182: Chapter 182 Using a Spring to Kill a Snake

A Red-Scaled Viper coiled atop a withered tree.

It was over seven meters long.

The crevices between its thick, dark red scales were filled with dried resin residue.

It had short horns on its head.

Its highly venomous ventral scales pressed tightly against the two-thousand-degree scorching tree trunk, completely unscathed.

Zhao Mengmeng planted her boots firmly on the ground and pressed her finger against the trigger.

"Does this crappy forest even have a gatekeeper?"

Lin Ye lowered the tip of his horizontal saber.

"It's guarding the tree glue."

The viper's jaws stretched wide.

Scalding venom traced a crimson line, shooting toward them at high speed.

Lin Ye grabbed Zhao Mengmeng's shoulder strap with a backhand grip and pulled her sideways, using the leverage.

The venom struck the spot where they had just been standing.

The black rock shell dissolved instantly.

The underground resin layer hissed, and a deep pit emitting a scorched, white, foul-smelling smoke was corroded into existence.

Zhao Mengmeng steadied herself and glanced at the deep pit.

"This spit contains strong acid."

"Don't stand upright."

Lin Ye drew his horizontal saber, lowered his center of gravity, and hugged the edge of the black rock.

Above.

The Red-Scaled Viper raised its upper body, its vertical pupils contracted tightly.

It wasn't in a hurry to pounce.

The tree canopy provided the high ground.

The area below was filled with geothermal spring pits, locking down the humans' room for maneuver to the absolute limit.

The Great Xia Live Stream chat moved rapidly.

[It's over! The Dark Weaver is totaled, they can't fly up to get the treasure now!]

[The snake is up there, and the medicine is up there too. How are they supposed to fight in this terrain?]

[Whatever you do, don't try to hack at it; the Fire Axe won't even be able to cut through that thickness!]

Zhao Mengmeng leveled her crossbow.

"Aim for the head?"

Lin Ye opened his Left Eye.

The viper's entire body emitted a piercing, dangerous red light.

Its skull, neck scales, and dorsal armor showed no green-line weaknesses.

The soft spot was on its abdomen, but it was firmly blocked by the tree trunk.

Lin Ye's gaze suddenly dropped.

Directly beneath the withered tree, a giant geothermal spring was hidden.

The red light was dim and dark, and the edges were expanding rapidly.

The explosive pressure had reached the critical point.

It only needed one heavy strike.

Lin Ye spoke, his voice clipped.

"Left Eye, just graze past it."

Zhao Mengmeng understood immediately.

"Fishing the snake into the pot."

Lin Ye rolled on the ground, dodging the second spray of venom.

He used the momentum of the roll to flick a piece of scorching, heat-cracked stone toward a blind spot on the right.

The stone struck a micro-explosion point.

The geothermal spring erupted, and water mist sprayed out.

"Shoot!"

The crossbow roared.

The black bamboo arrow pierced through the white mist, heading straight for the snake's eye.

The aim was slightly off.

The arrowhead failed to penetrate the eyeball, but it forcibly sheared off a thick scale from the corner of its eye.

Crimson blood droplets splattered.

The Red-Scaled Viper let out a shrill scream.

Its massive snake body launched outward, its thick tail bone snapping two red wood branches on the spot.

The seven-meter-long body plummeted through the air, charging straight at Zhao Mengmeng.

Her landing spot was completely sealed off.

Lin Ye reversed the hilt of his blade and slashed diagonally at the ground.

"Clang!"

Sparks flew in all directions.

The sharp sound was piercing.

The snake's neck twisted stiffly in mid-air.

The intense pain and the noise altered its target.

Its giant mouth opened to its limit, and a fishy stench rushed directly at Lin Ye's face.

Lin Ye stood firm on the edge of the largest geothermal spring.

He did not retreat.

The viper approached.

Two zhang.

One zhang.

The undefended, soft snake belly was completely exposed above Lin Ye's field of vision.

Lin Ye's Left Eye widened violently.

The crust beneath his feet had only a tiny bit of dark green left.

He stepped back half a step with his right foot.

It looked as if the prey was trying to flee.

The viper, carrying a weight of ten thousand jun, plummeted through the air toward the center of the spring where Lin Ye was located.

Lin Ye did not have the Dark Weaver.

But the Sand Spider tendon on his waist was already connected to Zhao Mengmeng, ten meters away.

The Wind-Chasing Claw in Zhao Mengmeng's hand had already bitten into the black rock.

"Pull!"

The retrieval engine roared.

The tendon suddenly went taut.

Lin Ye was dragged across the ground by this violent pulling force.

His military boot soles left two trails of white smoke on the edge of the geothermal spring.

The snake's fangs snapped shut with a click.

It grazed Lin Ye's shoulder armor, biting into empty air.

The viper's massive, heavy abdomen smashed solidly into the crust at the center of the spring.

"Boom!"

The ground collapsed.

A two-thousand-degree column of high-temperature spring water shot up from the ground.

The milky-white steam, carrying scalding mineral slag, slammed into the snake's belly from bottom to top.

The red scales could withstand high external temperatures, but they couldn't block the zero-distance piercing of the underground explosive pressure.

The snake's body was forced three meters into the air by the high-pressure water column.

The delicate flesh of its belly turned white and split open.

Boiling mineral water poured straight into its internal organs through the gaps in its scales.

The Great Xia Live Stream went silent, then erupted into a frenzy.

[Cooking a snake with a two-thousand-degree hot spring? I could hear that abacus calculating from outer space!]

[I told you if he stood there without dodging, he definitely had a plan!]

[Where is the foreign internet? Come out and teach the Great Xia people how to eat snake soup in a volcanic crater!]

The Red-Scaled Viper wasn't dead yet.

Its half-cooked remains fell heavily back to the base of the withered tree, twisting frantically.

Its thick tail bone swept across.

"Bang!"

A large piece of ancient amber containing the head of an exotic beast was swept off, cracking open a fissure.

Lin Ye's gaze tightened.

"Retreat!"

Deep inside the fissure, that exotic beast's head, which had been sleeping for who knows how many eras, suddenly moved.

A black tentacle covered in barbs crawled out from the gap.

The tentacle touched the high-pressure steam and curled up from the heat, but it was still squeezing desperately to get out.

He couldn't let whatever was inside this blind box get out.

Lin Ye raised his saber and exerted force, rushing straight to the tail of the dead snake.

He reversed the blade.

He sliced into the scorched-soft abdominal scales and neatly carved out a large chunk of hot, half-cooked snake meat.

Zhao Mengmeng raised her crossbow in alert.

"Cutting vegetables at a time like this?"

"Patching the pot."

Lin Ye swung his arm.

The snake meat was smeared into the crack in the amber.

The poisonous blood, snake fat, and the surrounding high-temperature resin reacted rapidly, melting into a hard, charred-black, gelatinous substance.

The crack was blocked immediately.

The tentacle struggled violently inside but was completely stifled back in.

Zhao Mengmeng grabbed a piece of broken snake scale that had been shaken off and smashed it into another tiny fissure.

Lin Ye's blade moved swiftly.

He continuously carved off snake meat and venom, quickly sealing the gaps.

All three cracks were welded shut.

The Red-Scaled Viper raised its broken head, launching one last death throe.

Zhao Mengmeng took a step forward.

The heavy stock of her crossbow came down from above, smashing hard into its injured eye.

"Bang!"

The skull shattered.

The viper fell into the volcanic ash, silent at last.

Lin Ye stepped forward and used his horizontal saber to slice open the snake's belly.

A crimson-black snake gallbladder was extracted, and along with a few intact dorsal scales, it was stuffed into an outer pocket.

The danger was cleared.

But the ice spring tree glue was still hanging on the half-broken branch.

The geothermal spring at the bottom had just finished erupting, and the hidden pressure was still churning.

Lin Ye's Left Eye opened and closed.

The red light inside the withered tree was very chaotic.

It could trigger a secondary explosion.

The only safe point to harvest it was the dark green withered tree knot above the tree glue.

Lin Ye turned around.

"Any arrows left?"

"Only one bent one."

Zhao Mengmeng loaded the arrow into the slot.

"It'll fire, but accuracy isn't guaranteed."

Lin Ye untied the tendon from his belt.

He tied a slipknot around the tail of the arrow, with the other end wrapped tightly around his own wrist.

"I'll adjust the trajectory."

Zhao Mengmeng leveled the crossbow arm.

The high-temperature steam distorted her vision, and the target swayed uncertainly.

She pulled the trigger.

"Twang!"

The bent arrow left the slot, flying straight toward the upper right corner.

Lin Ye sank his wrist downward.

The tendon tightened abruptly in mid-air.

The tail of the arrow was forcibly pulled back to the left by half an inch by this clever force.

"Thwip."

The arrowhead pierced through the dark green tree knot.

"Snap."

The branch broke off at the root.

The fist-sized green amber fell straight down.

Lin Ye had already laid out a thick animal skin.

He caught it with both hands held flat.

The moment it touched his hands, the outside of the animal skin smoked from the high-temperature resin, but the inside radiated a bone-chilling cold.

A light screen appeared.

[Ice Spring Tree Glue]

Zhao Mengmeng put away her crossbow.

"Finally got it."

Lin Ye used the tip of his blade to pry open the softened amber shell.

A translucent, cyan-green gelatinous substance slowly oozed out.

The burning sensation within two meters was suddenly lowered.

After his Left Eye confirmed there was no pollution, Lin Ye split the tree glue in two.

"Spread it all over your body, focusing on your mouth, nose, and the soles of your boots."

"Coat the backpack thoroughly, too."

Zhao Mengmeng's rapidly moving hands paused for a moment.

Lin Ye took his share, but he didn't rush to cool himself down.

Instead, he layered the precious Ice Spring Tree Glue over the damaged parts of his backpack, especially the shock-proof compartment holding the dark gold dragon bone nail and the dormant valley seed.

His life could hang in the balance.

But the hope of Great Xia could not be cooked even a little bit.

Zhao Mengmeng stopped wasting words and coated the soles of her boots with the tree glue.

A thin film covered them, drawing away the heat.

Lin Ye shouldered his backpack again.

He looked up.

Ahead was a scalding waterfall that cut across the valley.