Chapter 3160: Cloud Prowler

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Realm Of True Evil

How does one catch a spatial sniper capable of sniping from several miles away without leaving a trace behind while possessing extraordinary stealth? I didn’t know. But the one I was dealing with had a rather significant flaw: whatever it sniped, it claimed as food.

From my previous two encounters, I had already realized that the creature wasn’t interested in consuming the entire tree. It was specifically targeting the tree’s heart. So, for the third attempt, I placed one of my Primordial Calamity Daughter Gems where it would believe the heart of the tree was located.

Yes, I had transformed one of my Primordial Calamity Daughter Gems into the form of the tree’s heart and had the creature willingly eat it without having to find the creature or force it to reveal itself. All I needed was to give it the bait it was already looking for and make sure it believed it had found the heart.

I immediately summoned the creature over.

A breath later, I felt a faint disturbance in the space above the cloud beside me.

The first thing to emerge from the distorted space was a massive white beak. Then came a head covered in silver feathers, followed by a pair of reptilian eyes. As the creature gradually revealed its full body, I finally got a proper look at the mysterious predator that had been sniping my trees from several miles away.

At first glance, it looked like a gigantic house lizard with the beak of a parrot. Instead of scales, its entire body was covered in silver feathers resembling those of a snow owl. Its legs had evolved into long, flat, flipper-like appendages covered in feathers. I couldn’t immediately determine whether they functioned like bird wings or served some completely different purpose, but they clearly played a role in how the creature moved through the clouds.

The more interesting part was its incredibly light body. Despite its enormous size, its feathers and lightweight bones allowed it to rest on clouds without simply falling through them. In fact, it seemed to prefer using clouds as more than just a place to stand. The creature liked to burrow into them, surrounding its body with the thick mass of cloud as though it were wearing a shell. Its long, feathered tail and flippers moved through the cloud with a slow rowing motion, seemingly allowing it to maneuver while remaining hidden inside its cloudy shelter.

Someone seeing it from a distance could easily mistake it for the hatchling of some enormous silver-feathered serpent dragon.

Its behavior made that comparison rather amusing.

It wasn’t energetic or restless like a dragon hatchling. Instead, it behaved almost exactly like a house lizard. It made little to no sound, avoided unnecessary movement, and seemed perfectly content to remain completely still for long periods of time. For a creature that relied on stealth and long-range sniping to hunt, conserving movement and remaining unnoticed were excellent traits.

While I examined its appearance, I had Hive Spirit establish contact with its spirit and attempt to communicate with it. If it possessed enough intelligence for meaningful communication, she could simply communicate with it normally. If it wasn’t intelligent enough, I had already given her permission to go through its memories and collect whatever information we needed.

Meanwhile, I shifted my attention toward its soul pathways and soul energy signature. The results immediately showed that this wasn’t an ordinary predator. It had been born at the Devil rank and had gradually cultivated itself into a Ruler-class existence.

But the most astonishing discovery came when I examined its actual racial characteristics.

This wasn’t some bizarre lizard with a parrot’s beak and feathers instead of scales.

It was a type of sky turtle. That explained its behaviour a lot.

The more I studied it, the more obvious it became that I had mistaken its appearance because it lacked the one feature I instinctively associated with a turtle: a shell.

But it did have one.

Its shell was the clouds.

The creature used its feathers to weave and manipulate the clouds around its body, shaping them into a sturdy shell that it could hide inside and move around in. It could burrow into the clouds, conceal its enormous body, and teleport between them, essentially carrying its shell wherever it went.

Suddenly, its entire hunting method made considerably more sense.

It didn’t need to physically approach its prey. It could hide inside its cloud shell, remain almost completely motionless, and use its spatial abilities to attack from several miles away. Once it tore the heart from its prey, it could simply retreat through the clouds before anything nearby had a chance to determine where the attack had originated.

Its feathers weren’t merely replacing scales. They appeared to be an essential part of its ability to manipulate and reinforce the clouds that served as its shell.

The more I learned about the creature, the more I realized that calling it a giant lizard was completely wrong.

It was a turtle. Its shell was simply made of clouds instead of a hard material. A very strange turtle, but a turtle nonetheless. And apparently, one that had evolved into an exceptionally effective spatial sniper.

A moment later, Hive Spirit reported that she had completed her investigation. The creature was called a Cloud Prowler. After seeing how it hunted, I had to admit that the name was surprisingly fitting.

Just then, the clone-head drone I had sent to scout along the edge of the forest and the ocean of lava reported that it had found a massive cave, half-submerged beneath the lava. The lava ocean in this area was extremely turbulent, making it difficult for the drone to explore the cave it had discovered.

I asked the Hive Spirit to halt and switched my perspective to the clone-head drone, scrutinizing what it had found with my Soul Pupils. What awaited me was the biggest cave I had ever seen in my life.

Yet my gut told me it wasn’t a cave. The current of the lava ocean and the sheer density of the forest in that area simply didn’t add up.

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