99: Chapter 99 Evacuation and Deployment

The thin vines at the very front slammed into the Nano-wire net.

The sound of them snapping merged into a continuous drone.

Dark red sap sprayed into the snow.

Steam rose up, only to be instantly dissipated by the cold wind.

But the vines behind didn't stop at all.

They pushed forward, trampling over the severed ends of the front row.

The thin vines broke.

The thick vines filled in.

The thick vines were sliced open, and the flesh beneath continued to surge forward.

The Nano-wire was soaked in dark red sap, and the high-frequency vibration from the tension transmitted directly back to Lin Ye's bracer.

Lin Ye slightly pressed his right arm down.

The tension of the Dark Weaver was approaching its critical point.

Zhao Mengmeng stared at that rolling Red Tide.

Her frozen fingers tightened around the handle of her crossbow.

"Brother Lin, this thing is using its own corpses to pave the way!"

"They don't have brains, but there are enough of them to fill this place."

"Then what do we do?"

"Retreat."

The moment his words fell, Lin Ye retracted his right arm.

The three-layered cutting net slammed shut.

The last batch of probing vines were shredded into pieces.

All anchor points snapped back into the bracer.

Lin Ye backhanded Zhao Mengmeng's shoulder, swung off a tree trunk, and leaped directly over the snow trench below.

Zhao Mengmeng's feet left the ground, and as soon as she landed steadily beside a tree root, she immediately started cursing.

"Can you count to one, two, three before you take off next time?"

"If I counted, we would have been surrounded."

"Then you'd better not count!"

The two of them no longer took the low-lying areas.

Lin Ye specifically chose the hard snow belts on the ridges of the forest, his boots landing with extreme speed.

Zhao Mengmeng struggled to keep up.

The knee-deep snow dragged at her calves.

She gritted her teeth, refusing to let herself fall behind.

The rustling sound behind them grew denser.

The vines moved frantically under the snow, pushing up crisscrossing red lines.

The Great Xia Live Stream chat exploded.

[There are too many! Even the physics cheat can't cut them all!]

[Using corpses to fill the trap, that's too twisted!]

[Get back to the shelter! The area around the Water Pool has terrain we can defend!]

[Defend my ass, this thing burrows under the snow, blocking the door is useless!]

Zhao Mengmeng gasped, white clouds of breath escaping her.

"Brother Lin, what do we do now?"

"These vines are still far from the shelter, we'll use fire when we get back."

Zhao Mengmeng's steps faltered, and she nearly tumbled headfirst into a snow pit.

"Are we really going to burn them?"

"How will we know if we don't try?"

"What if fire doesn't stop them either?"

"If it doesn't stop them, can't you just keep running!"

Just then, a shrill, distorted scream suddenly came from the snowy forest ahead.

The voice was extremely thin, laced with tears, shouting in broken Great Xia language.

"Help! Save me!"

Zhao Mengmeng leveled her crossbow.

Lin Ye raised his hand to press down on her crossbow, his gaze sweeping to the front left.

A man rolled out from behind a thick tree trunk.

His face was frozen blue, and his forehead was still bleeding.

The right eye interface popped up.

[Nationality: Monkey Country]

The Monkey Country Challenger's gaze swept over the two of them.

The moment he saw the crossbow and the full set of cold-resistant wolf skins, his panicked, darting eyes froze.

A nearly insane desire for survival erupted in his eyes.

The snow surface behind him suddenly exploded.

Several thick vines were chasing him wildly along the ground.

The man didn't try to dodge to the side at all.

He ran straight toward Lin Ye, shouting miserably: "Great Xia friend! Help me! Help me quickly!"

Zhao Mengmeng understood.

This bastard wasn't here to ask for help.

He wanted to use them as bait.

But he had miscalculated Lin Ye.

Lin Ye didn't offer any warning, nor did he dodge.

He whipped his right arm out from his waist with extreme speed.

A Nano-wire shot out along the ground, precisely laying across the knees of the Monkey Country Challenger.

The man was charging too hard.

His legs were tripped by the invisible wire, and he plummeted heavily into a snow pit.

His face smashed directly into the frozen earth, and blood sprayed from his nose.

"What are you doing! I'm here for help!"

Lin Ye strode past him.

His pace didn't change at all.

"You're asking for help in the wrong direction."

The Monkey Country Challenger rolled over in terror.

The thick vines from behind were already upon him.

He scrambled on the ground, trying to crawl forward.

His wrist straightened, and it was entangled by the first vine!

"No! Great Xia person! Save me! I can be your lackey!"

"I surrender! Save me!"

Zhao Mengmeng walked past him, dropping a cold remark.

"You tried to use me as a meat shield and still want me to save you? Your hide is thicker than the Ice Waterfall."

The vines engulfed him.

The Great Xia Live Stream chat erupted.

[Satisfying! That trip was beautiful!]

[Monkey Country: Asking for help is fake, shifting the blame is real.]

[Brother Eye: Refusing moral kidnapping, starting with a physical trip.]

[If they had acted like saints just now, Mengmeng and Brother Eye would both have been dragged in!]

Lin Ye didn't look back.

The army of vines was closing in.

The two of them sprinted all the way and finally dashed back to the side of the Water Pool.

Lin Ye didn't enter the cave.

He threw his backpack into the snow, grabbed his engineer shovel, and walked straight toward the gentle slope on the northeast side of the Water Pool.

"Mengmeng, go into the cave."

"Bring out all the exotic beast fat—wolf fat, Snow Cave Hog fat, Spirit Sheep cracklings, I want it all."

"Even the stuff in the pot?"

"Yes."

"Then dinner is gone."

"Don't feed yourself to the vines tonight."

Zhao Mengmeng turned and dove into the ice crevice.

Lin Ye stood in front of the gentle slope, his left eye instantly activating.

To the northeast, the red light deep in the forest line had already merged into a sea.

The terrain in front of the Water Pool unfolded on his retina.

The red line of crisis followed the snow trench, pointing directly at the narrow opening of the gentle slope.

Lin Ye gripped the engineer shovel with both hands, the tip smashing into the frozen earth.

Clang!

Breaking the ice crust.

Prying apart the frozen earth.

Along the northeast side of the Water Pool, he forcibly dug out an arc-shaped shallow trench.

With the Ice Waterfall at his back, the front end locked tight on the throat of the gentle slope.

The line of fire couldn't be short.

If it was short, the vines could bypass it from both sides.

The line of fire couldn't be too long.

If it was long, there wouldn't be enough fuel to spread, and once the fire broke, the defense line would collapse immediately.

The angle of every shovel stroke was calculated with extreme precision.

Zhao Mengmeng squeezed out of the cave, carrying a wooden basin filled with white fat.

She dropped the basin, turned, and dove back in.

The second trip, heavy wolf fat wrapped in animal skin.

The third trip, solidified animal fat including soup from the small pot.

The fourth trip, semi-dried tree bark and straw rope.

"Brother Lin, this is everything! I'm going to chop wood!"

"Don't go too far from the Water Pool."

"Got it! Right now, the distance belongs to the vines!"

Zhao Mengmeng grabbed the Fire Axe and rushed toward an old tree on the right.

The dead branches were frozen brittle.

With one axe swing, it snapped directly into several pieces.

She dragged a large bundle of dead branches back and laid them out along the bottom of the trench Lin Ye had dug.

The trench was only half as deep as her calves, but it was enough to hold the fuel.

Lin Ye continued to expand the trench.

Zhao Mengmeng followed behind, laying things out.

Lay a section of branches, stuff a palm-sized piece of animal fat.

Once it met an open flame, the animal fat would melt instantly.

The boiling oil would flow along the bottom of the trench, making the entire ditch a direct fire trough.

The daylight grew dimmer and dimmer.

The wind and snow weakened.

Losing the cover of the wind, the rustling sound from the distant snowy forest stung their eardrums.

Lin Ye's breathing was heavy, but the rhythm of his shoveling didn't falter in the slightest.

Zhao Mengmeng's face was stained with black mud and grease.

Her arms were aching and trembling, yet she still kept chopping trees, dragging, and filling in the fat.

The arc-shaped trench was finally closed.

It was over ten meters long.

It bypassed the Ice Waterfall from the side, sealing off the front edge of the rocky slope.

The bottom of the trench was stuffed with dead wood, kindling grass, and all their exotic beast fat reserves.

Zhao Mengmeng threw the last piece of wolf fat into the trench and collapsed onto the snow.

"Is it done?"

Lin Ye leaned on the engineer shovel with both hands, his gaze sweeping over the entire defense line.

"It's done."

The rustling sound had already pushed out from the forest line.

Bushes were being pushed over in patches.

Snow was churning.

The crisp sound of frozen branches breaking merged into a continuous, heavy sound of the Grim Reaper passing by.

Lin Ye raised his right arm.

The Dark Weaver shot out an anchor point.

He used the momentum to leap onto a horizontal branch of an old tree by the Water Pool.

A hundred meters away, the surface of the snowy forest began to undulate on a massive scale.

Hundreds and thousands of Blood-colored Vines crushed everything in their path, surging toward the Water Pool.

The thin vines at the very front slithered over the snow, probing.

The thick vines behind were twisted into a mass.

Beneath the deeper snow, main vines as thick as a thigh were slowly arching.