Chapter 354 : : Passed

Rex was lying half-unconscious half-awake state inside the bathtub, his total health bar that could put even a talented body cultivator to shame was almost 80 percent empty.

He could hear the sounds of the ongoing battle between the Leech and bots, the firing of ray guns, self-detonation of combat bots, and the tearing sound of metals sounds were ringing in his ears. His body would slightly twitch once in a while because of the pain he was feeling. More than half of the potion inside the bathtub was already absorbed by his body, letting him feel slightly relieved and lessen the pain.

On the other hand, the Leech was now free from the seal, after coming out, its battle pattern completely changed, at first, it acted like a snake and swallowed several Combat Bots then twisted its body to crush them inside.

The Combat Bots self-destructed but it wasn't of much use against the Leech who could alone make several Calamity Lords retreat.

After destroying twenty or so bots in such a way, the Combat Bots changed their fighting strategy and lured it into the places where traps were installed, the Combat Bots were driven by smart AI, right now their only purpose was to delay for a time as much as possible while also inflicting damage that makes the Leech recover its injuries.

With one wrong step, the Leech would activate random spirit arrays on its way.

Netherworld Freezing Array...

Thousand Sword Burial Array...

Nine Heavens Flame Purgatory Array...

Several arrays got activated in unison and dealt countless wounds on it, even if they weren't lethal and only left behind a scratch, they were still wounds that made the Leech heal itself.

The poison's first symptom was losing control over energy, for Zakiya it was losing control over her Qi.

The Leech also noticed it but it didn't change its strategy, by the time it finally finished ingesting all the blood, it transformed into a big six tailed fox with whip-like tails and hard scales covering its whole body.

Sharp rows of teeth were filling its big mouth and the fork-like tongue now had a faint black aura covering it.

The Extinction Ray Cannons in the distance activated and fired at its vitals like throat and legs to delay its movements but it wasn't much useful

The Leech ignored the Combat Bots and first destroyed the Extinction Ray Cannons one by one. With time its strength rose and it adapted to ray attacks, it stopped dodging and ignored the damage as it attacked the strongest bots first and destroyed everything in its way blindly.

The Leech almost seemed like it was on a rampage.

After an unknown amount of time, it finally destroyed all the attackers, it turned and looked at the silhouette lying inside the bathtub.

The Leech opened its mouth and screamed, showing its saw-like teeth, it then dashed towards Rex.

It had only moved two steps that it abruptly stopped. The Leech turned its head back and noticed something it almost missed earlier.

It saw that hundreds of tiny squishy leech-like creatures were lying in its tracks, and were struggling on the ground.

The Leech knew they were its building blocks, it willed and ordered them to come and combine with it but neither they moved nor did it receive any response.

The Leech looked at its back and saw that several tiny leeches were continuously falling off its body without any pause.

It lost its calmness, used its claws to pick off the struggling leeches from the ground, threw them on its back, ate them, trying to reconnect them but it failed and they again fell to the ground, continuously struggling.

The Leech seemed to completely forget about Rex's matter, the situation was completely unknown to it, it never experienced such a thing.

With every second, it lost several leeches that separated from its big body and fell on the ground.

Its strength began to decline, its size continued to decrease.

The Leech used all its strength to figure out the problem and solve it but all the means it used, proved to be ineffective.

After about one hour, it was reduced to the size of a dodgeball, soon even it crumbled into pieces. In the end, a heap of leeches was struggling on the ground and even two leeches weren't connected to each other.

"Congratulation! You have completed the challenge with perfect evaluation,"

The familiar voice echoed in the hall.

The greyed light curtain beside the bathtub again turned normal.

As soon as it returned to normal, a figure dashed out of it at lightning speed.

Rex was in his half-conscious state, he felt someone touching his body but couldn't perceive the right thought and the action he should respond with.

Instead, he felt slightly more comfortable, the effects from the last wave of pain were over, and he finally moved into a good sleep.

Rex was sleeping peacefully, inside his dream, he was floating inside a dark void.

When he opened his eyes and looked around. He found himself floating inside an endless void, countless tiny light spheres of different colours and sizes were flying around in the dark void.

The spheres would sometimes deform and take a shape but before the shape is complete they would again turn into the sphere.

Among all those spheres, three big spheres attracted deeply his attention.

The void around them was completely empty, no other light spheres were even trying to get closer to them.

Those three spheres were way above him, they looked like the most majestic stars in the night sky, their presence was like a sun but they didn't expand their energy and kept it closed seemly secluding them from others.

One of them was red, Rex felt intense rage just by looking at it.

The second was pitch black, if it wasn't for the reflecting glass-like surface enclosing it and its presence then one wouldn't even notice it, just by looking at it Rex felt his deepest nightmares trying to awaken again.

He quickly looked away from it and turned towards the last one.

The last sphere was of pure white colour, when Rex looked at it, he was dazed, just by staring at it made him feel happy, all the fears and tension he had inside disappeared without a trace. He felt like even death cannot make him fear, his existence was above all, without noticing it, a seed of pride was born inside him but whenever he looked away the pride would disappear.

Rex kept looking at that sphere without worrying about time, finally, there was a time when he felt it was too straining to stare at it continuously and closed his eyes.

For who knows how long did he remain in the deep slumber, Rex finally recovered from all the mental fatigue from earlier.

When he started to regain his consciousness, he realized that he wasn't sitting inside the wet bathtub, the place was not plain but was soft and gave off a warm feeling. He slightly moved his body to adjust according to his comfort, but then he felt that the pillow was extremely soft albeit its bouncing property made it hard to adapt. Two slender arms were interlocking around his chest tightly holding him back.

Rex raised his head and slowly opened his eyes. What greeted him was a familiar face of a woman staring at him with slightly red eyes. Her hair was in a mess, traces of dried blood were visible at the corners of her lips. A sad yet innocent look permeated from her eyes, even in that pitiful state, the woman still had an alluring charm to herself.

"Eh... Lerna?" Rex slowly muttered, he could still feel his muscles etching but speaking wasn't that much of an issue.

Lerna blinked her eyes a few times, she seemed dazed, her eyes flickered, she finally snapped out of it and stared at Rex. Her expression then distorted.

"I... Will Kill Youu," She said in a suppressed grunt.

Rex almost jumped out of her lap and ran but his injured body didn't allow him to free himself from her grasp.

"Hey... I didn't do any.." Rex was still making up a good excuse but then he felt tiny droplets of a tear falling on his face. He raised his head to look at her again.

She looked angry, her eyes were red but also moist at the same time, tears were sliding down her cheeks and falling down on his face.

Rex didn't know how to react, it was the second time he was facing such a situation but even now he couldn't find the right words to reply.

He just shrunk his neck and obediently remained in her grasp.

[Quick Rex, collect her tears, Hydra's tears have incredible healing properties, hers can't be much worse, we can use them to make high-quality potions,]

Rex was speechless.

'You want me dead or something?' He couldn't help but ask.

"Calm down... Okay? I'm fine," Rex slowly take out a handkerchief wiped the tears from her face, and said.

He regretted it as soon as he said that, he felt Lerna's grasp tightening over him.

"My lady stops... My insi.des.. gonna... Come out," Rex said in a weak tone, he was really in a weakened condition right now.

Lerna stared at him then loosened her grasp.

"Humph, I will break your bones later," She said and averted her gaze.

'Break my bones?' Rex chuckled, he had now realized his current status, he was being held like a teddy bear from behind, her actions clearly didn't match her tone. But he felt good as her mood improved.

Suddenly his expression turned serious and he remembered something, he remembered he wasn't in a safe place where he can sit back and talk all he wants.

'Some things need to wait,' Rex thought then checked his surroundings.

He saw the broken parts of Combat Bots, Extinction Ray Cannons, the head of Mr. Black was also lying on the ground, although his body broke as long as the data in his head was safe everything was all right.

Rex then saw the heap of struggling leeches on the ground. The poison wasn't created for the instant kill but to make the host slowly lose control over their body and suffer from weakening till their demise.

Seeing the condition on Leech, Rex sighed in relief.

"What about the reward?" Rex turned to Lerna and asked.

Lerna frowned.

"You still care about the reward? Say one more word and I will beat you to death, we are going out as soon as you recover," Lerna said in a threatening tone.

Rex's lips twitched. He realized it wasn't a good idea to talk about reward right now.

Although he got what he wanted but he was feeling like instead of dominating, he is going on the opposite track.

He took a deep breath and organized his words.

"The tomb changes structure in a fixed period, even if we turn around and go back, it won't be the same way furthermore who knows if we encounter more dangerous traps in the exit way after all we are still in the core area.

Compared to that, I suspect we are very close or it might have been the last trap to the inheritance, or else it won't be that hard. Once we reach the inheritance area we can not only leave safely we would have enough gains to cultivate until Sky Body Formation peak stage and ascend... It's also beneficial for the future of Little Aru," Rex said with a serious expression.

[The greed of humans knows no bounds,]

'Buddy what is a human without greed,' Rex said. He had come so far if he backed off at the last moment and later came to knew that if he had taken one more step he could achieve something he hasn't, then he will regret it.

[Buddha?]

'...' Rex failed to find the right words to retort.

Lerna kept staring at him for several seconds before she answered.

"We will talk... After you recover," She said in a soft tone.

Rex sighed in relief.