Chapter 53 - 52: Druid’s Spine
In the center of the area, the Sheep-headed Man stood in a daze, staring at the object before him.
The people behind him were also captivated by the sight.
It was an egg.
A massive, transparent egg. The clear mucus inside swirled and pulsed as if it were alive.
And beneath this egg was a nest built from countless spines.
’Spines?’
Mo Ling was reminded of the spine he had tossed into his Block.
Ever since getting that spine from the Tree Transformation Tribe, Mo Ling hadn’t paid it any mind, but similar things kept appearing before him.
So, Mo Ling teleported the spine to Li Luo, explained its origins, and then asked via his electronic screen, "Do you know what this is?"
"The chief of the Tree Transformation Tribe kept saying ’must transform.’ He seemed to want to use this spine’s power. Is this thing related to the voice of God?"
Staring at the pile of questions Mo Ling had written on the screen, Li Luo was also completely baffled. "Never seen it."
But Captain Su, who was examining the spine nearby, suddenly had a realization. He said to Li Luo, "Isn’t this a Druid’s Spine?"
’A Druid’s Spine?’
Li Luo quickly typed the name into his electronic screen, and a dense wall of news articles instantly popped up:
"Shocking! The most suitable relic for Abyss adventures is actually this!"
"The most straightforward cost, the most diverse abilities—the best choice for Abyss exploration."
"Sweeping through the first layer of the Abyss, why is this relic so popular?"
...
Li Luo found a relatively more normal-looking entry and clicked on it.
Soon, information about the spine appeared on the screen:
[Relic: Druid’s Spine]
[Cost: The user’s own spine]
[Ability: Grants the user the power to transform into and control other creatures]
[Place of Discovery: First Layer of the Abyss]
...
This was a type of relic discovered back when the Abyss was first being explored.
It looked like a common animal bone, carelessly discarded on the ground. Many of the people who came to the Abyss in those early days had seen it.
For a long time, these identical-looking spines didn’t attract anyone’s attention.
Who would pay attention to an unremarkable bone in the forest?
As a result, researchers have no idea who actually discovered the Druid’s Spine.
How it was discovered to be a relic is also lost to history.
The most widely circulated rumor goes like this:
A Hunter Squad with no relics, overestimating their own abilities, accepted an extremely dangerous extermination mission—to hunt down a raging swarm of Spiral Bees.
These were terrifying hornets with spiral scales covering their bodies, and they would attack creatures and humans in the Abyss in massive swarms.
They weren’t very large. They would plunge directly into their prey, begin to rotate, and drill into the victim’s body before dying.
The Spiral Bees were incredibly resilient and could get in anywhere. They could often drill extremely deep, penetrating bone and embedding themselves in the innermost parts of their prey.
Their hard exoskeletons would cause them to get stuck inside the victim’s body like bullets, and the cutting motion of their spiral threads would cause the prey to bleed out and eventually die from blood loss.
After the prey died, the remaining Spiral Bees would swarm over it, devouring the corpse completely.
Without a relic capable of widespread destruction, no one would dare provoke such creatures.
But this rookie Hunter Squad accepted the mission. Without even preparing any protective gear, they just bought a bunch of flamethrowers, thinking they could wipe out the swarm.
When they finally encountered the swarm, however, they discovered that fire had no effect on them at all.
In fact, when heated until their bodies glowed red, the Spiral Bees would drill into a person’s body even faster.
As the swarm surged forward, the squad members fell one by one.
One of the members fell to the ground and was covered from behind by the swarm. Countless Spiral Bees riddled his back with holes, leaving his spine exposed.
In that desperate moment, the squad member grabbed a Druid’s Spine from the ground.
At that moment, the Druid’s Spine, which had seemed like just another common stone, came to life.
Like a centipede, the Druid’s Spine crawled up the man’s arm and onto his back, where it devoured his exposed spinal column.
The squad member realized his back had gone numb. He thought it was just due to his severe injuries; his only thought was for the Spiral Bees to leave him alone.
Unexpectedly, as the buzzing sound faded, the rampaging Spiral Bees actually left him.
It was as if they were being controlled by something.
When feeling returned to his back, the squad member felt his own spine faintly pulsing, as if it had a life of its own.
He reached back to touch it and found his spine exposed to the air, still pulsing steadily!
He scrambled to find a recording device and began to film his own back.
In the video, his spine had been completely replaced by the Druid’s Spine. It was exposed to the air, yet no blood flowed from the wound.
The Druid’s Spine pulsed faintly, like a heart.
Before he could get a clear look, the Spiral Bee swarm that had just retreated flew back again.
The squad member desperately tried to flee, but his legs had been injured in the previous attack, and he couldn’t run fast.
He began to move, enduring the searing pain, but the swarm behind him drew closer and closer.
’Faster! Faster!’
As the thought crossed his mind, a strange sensation washed over him. The pulsing of the Druid’s Spine spread through his entire body.
His form twisted, and he actually transformed into a deer!
The agile deer weaved and dodged through the jungle. By the time the squad member came to his senses, the swarm behind him was gone.
With a thought, he changed back into his human form.
Dragging his injured body, the squad member rushed back to the monitoring station and told the researchers what had happened.
And so, the function of the Druid’s Spine began to spread.
Simply by exposing one’s own spine and letting the Druid’s Spine devour it, one could gain the powerful abilities of transformation and creature control.
The news sent shockwaves through the community.
’A common bone, a relic?’
The discovery caused an uproar throughout the first layer of the Abyss. All the Hunters began to walk with their eyes glued to the ground.
It was just like a gold rush.
Many Hunters stopped completing missions, instead spending their days wandering around, searching for Druid’s Spines.
The number of "bone" prospectors was huge, but the number of spines was limited. Most of these Hunters came up empty-handed, while the merchants at the monitoring station who sold bone-finding devices made a killing.
In the beginning, many Druid’s Spines were still being found.
But because the relic was too famous and too easy to acquire, their numbers quickly dwindled until they could no longer be found just lying around.
Then, some Hunters started digging for them.
This behavior was quickly stopped by the monitoring station, as these people were leaving pits everywhere, and what they dug up wasn’t necessarily a Druid’s Spine.
Other Hunters cut open their own backs only to find that the Druid’s Spine they had bought was a fake—the bone of some unknown creature.
Incidents like this were not uncommon.
As the number of Druid’s Spines decreased, the craze slowly faded.
But the tale of this legendary relic remained etched in people’s minds.