Chapter 477 - Taming the Platinum Ring
The ’playful’ Cat roared again, a sound that now had strange echoes in the dense air of the platinum ring. Each step it took toward Zhao sent massive vibrations through the ground in this new environment.
Zhao maintained his desperate flight, but now struggled against the growing pressure of mana.
Behind him, the Giant Bear Cat accelerated, its body also gradually adapting to the new territory. But the powerful vibrations it sent through the ground were impossible to hide.
And something had noticed them.
The ground trembled with a different rhythm.
These weren’t the heavy steps of the Playful Cat... this was something emerging from below, multiple presences moving beneath the surface.
Zhao felt the change in mana before seeing it. Energy networks activating, underground communication systems lighting up like a giant neural network.
The response was almost immediate, like disturbing a sleeping giant that had sensors scattered across miles of territory. The very earth seemed to come alive, awakening to deal with the intrusion.
"Local inhabitants," he murmured, comprehension and terror mixing in his voice.
The ground beneath the Playful Cat opened.
Massive tentacles, thick as common tree trunks, emerged from the surface like plant serpents awakening from deep sleep.
But these weren’t the Carrion Sprouts he had encountered in the golden ring. These were something evolved, refined, perfected by evolutionary pressure.