Elven cultivators

After passing through the purple halo at the edge of the city-state, Anton officially entered the city-state.

The moment he stepped inside, he could clearly feel that the concentration of elemental energy in the air was significantly higher than outside.

"I see... This is a ley line node."

Anton suddenly realized.

No wonder the Mind Flayer chose this place to build its city-state.

He had been looking for a ley line node, but his target was right in front of him.

"If we could take this place, we could build a cave dwelling there."

Anton felt a surge of excitement, but he quickly suppressed it and continued walking forward.

The ground beneath my feet was a flat stone slab, neatly paved, but scattered with gravel, dust, and messy footprints.

Although the buildings on both sides are strangely shaped, they are well preserved, and the fleshy texture on the walls still pulsates slightly, exuding a faint sweet and rotten smell.

Just as he had seen from the outside, the buildings here showed almost no signs of damage.

If it weren't for the stone statues that can be seen every now and then, you would never guess that a war had just taken place here.

Anton's gaze fell on the stone statues scattered along both sides of the alley.

They maintain various postures.

Or perhaps they are staring blankly at a certain spot.

Or they might turn and run away.

Or they might slump to the ground.

Without exception, their faces were filled with terror and despair.

Their faces are clearly discernible, their expressions lifelike, as if time had been frozen in a moment when the pause button was pressed.

Anton stopped in front of several stone statues and observed them carefully.

The stone shell is grayish-white, with a rough surface covered with fine cracks, resembling a dried-up riverbed.

He tapped it lightly with his fingers, producing a dull, thumping sound; it felt hard, just like real rock.

"Petrified..."

Anton murmured to himself.

He already knew from the fleeing Mind Flayers that the invaders had the ability to turn living beings into stone statues.

However, this petrification effect is different from the petrification abilities of other known creatures such as petrified lizards and Medusas.

The petrification of these creatures is usually a slow, gradual process. Victims will first feel stiffness in their limbs and slowed movement before gradually turning into stone.

But these mind flayers and their minions were clearly petrified in an instant.

Only the power of laws can achieve this effect.

Clearly, the enemies who killed them were all at the peak of the Gold rank.

Anton seemed to be deep in thought before continuing on his way.

The isolation array set up by the Mind Flayer also had some effect within the city-state.

His divine sense was compressed to a hundred meters around him, and he could only barely perceive the surrounding situation, unable to detect dangers further away in advance.

He could only slow down as much as possible and be cautiously alert to his surroundings.

The sword pellet trembled slightly deep within the Qi Sea, ready to leap out at any moment.

As they went deeper, the number of stone statues increased.

Later on, you could see one almost every few steps.

He also saw several exceptionally tall stone statues, which, if he wasn't mistaken, should be high-level Mind Flayers at the peak of the Gold Realm.

Unexpectedly, Anton did not encounter any monsters attacking the city-state until he reached the cave in the center of the city-state.

Those invaders... have they already left?

The thought flashed through Anton's mind, but he did not let his guard down.

At the entrance to the cave, dozens of stone statues are gathered together, some facing the same direction, and some back to back in a circle, as if they are organizing a defense.

But no matter how much they struggled, they could not escape the fate of being petrified.

Anton continued walking, passing through the stone statues and entering the cave.

The cave is extremely spacious, with an area roughly equivalent to two standard football fields. The dome is semi-circular, and the highest point is estimated to be more than 200 meters above the ground.

The surface of the dome and the walls of the cave are inlaid with countless glowing fluorite stones, and the bright light illuminates the entire cave as if it were daytime.

Anton's gaze was quickly drawn to the scenery at the deepest part of the cave.

There is a huge pool there, more than 20 meters in diameter and several meters deep.

The pool should have been filled with some kind of liquid, but now most of the liquid has dried up, leaving only a shallow layer at the bottom, which is turbid and yellowish-green, and emits a pungent smell.

In the center of the pool, a huge head was submerged.

The head was the size of an adult's body, and its shape was similar to that of the Mind Flayer's head, but it was even more bloated and deformed.

Its skin is grayish-white, covered with deep wrinkles and grooves, like dried old tree bark.

Four tentacles dangled from its lower jaw, submerged in murky liquid, remaining motionless.

Mind-Stealing Demon Mastermind.

Anton recognized it at a glance.

This being who controlled the entire Mind Flayer city-state is now a corpse.

Its body was covered with shocking wounds, as if it had been stabbed by some sharp object.

The Mind Flayer's main brain has extremely high resistance to all kinds of magic, and even the power of laws.

Many spells and law attacks that are powerful enough to kill high-level mind flayers are much less effective when they hit the main brain.

In contrast, the mainframe's defense against physical attacks is shockingly weak.

Its body is soft and fragile; an ordinary human with a weapon could easily kill it.

Therefore, the mainframe must be protected by high-level mind flayers or even mind flayer elders at all times, and cannot leave the protective range even half a step.

The Mind Flayer's mastermind is the nerve center of the Mind Flayer race.

Each Mind Flayer maintains contact with its fellow Mind Flayers through the Mainframe, sharing intelligence and receiving instructions.

Once the mastermind dies, all mind flayers will lose their mental connection with the mastermind and become independent individuals, no longer under the mastermind's control and unification.

More importantly, without the Mind Flayer's psionic energy supply and amplification, the Mind Flayer's psionic power will significantly decrease, and its strength will inevitably weaken.

Unless one of the remaining mind flayers is powerful enough to absorb the remaining psionic matter and memory fragments of the original mastermind, and then undergoes a long transformation to evolve into a new mastermind, attracting and integrating the remaining mind flayers again to establish a new colony.

However, based on what Anton has seen along the way, this Mind Flayer clan will not have that opportunity.

He wouldn't allow the other party to have that opportunity.

Just then, Anton's expression suddenly shifted slightly.

Their divine sense detected an aura approaching from the passageway opposite the cave.

He looked up sharply and saw a huge figure rushing out of the tunnel entrance.

It was a very strange-looking creature.

It looks like a floating sphere composed of grayish-white crystal clusters, more than two meters long. The crystal clusters open and close slowly, like breathing, emitting a faint sound like a sigh.

There is also a long, thin crack in the center of the crystal, resembling a mouth.

"Sighing Crystal Cluster"

Anton immediately recognized the monster's origin and thought to himself, "Just as I thought."

Based on the Mind Flayers' descriptions, he guessed that the monsters attacking the Mind Flayer city-states were likely Sighing Clusters.

Now that I look at it, it's definitely true.

Despite its appearance, this thing is actually a sub-dragon species.

However, its bloodline is different from that of the sub-dragons in the surface world—it is a descendant of a demonic dragon!

Legend has it that in ancient times, some dragons committed the grave sin of blaspheming the dragon god and were thus banished from the dragon race, never to enter the dragon territory again.

At that time, the dragon race had already ruled the entire Dawn Continent.

Even the deep sea falls within the sphere of influence of the dragon race.

The Underdark is the only exception.

Left with no other choice, these banished dragons had to enter the Underdark.

Having lost the protection of the Dragon God, these dragons' lives in the Underdark were far less comfortable than those of their kind in the surface world.

Establishing a dragon city was out of the question; just being able to gain a foothold and develop a retinue of servants would be quite an achievement.

Over the long years, these dragons were affected by the environment of the Darklands, and their souls and bodies gradually changed, their minds became crazy and twisted, and they acted cruelly and violently.

Over time, it was given the title of Demon Dragon.

They became another minority branch, distinct from the dragons of the surface world.

Over the past ten thousand years, the dragon and countless underground creatures have multiplied, leaving behind a large number of sub-dragon species.

Sighing crystal clusters are one of them.

They are descendants of the Stone Dragon.

The "consciousness" of the Sighing Crystal Cluster is distributed across each crystal and cannot be locked onto, thus it is naturally extremely immune to mental and spiritual attacks, which is perfect for suppressing Mind Flayers.

In addition, Sighing Crystal Clusters generally reach the Golden Peak upon reaching adulthood, and they will inevitably awaken the Petrification Law.

This is a lower-level law, a secondary law of "Stone Condensation" within the category of mystical laws.

The Sighing Crystal Cluster, which has mastered the law of petrification, radiates petrification energy around itself year-round. Any living being other than its own kind that gets close to it will be infected and petrified.

Therefore, the Sighing Crystal Cluster is not afraid of a large-scale human wave tactic at all.

This explains why the buildings in the Mind Flayer city-state suffered almost no damage.

It's simply because the Mind Flayer was defeated too quickly.

With their mental abilities suppressed, the slave army became ineffective, leading to a swift defeat.

It is estimated that the entire war did not last long before it ended.

As for why the Sighing Crystal Cluster attacked the Mind Flayer City-State, Anton could roughly guess.

Due to their physiological structure, the Sighing Crystal Cluster has no interest in ordinary food and can survive simply by absorbing free elemental energy from the air.

Therefore, they have very low foraging and attacking desires and will basically not attack other creatures on their own initiative.

But there is one exception.

That is, they are keen to find places with high concentrations of elemental energy as their settlements.

For example, leyline nodes.

Once they find a suitable location, they will settle down and never migrate again.

Anton guessed that it was probably a group of Sighing Crystal Clusters that had accidentally migrated to the vicinity and happened to discover the ley line node where the Mind Flayer City-State was located, so they started fighting without saying a word.

The results are obvious.

To be honest, the Mind Flayer City-State was completely innocent.

"These guys are really unlucky."

Anton shook his head inwardly and turned his attention back to the Sighing Crystal Cluster in front of him.

Sighing Crystal Clusters are extremely rare; this is the first time Anton has ever seen one in person across both lifetimes.

The first thought that popped into his mind was that the Stone Dragon had an insatiable appetite. What kind of creature could it have bred with to give birth to such a thing?