Chapter 244 - 149: Recycling the Eye Demons
Lin Kong tiptoed out of the building that housed the Eye Demon parasites and made his way outside the city walls.
"Divine Wood, Divine Wood, this is Sparrow!"
"Divine Wood copies. Go ahead."
"I’ve discovered a large number of wild Eye Demon parasites trapped inside a building. Requesting 2,000 sprites and 2,000 Slimes for the creation of new Symbiotic Eye Demons and Spirit-Snatching Eye Demons."
"Acknowledged. The order has been issued."
"Silence, prepare for pickup."
"Silence copies."
Meiying received the message via her Light Chain Communicator and immediately arranged a large contingent to escort the sprites and Slimes.
The sprites and Slimes were relatively weak. An ambush would be disastrous.
A short while later, accompanied by their dedicated escort, the sprites and Slimes emerged from the Teleportation Gate.
After rendezvousing with Meiying, the group headed toward the distant city.
...
"Over here!" Lin Kong shouted to the approaching party from atop the city wall.
Once the party drew near, he led the sprites and Slimes to the Eye-Pleasing Demon Building.
"This is the place! Line up at the entrance. You’ll go in one at a time—the next one enters only after the last one comes out."
To prevent any issues, Lin Kong decided to have the sprites and Slimes enter one by one. It was slower, but safer.
But something seemed to have gone wrong with the first sprite. Lin Kong waited outside for ten minutes, but it never came out. He had no choice but to go in and see for himself.
The moment he stepped inside, Lin Kong saw the sprite trembling on the first floor, which was thick with an aura of death. It was clearly in great distress.
The area around the sprite was littered with bones, but none of the dried corpses had rushed forward to parasitize it upon its arrival.
Lin Kong was puzzled. ’Based on my previous experiments, the Eye Demons should be desperate to parasitize a semi-energy being like a sprite. After mutating, they could evolve, break free from their original master’s control, and become true Eye Demon citizens.’
’Could the aura of death be too thick for them to notice?’
With that thought, Lin Kong picked up the sprite and headed upstairs.
Once on the third floor, Lin Kong set the sprite down. As expected, the surrounding dried corpses began to stir.
However, after twitching a few times, they went still again.
"..."
’What’s going on?’
Lin Kong focused his senses and realized that the life energy within the corpses that had just moved had completely vanished.
In other words, that single, tempted movement had consumed the last of their energy, and now they were well and truly dead.
Lin Kong turned over one of the corpses and poked the Eye Demon on its back. It remained motionless.
’They just... died?’
Lin Kong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’d brought the sprite in to be parasitized, not to bait the Eye Demons into killing themselves.
’Looks like I’ll have to give these Eye Demons a hand, or they won’t even be able to move. I’ll call over some Death Devourers. Besides, the aura of death in here is pretty thick.’
And so, Lin Kong left the building with the sprite.
"What happened? Is there a problem?" Meiying asked the moment he stepped outside.
"These Eye Demons have been starved for too long. They die the moment they try to move, so they can’t parasitize anything. We’ll have to help them recover first," Lin Kong replied with a helpless sigh.
Still, a problem with a solution wasn’t really a problem at all.
Using his Light Chain Communicator, Lin Kong contacted his territory and requested a squad of Death Devourers.
Meiying, bored and seeing no immediate danger, left a few guards behind and took the rest of her contingent to conduct a thorough search of the city.
After waiting for over an hour, the Death Devourers arrived.
And so, Lin Kong cast some Magic and led the Death Devourers into the building.
"Ahhh, so comfortable..."
The moment they entered, the Death Devourers collectively sighed in pleasure. It was a sensation they’d only ever felt inside the Vein of Life; they’d never encountered an environment with such a rich aura of death in their territory’s forests.
Then, under Lin Kong’s command, they reluctantly absorbed the entire aura of death into their bodies.
Once the aura of death had been completely absorbed, the Death Devourers released a cloud of life energy.
This cloud of life energy wasn’t as dense as the previous aura of death, but it was enough for the corpses upstairs to recover somewhat.
Sure enough, not long after the life energy diffused from the ground floor upward, the sound of footsteps echoed from the upper levels.
Dried corpses staggered down the stairs one after another. Ignoring Lin Kong and the Death Devourers, they each found a spot to lie down, slowly recovering in the embrace of the life energy.
(Because the Death Devourers did not perceive the corpses as enemies this time, their bodies did not undergo any mutation.)
Seeing that the Eye Demons were being so cooperative, Lin Kong didn’t disturb them. He led the Death Devourers out of the building, leaving the corpses to recover on their own.
After waiting outside for another half hour, Lin Kong once again had the sprites and Slimes begin entering the building one by one.
This time, there were no mishaps.
The corpses were now all on the ground floor, recuperating. The moment a sprite entered, the nearest ones instantly stirred.
The prospect of a fresh, weak body with a semi-energy constitution—and the chance to break free from their master’s control to become an independent Eye Demon—was too tempting. They completely disregarded their own frail host bodies.
In a desperate bid to be the one to parasitize the sprite, the closest few corpses even started fighting each other.
But in the end, an Eye Demon from a corpse farther back seized the opportunity.
One of the corpses suddenly lost all signs of life as an Eye Demon leaped from its back. While the others were still fighting and hadn’t noticed, it saw its chance. Darting past the brawling corpses, it jumped onto the sprite and burrowed inside.