In the end, the team leader took on the responsibility of investigating from a close distance. This was because he was the slimmest in the entire team and had the fastest reflexes. He was able to avoid the densely packed Yuan Kou.
In fact, we won't describe how this great team leader got close to the hole. We only need to know that he spent a lot of effort and experienced a lot of danger to reach his destination.
"What a deep hole!"
The team leader looked down the hole but couldn't see where the bottom of the hole was. He could only see darkness and the rustling sound of air flowing through the hole.
"No, I have to figure out how deep this hole is at least!"
The team leader looked around in alarm and found that Yuan Kou wasn't looking at him, so he secretly pushed a piece of gravel beside him into the hole … Based on the sound of the gravel falling, he could roughly estimate the depth of the hole.
However, what the team leader didn't expect was that after more than ten seconds, he still didn't hear a single echo … There were only two possibilities for this result. One, the stone hadn't reached the bottom yet. Two, the stone had reached the bottom, but because it was too deep, the team leader couldn't hear the stone at all … No matter which reason it was, this hole was at least one kilometer deep. Only such a depth could isolate the echo of a stone falling to the ground.
"What a deep hole, what are they digging!"
While the team leader was thinking about this question, the entire hole began to shake violently. The team leader could hear a strange sharp hissing sound coming from the depths of the hole.
"Something is coming out of this hole!"
This thought popped up in the team leader's mind. Then, he began to quickly retreat, wanting to leave the hole.
However, it was too late. A long snake-like creature that was thirty to forty meters thick rushed out of the hole. Its body was at least five hundred meters long, and it wriggled for more than ten meters before completely leaving the hole … The team leader was so scared that he didn't dare to move at all.
He recognized the origin of this Yuan Kou. It was called the Giant Platinum Earthworm, a Dragon-level Yuan Kou.
The Giant Platinum Earthworm was a powerful Yuan Kou in the Western Magical Beast Camp. Although it was classified as a Dragon-tier, its true combat strength was at the level of a Nether tier.
Fortunately, the Giant Platinum Earthworm was one of the few Yuanhuis that didn't know how to attack. No matter how many times humans provoked it, it wouldn't attack them. It would only try its best to run for its life … Mud was like water to fish to them. They could move very quickly underground and easily avoid humans who couldn't even dig a hole for them.
The Giant Platinum Earthworm was a natural digger. It was able to dig a dozen or so kilometers underground. They lived in the underground caves.
The number of Giant Platinum Earthworms was very small. Humans had confirmed that there were no more than ten Giant Platinum Earthworms in existence. They rarely appeared in front of the world. Who would have thought that Rocky would bring them here?
"It seems like what Sword Immortal Baiju said is true. The purpose of these Yuan Kou occupying the Meiling Mountain Range is to find something at the foot of the mountain. Otherwise, these Yuan Kou would not have brought the Giant Platinum Earthworm, which has never fought with humans, here," the team leader thought silently.
The team leader thought to himself. At this moment, the Giant Platinum Earthworm's body began to tremble at a high speed. Then, soil began to fall from the sky like rain. Soon, a small hill was piled up around his body.
"So this Giant Platinum Earthworm ran out to bring out the soil underground. Otherwise, it could have dug a few hundred kilometers underground in one go. There was no need for it to come out of the pit at all."
"Awooo!"
A beast let out a roar. The Yuan Kou demonic beasts beside the team leader unwillingly gathered around the hill of soil. They began to rummage through the soil that the Giant Platinum Earthworm had brought out. Dimensional crystal ores were continuously dug out from the soil. Then, these ores were swallowed by a Cloud Swallowing Beast.
The Cloud Swallowing Beast was a huge and very voracious demonic beast in the West. It was said that there was a dimensional space in its stomach. It could swallow all the humans in a city in one go … and then spit them out.
The team leader had heard that the Cloud Swallowing Beast was often used as a large transportation tool in the West. The Cloud Swallowing Beast could swallow things that were more than ten times its size. It was the best transportation tool.
The team leader silently lay on the ground and carefully observed the situation around him. Soon, the Yuan Kou that had swarmed up found all the Dimensional crystal ores in the soil.
After the Cloud Swallowing Beast swallowed all of the ores into its stomach, it took slow steps and began to advance deeper into the Mei Ling Mountain Range. The Giant Platinum Earthworm burrowed back into the pit and began to dig again.
The team leader had already roughly remembered the situation here in his heart. Then, he carefully returned to his team members along the original path.
"Let's go and chase this Cloud Swallowing Beast. I want to see where these Cloud Swallowing Beasts are going!"
Under the command of the team leader, the entire team followed behind the slow Cloud Swallowing Beast step by step … After really following behind the Cloud Swallowing Beast, the team discovered that this Yuan Kou's speed was not slow … Don't be fooled by its slow footsteps. The team had to jog to keep up with it.
In a short fifteen minutes, the Cloud Swallowing Beast arrived at its destination, a dilapidated camp ruins.
"This is Luoting Camp, an abandoned camp of us humans!"
A team member whispered. In fact, there was no need for him to speak. The rest of the team members had been in the Mei Ling Mountain Range for a period of time. They were very familiar with Luoting Camp.
"This is our territory!"
Seeing those damn Yuan Kou's wanton activities in the former territory of humans, several team members angrily clenched their fists … But they quickly put down their fists. They had learned to control their emotions.
"Let's go in!"
Yuan Kou, especially the magical beast Yuan Kou, did not have any sense of defense and vigilance like humans. There were no Yuan Kou guards at the entrance of the camp. The team followed the Cloud Swallowing Beast and directly entered the camp.
"Hey, team leader, look over there!"
After following the Cloud Swallowing Beast for a while, a team member suddenly raised his hand in surprise. The direction of his finger was pointing at a tall machine.
"This is a stone crusher. Why is it still in operation?"
The team leader was also surprised. He actually saw that the stone crusher left here by the humans because they did not have time to transport it away was still in operation. There was constantly white fog-like steam coming out of the chimney of the stone crusher. Pushed by the steam, the stone crusher constantly waved its hammer up and down, looking like it was working in full swing.
"Come on, let's go take a look!"
The team leader led his team to sneak near the stone crusher. This should be the stone crusher of the Heng Mountain Sword Sect. The courtyard of the Heng Mountain Sword Sect was originally built very orderly, and all kinds of defensive buildings were also available. As long as there were 20 sword bearers here, they could defend ten times the strength of a few people.
However, Yuan Kou did not care about these defensive buildings, and there was no Yuan Kou guarding the courtyard. Just like the city gate, the team easily entered the courtyard.
"These bastards …" When they saw the situation in the courtyard, several team members could not help but curse. Even the team leader's mouth was closed and closed, and he almost cursed too.
The Saber-Toothed Tiger Yuan Li standing around the team also heard this sound. They crawled up from the ground and constantly let out low growls. Their eyes constantly scanned the surroundings, trying to find the source of the sound. Unfortunately, they didn't see anything, so they could only pretend that their ears had malfunctioned and lay back down.
"…" The team leader did not say anything, but with tears in his eyes, he firmly held his brothers' hands and used his own strength to comfort them.
So what was it that made the usually calm team leader unable to control his emotions?
Because the person in charge of this machine was not Yuan Kou, but a group of humans in disheveled clothes … No one knew where these humans were captured by Yuan Kou. They had no clothes on them, and they stood naked in front of the stone crusher. Their bodies were full of bloody scratches from wild beasts … Because their hands were exposed to the high temperature of the stone crusher without protection, they had already become charred black, and yellow body fluid constantly leaked out of the wounds.
Yuan Kou usually killed humans they met, and rarely kept captives … If they did, they would strip off all the clothes of the captives, because they seemed to know that not wearing clothes was the greatest humiliation to humans, and they enjoyed humiliating humans.
These human captives all had stiff expressions, and there was no spirit in their eyes. They had already lost their yearning for life, and all that was left was the instinct of a machine.
Suddenly, a human captive staggered and fell to the ground, probably due to excessive blood loss and lack of physical strength. He struggled, but could not get up no matter what.
"Awoo!"
The two Saber-toothed Tigers seemed to be waiting for this moment. They immediately pounced forward, biting one of the human's legs and stomach respectively. Then, they bit down with their upper and lower jaws, forcibly tearing out a large piece of bloody flesh from the human's body. They chewed randomly, and directly swallowed it into their stomachs. They looked very satisfied, as if it was a rare and delicious snack.
The Saber-toothed Tigers' actions were a signal. The other beasts around Yuan Kou immediately swarmed forward, and dragged out all the intestines, heart, and livers from the wailing human's stomach. In less than a minute, a few magical beasts Yuan Kou had eaten a human alive into their stomachs, leaving only a head with its eyes wide open, staring blankly into the distance, which happened to be where the scout team was hiding.