255: Chapter 251 Ambush

The blood vine drill tore through the scalding rock layers. Song Yang had only one goal—deeper, towards more mineral veins.

An unknown amount of time passed before a faint sound of arguing traveled through the vibrations of the rock layers and entered his perception.

Song Yang slowed down. The blood vine crept closer silently, like a hunter lurking in the darkness.

Not far ahead was another natural underground cavern.

The cave was much smaller than the previous ones, and the light wasn't a ghostly purple, but carried a hint of fiery crimson.

Three to five men wearing various combat suits were gathered around a small pile of crimson crystals, arguing heatedly with spit flying and tensions high.

“I saw this piece first!”

“Bullshit! If our squad hadn't cleared out the lava bugs here, you wouldn't have even touched the edge of it!”

The arguing grew louder, and some had even gripped the weapons at their waists.

Song Yang had zero interest in their distribution plan.

He didn't even bother to show himself.

With a single thought, dozens of blood-colored vines erupted without warning from the shadows beneath their feet!

“Thud! Thud! Thud!”

The vines were like wildly dancing blood-colored whips, striking everyone's chest with thunderous force, precise and ruthless.

A series of dull thuds rang out.

The group, who a second ago were red-faced over the ownership of the ore, didn't even have time to scream before they were sent flying by the massive force. They crashed into the distant rock walls like broken sacks and slid down, their fates unknown.

The blood vine coiled back with the pile of crimson crystals and quickly delivered them to Song Yang. He glanced at them; though the quality and quantity were far inferior to styx crystal ore, it was better than nothing.

With a wave of his hand, all the ore was collected into his storage space.

On this planet, there were no rules—or rather, fists were the only rule.

Discovery meant ownership; seizing it meant possessing it.

Song Yang didn't linger at all. The blood vine drill started up again, and he instantly disappeared into the other end of the cave.

A long time passed before the group slowly woke up, only to see the empty ground and their unconscious companions.

Though they wanted to give chase, they were powerless; with no vision underground, tracking someone was far too difficult.

...

Breaking through the rock wall once more, the sight before him caused Song Yang to stop his movements.

This was a massive fault space, with an underground river surging at the bottom.

On the riverbank, a cluster of adult-sized crystals huddled together, emitting a soft white light. There were over thirty of them.

Song Yang quickly collected this batch of ore, but his heart didn't stir much.

Just now, his perception had captured a brief and bloody “transaction.”

A squad returning with a full harvest had at least a hundred pieces of ore; that kind of energy fluctuation was almost impossible to hide.

Before they could even celebrate, they were caught off guard by a sudden assault launched by another group from within the rock layers.

No dialogue, no warning.

In less than twenty seconds, the victors licked their lips, looted the hundred-plus ores and every valuable part from the corpses, and swaggered away.

Clean and efficient.

Song Yang suddenly understood.

Searching was, in the end, too inefficient.

This underground world was more like a dark hunting ground.

Rather than being a hardworking miner, it was better to be a hunter waiting for the prey to come to him.

The blood vine drilled back into the ground, but this time, he was no longer aimlessly searching for mineral veins, but looking for a suitable “fishing spot.”

Soon, a mineral vein emitting strong energy fluctuations appeared in his perception.

The vein wasn't large, with only five or six high-quality crystals exposed. Their ghostly blue light acted like a guiding beacon in the darkness.

The perfect bait.

Song Yang didn't touch those crystals.

With a slight movement of his mind, countless thinner blood-colored vines separated from the main vine, silently slithering like snakes into the surrounding rock walls and ground, weaving a massive and hidden net.

After completing all this, Song Yang's figure also quietly vanished into the deepest darkness of the cavern ceiling, waiting silently.

Time passed minute by minute.

After an unknown amount of time, a series of rustling footsteps and lowered voices approached from afar.

“Boss, look! It's Blue Crystal Ore! Such high quality!” a slightly young voice said with irrepressible excitement.

“Shut up, A-Shan! Do you want to attract all the monsters nearby?”

A steady voice scolded, though a hint of excitement was also hard to hide in his tone.

“Monkey, go check the surroundings.”

“...Yes, Brother Dao.”

The man called Monkey looked around and indeed found nothing unusual.

“Brother Dao, it seems there's no danger.”

“Good!”

The burly man named A-Shan couldn't wait and was about to rush out.

“Wait!”

Brother Dao grabbed him, scanning the surroundings.

Years of experience made him sniff out a hint of unease, but the temptation of those Blue Crystal Ores was too great. It was enough to cover their squad's expenses for several months.

In the face of wealth, that bit of unease was quickly overwhelmed by greed.

“Make it quick. Take them and go!”

Brother Dao finally made up his mind.

The three moved in a wedge formation, cautiously approaching the Blue Crystal Ores.

Just as A-Shan's hand was about to touch the largest crystal—

“Whoosh!”

The ground and rock walls seemed to come alive!

Hundreds of blood-colored vines erupted without warning like demonic claws reaching out from the depths of hell, instantly coiling, binding, and suspending the three in mid-air!

“Ah!!”

“What the hell is this thing!”

The sudden turn of events gave the three a massive fright. They struggled frantically, but were pinned down by the blood vines, unable to even draw a single weapon.

“Thud.”

Song Yang flew out from the darkness. He looked up at the three people hanging in the air like three struggling salted fish.

“Hand over your ore, or your lives.”

Brother Dao, hanging in mid-air, had a grim expression.

It wasn't that he hadn't seen tough characters before, but an existence as eerie as the one before him was something he had never encountered in his life.

These blood-colored vines were incredibly tough and emitted a heart-palpitating energy; they were simply not something people at their level could contend with.

“Damn it! If you have the guts, let me down and fight me one-on-one!”

A-Shan was still twisting unwillingly, veins bulging on his thick neck.

“Shut up!”

Brother Dao barked suddenly, and his struggling stopped.

Having drifted through the world for nearly a hundred years, he understood one principle best:

When to risk one's life, and when to accept one's fate.

Now was the time to accept his fate.

Brother Dao's gaze swept over the ghostly blue crystals, his heart filled with bitterness.

That was the bait, and they were the stupid fish that had thrown themselves into the net.

He painstakingly raised a vine-wrapped hand and unfastened the storage bracelet from his wrist.

“Friend, we admit defeat. Everything is here. Please show mercy and let us brothers live.”