Dragon's Origin

Chapter 27: Certain Death

Perhaps it was the habit of the Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent, or perhaps it was something else, but for a long time, this male snake stayed in the cave and never came out. Therefore, both Song Yan and Song Laoyu naturally assumed that there was only one snake.

All the traces at the cave entrance and in the valley indicated that there was only one Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent. Neither of them could say when the male snake had been there.

But now, everyone had to face a mate even more terrifying than the protective mother snake, an enemy who had killed its partner and was standing right in front of them. Moreover, it was a male snake in the early stage of the fourth level of cultivation.

The male snake didn't move much after leaving the cave. Its eyes were fixed on the mother snake, as if trying to confirm whether she was dead. If Wang Sheng didn't know that snakes generally had poor eyesight, he would have been fooled by it.

"Can we escape?" Wang Sheng asked while retreating. This question was obviously directed at Song Laoyu.

"No chance!" Song Laoyu replied warily, holding his weapon. "They could tamper with one snake, they wouldn't let the other one go."

The logic was clear. Since the expert who set up the trap could subdue the female Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent, they wouldn't let the male snake go. This was simply to ensure Song Yan's death! The internal strife of a large family was indeed terrifying.

"What did you use to kill the mother snake just now? Can you use it again?" Song Yan hurriedly asked from behind Wang Sheng. If it could penetrate the head of a third level peak Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent, it could definitely penetrate the head of a fourth level early stage one.

As soon as she finished speaking, the male snake moved swiftly. Its head swayed from side to side as it rushed towards the three of them. There were still more than three hundred meters to go, but judging by the snake's speed, it would only take a dozen seconds at most.

"No time, run!" Wang Sheng pushed Song Yan and squatted down to insert a flat directional blast mine into the ground. As soon as he inserted it, he fled as if his life depended on it.

The snake's head was moving too fast. Even if Wang Sheng had a sniper rifle, he couldn't be sure he could hit it. But this directional blast mine was different. It contained hundreds of steel balls. When it exploded, it would be like a celestial maiden scattering flowers. The male snake was so big that it would definitely be hit by dozens or hundreds of them.

Although it was a directional blast mine, Wang Sheng pointed the most powerful side towards the direction the Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent was coming from. But this didn't mean it was safe to stand behind. Within a hundred and twenty degrees and fifteen meters behind, it was still a danger zone. That's why Wang Sheng ran away as fast as he could. He couldn't be killed by his own mine!

Everything Wang Sheng carried could be detonated remotely. When he ran more than twenty meters away, Wang Sheng shouted at Song Laoyu and Song Yan: "Get down!"

This time, Song Yan and Song Laoyu didn't say a word and immediately followed Wang Sheng's lead, diving to the ground. After witnessing Wang Sheng kill the third level Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent, especially after seeing Wang Sheng insert a green, curved plate into the ground, they had no doubt about Wang Sheng's instructions.

The male snake darted forward so fast that the three of them had only been lying down for a few seconds, just enough for Wang Sheng to adjust the single-soldier combat terminal to the detonation interface. The male snake had already darted to within ten meters of the directional blast mine.

Originally, the full name of the directional blast mine was anti-personnel directional blast mine. There were height requirements for deployment, and the direction had to be calibrated in advance through the small aiming hole on it. But that was for normal human height. Facing such a big snake, although huge, the overall height didn't exceed two-thirds of a human's height, or even lower. So Wang Sheng directly inserted it into the ground.

In addition, the Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent was huge, so Wang Sheng didn't need to aim and set it up too carefully. As long as the direction was about right. Hundreds of steel balls would definitely cover most of the male snake's body.

Wang Sheng didn't detonate it immediately. He waited until the male snake was almost less than a meter away from the front of the mine before pressing the detonation button.

Boom, a not-too-loud explosion sounded, and the Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent let out a sharp cry like the mother snake.

However, Song Yan and Song Laoyu, who were lying down, didn't see what happened. They only saw a large cloud of dust rising up after the explosion, blocking all their vision. They heard the male snake's cry, knowing it was in pain, but they didn't understand why.

Wang Sheng, however, quickly jumped up after the explosion, with a high-explosive grenade already in his right hand. He immediately adopted a posture that could quickly throw the grenade, waiting to see the male snake's movements.

When the smoke cleared slightly, the three of them saw what had happened over there. The male snake in the early stage of the fourth level of cultivation looked as if it had been brutally beaten by a group of experts with a bunch of hammers and chisels. Its whole body was covered with uneven wounds.

Calling them wounds was a bit of an exaggeration. They were actually just various pits and holes on the male snake's hard scales. Most of them didn't even penetrate the scales. It could be said that they were at most skin wounds, or more precisely, skin deep, not even touching the flesh.

When the male snake rushed forward, its head was always facing forward. No matter how it moved forward, this wouldn't change. Therefore, the male snake's head bore the brunt of most of the steel balls' power after the close-range explosion. The Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent's scales were thick and hard, difficult to damage with knives and swords. The mere exploding steel balls only damaged many of the scales, but didn't do much real damage.

It had to be said that Wang Sheng's luck was simply off the charts. The cornea around the eyes of both the male and female snakes was far less thick and strong than the scales on their bodies, and their protective ability was much worse. And at least dozens of the steel balls from the anti-personnel directional blast mine hit the male snake's eyes.

Today, the two Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpents in this valley must have been destined to lose their sight and become blind. Dozens of steel balls from the anti-personnel directional blast mine entering their eyes, they would be blind even if they weren't already. No wonder the male snake screamed so miserably, so that was why.

Song Yan and Song Laoyu both breathed a sigh of relief. With the male snake blind, it would be much easier to deal with. The two of them also grabbed their weapons and jumped up, intending to take advantage of the snake's illness to kill it.

"If you want to die quickly, then rush up." Wang Sheng wasn't as optimistic as Song Yan and Song Laoyu. Most snakes on Earth have poor eyesight, relying entirely on their tongues and certain infrared detection organs to hunt. It was likely the same here. Rushing up at this time would be courting death.

The two had to stop their forward rush, but this was obviously not the best time to explain, because the male snake had stopped screaming, raised its terrifying snake head more than three meters high, blood and some black liquid flowing from its eyes, and looked accurately in their direction, spitting its blood-red tongue.

"It can still see us?" Seeing this situation, Song Yan immediately understood why Wang Sheng had stopped them from rushing forward just now. Being able to face the three of them so accurately could only mean one thing, that the male snake knew their exact location.

"They don't use their eyes to see." Wang Sheng was speechless at Song Yan and Song Laoyu's lack of common sense about snakes. They dared to come and hunt without even figuring out the habits of the Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent. Calling them rash was an understatement, they were simply tired of living and actively seeking death.

The male snake moved quickly, heading straight for the three of them, with Wang Sheng, who was posing, bearing the brunt. When it was ten meters away from Wang Sheng, the male snake had already opened its mouth wide. As long as it flicked its neck, it could immediately bite Wang Sheng in such a short distance. With such a large bloody mouth, it would only take half a bite to swallow Wang Sheng.

At this moment, Wang Sheng suddenly moved. The high-explosive grenade, which had already had its pin pulled, was accurately thrown into the male snake's wide-open mouth by Wang Sheng. Immediately afterwards, Wang Sheng made a sideways dive, his body popping out like a spring at least three meters away, and then using the momentum to do a forward roll, rolling more than two meters further.

Bang, the snake's head slammed heavily into the spot where Wang Sheng had just been, no more than a meter away from Wang Sheng's body. The flying pebbles hit Wang Sheng's face painfully.

But Wang Sheng couldn't care about this little pain. He was fleeing in a panic, desperately running as far as he could. Wang Sheng didn't care what Song Yan and Song Laoyu were doing at this time. He didn't even know if the two had dodged the male snake's bite. He only knew one thing, and that was to get away as quickly as possible.

A high-explosive grenade, that was not a joke. It weighed the same as a regular grenade, but its explosive power was more than ten times greater. Wang Sheng was only a little over a meter away from the snake's head. At that distance, the explosion would be within the optimal kill zone.

"Run!" Wang Sheng didn't know whether Song Yan and Song Laoyu were alive or dead, but he still shouted righteously. If they could hear it, they could hear it. If they couldn't hear it, there was nothing he could do. At this critical moment of life and death, it was good enough to take care of oneself. Song Yan and Song Laoyu didn't have the kind of camaraderie of life and death that Wang Sheng had with his brothers on Earth.

"One, two..." Wang Sheng counted silently in his heart as he ran. The grenade would explode three seconds after leaving his hand. He would run as far as he could.

But Wang Sheng had only counted to two when a huge snake tail suddenly lashed out at Wang Sheng, hitting him squarely in the chest. Wang Sheng's figure flew up like a cannonball, flying into the distance.

Song Yan and Song Laoyu hadn't died just now. The male snake was going for Wang Sheng. The two of them had much higher cultivation levels than Wang Sheng, and they were much faster. They dodged even faster than Wang Sheng.

But they had just dodged the male snake's bite when they saw the scene of Wang Sheng being smashed away by the snake's tail. Song Yan felt a sudden pain in her heart. She didn't even know why, it was as if the snake's tail had struck her own heart.

Song Laoyu was full of regret. What a pity! How fierce was a full-strength strike from the tail of a fourth level Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent? An ordinary person who hadn't even entered the stream, no matter how extraordinary his performance had been before, would be dead if he was hit.

Both of their thoughts were instantaneous. The Thousand Illusions Venomous Serpent was less than twenty meters away from them. Wang Sheng was dead, but they still had to face this terrifying snake. They couldn't escape, they were doomed!

At this moment, boom, a loud noise.