Chapter 215 - 137: The Timid Eye Demon
"Ah! My apologies, Ma... Lin Kong," Lin Chenxi quickly corrected herself.
"What’s the situation over at the Natural Essence Manufacturing Plant?"
"Those Eye Demons have awakened. It seems their current state is different from their parasitic state..."
As they spoke, the two rode the Heaven-Reaching Vine to the Natural Essence Manufacturing Plant.
Lin Kong looked closely. On the large trees outside the Natural Essence Manufacturing Plant, the Eye Demons inside the pixies were indeed stirring.
The pixies’ colors were now dull. Their once emerald-green skin looked as if it had faded, turning a bluish-green and growing somewhat transparent.
He could faintly make out that the Eye Demon inside had grown considerably larger. It was constantly squirming, its tentacles drifting gently within the pixie’s body.
With the Eye Demon’s movements, the surface of the pixie’s body rippled with faint, uneven traces.
It was as if the pixie had become an egg, and now the Eye Demon inside, about to mature, was ready to hatch.
Lin Kong went inside the Natural Essence Manufacturing Plant to check. The Slimes were in the same condition as the pixies. And because Slime bodies were already somewhat transparent, the Eye Demons within them were even more clearly visible.
For a better view, Lin Kong had all the Slimes and pixies move to an open area outside the Natural Essence Manufacturing Plant. He then used Magic to create an observation quarantine, circling them up inside it.
The pixies and Slimes showed no issues when they moved. If you couldn’t see the Eye Demons through their bodies, they would look like perfectly normal pixies and Slimes at first glance.
After observing all the pixies and Slimes, Lin Kong mused, ’This Eye Demon... it doesn’t look like it has woken up. It’s more like an unconscious throbbing.’
Lin Chenxi nodded in agreement. "What do we do now? Do we pull the Eye Demons out? Or wait for them to emerge on their own?"
"Let’s wait and see for now. I’m still pretty curious about what these Eye Demons will turn into if they manage to hatch successfully. However, if they threaten the safety of our residents, then they can just die."
Just as he said that, a pixie in the quarantine zone began to twist restlessly. The Eye Demon inside it was becoming more and more active.
Lin Kong immediately activated his World Tree vision. He had Lin Chenxi order all the Death Devourers to be on high alert and summoned the Cactus Heroes to be on standby.
SQUELCH~
The Eye Demon inside one of the pixies burst right through its host’s body. Waving its tentacles, it began to climb out, while the tentacles still inside the pixie started to actively absorb the pixie’s energy.
The pixie tried to resist, but it discovered its internal energy was completely beyond its control. It felt as if it had become a stranger in its own body, and the Eye Demon was the true master.
As its energy was continuously drained, the pixie’s life force rapidly dwindled.
"Kill that Eye Demon!"
Lin Kong immediately shouted when he saw things were going wrong.
The Death Devourers waiting nearby immediately took action. A wave of deathly energy washed over it. The Eye Demon trying to emerge from the pixie struggled desperately for a few moments, as if drowning, before going still. It then disintegrated into ash that floated out of the pixie’s wound.
Afterwards, Lin Chenxi cast Healing Magic on the dying pixie, and Lin Kong also had one of the nearby Cactus Heroes fetch a large amount of water from the nearest Spring of Life.
After being fed the water from the Spring of Life, the pixie’s life force began to recover, gradually returning to normal.
Seeing that the other pixies and Slimes were still quiet, Lin Kong let the recovering pixie out of the quarantine to examine it.
Lin Kong observed it with the enhanced senses and vision granted by the World Tree and also checked its system information. He discovered that the pixie was now completely and utterly normal.
Except, its level had been wiped clean, resetting it to Level 1 with correspondingly lower stats. There were no other changes.
"What a complete waste of suffering!!"
Lin Kong couldn’t help but sigh and put a hand to his forehead. ’I was waiting with such high hopes for some kind of transformation, and this is all I get? What a waste.’
’Even if the Eye Demon had undergone a huge change, what good would it have been?’
’It’s not like I’m some moron who would trade the lives of my people for the birth of a new Eye Demon.’
Lin Chenxi had also finished examining the pixie’s body with Magic. As the former smartest pixie, she was intimately familiar with their physiology. After a thorough check, she confirmed that the pixie had truly been reset. All its bodily functions had reverted to that of a newborn, and it was even slightly weaker than a naturally born pixie.
After communicating with the pixie, Julie, Lin Chenxi said angrily, "These Eye Demons are despicable! It’s like they’re sucking the very marrow from her bones! After absorbing everything Julie had, they were just going to cast her aside. They’re complete scum!!"
Lin Kong nodded. "Sigh... And here I was thinking the Eye Demons might have changed their nature while inside the pixies and Slimes."
"I never expected their evil would be even greater inside energy-based lifeforms than when they parasitize and control creatures of flesh and blood."
"Forget it. Since this is how they act inside the pixies and Slimes, there’s no point in watching anymore. Let’s get all the Eye Demons out. I can’t let our people become incubators for the enemy."
The Cactus Heroes, who had been waiting, stepped into the quarantine zone. They extended their long, slender spines, made a small incision on the surface of a pixie or Slime, and then pried out the Eye Demon.
The moment its body was exposed to the air, the Eye Demon instantly awoke. Realizing its predicament, its tentacles still inside the pixie immediately began to absorb the host’s energy.
No matter how hard the operating Cactus Hero tried, it couldn’t pull the remaining tentacles out directly. Left with no other choice, the Cactus Hero had to sever them. A nearby Death Devourer then stepped in to clear out the remnants.
The Eye Demon with the severed tentacles immediately let out a piercing shriek. The sound, highly lethal to ordinary lifeforms, made everyone present frown. Unfortunately for the creature, no one there was ordinary, so the psychically damaging scream had no effect.
However, this woke all the other Eye Demons inside the pixies and Slimes. Seeing the one that had been extracted, they all began to struggle, whether they were currently being operated on or not.
The Cactus Hero injected the Eye Demon in its hand with an anesthetic, and the shrieking immediately ceased. It then placed the Eye Demon into a special container and moved on to operate on the other pixies and Slimes.
The Eye Demons still inside the pixies and Slimes began to struggle even more violently. Many of them tried to forcibly burst out, ignoring the fact that they hadn’t fully controlled and absorbed their host’s energy yet.
This, in turn, prompted the pixies and Slimes to instinctively mobilize their internal energy to fight back. The two sides started a battle directly within the hosts, turning their bodies into battlegrounds and causing continuous damage.
Lin Kong noticed the life force of the injured pixies and Slimes was dropping rapidly. Unfortunately, due to their unique bodies, they couldn’t be directly injected with anesthetics; it was impossible to sedate them along with the Eye Demons. Anesthetics were especially useless on the Slimes.
"Forget it! Kill all the Eye Demons that are acting up!"
He had no choice. To prevent any harm from coming to the pixies and Slimes, Lin Kong could only order the Death Devourers to act.
In an instant, all the Eye Demons that had been trying to burst out of their hosts went still and slowly turned to ash.
ACHOO~
ACHOO~
ACHOO~
A series of sneezes rang out as the pixies and Slimes expelled the ashen remains of the dead Eye Demons.
"Huh? Is that one that got away?"
Just then, Lin Kong noticed there was still one pixie in the quarantine zone with an Eye Demon inside it. It was staring, wide-eyed and terrified, at the scene unfolding.
Judging by the calm state of its pixie host, this particular Eye Demon must not have moved at all just now, which was why the Death Devourers had missed it.
The Cactus Heroes on site noticed the remaining pixie with an Eye Demon and immediately surrounded it, scaring the parasite so much that it trembled uncontrollably.
"Wait. Don’t be so hasty. I want to see what this one does."
Lin Kong’s interest was piqued by this cowardly Eye Demon. He wondered what a creature so afraid of death would do to stay alive.
Obeying the command, the Cactus Heroes backed away, leaving the quarantine area to the last pixie and the Eye Demon within it.