Chapter Ninety-Four: The Giant Serpent Strikes

Hearing this from the woman named Vednina, Liu Zhi felt a jolt of alarm. He immediately set aside all the work in his hands and began asking for details.

Vednina still spoke as slowly as ever, but Liu Zhi listened with complete attention.

“You mean that when you came down from the pyramid, the serpent was already gone, and even after you sent people to search the Golden City, you still could not find it?”

Vednina nodded with certainty.

“No. I need to go out and see for myself. And if this is truly happening, then we will have to fight a hard battle. We will teach those giant serpents that the Golden City is not a place they are allowed to enter.”

As he spoke, Liu Zhi placed his hand upon the altar of the Nether Temple.

After learning the meditation art and the vampire touch, and after creating more than a dozen herb-gathering skeletons, Liu Zhi’s experience had finally fallen below one thousand. Now he no longer dared to casually spend experience on raising his various skills.

What he wanted most at the moment was a fast and steady source of experience.

He had heard that a giant serpent had entered the Golden City, and his first reaction was not fear, but calculation. Could he challenge the serpent? And if he truly did, how could he use the resources already at hand to defeat it?

Once he left the Nether Temple, Vednina naturally followed behind him. The Thread of Fate Spider-Woman also seized this chance to slip out, swaying and bobbing along behind Liu Zhi.

At the same time, in order to deal with the giant serpent, Liu Zhi summoned all of his golden skeletons. They were a sparse force in number, but altogether there were thirty-five of them, the result of these days of full effort. Every one of these golden skeletons was covered in gold leaf, and unlike ordinary skeletons, their bodies were not so easily crushed.

Then Liu Zhi released the skeleton archers. Compared with the golden skeletons, which could only be produced at a rate of five a week, the skeleton archers were much easier to obtain. So long as there were suitable bows, they could be directly recruited.

Liu Zhi did not release all of the skeleton archers in the Nether Temple, only thirty of them, along with enough arrows.

As for the remaining mana, Liu Zhi was in no hurry. He knew that in the coming battle, magic would have to be used. His vampire touch had a powerful effect, whether upon himself or upon his subordinates.

Each use of vampire touch cost one point of mana. After subtracting the energy required to maintain the Nether Temple itself, and to supply what Vednina and the Thread of Fate Spider-Woman needed, Liu Zhi had only ninety points of mana available for free use. The golden skeletons and skeleton archers consumed sixty-five points, leaving him enough mana for no more than fifteen uses of vampire touch.

As for recovering mana through meditation, Liu Zhi would never do such a thing in a place this unsafe. If the giant serpent came while he was meditating, he would not even have the chance to strike back.

After releasing his forces, Liu Zhi left five golden skeletons to guard his side, then mixed all the golden skeletons and skeleton archers together, forming five small squads to advance into the Golden City.

Closer to the river, he even dispatched an additional unit to conduct a more focused search.

Liu Zhi also needed to determine whether the giant serpent had truly entered the Golden City, or whether it had merely grown tired of lingering here and left the river channel.

Not long after the skeleton soldiers were sent out, Liu Zhi stood up. Those skeleton soldiers had all been brought out of the Nether Temple by him, and the mana required to leave the temple had been paid by Liu Zhi himself. Thus, the moment one of the skeleton soldiers died, he sensed it immediately.

“The giant serpent has entered the Golden City. Kill it.”

As he spoke, Liu Zhi sent out a signal, ordering all the skeleton units to retreat toward the pyramid.

At the same time, he turned to the Thread of Fate Spider-Woman behind him and said, “Set things up the way we discussed before.”

At once, the Thread of Fate Spider-Woman replied quickly, “No problem. Leave this to me. You can rest assured. With me here, nothing will go wrong.”

As she spoke, she took out the prepared spider-silk potion. This potion was far more effective than the one the Thread of Fate Spider-Woman had used at the beginning. She simply poured it over the steps of the pyramid.

After making a full circuit, a ring of white defensive lines appeared outside the pyramid.

Liu Zhi had named this spider-silk potion Greater Adhesive Web. Compared with the rapid-setting spider silk used in the Nether Temple for building the city, this one was far stickier. Most importantly, once such a web wrapped around a body, it was not so easily torn apart. If the prey struggled too fiercely, it would only drag more of the surrounding web with it, until more and more layers wound themselves together and became a giant fleshy cocoon.

This was precisely the method Liu Zhi and the others had agreed upon after confirming that the giant serpent had been spying on the Golden City all along.

Bind the giant serpent with webs, and then deal with it however they wished.

If not for the fact that giant serpents were watching the river channel every day, Liu Zhi would have planned to lay a web across the river exit and catch them one by one.

By the time the Thread of Fate Spider-Woman finished setting up the web barrier, the skeleton forces under Liu Zhi had also withdrawn.

By then, one skeleton detachment had already been wiped out in the jungle. It had been the unit stationed near the riverbank.

After having the Thread of Fate Spider-Woman drag the skeletons up to the upper level of the pyramid, Liu Zhi turned his gaze toward the jungle.

At that moment, several golden skeletons burst out from there, retreating while using the leather shields in their hands to block something.

But those golden skeletons seemed to have no real defensive ability at all. They had scarcely taken a few steps back before a spray of liquid burst out from the nearby jungle.

The liquid splashed across one of the golden skeletons, and the metal on its body actually began to melt at terrifying speed, leaving not even the bones behind.

“Strong acid?” Liu Zhi knew very well what golden skeletons were like. To melt the gold on their bodies, it would have to be a strong acid.

But did snake species even include something like that?

Before Liu Zhi could understand what kind of enemy he was facing, a giant serpent thrust its head out of the jungle. Its eyes were as large as carriage wheels, and when it reared upright, its body stood fully fifteen meters tall. Its scales were a strange green rust color, giving it the look of camouflage suited to life in the jungle.

Still, from that triangular head alone, it was clear it did not rely on the color of its skin to survive.

With its head emerging from the trees, the giant serpent’s attention was drawn to Liu Zhi not far away. It turned its head, cast a glance in his direction, then opened its mouth wide and let out a hiss of challenge.

Stirred by that provocation, Liu Zhi’s anger flared as well. He extended his left hand, and the Staff of Death flew automatically into his grasp. He fitted the lightning coral onto the staff and struck straight toward the serpent.

When the lightning fell upon the giant serpent’s head, it was finally enraged by Liu Zhi. It surged out of the jungle and rushed toward the pyramid.