From Swamp Dog to Crocodile Ancestor

After a while, a beam of deep green light shot out from the swirling, deep green pupil and shone onto one of Li Yi's pale white eyeballs with a hiss.

Li Yi's soul was still in that chaotic little world, watching the pure and turbid energy surge primitively and savagely, powerless to do anything about it.

Its soul is no longer whole; its edges are gradually dissipating.

Suddenly, it turned its head in surprise and looked at the dark green vortex patterns floating beside it, and was horrified.

Isn't this an eye of an ancient, strange insect? How could it possibly have come to this place?!

The deep green swirling pattern looked like a piece of paper cutout, without any thickness, emitting a strange light, and devoid of any emotional color.

It merely glanced at Li Yi's shattered soul before leisurely heading towards the center of that small world.

Li Yi could only watch, unable to intervene.

Suddenly, the deep green vortex pattern rapidly expanded, spreading outwards like a spider web, enveloping both the pure and impure air, causing the entire dimly lit area to emit an eerie light.

Li Yi instinctively sensed that it wanted to erode everything here; that primitive and mechanical consciousness had nothing but the desire to devour and possess.

"Will this continue to be a good thing or a bad thing?"

Li Yi pondered slowly.

Even without the strange insects from the distant past, I am on the verge of death. All that remains is for this world, both clear and turbid, to completely lose its balance, and everything will be shattered.

Including its soul.

But now, a new visitor has arrived, wanting to possess everything. Could this spark a new chapter in life?

The deep green veins flickered like breathing, enveloping everything, expanding and contracting from time to time.

But in the end, it still failed.

The clear and turbid world rolled and twisted endlessly, eventually shattering everything and crushing the deep green light into dust.

Inside the tree trunk, within that mass of white fluid, the tetrahedral eyeball shattered with a bang.

The next moment, another hemispherical orange eyeball appeared, its pupil forming a honeycomb-like black hexagon on the circular plane.

Another orange light shone into Li Yi's eyes.

In the gradually collapsing little world, Li Yi saw another visitor. This time, its complete eyeballs appeared here. After giving him a cold look, it headed towards that little world.

Despite facing certain death, Li Yi smiled and looked curiously at the second visitor.

The hemispherical eyeball came to the center of this small world, and after thinking for a long time, it suddenly burst open, turning into an orange crack that meandered in two directions.

Within a few breaths, the orange crack expanded rapidly, almost tearing this little world apart completely.

It wanted to end all this in such a simple and brutal way, perhaps to extinguish the phosphorescent flames in Li Yi's body, or perhaps to take over this body.

But Li Yi could tell at a glance that it was destined to fail.

Because I was only one step away from the final solution when I made a mistake.

Sure enough, after a period of time, the orange crack was swallowed up by the clear and turbid air and completely disappeared.

But it wouldn't give up. With thoughts that even Li Yi couldn't understand, it kept sending out eyeballs from the liquid, making one attempt after another.

Outside, the bark of the strange tree, which is on the verge of collapse, is peeling off. It is getting smaller and smaller, and its roots are being abandoned. More than half of the swamp creatures below have already perished.

Mu'e dodged a patch of tree bark burning with white phosphorescent light, and stared intently at the ancient monster that was now revealing its true form.

She sensed that this incredible Foundation Establishment stage being was also gradually losing its life force and withering away, which made her heart sink.

"How much longer can it hold on?"

The toad shrank its body, released the yellow crocodile, sat on its back, and let the crocodile carry it.

The strange tree was moving at a slower and slower pace, and having the yellow crocodile was enough to keep up.

"Oh my, what is this weird thing? It's giving me goosebumps."

The toad complained that its body beneath the bark of the strange tree looked like a large, irregularly shaped clump of insects twisted and tangled together, making it impossible to discern anything.

With that, it grunted, turned its back to the strange tree, and gave an order to the yellow crocodile.

"Don't look at its body. Only someone in the Foundation Establishment stage can look at it. Those in the Qi Refining stage shouldn't bother looking at it."

The yellow crocodile closed its eyes, and a yellow mist emanated from its body as it tracked Mu'e's figure and followed behind it.

Inside the small world.

"Failed again." Li Yi's soul was still half intact as he watched an eyeball phantom shatter and be crushed into dust.

This time, it attempted to create a rift to completely separate the pure and impure energies and end the anomaly here.

But the pure and impure energies are interdependent; how can they be so easily separated?

This failure was inevitable.

However, the ancient insect has tried dozens of times, each time with a different method, from the initial brute force to take possession, to the current breakthrough.

This continuous growth process gave Li Yi a chill, and its intelligence became increasingly sophisticated and complex as it progressed.

Isn't this just like the process of life evolution? Gradually discarding everything useless and trying other things until you completely adapt to the environment.

Boo!

Another illusory eyeball appeared here. It was a yellow, glassy eyeball with a smaller purple sphere inside, and then another one inside that, and so on, nested together.

Li Yi spoke for the first time.

"Your attempts are futile. Even if you find a way, so what? This place belongs to me. With just a thought from me, you will surely fail."

The eyeball turned its head and glanced at Li Yi, then continued its attempts.

It failed.

"I can feel it. You're about to give up too, aren't you? The phosphorescent calamity is indeed terrifying, enough to force even a being like you to possess me. Are you afraid of flames?"

Li Yi continued to ask.

The cylindrical eye finally looked at it seriously, but still rolled into that little world to try.

……

"Help me, and you'll survive. I don't know how strong you are, but only I can solve everything!"

Li Yi's soul was reduced to a head, but it calmly looked at a new, disc-shaped eyeball with strange, ever-changing patterns on both sides, which was beyond Li Yi's imagination.

It ignored it and kept trying.

……

"..."

Li Yi's soul dissipated until only an eyeball remained. It could no longer make a sound and could only watch everything.

It knew that the moment its soul was completely annihilated, this world would also be completely out of control, and then everything would be over.

As for what changes will occur after it dies, it doesn't know, and it can't know.

A new eyeball has arrived here.