If one were to compare the vast universe to an ocean, then every star system would be like scattered lone islands.
There was huge space between the star systems, where there seemed to be almost nothing, but in fact, the galaxy itself was not absolute nothingness. Instead, it had distributions of hydrogen atoms, planets, and other materials.
At least for now, Ling Jiu and the others had encountered a planet.
It was a dark red planet, which was quietly suspended between the vast, endless system. It was like a ghostly pole on the path that Ling Jiu and the others had to pass.
“Human, can we take a rest on the planet ahead?” Redfire made a request.
While it could withstand the long trip through the wormhole, the dozen or so little ones could not bear it any longer. They urgently needed rest and to readjust themselves.
“Then let’s take a break.”
Ling Jiu agreed without hesitation. Throughout the whole journey, Ling Jiu had been the one working the hardest.
Opening up wormholes consumed more than just Dark Bio-energy. Besides, he needed to open up hundreds of wormholes a day. Repeating this day after day had long bored him out of his wits.
So, he desperately wanted to recuperate a little.
The Dark Demonic Dragon did not say much and silently acknowledged the need to rest.
Therefore, Ling Jiu opened a wormhole that led to the dark red planet and plunged into it.
“Hmmm?”
The moment he arrived at the planet, Ling Jiu felt a little weird. It was not cold?
In his impression, a planet that floated between star systems should be very cold, and it should be close to absolute zero.
After all, it did not have the heat from a star like a sun. Yet, the fact was the planet was warm, at least above zero degrees Celsius.
As if seeing through Ling Jiu’s confusion, Redfire slowly explained, “It should be a radiation effect.”
“Radiation effect?”
Ling Jiu understood it after a moment’s pause.
The so-called radiation effect referred to the geothermal energy generated by the radioactive isotopes in the core of the planet, which provided it with heat.
In addition, if this planet had an atmosphere, then it could store the heat and prevent it from being lost.
This way, the surface temperature of this planet would be high, and there may even be oceans, or life here!
So, there were no absolutes in this world!
As he thought of this, Ling Jiu first took out the air pressure detector and found that not only did this planet had atmospheric pressure, it was also ten times that of Earth.
He then used the atmospheric detector and found nitrogen 76%, oxygen 9%, methane 2%, sulfur dioxide 6%, carbon dioxide 6%, others…1%
“This place not only has oxygen but also carbon dioxide!”
“With that high of a carbon dioxide content, no wonder the planet can maintain such a high temperature. The greenhouse effect is many times stronger than Earth’s.”
As the group landed, they realized there was nothing on the ground but only…
Grains of sand.
Yes, sand!
At a glance, it was full of soft, white sand, just like the sand on high-quality beaches!
“It’s all sand! But that’s still much better than the dark, empty space outside.”
Ling Jiu breathed a sigh of relief. Without wasting any time, he sat cross-legged on the ground as he began to absorb the Dark Bio-energy in the void to recover.
The sad thing was, all of the absorbed Dark Bio-energy needed to be drawn in by the Venom Suit first before they could get to Ling Jiu.
Although Ling Jiu was helpless, there was no other way. He was not a stellar lifeform, and could not be exposed directly to outer space. The Venom Suit was the only thing that kept him alive!
So, even if he starved, he had to feed the Venom Suit first.
At the same time, the Dark Demonic Dragon, the Redfire Dragon, and several other stellar-level Redfire Dragons also landed on the planet’s surface as Redfire called out to them.
“Roar!!!”
As soon as the Redfire dragon call rang out, they roared excitedly before they flapped their wings and soared freely.
They had been suffocating for the past few days.
The dark red sky enveloped the entire planet, causing the planet to look dim, but it would not fall into absolute darkness either.
So all of them, man and dragon, seized the time to readjust themselves, appearing particularly relaxed.
“Rawwwrrrrr!”
Just as the group was about to completely relax, the grim roar of a dragon suddenly rang out from not too far away.
The dragon’s roar was like an alarm bell at midnight. It caused everyone to spring to attention as they got up and looked around immediately.
The roar had come from a Redfire dragon that was about 90 meters long. It was suspended in midair, and its body was entangled in some blood-colored vines.
The 90-meter-long Redfire dragon was almost 100 meters, indicating that it was just 10 meters away from adulthood. Hence, its strength was absolutely comparable to a Class 9 Direbeast back on Earth!
However, at that moment, after being tightly bound by the blood-colored vines, the soon-to-be adult Redfire Dragon could not shake them off at all.
It struggled frantically and exhausted all of its strength, yet it could not snap a single vine as the vines’ grasp tightened even more.
“Roarrr!!!”
Redfire was furious as it unleashed a nearly transparent dragon’s breath, desperately burning the vines that were emerging from the ground.
Redfire’s dragon breath was terrifying. Under its immolation, the vines were like a cat with its tails stepped on. They immediately loosened their grip on the small fire dragon and retracted back into the ground.
“Want to run?” Redfire roared.
“Buzzzz….”
The space vibrated instantly, and in the blink of an eye, the void in front of them shattered as the entire space was directly shaken into a sticky mess.
Before the vines could retract back into the ground, they were overwhelmed by the broken space.
However, what no one expected was that despite the shattered space, the vines were still intact as they drilled their way out and sank into the ground.
Finally, they disappeared.
“These vines are so tough!”
Redfire took a deep breath “A tremor that could shatter even space could not do anything to these vines. What manner of creatures are they?”
“No idea.”
The Dark Demonic Dragon shook its big head and solemnly said, “Let’s leave this planet as soon as possible. There are strange things everywhere here.”
“All right then!”
Redfire agreed and looked at Ling Jiu. Unfortunately, at that moment, the small fire dragon that had been bound by the vines earlier suddenly fell onto the ground.
It then struggled in pain as it convulsed and spasmed violently, foaming in its mouth…
“Redmountain, what’s wrong?” Redfire rushed over and asked anxiously.
“It’s been poisoned!”
The Dark Demonic Dragon shook its head. “It is a virulent venom! It’s… beyond saving!”
Just as the Dark Demonic Dragon spoke, the small fire dragon could no longer be rescued. In just ten seconds, it stopped convulsing and lay motionless.
It was dead!
From the time it was poisoned to its death, it took no more than 30 seconds!
What did highly toxic meant?
This was what it meant!
A 90-meter-long Redfire Dragon that was comparable to a Class 9 Direbeast was poisoned to death just like that, which showed the terrifying toxicity of the venom.
Ling Jiu took a deep breath. “Run!”
“Run!” The Dark Demonic Dragon naturally agreed.
Redfire did not reject that, and although it was pained, it knew that this was not the time for sorrow.
So, after telling the other whelps, it opened its mouth to motion them to enter. The dragon whelps were already terrified and quickly lined up to get in.
Unexpectedly, at this very moment, something happened again.
The surrounding sand suddenly shook violently as if an earthquake had happened, and large tracts of sand suddenly sank downwards.
Immediately after, extremely thick tentacles emerged from the sands like ferocious pythons and charged straight into the sky.
Rustle! Rustle!
Too many…
There were too many tentacles.
They appeared from all directions, and the thickest of them was like a chimney of a chemical factory, while the thinnest ones were as thick as an adult’s arm.
There were tentacles everywhere, all of them with a mysterious blood-red hue. Their surface, on the other hand, was covered in dense spikes.
They stood in every path, and like fierce blood dragons, they transformed into streams of blood lights as they lashed at Ling Jiu and the others.
Voosh voosh!!
They were so fast that they were already upon the group in the blink of an eye. At this critical moment, all of the stellar lifeform dragons attacked at the same time.
“Roar!!!”
The rolling sound wave met the dense vines as a terrifying shock wave spread out. The void was instantly crushed as countless smaller vines were sent flying, while the thicker ones paused.
Taking advantage of this moment, Ling Jiu waved his hand as a wormhole appeared in midair.
“Run!”
Ling Jiu shouted and got in first.
“Children, let’s go!” Redfire shouted loudly.
“Yes, Mother!”
The fire dragon whelps[1] responded one after another, and they also went into the wormhole. The vines seemed to have witnessed this and became immediately anxious.
As a result, the surrounding ground trembled violently, and at the same time, the desert parted and collapsed, forming lines of trenches.
Soon after, more and more tentacles that were thicker and longer rose from these trenches. Then, they transformed into hideous blood pythons as they shot toward Ling Jiu.
“We must buy time!”
Redfire clearly knew that it would take time for the fire dragon whelps to enter the wormhole, and it needed to buy them that time.
“Roar!!!”
Redfire let out a furious roar as billowing flames suddenly rose around it, and its 800-meter-long body was completely covered by flames.
The next moment, fire dragons formed completely out of flames shot out from its body and slammed into the oncoming vines.
Boom!
Boom!
The fire dragons and the vines collided.
At this moment, all of the fire dragons exploded, and following the endless thundering explosions, the dark red sky was illuminated.
“The temperature that these fire dragons are releasing is just too high!”
Right then, Ling Jiu had already arrived in outer space. As the wormhole was created in a hurry, the distance was not very far and was still within the planet’s atmosphere.
This place was not very far from the ground, but it was definitely not close either. Even with such a distance, Ling Jiu could still feel the terrifying heat coming from those fire dragons, showing how terrifying their temperature was.
Even so, as the aftermath of the explosion settled, most of the vines were still intact, and only the slender ones were burned.
“How strong are these vines actually?”
Ling Jiu was shocked.
“These vines are exceedingly tough!”
Redfire growled. It noticed that all of the fire dragon whelps had entered the wormhole at this point, so it said to the Dark Demonic Dragon and several other stellar-lifeform Redfire Dragons, “All of you, leave first!”
“Okay!”
The other dragons did not dither as they shrank one after another and entered the wormhole. After all of them had entered the wormhole, Redfire blasted all of the remaining vines away and prepared to enter the wormhole.
At this moment, the ground under its feet suddenly cracked open as an extremely massive mouth emerged from the ground with its jaws wide upon…
[1] term for young dragons