196: Chapter 196 Mist Iron Swamp

The bronze doors swung open.

Extremely cold white mist rolled out of the doors, clashing with the hot ash in the crevices, quickly blanketing the entire stone path.

Zhao Mengmeng raised her half-broken bronze rod.

"The temperature isn't right."

Lin Ye stood three paces outside the door, his horizontal saber hanging diagonally in his left hand, his right hand shielding his backpack straps.

The white mist brushed past his face.

There was no bone-chilling cold.

Only a dry, friction-like sensation that was borderline painful.

Lin Ye reached out and pinched his fingertips together in the air.

The white mist left an extremely thin layer of powder on his fingertips.

Pale white.

Extremely fine.

The moment the powder touched his skin, the moisture in his fingertips was sucked dry, and dry, cracked patterns rapidly surfaced.

Lin Ye shook his hand, wiping the powder onto the edge of the bronze door.

The rust was sucked dry by the white powder, peeling off in flakes.

Zhao Mengmeng gave a dry cough.

"This isn't mist."

Lin Ye wiped the back of his hand clean on his animal hide clothes.

"Rust powder."

A light screen popped up before his right eye.

[The Twelfth Floor: Rust-Mist Iron Swamp]

Just as Zhao Mengmeng was about to speak, her lips split open, bleeding.

She licked them with her tongue, but the bloody taste was instantly swallowed by the dryness.

"Damn, the kind where even drinking water doesn't help?"

Lin Ye took down his waterskin and shook it.

Only about half a finger's depth of water remained inside.

"Conserve it."

"Conserve it until we die of thirst?"

"Survive what's beneath our feet first."

The two of them stepped through the doors.

The white powder floated all over the air, reducing their visibility to within three meters.

The ground was not ice.

Beneath their feet was a rust-colored swamp.

The muddy water was viscous, with a blackish-red oil slick floating on the surface, soaking a large amount of giant mechanical wreckage and animal bones.

Broken alloy arms protruded from the mud, animal spinal columns were half-submerged, and corroded gears slowly bubbled.

The sound of churning mud echoed from the distance.

Its source was unknown.

Inside the Great Xia Live Stream, the screen full of bullet comments discussing extreme cold gear suddenly paused.

[It's not ice?]

[All that white stuff is powder? This thing absorbs water! Her lips are already cracked!]

[I was just talking about frostbite, but it turns out they're going to die of dehydration!]

[The twelfth floor doesn't even let you breathe right off the bat?]

Lin Ye activated his Left Eye.

True Vision was only opened for half a breath.

The pale white rust powder was forcibly peeled away on his retina, revealing chaotic, fluctuating red lights deep within the swamp.

There was very little green light.

Within three meters, it was all corroded and sunken death traps.

Thirty meters away, a cast-iron animal horn half-protruding from the mud emitted a faint green glow.

That thing came from the remains of some giant mechanical beast; its surface was dry, and the root of the horn was embedded in a floating piece of steel bone.

Lin Ye closed his eyes.

A blue light lit up on the Dark Weaver on his right arm.

"Let's go."

Zhao Mengmeng tucked the bronze rod under her arm.

"You see a path?"

Lin Ye did not answer.

Six main threads shot through the air, piercing the white powder and accurately wrapping around the cast-iron animal horn thirty meters away.

The Traction Engine spun violently.

Lin Ye gripped Zhao Mengmeng's shoulder armor with his left hand, retracted his right arm, and swung her across the swamp.

The mud surface beneath their feet suddenly bulged.

A glob of blackish-red sludge silently rolled over and quickly closed back up.

Zhao Mengmeng looked down and only saw a patch of rusty mud.

Her curses caught in her throat.

"Is there something down there?"

"A lot of things."

The two swept past a waterlogged, rotten mechanical arm.

The end of the mechanical arm was still attached to half a giant claw hook, its tips riddled with corroded holes.

The white powder blew into their faces.

Zhao Mengmeng tightly covered her nose and mouth with a piece of animal hide, but her throat still felt burning hot.

The outer layer of Lin Ye's backpack was also covered in rust powder.

He raised his arm and flicked it; the Dark Weaver's Nano-wire scraped across the edges of the backpack, sweeping away all the white powder.

Inside the backpack were the dragon bone nail, the dormant valley seed, fragments of the frost-patterned stone box, and the blueprint for the Source Energy Magnetic Storm Mine.

These four items must absolutely not be contaminated by even a speck of the water-absorbing rust powder.

The two landed toward the cast-iron animal horn.

The surface of the horn was rough, with only half a zhang of width to land on.

Lin Ye stepped onto the root of the horn first and pulled Zhao Mengmeng with his right hand.

Just as Zhao Mengmeng stabilized her footing.

In the rusty mud pool below, an ordinary-looking piece of scrap metal split open without warning.

There was no splash.

There was no sound.

Inside the scrap metal, a giant mouth lined with barbs suddenly gaped open.

The giant mouth bit horizontally along the surface of the mud, heading straight for Zhao Mengmeng's ankle.

Only half a foot of distance remained.

The Dark Weaver's Nano-wire was still on cooldown from retracting.

A stench rushed right at the soles of her feet. Zhao Mengmeng hurriedly pulled her leg back, but her movement was half a beat too slow.

Lin Ye didn't make a sound.

Holding his horizontal saber in a reverse grip, he slammed the hilt against the horn, the muscles in his right arm suddenly bulging.

He yanked Zhao Mengmeng, along with her armor, a meter to the side just as she was about to land firmly.

Half of Zhao Mengmeng's body flew up, her knee slamming heavily into Lin Ye's waist.

Crack!

The giant mouth bit into empty air.

A large chunk of the cast-iron animal horn was bitten off, spraying iron fragments at their feet.

The load-bearing horn instantly lost a third of its size.

Zhao Mengmeng's back was instantly drenched in sweat.

She flipped her hand to grab the remains of the bronze rod, a fierce glint flashing in her eyes.

"I'll smash its teeth!"

Lin Ye pressed down on her wrist.

"Don't move."

In the mud pool, the giant mouth slowly closed.

The split piece of scrap metal sank back into the mud, returning to silence.

A light screen popped up before his right eye.

[Iron Mud Lurking Crocodile]

Zhao Mengmeng's voice was raspy as she whispered.

"No heat signature, and it's the exact same color as scrap metal. How are we supposed to deal with this?"

Lin Ye opened his Left Eye once more.

The pale white rust powder was penetrated by his high-dimensional vision.

Deep within the swamp below, crimson lines lit up one after another.

It wasn't just one.

There were dozens of them.

They disguised themselves as scrap metal, steel beams, broken bones, and corroded gears, silently lying in wait around the two of them.

The closest one was less than two meters below the animal horn.

Further away, the black chunks floating quietly on the mud's surface also began to vibrate slightly.

Zhao Mengmeng couldn't see the red lights, but she saw Lin Ye's tense profile.

"How many?"

Lin Ye deactivated his Left Eye, his temples throbbing with pain.

"Enough to open a dental clinic."

Zhao Mengmeng almost laughed out of anger.

"Even crocodiles do group buying in this godforsaken place?"

The first Iron Mud Lurking Crocodile below slammed violently into the animal horn.

Bang!

The root of the horn shook violently.

Both of their bodies swayed at the same time.

The white powder was momentarily blown away by the shockwave of the impact.

Zhao Mengmeng caught a clear glimpse of the overlapping black iron dorsal plates flashing beneath the mud's surface.

Her smile vanished.

The refresh rate of the bullet comments in the Great Xia Live Stream soared to its limit within a second.

[Holy crap! That piece of scrap metal was a crocodile!]

[It bites through iron so easily!]

[The bottom is full of them? I saw at least a dozen dark shadows just now!]

[Don't fight them! If you fight, they'll all wake up!]

The Dark Weaver on Lin Ye's right arm lit up again.

He looked up into the depths of the white powder.

Three zhang above them, a giant mammoth skeleton hung suspended over the iron marsh.

The skeleton was connected below by several rusted steel cables, the other ends of which were firmly plugged into the mud.

The skeleton was already dry, and its thick bony beams could temporarily bear weight.

But the support points were extremely brittle.

Lin Ye briefly opened his Left Eye.

The chest cavity of the skeleton glowed green.

Near the steel cables at the base of the skeleton, it was entirely filled with red-light danger zones of snapped cables.

They could go up, but they couldn't stay for long.

A second lurking crocodile rammed into them.

The animal horn cracked and crumbled once more.

Beneath Zhao Mengmeng's feet, only a two-palm-wide surface of the horn remained.

"Lin Ye!"

"Get onto the skeleton."

Six main threads shot out, wrapping tightly around the mammoth's ribs.

Lin Ye grabbed Zhao Mengmeng's belt with his left hand, and the traction on his right arm erupted at full capacity.

The two of them sprang rapidly from the animal horn.

Below them, three giant mouths snapped shut simultaneously, reducing the cast-iron animal horn to iron filings.

Lin Ye drew his saber in mid-air.

The first lurking crocodile raised half its head from the mud, its eye sockets hidden beneath a rusty shell, its blackish-red nictitating membrane fluttering.

Lin Ye used the momentum of the swing to drop half a foot.

His horizontal saber pierced accurately into the eye socket.

Splat!

The lurking crocodile's giant head thrashed violently.

Lin Ye held onto his saber without retreating, using the recoil of pulling the blade out to flip onto the mammoth skeleton with Zhao Mengmeng.

Black blood mixed with rusty mud sprayed half a zhang into the air.

Thrashing in agony, the lurking crocodile sank into the mud pool and rolled wildly.

The entire iron marsh fell into a commotion.

Dozens of pieces of scrap metal split open at the same time.

Steel jaws burst through the white powder one after another, pointing straight up into the air.