109: Chapter 109 Infiltrating the Ruins Alone

The smell of blood inside the seven-story ruined building was scattered by the cold wind.

Then, an even stronger stench of decay from outside the building surged back in.

Zhao Mengmeng held her crossbow.

The arms of the crossbow were wedged steadily against the edge of a broken wall.

Lin Ye stood beside her.

His gaze pierced through the wind and snow, locking onto the center of the ruined street below, where gray-white and dark red were locked in a death struggle.

Three ten-meter-class giant Pale Species had the main Blood Vine firmly surrounded in the center.

The Thick-armored Giant Beast was at the very front.

Half of its shoulder armor had been corroded into a black honeycomb by acid.

The main Blood Vine was in no hurry to strangle them.

Dozens of vines as thick as thighs seemed to have eyes, burrowing relentlessly around the giant beast's limbs and the cracks in its carapace.

Zhao Mengmeng's scalp tightened as she watched.

"They're peeling its shell."

The Thick-armored Giant Beast raised its forelimbs high.

It stomped down heavily.

Three thick vines were pinned firmly into the concrete road.

Gray-white fragments exploded outward.

The giant beast lowered its head and bit a thick vine, the muscles in its neck bulging as it tore the vine into two pieces by brute force.

Dark red sap sprayed onto the side of its face, burning away in large clouds of pungent white smoke.

Even more thin vines from behind forced their way through the openings in the shoulder armor.

The ten-meter-tall, heavy body suddenly hunched over.

The giant beast let out a shrill roar.

It abandoned the main vine, its massive body slamming violently into the ruined buildings by the roadside, attempting to use the walls to crush the vines that had burrowed into its shell.

Load-bearing pillars snapped.

Half of the building collapsed with a roar.

Rubble buried the thick vines and also smashed several rows of bone spikes on its own back.

Taking advantage of its stalled movement, the Blood Vine seized the opportunity to pour madly into the openings.

The thick vines pulsed and contracted continuously.

The Thick-armored Giant Beast's struggles grew weaker and weaker.

Its forelimbs were still unconsciously pounding the ground, but they could no longer produce the force to crush the street.

From the cracks in its back armor, gray-white bodily fluids mixed with dark red acid sprayed out wildly.

It raised its head one last time, smashing a nearby concrete pillar.

Then, its heavy head crashed straight into the quagmire of flesh and blood.

The entire street seemed to sink along with it.

The Great Xia Live Stream bullet chat scrolled frantically.

[It's down! The first ten-meter monster is gone just like that!]

[Is this vine a bottomless pit? It can drain a ten-meter monster dry!]

[They couldn't even hold out three-on-one?!]

[Brother Eye, don't go downstairs! No matter what, don't go down!]

The dark Red Tide around the main Blood Vine expanded rapidly.

After devouring the flesh and blood of the Thick-armored Giant Beast, more vines turned a deeper color, and their movement speed doubled.

The Slender Giant Beast did not retreat.

The bone blades on its two forelimbs crossed, and it charged across the ground with a piercing scraping sound.

Several thick vines lashed out from the flanks.

The Slender Giant Beast ducked to avoid them, its bone blades delivering a series of horizontal slashes.

A path of flesh and blood was cut through the entire vine formation.

It was the fastest of the three giant beasts.

Using its afterimages, it approached the core area of the main vine.

Zhao Mengmeng's eyes widened.

"It's going to cut that main vine!"

The Slender Giant Beast raised both arms high, and its two two-meter-long bone blades hacked down simultaneously.

Crack!

The tough skin of the main vine split open on the spot.

Dark red sap sprayed several meters high.

The entire main vine rolled in agony on the street, and the surrounding tide of vines paused for a second.

Lin Ye's left eye opened briefly and then immediately closed.

A point of piercing golden light was still inside the most swollen nodule in the middle of the main vine.

The nodule was approached by the Slender Giant Beast's bone blades but did not fall off.

The Slender Giant Beast prepared to pull back its blades for another strike.

The main vine flipped over suddenly.

It didn't retreat; instead, it coiled dozens of its thickest vines from the tail end back around.

They tightly bound the Slender Giant Beast's arms.

One loop after another, they forcibly locked it down.

The Slender Giant Beast kicked the ground with its hind legs, trying desperately to pull back, but the bone blades were stuck in the vine's flesh and couldn't be withdrawn.

Lin Ye spoke in a low voice.

"Too late."

Just as he finished speaking, three dark red Blood Vines as thick as millstones burst out from the side of the main vine without warning.

Pffft! Pffft! Pffft!

The thick vines brutally impaled the Slender Giant Beast's neck, chest cavity, and abdomen.

The giant beast's hind legs clawed frantically at the road, trying to pull itself off the vines.

More thin vines burrowed into the bloody holes that went all the way through its body.

Its arms were completely locked, and its bone blades could no longer be raised.

In just a few seconds.

The Slender Giant Beast's head drooped.

Its body shriveled, and its two bone blades remained stuck in the gashes of the main vine.

Zhao Mengmeng cursed out loud.

"Fuck! That's two of them!"

The battle in the ruins was completely one-sided.

Only the last bloated Bone-crowned Giant Beast remained, its body half-entwined with thin vines.

It did not turn to run.

Dragging its shattered carapace, it charged into the middle of the main vine like an out-of-control heavy truck.

Its massive skull pushed aside the vine formation.

It sent the dark red nodule containing the golden light bouncing high into the air.

In pain, the main vine coiled back frantically.

Countless thick vines strangled the Bone-crowned Giant Beast's neck, forelimbs, and waist.

Half of its exoskeleton was forcibly crushed.

Gray-white bodily fluids and corrosive acid merged, steaming into a vast cloud of white smoke that blotted out the sky.

Zhao Mengmeng gripped the crossbow tightly.

"What is it trying to do?"

"Competing for food."

Lin Ye stared at the nodule suspended in mid-air, his gaze cold as ice.

Enduring the strangulation that was enough to shred its internal organs, the Bone-crowned Giant Beast forced its head to the edge of the main vine's opening.

It opened its massive mouth, which was filled with gray-white broken teeth.

It bit down on the swollen nodule in one go.

The main vine lashed out madly.

Dozens of barbed vines stabbed into the giant beast's shoulders and neck, attempting to force it to let go.

The Bone-crowned Giant Beast refused to let go.

Its hind legs crushed the hard frozen soil as its massive body retreated violently.

Riiip—

The nodule, along with a large section of dark red membrane, was torn out by the roots!

The Bone-crowned Giant Beast suddenly threw its head back.

It swallowed the nodule whole.

Lin Ye's left eye snapped open.

The golden light disappeared from the middle of the main vine and rolled all the way into the depths of the Bone-crowned Giant Beast's abdomen.

Below, the main Blood Vine fell into a strange state of chaos after losing its nodule.

The entire main vine rolled frantically, and the thick vines on the periphery lost their unified command.

The Red Tide, which had originally dominated the field, stopped its advance.

Dragging severed limbs and broken vines, they retreated rapidly toward the periphery like a tide, through streets, sewers, and collapsed cracks.

Seeing this, the remaining Small Pale Ones launched a counterattack like they were mad.

They chased the receding Blood Vines, biting at the severed ends and feasting on the rotting flesh.

A large number of Pale Species were swept away by the coiling vines, but even more Pale Species filled the gaps and chased them out of the block.

The viewers in the Great Xia Live Stream were stunned.

[They're retreating?!]

[That nodule must be the lifeblood of that vine, right? One bite and it's a total collapse!]

[What did that monster swallow?]

The Bone-crowned Giant Beast did not give chase.

It knelt in the center of the ruins.

One forelimb was completely snapped, and the other was reduced to a pale white skeleton.

Half of its carapace had fallen off, and a massive bloody hole had been torn in its flank by thick vines, exposing its gray-white internal organs to the wind and snow.

With every breath, thick white mist sprayed from the bloody hole.

Most of the surrounding Pale Species had been drawn away by the receding Blood Vines.

The center of the ruined street was briefly empty.

The window of opportunity to seize the treasure was only these few seconds.

Once the giant beast caught its breath, or the monster swarms from the periphery flowed back.

That golden light would completely rot away in the monster's stomach acid.

Lin Ye turned around.

He took off his hiking backpack.

Dried meat, coarse salt, the crossbow, and even that heavy wolf king hide were all thrown at Zhao Mengmeng's feet.

"Hold this position."

Zhao Mengmeng's expression changed drastically.

"You're going down there?"

Lin Ye pulled out his Fire Axe.

"I'll take its life while it's close to death."

Zhao Mengmeng took a step forward, blocking the broken wall.

"That's a ten-meter-class monster down there! Even if it's dying, it can still crush you with one swipe!"

Lin Ye lifted his Fire Axe.

"There's something in its stomach I must get."

Zhao Mengmeng stared at him, her breathing quickening slightly.

She bent down and raised her crossbow, aiming the sights at the ruined street below.

"Don't you dare actually die down there."

Lin Ye pressed the mechanism on his bracer.

"No matter what happens, do not come downstairs, and do not fire the crossbow."

Zhao Mengmeng gritted her teeth, not backing down an inch.

"If you die down there, I can't promise I'll listen."

Lin Ye said no more and vaulted out of the seven-story broken wall with one hand.

The Dark Weaver's metal anchor point shot out.

It bit firmly into a broken steel beam on the opposite side.

The wind and snow instantly swallowed his falling figure.

The Nano-wire tightened, and Lin Ye was like a bolt of black lightning, cutting sharp zigzag lines between the ruined high-rises.

The echoes of the giant beast's dying gasps shook the rubble.

The severed limbs left behind by the receding Blood Vines were still twitching in the bloody water.

Lin Ye cut the Nano-wire.

His legs bent slightly as he dropped into the deathly silent street.