Chapter 126: The Human Skin Drum (30)

Sister Ying’s face darkened. She cast a cold, indifferent glance at the man before her, the veins on her forehead throbbing visibly. Wiping the spit from her face, her voice dropped to a low, ominous tone. "It seems you have no desire to live. You wish for death."

With a flick of her hand, Xie Xianying was violently slammed into the stone wall. From that moment on, his rate of egg-laying accelerated—more than three times faster than anyone else! For every single egg others laid, he was forced to produce three.

"What I loathe most is people using gender as an excuse. Since you despise women so much, you shall spend your days doing a woman’s work. Let this male body of yours enjoy the 'blessings' of a harem. Hahahaha!"

Sister Ying’s melodic laughter echoed throughout the underground cavern. Its vast, complex structure seemed designed to amplify every sound. Xie Xianying’s sudden misfortune left the other players in the nest feeling a sense of shared dread. They were grateful he had triggered this trap first, but the realization that they, too, might be forced into such a grotesque state of egg-laying made it impossible for them to find any relief.

***

Tang Mu was positioned in a blind spot, hidden from Sister Ying’s line of sight. When Sister Ying stepped back and accidentally crushed a flawed white egg, she only heard the sound but could not pinpoint its origin. It seemed this boss relied primarily on vision, as her hearing was not particularly sharp.

Perhaps out of playfulness, or perhaps for the sake of petty revenge, Tang Mu "accidentally" crushed seven or eight more eggs in quick succession.

*Squish, crunch*—the crisp sound of eggshells shattering echoed through the nest.

Sister Ying was furious. She roared, commanding all the monsters sleeping within the nest to emerge.

"I told you all to guard the nest properly! Is this how you neglect your duties? I have told you ten thousand times: when you patrol, step lightly! Watch where you are walking!"

"You don't like walking properly, do you? Since you enjoy crushing eggs, I shall let you experience the agony of having your own body squeezed and crushed to pieces!"

The subterranean abominations were roused by her roar. Under the dim white light, they appeared in a grotesque variety of forms, yet they all shared one thing: an absolute, soul-deep fear of Sister Ying and an unconditional submission to her will. The unluckiest of them all was the giant eight-legged spider. Because it had the most legs, it became Sister Ying’s primary target for retaliation.

"It was you again, wasn't it?" Sister Ying glared at it viciously.

The eight-legged spider: "???"

Before it could even attempt to explain, it was squeezed until it burst. The other monsters cowered even lower, trembling in terror.

"If I find another egg broken before it has matured, I will skin you alive, piece by piece!"

"Now get out there and patrol! Especially watch for that rat, Tang Mu. If you find her, capture her—dead or alive!"

The creatures buried their heads in the ground to signal their obedience, swearing to follow her orders to the letter. As for Sister Ying, having exhausted a great deal of her ghostly power, she urgently needed to retreat to the heart of the nest to slumber and replenish the energy lost over the past two days. She would likely be asleep for half a day. She hoped that upon waking, her minions would bring her good news.

"Tang Mu," Qiao Yuan whispered. Although his voice was faint, it was enough to draw the attention of the nearby creatures.

Tang Mu glared at him, signaling that if he dared to speak again and attract the monsters, she would kill him first. But Qiao Yuan only gestured for her to observe Yan Xingwen’s condition, using his lips to convey: "When you crushed the eggs, your sweetheart Yan Xingwen’s state seemed to improve significantly." He added, "I am innocent; please don't hold such deep resentment against me."

Qiao Yuan was a clever man; he knew how to shift the focus of her anger. Although Tang Mu could not read lips, the words Qiao Yuan spoke appeared in the air as yellow talisman characters, ensuring their communication remained clear. Sure enough, once he said this, the fury in Tang Mu’s heart subsided considerably.

She looked toward Yan Xingwen. The more eggs she crushed, the slower the pulsing of his distended abdomen became, and the stronger his pulse and vital signs grew. It was as if the life force that had been siphoned into the white eggs was returning to him.

It seemed the eggs were indeed the root of the problem.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Tang Mu crushed all the eggs surrounding Xingwen.

"Hiss!" A giant, pale-skinned humanoid creature with a long, lolling tongue surged toward Tang Mu’s position. It had no eyes and could only track the location of the destroyed eggs by sound. The viscous liquid leaking from the shells seemed to attract these creatures, allowing them to locate the damage and investigate.

While the monsters were busy inspecting the broken eggs, Tang Mu channeled her mental energy outward. Red threads began to spread, burying themselves throughout the various corners of the nest, lying dormant.

The mental restoration potions in her inventory were consumed rapidly. In less than ten minutes, the ground was littered with empty blue vials, and the web of red threads within the nest had reached a terrifying density. Compared to the nest Sister Ying had meticulously crafted over hundreds of years, the complexity of Tang Mu’s hidden web was already surpassing it. These eyeless creatures, however, remained completely unaware of the trap.

The monsters lowered their heads, using their claws to sift through the shattered shells and sniffing the viscous fluid, as if trying to diagnose the cause of the destruction.

Under normal circumstances, the incubation period for these white eggs was at least ten years. Another ten years were required for a hatched hatchling to reach maturity. Such monsters possessed immense energy, which they would then feed back to the "Mother"—the boss—to bolster her ability to catalyze further births. From these clutches, the "Mother" would select a rare few to be allowed to fully enter the world.

For example, the pale-skinned, long-limbed, malformed humanoid currently inspecting the shells had been one such chosen specimen. After sniffing the debris for a long time, it realized the shells had been crushed by external forces—by someone stepping on them.

"Hiss!" Realizing the cause, the creature suddenly raised its head and shrieked in rage at the void.

The creatures lurking in the darkness received the signal and began to rush toward Tang Mu’s location. They were furious, all of them appearing ready to engage in a life-or-death battle, as if Tang Mu had truly destroyed their most precious lifeline.