Chapter status: Unedited
With four thick legs, the acid green lizards eagerly galloped and revealed their vigorous and powerful bodies.
By Zhen Jin’s initial assessment, there seemed to be at least three hundred lizards.
Among them, there were over thirty iron level ones and over sixty bronze level ones.
After the lizards entered the oasis, they barged through everything.
They then sped up as they nearly sprinted towards the lake.
The lakeside had many lizard footprints and traces of tails being dragged along the ground.
The lake surface was no longer calm as waves surged in the translucent water. The dark green lizards washed themselves to clean sand and ash from their scales and hide.
Some iron level and bronze level lizards began to dive into the lake and splash their tails around. After diving for a time, they resurfaced to spray water out of their nostrils and gasp for air.
Most of the lizards were standing in shallow water with their heads down and were constantly drinking water.
“These lizards are hungry and thirsty.” Zi Di looked worried.
Hungry beasts are very aggressive.
Besides her, Zhen Jin and Cang Xu looked on solemnly.
Bai Ya soon rushed over.
After sleeping peacefully for the night, he finally had the strength to barely move about. When he heard the lizard group moving about, he was unable to stop himself from coming over despite the difficulties.
After hurrying to Zhen Jin’s side, he leaned over, used his hands to support his body, and sat panting while gazing at the lizard group in the distance.
Bai Ya was very pale as he stammered: “The lizard group……came, huff, huff……will the scorpion group come too?”
His fractures still needed a long time to heal since he lacked Zhen Jin’s recovery abilities.
But as time passed, the four nervous people watching the lizards gradually relaxed.
Beast groups coming to the oasis was something everyone predicted.
After all, at the time, it was inferred that the large beast groups were relying on a massive water source.
Another reason why everyone relaxed was: the lizards were frolicking in the lake and would rarely go to other parts of the oasis to forage for food.
When the temporary camp was built, Zhen Jin had thought of what would happen when beast groups came to drink water. Thus, the temporary camp was placed in a good location.
Zhen Jin’s gaze flickered; in his eyes these lizards were food. Take a look at those strong bodies, aren’t they just piles of moving jerky?
“These lizards are still drinking water; I’m surprised that they can hold so much water. Truly frightening!” Bai Ya exclaimed after looking for a time.
The lizards were still drinking, and among them, the iron level and bronze level lizards sank into the lake and no matter how much lake water there was, all of it flowed down their spacious throats.
Cang Xu muttered: “Of course it is because the lizards have three stomachs, with the main one being used to digest food. The two additional stomachs are used to store water. They are natural water bags.”
“They need a lot of water to move their bodies. Don't forget that they can also spray acid. Producing this acid inside their bodies of course needs a great amount of water.
Cang Xu had dissected a lizard and greatly understood the beasts.
“Do you think we can use these lizard stomachs as water bags?” Zi Di suddenly put forth a proposal, it goes without saying that she knew the fired pots were not making progress.
Cang Xu pondered: “We could try.”
Everyone discussed and decided to have Zhen Jin stealthily hunt a few lizards. Zi Di and Cang Xu continued to work on their incomplete tasks while Bai Ya was mainly recuperating because he was still in poor health.
But Bai Ya firmly requested to work, when Zhen Jin saw the youngster’s fervent gaze, he gave him the task of twisting rope.
Carrying an iron knife with an iron sword on his back, Zhen Jin left the temporary camp.
By climbing onto a slanted palm tree, Zhen Jin had a wide field of view to carefully scout.
There were no lizards around the camp.
Zhen Jin climbed down the tree and slowly approached the lizard group at the lakeside.
The lizard group activity was comparatively concentrated and allowed the camp a degree of safety, however it also conversely gave Zhen Jin trouble as he tried to hunt.
Zhen Jin could not recklessly attack; else it would lead to the entire lizard group pursuing him.
Beast behavior was hard to figure out.
If Zhen Jin got caught up in the beast group, he would be in danger. If Cang Xu, Zi Di, Bai Ya, and Lan Zao were involved, it would be even more disastrous.
Although Zhen Jin could transform into a silver level scorpion, the scale of the lizard group here far surpassed the one he had encountered at the granite boulders.
In addition, Zhen Jin also did not intend to use the magic core.
There were many reasons.
The first reason is that a silver level scorpion suddenly appearing would attract great suspicion. Cang Xu and Zi Di were very intelligent, the more times Zhen Jin deceived them, the more likely he would be exposed.
The second reason was that Zhen Jin was very wary of the magic crystal. Using the magic core to absorb the bloodlines of other lifeforms to transform was very savage and cruel, as a templar knight it was natural to reject and loathe such things.
The third reason was that Zhen Jin was also very concerned. He did not know the magic core’s nature and was very worried there were hidden dangers in it. His heart’s intuition told him that the more often he used the magic core, the more likely he would run counter to the knight’s path.
Zhen Jin was not anxious.
His young and handsome face did not have a trace of immaturity, rather it was full of a reliable and steady temperament.
Suffering and desperate straits had sharpened his body and mind.
Zhen Jin first decided to wait for an opportune time to hunt.
Croak croak croak……
“What is that sound?” Zhen Jin was suspicious.
He had been waiting for about an hour when he heard a strange noise disseminating from the lake.
The sound resembles a frog’s croak, however by carefully listening to it, one would find that the sound was more muffled than that of a frog’s.
Zhen Jin watched with rapt attention and found no frogs, however at that moment, the lizards began to move more abnormally.
The vast majority of the lizards rushed into the lake and started to use their legs to quickly paddle around.
They opened their mouths and attacked the water, creating waves in the process.
In addition, the lizards raised their heads to spray acid.
The acid launched into the air and suddenly struck some transparent existence. Under the pollution of the acid, the originally transparent beast’s appearance was revealed.
It was a kind of fish, it looked like a puffer fish that swelled up upon encountering an enemy, it was like a white fat ball and it moved its yellow fish tail to float in the air.
Sharp pitch-black fishbones grew in its body, and it was them who was making the frog croaks.
After the acid corroded them, the fat ball flying fish fell into the water one after the other. The surrounding lizards flocked over and fought each other on who got to eat the flying fish.
“What is going on?” Zi Di and Cang Xu were attracted by the strange sight.
“These fat ball flying fish were hiding in the lake’s depths, but now the lizards have aroused them.” Zhen Jin guessed.
“Strange, we did not know about these fat ball flying fish, yet the lizards have always known.” Zi Di scowled.
Cang Xu’s eyes flashed with thought: “I roughly know the reason. The green lizards’ visual system is similar to many snakes. They can rely on a thing’s body heat to see their figure, the hotter a thing is, the more attention it would attract the green lizards.”
“These fat ball flying fish, let's call them that for the time being, are all more or less hot. We cannot see them with our eyes probably because they have skin similar to a hiding chameleon.”
As numerous fat ball flying fish were preyed on by the lizards, they fled from the water and floated into the air one after the other.
But the lizards could shoot acid and shot down every last one.
Zhen Jin also took note of how the fat ball flying fish counterattacked. Some of them self-detonated to spray hot water along with black bones all around them.
The fishbones were highly toxic and when a lizard was pierced by one, Zhen Jin saw the wound immediately turn black.
The pitch-black wound caused the lizard’s flesh and scales to rapidly decay. The wound was originally a single prick, but after a few breaths, it grew to the size of a bowl.
But the lizards also had countermeasures.
Seeing the fishbone in their comrade, the nearby lizards crowded around it and used their mouths to cover and suck at the wound.
The terrible black toxin was sucked into the lizards’ mouth poison glands.
Afterwards, the lizards spat out the poison, because of the black poison, their green acid turned dark green and the power of it also subsequently rose.
Cang Xu’s eyes flashed as he thought of what he had learned from dissecting a lizard and suddenly realized: “The lizards have a poison gland hidden in their oral cavity, the muscle that sprays this gland can also dilate to suck in external liquids. By sucking in venom, they can detoxify other lizards. To think that the organ had such a clever use!”
The green lizards had been cruelly bullied by the scorpions and had massacred many exploration team members, but now there was killing everywhere.
They greatly restrained the fat ball flying fish.
“It seems that these fat ball flying fish are the lizard’s main food.” Zi Di guessed.
Croak croak croak!
Croak croak croak!
At that moment in the battle, the fat ball flying fishes’ croaking became more and more resounding.
Zhen Jin and others gradually changed their expression.
More and more fat ball flying fish were appearing in the battle at a frightening rate.
Those were just the ones they could observe with naked eye, there were still many things they could not see!
There were too many fat ball flying fish, they quickly held the numbers advantage and surrounded the lizards.
After the lizards ate and drank, their invasive nature greatly decreased.
The fat ball flying fish group’s counterattack grew stronger while the lizards retreated.
Pitch-black fishbones constantly shot into many lizards, fellow lizards would stop walking to suck out the poison, however that resulted in them being densely covered in fishbones.
After ten breaths, the lizards turned into black water, flowed into the lake, and disappeared without a trace.
Notes
We all know what those fish are, water balloon fish, no one can change my mind. It sounds much better than fat ball flying fish imo, the name makes them sound like giant floating rice balls or dumplings instead of these weird floating sacs of water and bones. They must have an extraordinary reproduction rate if their defense mechanism is blowing themselves up and yelling at their enemies. I am surprised that the lizards weren’t given a chameleon's tongue to give that satisfying snap kill chameleons are known for. Though to be fair, giving them that would make them imbalance and destroy the meta on the island.