the ferry.

The four of them walked out of the new New York port and entered a taxi. After filling their tummies with burger and fries at the US-style restaurant near Kennedy Airport, they rushed to the airport lobby.

There was only one flight left to Boston scheduled at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. While waiting for the flight after buying their tickets, the three girls who had experienced many terrible things slowly felt better. Gradually, they started to laugh and chat.

“Baby, since it’s not convenient for Professor Steven to appear for the time being, will you continue to stay on the island this semester?”

“No, Tina! The instructor passed a message for me to go to the university to take some basic courses in biology so I can pass my Ph.D. viva-voce next year. That’s why I intend to leave half of my time this semester for Stanford.”

“You will have your Ph.D. viva-voce next year? Wow, this is the pace of a genius!”

“Thank you for your compliment, Sheila! Even though that sounds kinda sarcastic…” as the four of them chat idly with each other, time passed gradually, and soon, it was time for boarding.