The thing inside the pipe had no real means of resistance.
At least, that was how it seemed to Ronin. Susanoo's massive hand grabbed onto it with ease, then pulled hard and dragged it straight out of the pipe.
The process of pulling it out was rather speechless, because the creature's body was truly long and disgusting.
Beneath that ugly head was a long worm-like body.
Its body also seemed to have fused with the pipe wall. By the time it was pulled out, it was already covered in blood.
This time, what Ronin heard beside his ears was no longer an all-around mournful wail, but the creature's own scream.
It was extremely chilling.
Originally, Ronin had been thinking of capturing it and bringing it back for research, but after seeing how disgusting it looked, that thought began to waver.
However, just as Susanoo was about to exert force and crush it completely, Kurapika's voice came from behind, interrupting Ronin's movement.
It seemed all of this creature's points had been put into laying eggs and letting the cicadas hatched from those eggs attack. Its main body, by contrast, was pitifully weak. Even though it possessed an enormous amount of aura, it still failed to unleash any power that could threaten Ronin.
Under the effect of the Ultra-Light-Weight Rock Technique, Ronin brought the monster back to the floating island with him.
By then, the sky had already brightened.
Under the sunlight, the cicada cries in everyone's ears finally disappeared completely.
However, before they vanished, everyone also noticed something abnormal about the sound. It seemed even more miserable than before.
Perhaps the monster's main body knew it was going to die.
That was Ronin's guess, and he handed the monster over entirely to Kurapika and Ging. He himself had little interest in such an ugly creature. He only wanted some peace and quiet.
The floating island's pipe was cleaned.
After Ging discovered that the captured monster's body had corrosive properties, he controlled the cleaning robots and sent them into the pipe to clean it out.
However, according to Ging, the entire cleaning process might last several days, because the entire pipe needed to be repaired.
In addition, after this repair was complete, they would also need to replenish some of the floating island's resources according to the contents of its database.
For now, Ronin could not find those materials, so he simply took out some of the resources they had brought from Lake Mobius.
Because they had two storage-type abilities, Shizuku and Owl, Ronin had prepared a large amount of resources back then.
But when those resources were supplied to the floating island, they seemed somewhat limited.
Fortunately, as long as the floating island was not damaged again, those supplies would be enough for the time being.
This made Ronin feel that he should do something. So after the cleaning robots repaired the pipe, Ronin simply blocked that pipe temporarily with materials and reinforced the blockage using sealing techniques.
In any case, they had no intention of acting as rain gods and going around causing rainfall, so blocking the pipe would not affect them.
After that monster was captured, when night fell again, Ronin indeed no longer heard the mournful wailing.
What surprised him, however, was that after Ging and Kurapika studied the monster, they seemed prepared to use the floating island laboratory's machines to "conjure" it.
A monster conjured this way would not only perfectly obey the island master's orders, but its body data would also be identical to that of a normal monster.
Ronin naturally had no objections.
He even felt that the monster was actually quite useful. Using it to guard the floating island would not be bad.
Only this time, it absolutely could not live inside the pipe.
Kurapika and Ging had already made arrangements. After they killed the captured monster and created a new one, Ronin once again saw on the island the cicada that had nearly tortured everyone into nightmares.
The cicada cries still existed.
But they were no longer that torturous sound. Instead, when heard at night, they actually felt somewhat sleep-inducing.
After falling asleep to the cicada song, everyone felt refreshed the next morning.
The floating island continued drifting forward above the sea of trees. During this process, Ronin discovered several times that similar monsters wanted to attach themselves to the floating island.
However, after gaining experience dealing with one, this kind of monster no longer posed any threat to Ronin.
The only thing that surprised him somewhat was how widely distributed these monsters were.
Fortunately, aside from this type of monster, there were no other dangers in the sea of trees. Of course, by "dangers," he meant dangers capable of threatening the people on the floating island.
Inside the sea of trees itself, there were actually still countless crises.
Seven days later, a new environment appeared beneath the floating island.
It was a small lake. On the other side of the lake was no longer the sea of trees, but a sea of flowers.
Looking down from high above, what they saw was a beautiful scene of countless flowers blooming in brilliant colors.
But no one on the floating island relaxed their guard because of the beautiful scenery.
Ronin even said directly, "The more beautiful something is, the more danger it hides."
Near the great lake, enormous figures finally appeared. They were tall dragon-like creatures with necks more than a hundred meters long.
They seemed to feed on the towering trees in the sea of trees, while the lake was simply where they replenished water.
As the floating island passed overhead, these creatures, which resembled sauropods, looked up at it. But they did not react aggressively or attack.
Perhaps, as herbivores, they simply did not have such fierce temperaments.
After flying over the lake, faint traces of fragrance quietly appeared on the floating island.
Most astonishing of all, countless flowers had appeared on the island overnight.
The moment the laboratory door was opened, the rich fragrance surged inside.
Sneezing instantly became the main theme.
"What is going on?" Ronin walked out of the laboratory and found himself practically standing inside a sea of flowers.
Even the trees on the floating island occupied by the giant eagles had bloomed with small white flowers. When a breeze blew through, petals danced in the air, looking incredibly romantic.
No one could answer Ronin's question, because the changes on the floating island were beyond everyone's expectations.
Ronin put on a gas mask, and even began considering whether he should change into a full protective suit.
As for getting rid of all the flowers covering the floating island, he had not considered it.
Because that would be difficult.
Unless he set the entire floating island on fire.
"I wonder if after crossing this sea of flowers, we'll reach the location of the ancient labyrinth city," Kurapika said as he gazed north, though he could not see anything beyond the sea of flowers.
The laboratory door was closed again.
No one could imagine what kind of danger was hidden inside the sea of flowers, but no one on the floating island believed there was no danger.
However, now that they were floating above the sea of flowers, everyone had no other option.
They could only wait patiently for the sea of flowers to make the first move.