Following a series of clattering noises, the thing rising from the lava soon showed its face, looking like a huge rock.
The bottom of the lava pool was only about thirty meters wide, and the rock that came out took up one-third of the space in the pool. It hadn't exposed its entire body in the air yet, as it was still rising.
At that moment, the dark-red flowers connected with the rock became alive again. They spread their petals and bared their sharp, finger-sized teeth, as they swung themselves toward Lin Qiao and her people swiftly.
Bang! Everyone hurriedly moved back toward the entrance of the cave. A dozen flowers bumped into the area together but failed to bite any of those people, striking off many rock pieces instead.
Lin Qiao leaped into the air and put dark mist under her feet to support her body. She observed the rock creature and found that all flowers were attached to it.
The fire on the flowers grew stronger again, the vividly red fire flowers illuminating the cave like lanterns. Compared with their behavior earlier, those flowers were now highly aggressive. Their range of attacks had grown much wider than before. Currently, they were able to reach any corner in the cave.
At that moment, those flowers were like sucking discs. They sucked on the rock face and shredded it. If they sucked on a person, the person might be turned into meat paste.
"Are these flowers that thing's tentacles?" Watching half of the cave entrance collapse, everyone drew back to a deeper area in the cave and made a guess.
Lei Cheng turned and glanced at Erlei before turning back to look at those flowers which were darting all over the cave. Meanwhile, he said, "We can't sense this thing's vibe, but it's definitely super dangerous."
After all, his Erlei was now hiding behind the group of people with its tail between its legs. Lei Cheng figured the creature in the lava was probably more dangerous than he had estimated before, because he could not sense the vibe of the thing in the lava even as a level-seven being! The creature in the lava was clearly powerful enough to restrain its vibe completely. Otherwise, why could they not sense its vibe even after it started attacking?
They were probably deluded! They couldn't feel the danger, so they relaxed their vigilance. That was very unsafe!
No wonder even the level-eight Chief from All Beings Base didn't manage to devour those flowers within a short span of time by using her superpower.
"Back off! Back off! Move away!" Lin Qiao flashed to the entrance of the cave as she gave her order with her back to the others. Before the people made their moves, the dog from Green Mountain Base sprung up and ran away.
"Yes, ma'am!" Duan Juan and the other All Beings Base people responded to Lin Qiao and hurriedly kept moving forward along the tunnel deeper in the cave, together with the people from Sea City Base and Green Mountain Base.
The creature in the lava instantly turned all flowers to Lin Qiao, who was in the air. It might have sensed the departure of the others.
Lin Qiao raised both arms and released two dense streams of dark fire from her palms. The fire burned ragingly behind her body. As the lava creature sent the flowers toward her, she quickly moved her hands and sent out a dozen dark fire streams.
This time, she released a larger amount of energy to devour the fire on the flowers fiercely.
The dozen large flowers were wrapped in Lin Qiao's dark fire, with their energy being drained. They instantly started shaking, even wagging hard to try and free themselves from the dark fire under Lin Qiao's control. It didn't work well though, because Lin Qiao was controlling the dark fire with great power.
"Roar!" At that moment, a thunderous roar was heard from the lava pool, even causing the cave to start shaking. Lin Qiao lowered her head to see the enormous rock monster in the pool. It had finally reached its head out of the lava.
On its head were two huge, red eyes, looking like a pair of giant light bulbs and glowing much brighter than the lava in the pool. The rock monster had multiple stone horns on its head, and its widely opened mouth was like a deep hole. Anything that fell into that hole might go straight to its stomach and then get digested.
Lin Qiao caught the flowers the rock monster sent to attack her with her dark fire, so it was obviously agitated. It swung the rock chains that connected the flowers with its own body and released a purple-red energy to the flowers. Lin Qiao had a feeling that the energy sent into the flower might erupt from the holes in the middle like what happened just now.
The lava monster was at level-eight at least, and it wasn't afraid of Lin Qiao's dark fire! At that point, she found it rather troublesome. Even if she managed to kill it, she wouldn't be able to use the energy contained in its nucleus to upgrade her zombies or any humans. Any human being who absorbed the monster's energy might end up in the same condition as Yuan Tianxing.
Woosh! The rock chains twisted quickly and started gusts of wind in the cave.
"Roarrrrr!" The rock monster suddenly raised its head and uttered a long, resonant roar toward Lin Qiao.
"Ouch!" On hearing the sound, she instantly furrowed her brows. Her will power, which was being used to control the dark fire, was shaken slightly. As a result, the dark fire behind her body also quivered for a moment.
Puff! Puff! Puff! At that very moment, all the flowers broke free from the dark fire, and the energy spheres in the middle of the flowers glowed once they were freed.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Soon afterward, a few fireballs flew out of the holes in the middle of the flowers toward Lin Qiao. The fireballs were rich in a very strange kind of energy which was actually able to devour Lin Qiao's energy while being devoured by the latter.
All of a sudden, she drew a gun and flashed into the lava pool, landing on the lava monster's back and shooting a bullet into its widely opened mouth from a short distance.
Bang!