The extreme temperature difference between the surroundings and the mouth of the creature created a heat haze that was almost 50 meters wide.
A wall of extreme heat was felt by Hao Xuan even before it was ready to attack. He didn't know what type of attack it would be or how accurate, but one thing he was certain about was its lethality.
If just the side effects were this strong then one could only imagine how much more powerful would the end result be.
The rows of teeth lining its mouth had almost all lit up. Hao Xuan knew there wasn't any time to dodge and he sure as hell wasn't going to risk taking it head-on so he did the only thing he could think of, launch a preemptive strike.
Cradling Ma Jing like a child with his right hand, he opened the palm of his left hand and activated the full power of the Chaos Law.
*Bzzt*
The air around his hand reverberated loudly before a blue spark ignited the atmosphere. Space itself started to destabilize.
Hao Xuan jerked his armed backward and a spear of pure white light was pulled out of the same point in space. There was a blue flame burning along the length that lit up the surroundings around him.
He brought his hand all the way to the back of his head, extending the length of the spear until was approximately three meters measuring end-to-end.
"Hup!"
He didn't hold onto it for a moment longer than what was necessary, launching it towards the creature's open maw the moment it stabilized enough to endure the short journey.
But because it was so dark the spear appeared to be abnormally bright. From an outside perspective it looked Hao Xuan had thrown a blob of light since the distance was too short to create any sound.
Hao Xuan and the Orcs watched with bated breaths. Hao Xuan's entire left arm was smoking. The outside of it was covered in a layer of frost that was being slowly melted by the sizzling heat on the underside.
It was this variation between two extreme temperatures that created the lightning in the first place.
Thankfully they didn't have to wait long since the spear appeared to have teleported soundlessly into the creature's mouth, impacting with an invisible layer of energy. There was a small cracking sound as it ripped through flesh and bone.
A small explosion took place within its bloated abdomen just before it collapsed in on itself. It started burning from inside out. The creature's body went limp and detached from the pillar, falling back into the darkness from whence it came.
The blue and white flame encompassed it fully, making it look like a giant fireball as it descended into the depths. But on its way down it lit up everything in the surroundings, allowing Hao Xuan to see something he had missed before.
There was obviously an uncountable number of these creatures that were clawing their way up but when the fireball reached an approximate depth of 1100 meters, it passed by a metallic structure.
It seemed to be a small pyramid created from a matt black metal that was slowly shifted up and down as if it was alive.
If his vision wasn't amplified beyond anything that was humanly possible, Hao Xuan would have completely missed this structure. His gaze was locked onto it because it stood out so much. It was embedded on the side into a rock wall that wasn't visible from where he was, absorbing all light that dared to cross its path.
But then something else caught his attention. Just before the fireball completely burnt out, Hao Xuan saw something moving. It was too far down for even him to be able to accurately distinguish a shape but it was BIG!
It shifted and swayed within the shadows, moving out of the way of the fireball so no light could fall on it directly but it was far too big to completely dodge everything.
"I think...we should really get out of this place now," Hao Xuan commented with a heavy heart.
There was much more to this place than he expected.
The bridge had already been cleared but the next wave was barely a few dozen meters away by now. Hao Xuan waved his hand, recalling the Orc warriors back to the mind palace before sprinting after the demihuman party.
But Hao Xuan came to an abrupt stop just before reaching the doorway behind which they had vanished. He looked above and saw the Scorpion King jump down, landing behind him.
The entire right side of his carapace looked like it had been painted black. He could feel the Scorpion King's vitality leaving his body.
"What happened?" Hao Xuan inquired immediately. He didn't expect there to be anything capable of damaging him to this extent.
The Scorpion King pointed above them, "The dark is alive."