1303 Sudden Attack

As Lin Qiao and her people were preparing to leave the lava cave, some noises were heard from the lava pool again. The familiar puffing noise made the group of people stop moving and turn back to look down at the lava. As same as before, a few large lumps were rising again in the pool.

"Hmm, here it comes again," Kong Qingming turned to look down at the lava and said.

"These things aren't fooling around with us, are they?" Li Zheng said suspiciously while observing the lava. The others obviously weren't as nervous as before. But still, they kept a safe distance from the lava.

Lin Qiao narrowed her eyes as she looked into the lava. A large amount of red energy had been surging inside the lava, which should be its fire power. Within the flowing red energy, a few dark-red energy spheres were slowly moving upward.

Those energy spheres contained thick and condensed energy, but did not give out strong vibes.

Earlier, Lin Qiao thought those mysterious creatures would come straight out, so she didn't observe the energies inside the lava with her eyes. However, those creatures sank back to the bottom for some reason instead of coming out.

She wondered if they would sink back like the last time or come out and show their real faces.

But this time, Lin Qiao did not plan to let them go, whether they would come out by themselves or not. The energy contained in the few spheres was enough to upgrade a few level-four fire-powered zombies under her command to level-five.

"Guys, don't move!" As those lumps reached about two-meters tall, Lin Qiao suddenly shouted at her people and launched a move. By wielding her arm, she threw out a series of black fire flakes.

When Lin Qiao's voice was heard, the things in the lumps suddenly came out of the lava and pounced on her and her people. At the same moment, Lin Qiao let out the dark fire and fended against those creatures which had come out of the lava to launch an attack. Next, she boosted her dark fire and wrapped those creatures' heads in it.

Being shrouded in Lin Qiao's dark fire, those creatures instantly grew agitated and started struggling intensely. Only until then did people find that the rest of their bodies were still in the lava.

As Lin Qiao prepared to devour those creatures using her dark fire, she suddenly sensed the explosions of the energy spheres, and in that very moment, the devouring rate of her dark fire was lowered by tens of times!

Because of Lin Qiao's attack, those creatures started wagging from side to side. Their roots were tightly connected with the bottom of the lava pool.

"Oh, not even Chief's fire can burn them out. I'm impressed!" Li Zheng looked at the lava and couldn't help but say.

Duan Juan disagreed, "It can burn them out, but only very slowly. Also, these weird things have finally started moving."

Lin Qiao reached out a hand and clenched her fist in the air. Following her move, the fire wrapping those lumps instantly grew stronger. The things inside the fire had been swinging intensely, but the dark fire stuck to it tightly under her control.

A while later, those things slowly stopped swaying. Lin Qiao waved a hand and dissipated the dark fire on them. The dark fire faded, and the mysterious creatures were finally exposed. What people saw were a few enormous, dark-red flowers.

"Eh? Flowers? Are these mutated plants?" Kong Qingming said at the sight of those large dark-red flowers. The flowers were about two meters wide, and in the middle of each flower was a dark hole. The mutated plants on the earth's surface normal had teeth in the middle of their flowers, but unlike them, the dark-red flowers had teeth on their petals.

Those flowers looked like lotuses. They had triangular petals with finger-thick white thorns on the edges. The petals had been spreading and shrinking all the time as if they were trying to bite something. What was even stranger was the tiny wisps of fire coming out of the tips of the petals.

"Mutated man-eating flowers?" Li Zheng leaned his head forward to look at those large dark-red flowers.

"These are true fire flowers," said Duan Juan, "They'd look quite pretty if they don't have those teeth."

After seeing the true face of those fire flowers, people felt no threat at all. Feeling relaxed, they watched Lin Qiao harvest those lava flowers.

It was impressive that those plants survived inside the lava after mutation. Everyone wondered how those flowers looked before the mutation. It was definitely the virus infection that gave them the current fierce look they had.

The roots of those flowers were, of course, not normal roots. They looked like rock chains in the lava. The flowers came out of the top of the rock chains, which were swaying in the lava. Lin Qiao couldn't tell if the rocks were controlling the flowers or if the flowers were controlling the rocks. The rocks were especially rich in energy, so her dark fire couldn't devour them within a short time.

The fire flowers slantingly stood in the lava, and the fire on the petals had almost died. Meanwhile, the movements of the petals had slowed down greatly.

Lin Qiao narrowed her eyes to observe those flowers. As her dark fire had devoured a part of the flowers' energy, the energy inside the flower was now less rich than before. Most of the energy the flowers had was gathered in the area where the bottoms of the flowers and the rocks were connected.

As Lin Qiao prepared to go down to pick those weird flowers, the entire lava cave suddenly started shaking. Hearing a rumbling noise, people sensed that the ground under their feet had started to vibrate.

"What's going on? This isn't an earthquake, is it?" The first thought popped up in people's minds was an earthquake or collapse. Instantly, they raised their heads and looked around.

"Look down!" Long Qingying suddenly pointed at the lava pool and said to the others with a deep voice.

Lin Qiao had her eyes fixed on that intensely waving lava pool at that moment. This time, there weren't several small lumps. Instead, something huge rose from the pool.

Puff! Puff! Puff! Those dark-red flowers which had quieted down earlier rose higher rapidly, and larger parts of the stone stem came out of the lava. In the meantime, more fire flowers grew out of the pool.

Those flowers swung quickly in the pool and whipped on the surrounding rock faces, even biting on the rocks with their teeth.

Crack! A few pieces of the extra hard rocks got bitten off and fell into the lava pool, causing a puffing noise.