166: Chapter 166 The Ambush in the Mist

The black tower ship bit tightly onto the starboard side of the mothership.

The sound of wet, rotting wooden beams snapping tore through the thick fog.

Zhao Mengmeng held the broken segment of the bronze staff horizontally, her back pressed tight against the outer wall of the cabin.

Lin Ye stood in front of her, his right hand holding the bone blade hanging down, his left hand gripping the latch of his backpack.

The bow of the tower ship broke through the mist.

A translucent light screen popped up with information.

[ Nationality: India ]

Four people stood on the broken foredeck.

The leading man was draped in a dark, rainproof cloak, with an old scar across the bridge of his nose, holding a three-pronged bone fork inverted in his hand.

Black water and dark red blood dripped from the tips of the bone fork.

The other three held a bone knife, a short spear, and an ironwood shield, respectively.

They spread out in a semi-circular formation.

The scarred man stared at Lin Ye's backpack, and when he spoke, it was in broken Daxia language.

"Hand over the gold nail, and we will let you go to the stern to hide from the water."

Zhao Mengmeng's fingers tightened around the staff.

"You guys can speak Daxia?"

"We learned it."

The scarred man raised his bone fork, pointing directly toward the direction of the core cabin.

"The monster underwater is dead."

"You took something from the core cabin, and now the ship has been taken over by us. Hand over the items."

Lin Ye's gaze swept past him to that heavily damaged black tower ship.

"What have you taken over?"

The scarred man lifted his chin.

Two thick, long cables were thrown down from the bow of the tower ship.

The cables caught perfectly onto the bronze beast head on the starboard side of the mothership.

The winch turned, and the gap between the two ships was forcibly locked shut.

[ Their calculations were so loud I could hear them all the way from Blue Star! ]

[ Hiding in the mist watching Brother Eye fight for his life, only to jump out and reap the rewards the moment he finishes? ]

[ These people from India aren't good at anything else, but scavenging is their ancestral trade. ]

The scarred man, known as Ajit, swept his gaze over Lin Ye's entire body.

He bared his teeth in a sinister grin.

"Besides that short knife, what else do you have?"

"Last chance, take off the backpack!"

Lin Ye turned the bone blade with a backhand motion, blade facing upward.

"You can come and take it."

Ajit stopped talking nonsense and pressed down hard with the bone fork.

"Kill the man, keep the woman."

The three India Challengers charged directly down the gangplank.

The ironwood shield-bearer took the front line.

The bone-knife wielder flanked from the left.

The short-spear wielder stayed close to the ship's railing, lowering his body as he cut toward Lin Ye's rear.

Zhao Mengmeng was about to raise her staff to strike hard.

Lin Ye did not retreat but advanced instead.

His Left Eye opened and closed in an instant.

In the brief moment of True Vision, a large patch of deadly crimson rot appeared on the gangplank under the shield-bearer's feet.

Only a single line in the center emitted a faint green light.

Lin Ye stepped diagonally with his right foot.

The heel of his military boot landed exactly on the end of that green line.

Just as the shield-bearer was about to exert force to shove, a piercing cracking sound came from the wooden plank beneath his feet.

The load-bearing point was violently snapped by Lin Ye.

The gangplank snapped in two on the spot.

The shield-bearer lost his balance, his body lurching heavily forward.

Lin Ye sidestepped the edge of the shield.

The bone blade flicked upward lightly from below.

The sharp tip of the blade slashed through, cutting the main animal-tendon straps on the back of the shield.

The ironwood shield slipped from his hand and crashed down.

Bang.

The shield fell into the gap between the two ships.

Lin Ye raised his knee high and slammed it hard into the shield-bearer's exposed chest.

He followed through with the force.

The shield-bearer couldn't even finish his scream before he tumbled off the deck.

The black water churned.

Several pale bone scales lurking beneath the surface surged, and waves splashed against the bronze beast head.

Zhao Mengmeng's side was equally swift and decisive.

Her bronze staff perfectly parried the bone knife slashing from the left.

The bone-knife wielder's wrist went numb, and he was just about to change his move and retreat.

Zhao Mengmeng used the base of her out-of-ammo crossbow to smash hard into his face.

The sound of bone shattering rang out.

The bone-knife wielder's nose bled profusely, and he covered his face, wailing.

Using the momentum of her turn, Zhao Mengmeng swept the bronze staff horizontally across his waist.

The bone-knife wielder was knocked flat to the ground.

At this moment, the short-spear wielder had already circled to Lin Ye's rear flank.

The spear tip was aimed at the bottom strap of the tactical backpack.

Lin Ye's left hand, which was gripping the backpack, pulled outward with force.

The backpack narrowly avoided the cutting path of the spear tip.

As he turned, he reversed his right arm.

The bone blade slid rapidly down the wooden shaft of the short spear.

Two severed fingers flew into the air.

The short-spear wielder cried out in pain and let go.

Lin Ye kicked him in the abdomen.

The opponent flew backward, his back slamming heavily against the bronze railing of the ship.

Half of his body was already hanging over the side of the ship.

Zhao Mengmeng stepped forward, raised the bronze staff high, and smashed it down hard on his shoulder.

"Line up to feed the fish!"

The short-spear wielder fell headfirst into the dark river.

Crimson blood bloomed in the water once again.

In less than ten seconds of fighting, the three India Challengers were one dead and two crippled.

Ajit's smug expression froze on his face.

He had estimated the Daxia people's exhaustion, but underestimated their melee combat ability.

Ajit gripped the cable tightly, instinctively shrinking back half a step.

His left hand reached into his cloak and pulled out a black pottery bottle.

He swung his arm in a full circle and smashed it hard toward Lin Ye's feet.

Lin Ye smelled a pungent acidic odor.

"Retreat."

The pottery bottle shattered on the deck.

Black acid splashed everywhere, corroding the deck and releasing a large cloud of pungent white smoke.

Zhao Mengmeng rolled on the ground to dodge.

A few drops of acid splashed onto the end of the bronze staff, and green bubbles rapidly appeared on the metal surface.

Under the cover of the smoke, Ajit thrust the three-pronged bone fork through the white vapor.

It headed straight for the location of the dragon bone nail in Lin Ye's embrace.

If he couldn't seize it, he would destroy both the person and the core.

Lin Ye did not move.

His right arm lifted slightly.

The Dark Weaver emitted a piercing, high-pitched whine of idling.

No anchor point was fired.

Ajit's face showed wild joy, and the bone fork accelerated in its thrust.

Lin Ye's target was not his bracer.

His left hand reached into the edge of the door frame behind him.

When he retreated from the core cabin, he had tightly gripped the half-section of Nano-wire he had left on the outside.

With a violent jerk of his wrist.

That thin black thread was suspended exactly at the height of Ajit's ankles.

Charging at full speed, Ajit's legs were tripped by the Nano-wire on the spot.

His upper body lurched forward uncontrollably.

The opening in front of his chest was completely exposed.

Lin Ye crouched low, and the bone blade thrust out rapidly, piercing deeply through the right wrist that held the bone fork.

The bone fork clattered to the ground.

The smoke dissipated.

Zhao Mengmeng stepped out, and the remaining bronze staff in her hand smashed heavily onto Ajit's back.

A muffled thud.

Ajit collapsed softly onto the deck, blood spraying from his mouth.

Lin Ye stepped on his pierced right hand with the sole of his boot.

He withdrew the bone blade and pressed it backhand against his carotid artery.

The blade pressed into the skin, and a line of blood welled up.

Ajit shivered all over, no longer possessing his earlier arrogance.

"I surrender!"

"Don't kill me! I'm willing to be your lackey!"

"I can speak Daxia, and I know the coordinate routes of other India teams!"

He hurriedly stated his value in order to save his life.

Lin Ye looked down at him from above.

His Left Eye was not activated, and his black pupils were bottomless.

"Just now you said, keep the woman."

Ajit's facial muscles twitched, his voice trembling: "That was tactical intimidation! I didn't mean to..."

Zhao Mengmeng walked to his side, aimed the bronze staff at his intact left knee, and struck straight down.

Crack!

"This is physical negotiation."

A shrill scream tore through the thick fog.

Lin Ye grabbed his rear collar and dragged him to the edge of the gap between the ships.

Ajit desperately tried to grab the wooden cracks at the edge of the deck with his only movable hand.

His fingernails were completely torn back.

"No! I have value! If you take me in, Daxia's national fortune can also benefit!"

Lin Ye crouched halfway and patted his cheek with the back of the bone blade.

"You cannot provide any value."

"You're just taking up space."

Lin Ye used the tip of his boot to pry open his five fingers that were tightly clutching the deck.

Ajit roared as he fell into the dark river.

Pale bone scales surged up.

India's scheme had sunk to the bottom.

The cables of the uncontrolled black tower ship snapped.

It was swept by the turbulent currents of the dark river into a pile of wrecked ships in the distance, the sound of the collision growing fainter.

Zhao Mengmeng threw the acid-corroded bronze staff into the water.

She stretched her sore shoulders.

"These flies are even more annoying than the monster fish."

Lin Ye checked his tactical backpack.

The core straps were intact.

The dark gold dragon bone nail and the fragments of the frost-patterned stone box were all there.

He looked up toward the depths of the mothership.

Behind the outer core cabin, there were actually two unusually large sandalwood doors.

Unlike the damp decay on the outside.

The surface of these two doors was dry and firm.

The bronze beast heads on the door knockers had no trace of water rust.

Zhao Mengmeng looked in the direction of his gaze.

"There can be an inner cabin in here?"

"The place we risked our lives to enter just now was only the outer treasury?"

Lin Ye used the tip of his blade to pry away the dried moss at the bottom of the wooden doors.

His Left Eye opened briefly.

Under the analysis of True Vision, a large amount of rich green light spilled out from the crack in the sandalwood doors.

The light was so rich that it even relieved the stinging pain from the repeated overloading of his Left Eye's nerves.

He slowly closed his eyes.

His tense lips curled upward, a rare occurrence.

"Mengmeng."

"What?"

"Get ready to make a fortune."