Chapter 29: A More Troublesome Parasitic Vine Monster

Of course, the previous remark was just a joke; Jier casually took a Dwarf Soldier Spear from the weapon rack on the back of his horse and held it in his hand. He squeezed the horse's flanks, causing the Tianxuecao to start accelerating.

"Everyone back, clear an attack path for me!" Jier shouted loudly.

The warriors retreated in pairs, while Aoni, who was leading the group, kept shouting for everyone to stay steady while retreating.

Regardless of anything else, at this moment, Aoni truly possessed some of the demeanor of a Warrior Captain.

The warhorse galloped past, and the Parasitic Vine Monster, which simply wouldn't die, was stabbed right in the center of its chest by Jier's spear and lifted directly into the air.

But Jier frowned at this moment, because the sensation of penetration transmitted from the tip of the spear felt wrong.

However, when Jier looked up at the monster lifted on the tip of his spear, he couldn't sense any danger from it?

"Did we win?" the Herbalist Zuojigela exclaimed: "When we returned to town along this road before, there clearly weren't any problems. Is this the Parasitic Vine Monster you all keep talking about?"

Xueya Site shook his head: "The ones we encountered before were much weaker than this one today. In the past, it clearly wasn't this durable, nor did it have such great strength?"

At this moment, Jier flicked his arm and threw the monster, which had been pierced through the chest, off the spear tip. But the next moment, after the guy tumbled on the ground, it actually climbed back up as if nothing had happened.

It was as if the damage to the human torso had nothing to do with it?

"Jier, watch out!" Xueya Site, who had been watching the monster, shouted hurriedly.

Jier turned his head to look at the monster, and seeing it charging toward him, he used his long spear to hold it back, preventing it from getting close.

Only then did he realize that this monster's strength was much greater than before. Not only that, but in the places on its body that had been pierced by the heavy crossbow and the long spear, things were slowly squirming from the inside, seemingly trying to fill the gaps in its body.

"Should we hit its vital point? Or can we only burn it to death?" Zuojigela suggested.

But although this monster had much stronger abilities than its previous 'companions', it was still not enough. Every time it tried to charge at Jier, he would use his long spear to nudge it left and right, pushing and shoving it until it spun in place.

Jier even used his long spear to flick away the tattered clothes on the person, revealing the entire torso, but looking closely, he couldn't find the wooden human face that all previous parasitic monsters had. Their original Parasitic Core was gone?

"Interesting. Is this how this monster is naturally? Or do all monsters possess this condition as the time of parasitism progresses?"

Jier pondered.

At this moment, the old Dwarf arrived with his men, and as soon as he arrived, he saw the parasitic monster controlled by Jier under the long spear.

To be honest, although this monster was somewhat disgusting and strange due to the large number of plant branches extending from the holes in the human head shell, the white flowers blooming on those wooden plant branches were actually quite pretty.

If it were kept in flower beds or pots as a separate flowering shrub, it wouldn't be bad; it was just that growing out of a human body made humans feel somewhat uncomfortable.

The Dwarves were much better; after seeing this monster, their mouths were filled only with surprise and wonder. They couldn't understand how, with its eyes and ears destroyed by the protruding plant branches, the monster could detect the outside world.

"Jier, let us try it, shall we?" The old Dwarf kept a certain distance from the monster and asked Jier.

Jier had no objections; he exerted force with his hand and used the long spear to nudge the swaying parasitic monster toward the Dwarves.

"Be careful, this thing has quite a bit of strength, and it seems to have no fatal vital point?"

The old Dwarf waved his hand, and two fully armed Dwarf soldiers stepped forward. One held a Crystal Shield and a One-handed Hammer, while the other held a Single-handed Axe and a Crystal Shield. They were covered in thick armor, similar in style to the soldier armor they had captured from Jier, though the material was different; it should have been armor they had imitated and made themselves in the mine.

The soldier armor and Dwarf Soldier Spear that originally guarded the mine were both elite weapons specially made by the Dwarf Kingdom, and most of the forging methods were not things these Dwarves could figure out or imitate on their own. After all, they were the crystallization of the wisdom and craftsmanship of countless Dwarf Craftsmen; they couldn't even handle the basic materials.

But even as imitations, the complete armor design, combined with the thick armor material, meant that the armor they were wearing at this time still couldn't be dealt with by conventional means.

The two Dwarf soldiers shouted "Heh-ha!" and charged forward with their shields held out, one on the left and one on the right. The one on the left first struck with the shield, and at the same time, the One-handed Hammer in his hand took the opportunity to strike the monster's knee.

With a crisp "Crack!" sound, the knee of the monster parasitizing the human body was completely smashed, but before the guy could fall, the Dwarf soldier on the right also charged up with his shield.

This person's Single-handed Axe was not polite, hacking down onto the monster's skull.

But contrary to everyone's expectations, the axe swung with force by the Dwarf soldier only split a small piece of the parasitic monster's skull, and the Single-handed Axe actually got stuck in the creature's forehead.

This was somewhat ridiculous.

This Dwarf soldier was also a bit surprised; he slammed his shield into the monster while exerting force with his right hand, trying to pull the weapon out of the other's head.

Seeing this, the old Dwarf cursed: "%%! Let go! Retreat first! Keep your distance from the monster!"

But it was too late. The parasitic monster had considerable strength—at least this type of monster did. It pushed hard against the Dwarf shield with both hands, obstructing the Dwarf soldier, and then raised its hand to grab the Dwarf soldier's arm.

Jier could see that the tips of its fingers were not human nails, but a large number of tiny tentacles as thin as plant roots, which seemed to want to pierce through the Dwarf soldier's arm and palm into the other's body.

But unfortunately, the Dwarf soldier's armor had no such gaps except for the face, and the Gauntlets on the hands were one piece of metal covering another; unless pried open in reverse, there were no sufficient gaps to reach the inside of the Dwarf armor.

At this moment of stalemate, the previous Dwarf soldier slammed his hammer into the monster's neck.

Although the monster's body had been strengthened for some reason and become tougher, being slammed hard from behind here still caused the monster to lose control of its entire body for an instant.

Subsequently, the two Dwarves, one with a hammer and one with an axe, hacked the fallen parasitic monster into a pile of fragments.

The old Dwarf felt a bit embarrassed seeing this scene, but the others around felt that the two had done well. Because this monster really had great strength, and no matter how you hit it, it wouldn't die. Just now, the eight of them had taken turns hacking at this monster, but the monster's body seemed to be made of cowhide or tough wooden vines; a sword strike would only leave a small nick, and in just a breath or two, the wound would squirm and actually heal completely.

Except for the two large holes shot through by Xueya Site using the Heavy Crossbow, this monster was almost uninjured.

"You two stop for a moment, don't chop the monster into too many pieces; I need to observe what's going on with this monster. Everyone else, keep the formation alert and watch out for other similar monsters in the vicinity."

Jier jumped off his horse and walked close to the chopped-up monster corpse.

He saw that the two Dwarves had focused on chopping off the monster's sturdy human neck and the connections between the limbs and the torso. At this time, the other limbs were motionless, but from the monster's severed neck, some fresh, squirming plant vines were emerging, trying to connect with some vines emerging from the torso's neck.

But in just this short while, the squirming vines on the monster's torso slowly lost their vitality, with only the vine roots emerging from under the skull remaining active.

Jier knew at a glance that the core position of this monster had shifted from the original torso to the skull.

He knew that the previous parasitic vines would slowly absorb human viscera and brains; after opening the skulls of most defeated monsters, the heads were empty, clearly having had their brains eaten clean after a period of parasitism.

But he didn't expect that in this situation, which looked like a deeper level of parasitism, the parasitic plant core had actually moved into the hollowed-out head.

"Be careful with this monster's skull; its core is in the head, and it still has activity and danger."

Jier reminded everyone loudly and informed the others of the monster's core position. Then he picked up the monster's severed arm from the ground, and at just one look, he frowned.

The old Dwarf also walked over. Jier handed the thing in his hand to the other to look at. The old Dwarf was initially a bit disgusted, but after one look, his eyes widened: "This can no longer be considered parasitism, right?"

Jier nodded, exerted force with his hand, and peeled the skin off the monster's severed arm.

Don't think he was disgusting or cruel, because the monster arm he was holding at this moment could hardly be called a human arm, because except for the surface skin which still looked like a human's, everything under the skin had been completely occupied by parasitic plant vines.

Under the skin, it was all tangled plant vines like muscles, and tough wooden strips acting like bones in the center of the severed arm.

This parasitic plant had actually imitated the human body structure, completely replacing human muscles and bones with wooden plants.

And acting as substitutes for blood vessels were some slender roots filled with plant sap; these slender, dense roots were hollow, full of elasticity, and clung tightly to the hardwood acting as bones, as well as the tangled vines acting as muscles.

Jier then drew his Dagger and pried open the motionless monster torso on the ground, discovering that there were no large amounts of 'viscera' imitating humans as he had expected inside the monster's torso, only some water-storage containers similar to those filled with fruit pulp; it seemed this monster needed water more.

That makes sense; plants don't seem to have a high demand for food, but they have a very high requirement for water.

"Weren't the monsters you dealt with before like this?" The old Dwarf carefully pried open the water storage containers within the torso of one or two monsters; these containers, which resembled shriveled fruits, were filled inside with Water Storage Vesicles of various sizes, smelling quite sweet and very tempting.

But before confirming they were non-toxic, the old Dwarf didn't even dare to touch the liquid in these vesicles with his fingers, let alone try to drink these plant juices of disgusting origin.

Facing the old Dwarf's question, Jier gave a bitter smile: "Of course they weren't like this. Before, they were generally similar to parasitized Humans; although they were troublesome, their strength wasn't high. Their weak point was a plant-like human face on the torso. As long as you destroyed that thing, it was finished. Unlike now, not only has their strength increased, but their entire bodies are also hard as can be. They can quickly recover after being injured, and damage to various parts of their bodies doesn't affect their movements in the short term."

Jier looked at the head covered in blooming flowers and sighed.

He beckoned to his warhorse, and then the Moon-Water Skull flew over. Although this weapon had suffered heavy damage before, these few days of "recuperating" had at least made it look less unsightly. Although the monsters on the blue axe face were still listless, the axe itself had recovered its combat effectiveness.

The monster skull that the Dwarf Soldier couldn't split open even with great force was no harder to open than a regular monster skull when facing the Moon-Water Skull. Following the previous wound, Jier stepped on the skull with his left foot and pried it open with force; the monster skull, which used a type of plant hardwood as its cranium, was opened.

What appeared inside was, as expected, not brain matter or anything of the sort; in the early stages of being parasitized by these parasitic vines, the brain matter of the parasitized Human seemed to be absorbed completely as nutrients, so naturally, there was no brain matter inside the skull at this moment.

All that remained was a crescent-shaped black plant fruit similar to a banana; this thing extended a large number of tiny root hairs and vines from both ends, which seemed to be what it used to control the entire parasitized and modified Human body.

And the plant branches that extended from the holes in the Human Head shell and bloomed were also all extended from the pod-like skin of the entire crescent-shaped black plant fruit.

This thing was quite lively; seemingly realizing it was being watched by Jier, it trembled all over, causing the white flowers on the entire head to scatter a large amount of fragrant and elegant floral scent.

Jier held his breath, reached into the head, grabbed this thing, tore it away from its connection to the rest of the body, and held it in his hand to observe.

Having lost its connection to and control over the other body parts, the main body of this thing seemed to have no ability to move, and could only tremble slightly in Jier's hand.

Jier handed the thing in his hand to the old Dwarf for observation, but the old Dwarf did not take it, only looking at it with a look of bad luck: "Have you seen anything similar?"

The old Dwarf shook his head: "I have seen some cave parasitic spiders, but those terrifying things only inject eggs into animals controlled by spider silk, relying on living creatures to let the eggs and spiderlings breed and grow. But this plant type is the first time I've seen one."

He showed a look of disgust: "Although it doesn't look or smell scary, when you think about it carefully, it is even more terrifying and horrible than that kind of parasitic spider. I remember you mentioned that there are many of these things?"

Jier pointed to the north and the Xīběi direction: "At the beginning, when they didn't attract the attention of Yemei Town, they attacked some villages on the border of Sasi County, and after the relocation order was issued later, quite a few people who were slow to move disappeared without a trace. Obviously, many of those people were attacked and captured by these monsters and parasitized one after another. They are very strange; they actually rely on hanging corpses in the air to carry out large-scale parasitism. But the previous type of core contacting the human body to parasitize directly is also possible."

Upon hearing this, the old Dwarf's expression became serious: "It sounds like it's relying on some kind of ritual? If there is some god behind it, then it's even more troublesome."

Jier gave a bitter smile: "In fact, I can tell you directly about this; Priest Bata'er actually recognized the origin of this kind of monster long ago. There is indeed a god behind them as a backer. I heard it was an alien kingdom in the cracks of the original Human Kingdom, because the entire alien kingdom was jointly wiped out and exterminated by the Human church sending troops. So the alien god behind it has therefore crazily expanded and attacked some remote areas of human civilization."

"And His methods have therefore become even more evil and terrifying."

As soon as the old Dwarf heard this, he muttered to himself: "That explains it, that explains it..."

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