165: Chapter 165 Deadly Mechanism

There was no sound of flowing water inside the core cabin of the giant ship.

Outside the door, the waves of the dark river were crashing wildly against the hull.

Separated by only one door, not even a single echo could reverberate within the cabin.

Lin Ye and Zhao Mengmeng stepped over the threshold.

The wooden planks beneath their feet were extremely stable.

The thickness of the hull here far exceeded that of the outer deck.

The walls on both sides were completely covered with heavy bronze plates, etched with patterns of an ancient fleet sailing through the waves.

Zhao Mengmeng tapped the wall with the bottom end of her bronze staff.

"Clang."

The sound was dull.

"It's solid."

"Mn."

Lin Ye didn't pay much attention to the murals.

On the retina of his Left Eye, several thin, dark red lines crisscrossed between the gaps of the wooden floorboards in the corridor.

The lines varied in length.

There was no geometric pattern to follow.

Lin Ye crouched down and pressed the tip of his bronze staff against the black moss beside one of the red lines.

There was no movement.

He tilted his wrist slightly, moved the tip of the staff into the gap in the floorboards directly above the red line, and pushed gently.

"Click."

A row of extremely thin copper spikes shot out from both sides of the walls simultaneously.

The needle tips glinted with a lethal black light, hanging suspended in mid-air.

Zhao Mengmeng gripped her bronze staff tightly.

"That's insidious."

"Step where I step."

Lin Ye stood up and pointed to a slightly darker wooden plank on the left.

Zhao Mengmeng took a half-meter step, her boot landing precisely on it.

The two of them moved through the corridor one after the other.

In the Great Xia Live Stream, the ground looked completely ordinary.

It was just a floor covered in rotting planks overgrown with black moss.

The audience could only see Lin Ye turning left and stepping right in the corridor, his posture extremely bizarre.

Zhao Mengmeng followed his footsteps closely, as if walking on plum blossom piles.

Just as a step landed.

Lin Ye suddenly used the tip of his staff to flick a seemingly intact wooden plank on the right.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Three black spikes shot out from the wall gaps, missed their mark, and embedded themselves into the bronze plate on the opposite side.

The chat exploded instantly.

"Is this entire floor a minefield? I'm watching in Blu-ray and I still can't see the gaps in the floorboards!"

"Did he predict it again? There was absolutely no trial-and-error process!"

"He completely walked the system's safe route!"

After a brief silence in the overseas livestream rooms, the comments quickly fought back.

"The Great Xia contestant definitely has some kind of illegal external device!"

"This luck cannot be explained by science!"

At the Great Xia observation deck.

Lu Chen stared at Lin Ye's Left Eye on the screen, which showed no abnormalities, his knuckles resting on the tabletop.

The experts nearby were still arguing intensely.

"He only scanned the cabin for three seconds!"

"To analyze a hidden trap of this level within three seconds—the human optic nerve simply cannot process such massive amounts of data!"

In the footage, Lin Ye avoided another hidden trapdoor.

The corridor came to an end.

Ahead was a circular cabin.

The top of the cabin had a long, narrow crack, and gray-white mist was constantly pouring in through it.

In the center stood a bronze compass platform.

The platform was two meters in diameter, its edges carved with Eight Trigrams and star constellation symbols.

Embedded firmly in the center was a golden ship nail the size of a fist.

Lin Ye's Left Eye opened instantly.

A mass of dark golden luster, so thick it was almost viscous, pierced directly into his pupils.

The gray spots were extremely sparse.

The Frost-Patterned Stone Box obtained with such effort on the Sixth Floor looked as dull as a piece of scrap iron compared to this golden nail.

But beneath the compass platform, a large area of blinding red light surged wildly against the floor.

A death trap that would kill upon triggering.

Zhao Mengmeng stared at the nail.

"With this quality, we can transmit it back, right?"

"Yes."

"Should I take it?"

"It's linked to a mechanism."

Zhao Mengmeng stepped back half a step very decisively, holding her bronze staff horizontally in front of her chest.

Lin Ye quickly moved around the edge of the compass platform.

There were eight grooves around the compass.

Six of the slots held rotten wooden wedges, and two were empty.

Each slot faced a bronze pipe on the wall.

Lin Ye used the tip of his staff to clear the black moss from the empty slots.

Half a broken wooden wedge was jammed inside.

He looked up.

Several withered skeletons hung from iron rings on the wall, the dead wearing tattered leather armor.

Half a bronze key was jammed between the slightly open finger bones of one of the skeletons.

A light screen popped up.

"Remains of the Ancient Ship's Cabin Guard"

Zhao Mengmeng followed his gaze.

"Do we have to pry it out of a dead man's hand again?"

"Mn."

Lin Ye extended his bronze staff and struck the wrist bone of the remains heavily.

"Crack."

The brittle bone snapped.

The bronze key fell to the ground and rolled to the corner of the wall.

The crisp sound of metal hitting the ground had just begun.

A dense rustling sound immediately leaked from the top of the cabin.

A large swarm of black-shelled insects squeezed out from the gray-white mist crack.

Hundreds, maybe thousands.

Wet, shiny shells and long, slender straw-like mouthparts.

The sound of their legs rubbing together while crawling merged into one.

"Marrow-Sucking Water Lice"

Zhao Mengmeng stepped back.

"This broken ship even keeps bugs?"

Lin Ye scanned with his Left Eye.

The red light of individual insects was weak, but hundreds of dense red spots were pouring out from the crack in the ceiling.

The living heat source had completely activated the insect nest.

"I have no crossbow bolts left. If I use this staff to hit them, I won't finish even half by tomorrow."

"Use the grease."

Lin Ye pulled over his backpack and dug out the last piece of Snow-Armored Badger fat.

This was his only remaining high-quality food source.

He kneaded the fat into a rag and wrapped it tightly around the end of the bronze staff.

He struck the flint repeatedly.

Sparks flew.

A flame roared to life, instantly engulfing the end of the staff.

The Marrow-Sucking Water Lice feared light and heat, and the front of the swarm recoiled sharply.

Zhao Mengmeng snatched the flaming staff and swept it across the ground toward the insect swarm approaching along the wall.

"Sizzle."

The oily fire scorched past.

The shells of several water lice burst on the spot, and black-green fluid splattered onto the floor.

A pungent, acidic stench rose into the air.

The ground was instantly corroded, leaving charred pits.

The swarm avoided the firelight and quickly split into two groups, flanking along the walls and the ceiling.

Lin Ye stepped forward and picked up the bronze key.

Left Eye activated.

Among the eight slots of the compass platform, only two showed safe, dark green feedback.

Those were the positions where the wooden wedges were missing.

He aligned the bronze key with the small hole next to the first empty slot and inserted it all the way.

"Click."

A piece of broken wood popped out from the mechanism at the bottom of the slot.

Lin Ye pulled out the broken wood and turned to walk toward the second empty slot.

Zhao Mengmeng swung the flaming staff.

The firelight carved a violent arc within the cabin.

"Hurry! They're on the ceiling!"

A water louse dropped straight down from the ceiling, aiming directly for the back of Lin Ye's neck.

Zhao Mengmeng violently reversed the flaming staff, sweeping the staff body over Lin Ye's head.

"Thwack."

The water louse was smashed in mid-air.

Two drops of green fluid splattered onto the back of her hand.

White smoke immediately rose from her skin as it was scorched.

She gritted her teeth without making a sound and backhanded the end of the staff into the pile of insects on the ground.

The second piece of broken wood popped out.

Lin Ye put the two pieces of broken wood together.

The length was off by half an inch.

It couldn't press down on the trigger surface at the very bottom.

His gaze crossed over the stone box in his bag and landed on the fragment of the bronze plaque on Zhao Mengmeng's back.

"Tear off the copper piece from the side!"

Zhao Mengmeng swept away a few insects at her feet with one hand, violently tore the decorative copper piece from her strap with her other hand, and threw it backward.

Lin Ye caught it steadily.

He used the edge of the bronze key to press down hard on the copper piece.

He bent it forcibly and wrapped it tightly around the outer layer of the broken wood.

The length was perfectly made up.

He grabbed the repaired wooden wedge and slammed it directly into the first empty slot.

"Click."

The sound of the mechanism inside the corresponding bronze pipe ceased.

The insect swarm was less than two meters away from the compass platform.

The grease on the end of the staff was about to burn out.

The firelight was rapidly shrinking.

"The fire is about to go out!"

"Six breaths."

Lin Ye grabbed the second original broken wooden wedge, wrapped it with the remaining copper piece using the same method, and shoved it into the second empty slot.

"Click."

All eight slots were sealed.

The massive red suppression area at the bottom collapsed instantly.

Only a circle of extremely thin connecting lines remained at the base of the golden nail.

Lin Ye gripped the golden ship nail with both hands.

He twisted it counter-clockwise with force.

Half a turn.

One turn.

The internal gears completely disengaged.

The bronze pipes on the wall locked.

He pulled upward with both hands.

The Sea-Suppressing Dragon Bone Nail detached from the compass.

"Hum—"

The massive mother ship suddenly emitted a tremor that was dull to the extreme.

The sound of the water flow from the dark river outside instantly increased several times over.

Zhao Mengmeng retracted the dying flaming staff and retreated to stand in front of him.

"Did it work?"

"It worked."

"What about the ones above?"

Lin Ye tucked the golden nail into his chest.

He raised his right arm, the Dark Weaver.

Secondary lines fired.

The black threads crisscrossed between two bronze beams on the cabin ceiling, instantly forming a slanted net.

He pressed the retract button with one hand.

"Snap."

The high-pressure Nano-wire sliced down like a blade.

The dozen or so water lice pouncing in mid-air were shredded on the spot.

Green fluid splattered all over the floor.

"Let's go."

The two of them stepped on the safe gaps between the red lines and quickly retreated out of the corridor.

The insect swarm chased them to the threshold, their mouthparts rubbing frantically, but they were forced back into the darkness by the icy river wind outside the door.

Lin Ye stood on the deck.

He took out the golden object from his chest.

"Sea-Suppressing Dragon Bone Nail"

The dark golden luster was exceptionally eye-catching in the gloomy boat bay.

Zhao Mengmeng scanned the dilapidated deck around them.

"Find a dead end and wait until nightfall to transmit it back."

"Mn."

Lin Ye wrapped the Dragon Bone Nail layer by layer with dry animal hide and stuffed it into the deepest, shock-proof layer of his backpack.

"Bang—!"

A deafening collision sound exploded from the fog sea on the right.

The entire mother ship was knocked into a violent tilt.

A wreckage of a black tower ship, equally massive in size, crushed the driftwoods on the right and forcibly pulled alongside.

The black tower ship was half a section higher.

On the tattered front deck, several figures stood straight.

The person in the lead wore a dripping, dark-colored rain cloak.

In his hand, he held a blood-stained three-pronged bone fork inverted.

The thick fog obscured the nationality light screen.

But the other party made no move to negotiate.

The tip of the bone fork lowered from mid-air.

It locked directly onto the tactical backpack behind Lin Ye.

Zhao Mengmeng raised her bronze staff horizontally.

"Waylayers?"

Lin Ye drew the bone blade from his waist with his right hand in a backhand grip.

The mechanism of the Dark Weaver on his right arm was completely broken.

He tilted the blade, his thumb pressing against the back of the blade.

"They're here to die."