Chapter 1435: Nine Babies

"I heard this Nine Infants monster has nine heads?" Yan Xuehen recalled the information Shun had mentioned earlier.

"Sounds like it'll be tough to handle," Yun Jianyue said, though without a hint of fear. Both she and Yan Xuehen had largely recovered their strength. With Zuan and Yu Yanluo also present, they were confident they could overcome anything short of a Celestial Immortal like the Demon Emperor.

"What I'm more curious about is why so many of these monsters have snake bodies," Zuan mused. Both Yaoyu and Erfu had human heads and snake bodies, the Xiu Snake was a snake, and now this Nine Infants monster also seemed to have a snake's body.

"Why are you looking at me? How would I know?" Yu Yanluo retorted, her cheeks slightly flushed, giving him an annoyed glare.

Seeing her embarrassed expression, the others couldn't help but laugh.

The group continued their journey in this cheerful atmosphere, soon leaving Shouhua Wilderness and arriving before a vast, turbulent river.

The four exchanged glances. "Why does this look so familiar?"

It was understandable that they felt this way, as the mighty river before them bore a strong resemblance to the previous Weak River, its waves even more tempestuous.

Zuan knelt by the bank and dipped his hand into the water. After a moment, he stood up. "The water itself seems normal; unlike the Weak River, things don't immediately sink. But there's something strange about this river. I just probed it and it feels bottomless."

Using his Blue Duck ability, he sensed that the river was hundreds, if not a thousand, zhang deep. This was incredibly absurd; in his previous life, the deepest part of the Yangtze River was only a little over a hundred meters, largely due to the Three Gorges Dam impounding water. This river was as deep as the sea!

"Is the Nine Infants monster hiding in there?" Hearing how deep the water was, the women felt a headache coming on. After the previous trials, they really didn't want to deal with water again.

For a moment, they couldn't think of a good way to find the Nine Infants. Just as they were at a loss, they suddenly heard the faint cry of a baby.

"How could there be a baby in a place like this?" Yun Jianyue frowned.

Yan Xuehen, however, remained calm. With her practice of the Supreme Emotion Severing Art, it was difficult for anything unrelated to Zuan or herself to stir her emotions.

Yu Yanluo looked around. "Let's go check it out. What if it's a local child accidentally left behind? We could rescue it and return it."

Having passed through the previous areas, they had noticed that indigenous people did exist in this world.

"Be careful; it could be a trap. A baby appearing in the middle of nowhere like this is highly abnormal," Yun Jianyue warned.

Yu Yanluo nodded slightly and began searching cautiously. They soon reached a patch of reeds by the riverbank, from which the baby's cries emanated.

"Could it be an abandoned baby?" Yu Yanluo furrowed her brow slightly. A normal child wouldn't be found in a place like this. She had heard before that some people abandoned infants in reed beds. As she pushed aside the dense reeds, searching carefully for the child, a massive, bloody maw suddenly lunged out from the reeds, snapping at her.

"Watch out!" the others cried, rushing to her aid.

Fortunately, Yu Yanluo was not naively kind. She had maintained some vigilance from the start, and in the nick of time, she pushed off with her toes, gracefully floating away and evading the fatal strike.

At that moment, Zuan and the others' attacks arrived. As the monstrous maw dodged, it straightened its body, allowing them to finally get a clear look at their opponent. It wasn't just one huge mouth; there were nine of them. It had nine heads attached to a massive snake body. Although smaller than the Xiu Snake in its prime, its nine wildly swaying heads made it an exceptionally terrifying sight.

Having just been attacked, the nine-headed monster hissed furiously at them. It was then that they finally realized where the baby's cries had come from: they were emanating from its mouths! No wonder its name was Nine Infants!

Yun Jianyue, however, chuckled. "This kind of opponent is much more satisfying. No complicated backstories, just a straightforward fight."

Zuan couldn't help but smile wryly, knowing she was complaining about the fierce beasts they'd encountered in previous levels, each with a convoluted past that sometimes made it awkward to strike with full force.

At this point, the Nine Infants monster grew angry. These puny humans showed no fear in front of its majestic body; instead, they seemed to be casually chatting and laughing. This was outrageous!

One of its snake heads suddenly opened its mouth and shot a jet of water at them, like a powerful water cannon. The group quickly dodged, and where they had just stood, the powerful water current blasted a huge crater.

Yun Jianyue snorted coldly and immediately swung her Star-Moon Wheel, launching a counterattack. However, several of the Nine Infants' heads simultaneously sprayed water, blocking her weapon. The splashing water droplets were like a hail of bullets, leaving countless deep marks along the riverbank.

Then, the snake heads changed tactics, no longer emitting thick water jets but instead spraying thin streams of water. Wherever these streams passed, even hard stone was silently sliced in half. Facing such a dense attack, Yun Jianyue manipulated her New Moon Wheel to guard herself, expertly deflecting every single drop, though she had no immediate opportunity to counterattack.

Zuan was secretly astonished. They say nothing is softer than water, yet water can also be immensely powerful. In his previous life, he had seen educational videos about waterjet cutting, which could truly slice through metal like mud. He hadn't expected to witness it firsthand today.

At that moment, the surrounding air instantly dropped, and snowflakes began to fall everywhere. It was clear Yan Xuehen had acted. Her Snowflake Divine Sword was precisely suited to counter water-based attacks. The water jets spewed by the Nine Infants instantly froze into ice, naturally losing their original power. The chilling cold even traveled along the water expelled by the Nine Infants, visibly freezing the water-spouting snake heads.

Zuan admired her secretly. He had grown accustomed to her weakened state, but even though she had only recovered about eighty percent of her strength, her actions already displayed the grandeur of a Grandmaster in her prime.

Just as two of its heads were about to be completely encased in ice, several other heads of the Nine Infants suddenly opened their mouths and unleashed jets of flame, instantly melting the ice.

"It breathes both fire and water?" The group was quite surprised, especially the three women. They rarely encountered creatures capable of wielding two elemental powers simultaneously. In fact, the monster bore some resemblance to Zuan.

However, the Nine Infants gave them no time to rest. Its nine heads each found a target, relentlessly attacking with both water and fire.

Yu Yanluo's eyes also gleamed. Her opponent was a nine-headed serpent, and she was a Medusa. It was hard to say whose bloodline was superior. Sure enough, the snake head directly facing her quickly stiffened, its skin beginning to show signs of petrification. In short order, the entire snake head transformed into a stone sculpture.

At this, the other snake heads turned and attacked her simultaneously. Unable to contend with so many heads at once, Yu Yanluo quickly dodged.

Just then, a golden brick flew out, rapidly expanding in size before directly slamming into the petrified head. This was the Golden Brick, one of the Heaven-tier weapons that Shang Liuyu had previously gifted him from the Dragon Palace of the Sea Clan. Used for the first time, its power was indeed immense. The petrified head was instantly smashed to smithereens by the massive golden brick.

The Nine Infants monster let out a pained shriek, its body trembling, while its other eight heads thrashed wildly. The group secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Their coordination was becoming more skilled. With a few more hits like that, all nine of the monster's heads would be blown apart one by one.

However, their smiles quickly froze. As the Nine Infants continued to thrash, fleshy tendrils began to writhe from the stump of its severed neck. Then, at a visible pace, a new snake head regrew, identical to the one destroyed, save for its slightly paler, more tender appearance.