Chapter 317: Changing Faces

Liu Tiao suddenly tugged at Men Ban and whispered: "I always feel like I'm being watched." Her intuition was sharper than anyone else's, and Men Ban immediately gripped his giant axe: "In front or behind?"

"Not sure, sometimes it pops up, sometimes it disappears." Liu Tiao hummed, "Now it's behind us."

"We're being targeted." He Lingchuan also heard it, "These things move freely through the rock walls. Guess who it will attack first?"

Xu Chun said offhandedly: "The hemp rope always breaks at the thinnest point."

Upon hearing this, everyone looked at the wounded man who was bandaged like a mummy, and the latter froze, his footsteps stopping subconsciously.

Just at this moment,

A pair of claws emerged from the ground, grabbing his ankles and pulling him down violently! The ground where the wounded man stood seemed to have turned into soft mud at the same time. He was pulled down by the opponent and sank directly to his calves! Just as he let out a cry of surprise, He Lingchuan had already swept over, his blade slicing into the ground right next to his calves.

The ground was indeed soft.

A single blade strike, as if cutting through something; the texture was different from the stone wall or the mud.

The object struggled violently, with the strength of a fish splashing in water.

In an instant, he slashed into the ground on both sides of the wounded man's legs.

When he lifted the Floating Life Blade, a drop of green blood slid off the tip.

It was a hit.

Men Ban took the opportunity to pull the wounded man out.

As a result, the leg that the wounded man had retracted faster was pulled out smoothly, but two toes of the other leg were trapped in the ground.

After the monster retreated, the ground solidified almost simultaneously.

He Lingchuan did a good deed to the end and swung his blade to help him dig out his toes.

The group saw a ghost claw hanging on the wounded man's ankle, severed at the wrist, with green blood dripping continuously.

This accident was unexpected, and the wounded man was still in shock but had escaped danger. However, the group had no time to breathe a sigh of relief because countless figures were rushing over from the darkness ahead!

Xu Chun hardened his jaw and loudly reminded everyone: "The bone puppets are coming!"

He Lingchuan finally saw the so-called bone puppets. They were like dolls made of bone and mud, varying in size and shape, with outer shells like stone but uneven, and some parts revealing grim white bones.

Their main bodies were not entirely composed of human remains; He Lingchuan also recognized the skulls of wild boars, mountain deer, pythons, and even rats, pieced together, and sometimes they appeared on the same bone puppet, with no aesthetic sense to speak of.

It was evident that the Jin Du ghost hatchling controlling all this lacked suitable materials and could only make do, or perhaps its aesthetic level from birth was just too poor.

But the number was truly large.

Xu Chun was right; these bone puppets were truly dense, and seeing the momentum of them rushing over like a tide, ordinary people couldn't withstand it.

And these things didn't fear bloodshed or sacrifice, acting with fierce bravery.

The most critical point was that there was a person running frantically in front of the bone puppets, shouting loudly when he saw He Lingchuan and the others: "Save me, save me!"

The patrol guards were greatly surprised.

Wasn't this Wang Xu, the deputy captain of Duan Xinyu's team?

He was also covered in blood and rushed to the group panting.

He Lingchuan asked him: "Where is Duan Xinyu?"

"Dead, they're all dead!" Wang Xu hissed, "The team is finished; two monsters attacked us!"

Two?

He Lingchuan and Xu Chun looked at each other.

Looking at it this way, the Jin Du ghost hatchling that attacked Xu Chun's team earlier suddenly retreated to assist its kin and attack Duan Xinyu? Liu Tiao suddenly said: "Now our opponents are two as well!"

One was elusive and could turn the ground into mud, while the other was the youngest one who could mold mud puppets and wear mud armor.

In other words, the final battle was coming.

Everyone gripped their weapons tightly.

Then, the bone puppet army rushed up and collided with the group! Xu Chun had practical experience and threw a few wooden plaques onto the ground first; they were a palm high, but once they landed, they could stand steadily and emit layers of water-like light halos along the ground.

The light halos covered a large area, basically covering the narrow passage, but the bone puppets walking within the range of the light halos slowed down to the pace of an old ox pulling a broken cart.

The Slowing Spell took effect.

Men Ban grabbed his shield and slammed it heavily onto the ground.

With the shield as the center, a shockwave pushed in all directions, shattering the dozen or so bone puppets in the front into pieces.

It wasn't that hard to fight, after all.

However, the fragments scattered all over the ground quickly aggregated on their own, piecing together to form new bone puppets, only looking even more strange and ugly.

Xu Chun shouted: "Breaking them apart is useless; it's best to immobilize them!"

He Lingchuan looked at the blade in his hand. No one noticed that only the bone puppets he shattered would not regenerate.

What was the reason?

Was it because of its "Void-Breaking" characteristic?

The Floating Life Blade could break formless and bodiless things. But He Lingchuan wasn't sure if these bone puppets could be included?

Liu Tiao was angry: "Why didn't you say so earlier!"

She took a few steps back, drew an arrow from her back, bent her bow, and fired with a 'whoosh'.

The target of this arrow was not the bone puppets, but the ground beneath their feet.

Cold air spread from where the arrowhead landed, sticking the soles of the bone puppets' feet, and then spreading all the way up...

About ten breaths later, the hundred or so bone puppets on the icy ground had all turned into ice sculptures, motionless.

"Isn't that frozen?" Liu Tiao was expressionless, but her heart was bleeding. This was an ice arrowhead she had bought from the profiteer on Yunlingdao; one arrow cost ten taels of silver! How much fine wine could ten taels buy! Although the effect of this arrow was top-notch.

Xu Chun turned and ran: "Let's retreat; this won't stay frozen for long!"

Liu Tiao was unconvinced: "Hey, I think this should last for half an hour."

Back then, the profiteer on Yunlingdao had patted his chest and guaranteed her that the ice runes on this arrow could last for an hour even in the dog days of summer.

"You think my team hasn't tried flash-freezing?" Xu Chun's face didn't look relaxed at all, "It will melt! In this bizarre mine tunnel, even solid ice will melt! Look—"

He pointed at the stone wall: "Look here!"

The power of the ice arrowhead was indeed not small, even freezing a layer of frost onto the stone wall.

But right before their eyes, the white frost was slowly disappearing, replaced by water droplets dripping down.

Melted? So fast? Looking at the bone puppets in the distance, they were also catching up, so the group wisely turned and left.

He Lingchuan also understood that in this bizarre mine tunnel, bone puppets and Jin Du ghost hatchlings could likewise obtain energy from the stone walls, whether for recovery or thawing.

This home-field advantage was too much.

Unless they left the mine tunnel, they truly had no excellent way to deal with the bone puppets.

Not to mention the two monsters lurking on the side.

Just at this moment, a team member behind Xu Chun suddenly shouted: "Seems like someone is missing?"

The group was startled and started counting off.

Sure enough, the number only reached ten.

One person was missing.

He Lingchuan swept his gaze, and his heart sank: "My team has lost one person."

The wounded man was still fine, but the patrol guard who had been supporting him was gone.

"That monster had its arms severed by me; how did it grow them back so quickly?"

Just at this moment, a person suddenly rushed out from the dark passage ahead and shouted loudly: "He is a Jin Du ghost hatchling, don't believe him!"

Everyone was startled, and looking closely, it was actually Duan Xinyu!

This person was covered in blood, his left arm hanging by his side, and he was pointing at He Lingchuan.

"Me?" He Lingchuan pointed at himself, looking blank.

"Get away! Why are you joining in the fun!" Duan Xinyu's eyes were blazing as he looked at him, "It ate Wang Xu and is impersonating him!"

Wang Xu, standing behind He Lingchuan's left, took a step forward and shouted loudly: "No, no, it's a Jin Du ghost hatchling; I saw it eat the captain with my own eyes!"

Everyone was a bit dazed for a moment; with a strong enemy behind and one person lost, did they have to start playing a guessing game now?

Liu Tiao threw two tiny thief mustard seeds onto the two of them, observed for a few breaths, and then announced: "Neither changed color."

As soon as this was said, everyone retreated two or three steps in unison, distancing themselves from their companions.

The fact that these two thief mustard seeds failed meant that the Jin Du ghost hatchling could not be detected by them.

To take a step back, the test done on Xu Chun and the other four earlier was also ineffective.

The Jin Du ghost hatchling might also be mixed in among the four of them.

Perhaps this also explained why one team member had disappeared without a sound.

He Lingchuan looked back at the path they came from and heard the footsteps of the bone puppets approaching. They had no time.

"Did you all see with your own eyes the Jin Du ghost hatchling eat the other person?"

Wang Xu's eyes were red: "The captain died so miserably!"

Duan Xinyu was furious: "Bah! I saw with my own eyes your two arms being gnawed off and eaten by the monster, first the left then..." He choked up at this point and couldn't continue.

That scene was truly too miserable.

He Lingchuan nodded: "We will definitely avenge our companion." Before the words fell, he suddenly drew his blade!

The others saw a streak of blade light flash, and Wang Xu jumped back seven feet in time, both shocked and angry: "What makes you believe him!"

He Lingchuan's sleeve arrow had already been fired, 'thudding' into Wang Xu's chest, the arrowhead blooming inside, "Just because your blood is green."

He was already close as he said this, simultaneously pulling back the hook-line, dragging the opponent toward him violently, and backhanding with a neck-slashing strike!

The blood splashed out by the hook-line arrow was indeed green.

The other patrol guards had no more doubts and stepped forward to surround and attack.

As long as this thing was crippled, the bone puppet army behind would be nothing but mud and tiles, completely useless.

"Wang Xu" seemed to sneer and opened his mouth to spray a stream of green pulp at He Lingchuan.

It was fast, urgent, and voluminous.

Both sides were already approaching rapidly; He Lingchuan saw he couldn't dodge it and had to barely raise his arm to shield his eyes.

A sharp pain flared on his face, as if splashed with strong acid; He Lingchuan couldn't help but let out a cry.

Well, it was indeed splashed with strong acid.

The talent of the Jin Du ghost hatchling they had killed in the "stomach" earlier had actually been inherited by the youngest one before him.

But the blade in his hand did not hesitate in the slightest.

However, "Wang Xu" actually gripped his wrist and slammed him onto the ground! At the same time, a pair of claws extended from the ground, fiercely hooking He Lingchuan's ankles and dragging him down with force.

Two Jin Du ghost hatchlings attacked simultaneously, coordinating perfectly, and they didn't pick the weak ones, but specifically targeted the backbone of the team like He Lingchuan!

As long as this guy was killed, the rest would be terrified, and the team would naturally collapse.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 318 =====