So far, the most intelligent monster Luo Shuangyue had ever encountered was none other than Phantom Thorn, that Demon Emperor who knew how to endure and bide her time.
This Demon Emperor had lurked in human society for so many years, personally building up a vast Organization, and even, in secret, “Tai’d” a little Demon Emperor on the side.
If it hadn’t been for that one time her subordinates utterly botched the job and threw her perfect plan into chaos, Jidong City would have already been blown sky-high by Phantom Scythe and her mother-daughter duo.
But in the end, all that cleverness of Phantom Thorn’s was still spent on destruction and causing trouble; her personality and temper weren’t much different from an ordinary monster.
She built the Organization to destroy humanity, worked tirelessly to destroy humanity—her mind was always scheming how to destroy humanity.
She was a real go-getter among monsters.
Heaven only knew where she got such unyielding determination to wipe out humanity, never resting until every last one was dead.
And as for the monster over here?
She was actually slacking off!
“This isn’t a normal monster, this is a monster that knows how to slack off!” Luo Shuangyue slammed the notebook in her hand down on the table.
The moment the notebook hit the table, there was a muffled thud. Taya and Xia Mo both showed thoughtful expressions.
After a long pause, Taya looked up and asked curiously, “What does ‘slacking off’ mean?”
So that’s what you were thinking about all this time! Luo Shuangyue covered her forehead and sighed.
This kid was good in every way, except her mind was just a bit too clear and simple.
Compared to Taya, who was completely out of her depth, Xia Mo quickly grasped what Luo Shuangyue was trying to say.
This monster was very unusual.
She seemed to have broken through some of people’s ingrained ideas about monsters.
For example, instead of being obsessed with destroying the world, she built herself a little house here and settled down to live an ordinary life.
You couldn’t exactly say that staying here was her way of destroying the world, right?
“I have a rather bold idea.” Luo Shuangyue looked at her two generals in front of her, a sharp gleam flashing in her eyes.
“Is it possible that the monsters of this world aren’t actually that hard to communicate with? I want to try approaching that soon-to-be-born Demon King over there!”
Hearing Luo Shuangyue’s words, Xia Mo’s first reaction was to stand up and feel Luo Shuangyue’s forehead.
Her hand felt icy cold, no warmth at all.
Didn’t seem like a fever, so how could she say something so strange?
“Are you serious?” Xia Mo stared at Luo Shuangyue.
The three of them together couldn’t even muster up the fighting strength of a First Bloom-Class Magical Girl.
If that Wang-Class monster was even the slightest bit uncooperative, they’d all be doomed.
“I’m serious. But of course, we can’t just stroll over there without a plan.” Luo Shuangyue nodded.
She was genuinely curious about what monsters in this world were really like.
But she also understood the responsibilities on her shoulders.
Taking the risk to approach the monster would mean putting Xia Mo and Taya in danger as well.
If Xia Mo and Taya were hurt because of her, she would never be able to forgive herself.
“That monster probably needs about half a day more to fully descend. By then it’ll be night. Xia Mo, how much can you recover in half a day?”
Sitting on the unfamiliar monster’s bed, Luo Shuangyue acted as if she were the owner of this house, asking quite naturally.
Unlike Xia Mo, who was so cautious she didn’t want to touch anything in the room and tiptoed around, Luo Shuangyue was much more accepting of this place.
If only the place were still usable, she’d be more than happy to inherit this nameless monster’s property and rest here for a few days.
“I could manage a few moves with a Wang-Class monster, but winning would be really tough.” Xia Mo spread her hands; at a time like this, she would definitely tell the truth.
If she fought desperately, she was confident she could take the monster down with her, but if there was a better choice, she wasn’t going to go all out.
No need, really no need this time.
“I see… what if you rest for another day or two?”
“After two days, I’ll be able to spin it with one hand.”
“All right, then our problem is how to avoid it for two days, right?”
According to Luo Shuangyue’s understanding, as soon as a monster appeared, the first thing it did was unleash indiscriminate destruction on its surroundings, smashing everything it saw.
They were already some distance away from the monster’s birth site, so the first wave of its rampage shouldn’t hit them.
After that initial destruction, the monster would enter a wandering mode, aimlessly roaming until it came across its next potential target.
Maybe it would run into a skyscraper, or a living creature, or another monster—anything that could satisfy its urge for violence.
Given those habits, the best way to avoid a monster was obvious.
“Let’s dig a hole.” Luo Shuangyue chose the method humans had found most effective for dealing with ordinary monsters.
As long as you hid underground and weren’t discovered, you’d be fine.
Unless you ran into a top-tier Demon Emperor, no other monsters would be able to find you in a basement dozens of meters deep.
They’d just hide underground for two days.
Once Xia Mo recovered her strength, they could catch that monster and see what it was really about!
It was the perfect plan!
The only problem was—how to dig the hole.
Xia Mo needed to recover her strength and couldn’t help.
Luo Shuangyue herself was just a little weakling at the moment and couldn’t dig a hole either.
Phantom Scythe couldn’t even take human form now, so she was out of the question.
So…
“Taya, do you know how to dig?” Luo Shuangyue’s gaze landed on the bright-eyed dragon girl.
After explaining her idea to Taya in detail, Luo Shuangyue felt a little embarrassed.
Having to rely on Taya for help at a time like this made her feel a tad guilty.
“Dig? I can, I can!” But Taya’s reaction stunned Luo Shuangyue.
This girl, who usually wandered around in a daze, suddenly burst forth with an incredible enthusiasm.
Those golden vertical pupils almost seemed to light up.
To put it impolitely, she looked just like a dog who’d spotted a bone.
“How big? How deep?”
“Uh, a bit more than ten meters deep, just enough for the three of us to make do for two days.”
“Got it!”
Taya charged out of the house with a whirlwind of energy.
Her Dragon Claws glowed with platinum light, and she dove into the ground like an excavator.
Luo Shuangyue was only a few seconds late in following her out, and already Taya had dug a pit more than a meter deep.
“Are dragon claws really that handy?” Luo Shuangyue looked down at her own slender fingers, skin so delicate it seemed breakable, and couldn’t help but sigh.
When it came to manual labor, human hands really couldn’t compare with a dragon girl’s claws.
“Different strengths for different tasks. When it comes to fine work, her claws can’t beat our hands.” Xia Mo, who had come out as well, told Luo Shuangyue not to sell herself short.
Her fingers were good for a lot more things.
Like what exactly? Of course, proper things.
Definitely not as weapons, right?
After digging for a while, Taya suddenly stopped.
“There’s something underground!” she said to Luo Shuangyue.
The tunnel she was digging sloped downward, heading straight under the small house.
That’s when she ran into something unusual.
The little house had an underground structure.
It wasn’t very large, but it should be enough for the three of them.
“There’s a basement here?” Luo Shuangyue was immediately interested.
A basement usually meant something shady was being hidden, right?
Maybe this little house’s basement held the monster’s dark secrets—lots and lots of rotten flesh and bones?
With that in mind, Luo Shuangyue hurried back into the house, conducting a thorough search until she finally flipped over the wardrobe in the bedroom and found the basement door, which had fused perfectly with the wall.
That was the beauty of a monster’s house—secret doors like this could blend seamlessly with their surroundings.
Luo Shuangyue poked and prodded at it with a needle transformed from Phantom Scythe until she finally found the hollow space behind the door.
If it were Xia Mo or Taya doing the searching, they’d probably have to tear down the entire house to find that door.
The passage behind the secret door was pretty normal—aside from the odd construction materials, it wasn’t much different from any other hidden passage.
After descending a dozen meters or so, Luo Shuangyue saw a basement glowing with a faint, eerie light.
Pale green light shone from the basement’s walls, giving the not-so-big space an extra touch of the uncanny.
It was a perfect place to film a horror movie.
Luo Shuangyue muttered to herself as she looked around, letting the green glow guide her gaze.
What would be far too dark for an ordinary person didn’t bother her at all; her eyesight was now absurdly sharp.
As long as there was a little light, she could see everything in the room clearly.
Not to mention, she had a humanoid walking flashlight with her.
As soon as they entered the dim basement, Taya’s eyes began to glow with golden light—literally.
Her big eyes were just like a pair of flashlights, shining wherever she looked.
“Looks a bit like a laboratory? These things over here…” Luo Shuangyue walked to the center of the basement, where something seemed to be displayed.
When she got close and took a look, she immediately sucked in a cold breath.
In a certain sense, the table did indeed hold rotten flesh and remains—but not human, monster.
A few fairly intact Royal-class Monster’s Cores lay quietly in a Preservation Box made of black flesh.
The consciousness of the Soul Butterfly within had vanished, and now, to other monsters, these were nothing more than delicious and nutritious snacks.
“This one’s Wang-Class, and these two are General-Class. Looks like the monster who used to live here didn’t get along with the others.” Luo Shuangyue judged as she looked at the three cores—one large, two small—in the box.
It was no easy feat to get such intact Royal-class Monster’s Cores.
When a Magical Girl’s Magic Artillery took out a monster, the result was only a handful of Magic Power Fragments.
To obtain a complete core, you needed much more delicate methods.
The simplest way was for monsters to devour each other—eat every bit of a monster except the core, and you’d get a complete Royal-class Monster’s Core like this.
But monsters hardly ever bothered. They didn’t care about cores or anything—one bite, and that was that.
“But why did she leave these behind…? I don’t get it.” Muttering, Luo Shuangyue’s hands were far from clean as she quickly claimed the three black crystals from the box.
This place had been abandoned for so long, no one was coming back for these cores.
She called it waste not, want not.
With these three cores, she wouldn’t have to worry about food for the next few days. How great was that?
“Let’s hide out here for the next few days. Once Xia Mo is back to full strength, we’ll go look for that monster and see what’s up. How about it?”
“No objections.” Xia Mo didn’t particularly like the monster’s little house, but she did feel a bit safer inside.
As for Taya, she had even fewer objections.
She knew she wasn’t the sharpest, so she was happy to follow her companions’ lead.
She wasn’t about to go out and challenge the monster to a duel by herself, right? If she had that kind of courage, she’d be waiting where the monster was about to descend, not running away without looking back.
Since Luo Shuangyue said this place was safe, she was happy to trust her.
The black-stained flowers continued to collapse onto the ground, as if someone had hit the fast-forward button on their lives countless times, and in a matter of moments they melted into pools of foul, black sludge.
Bit by bit, the sludge crept toward the center of the dark eruption, mingling with the ceaseless flow of black miasma in the air, taking on the form of a nascent monster.
First there was a not-too-large, not-too-small mass of black energy, then the mixture of sludge and miasma coated the core, giving the monster’s form substance.
At first, the monster was a terrifying thing, shapeless like a mud monster.
But as the minutes ticked by, its form gradually stabilized, its body growing more and more solid.
The sky brightened little by little.
The stars faded, one by one.
After nearly a full day and night, the Black Calamity finally reached its moment of eruption.
The jet-black monster opened its eyes.
Those pitch-black, hollow eyes seemed like abysses capable of swallowing souls.
Its gaze swept over the field of flowers around it, and the inborn urge to destroy drove it to make its very first move.
Compelled by instinct, it summoned its dark aura, eager to destroy all life in sight.
But… where was life?
Looking around, all it saw were swaying violet flowers.
The newborn monster felt a flicker of confusion.
Was it really supposed to be like this?
To its eyes, the purple flowers weren’t worthy enemies to destroy—they were just snacks for when it was bored.
What it needed now was a target to vent its destructive urge upon.
Flying, flying—the monster easily learned to soar, as if it had always known how.
Standing high in the sky, it swept its empty gaze over the sea of flowers below.
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