Chapter 544 - 171: [Unexpected Turn]
Chapter 171 [Incident]
The pale golden sun always appeared somewhat eerie and strange.
Chen Yan stared at it for a while before realizing—it was bright in color but not dazzling; even when staring at it, his eyes didn’t feel uncomfortable. Moreover, the pale golden hue seemed like an emergency light with a low battery: insufficient in brightness and energy.
The temperature remained low, not rising much despite the sunlight. Madness still mingled with piercing coldness.
Chen Yan shivered slightly, glanced at the sun one last time, pressed the seven-day countdown on his watch, and turned into the cave.
Big White was gone again, and he didn’t know where it had run off to.
However, Chen Yan saw half a beast’s carcass, chewed up beyond recognition, at the cave entrance, making it impossible to discern what kind of animal it was.
In this low-temperature environment, the corpse’s decay was minimal, suggesting that Big White had hunted it recently.
It seemed that the big guy wasn’t short on food.
Chen Yan was slightly relieved.
At the moment, it was not in the cave; it should have just gone out for a stroll or to patrol the surroundings.
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Chen Yan organized his equipment inside the cave.
This time, he brought two backpacks: one filled with firearms and ammunition, the other with supplies.
He opened the pack containing supplies first.
Chen Yan dropped twenty pounds of beef at the ventilated spot near the cave entrance.
He took off his thick winter clothes, revealing a tactical vest underneath. From one backpack, he retrieved a rifle, slinging it over his back, tucked two spare clips in his waistband, and took out some weapons and equipment, packing them into a bundle to hang on his shoulder before heading deeper into the cave.
An hour later, relying on his previous memory, Chen Yan reached the mouth of a cave on the mountainside in the middle of the mountain’s belly space.
He lay down, peering down for a while... fortunately!
Everything was much the same as when he last left.
Miners were still tapping away at ores by the bulging roots of the Divine Tree, while supervisors paced around, and miners were pushing carts filled with carved-out stones.
The Divine Tree, which Chen Yan cared about most, still stood in the center of the mountain’s belly space.
Around the immense tree roots, eight fierce beast warriors sat cross-legged, their war blades thrust into the ground before them.
Just beneath the roots, the jar was still there, and the tendrils of the Divine Tree’s roots continued to secrete fluid slowly.
Chen Yan quietly observed for a long period; the speed of the Divine Tree’s secretion of fluid was still about one drop every half an hour.
And the jar was clearly far from full.
Chen Yan was reassured.
There was still plenty of time!
He was in no rush to act now—this was not the right time.
The best time to act would be just before the seven-day teleportation was about to end.
By acting then, he could grab the Divine Tree Juice and escape, taking advantage of the end of the teleportation to get away.
He waited here for a full three hours.
During that time, there was a shift change among the warriors guarding the roots of the Divine Tree.
Eight fierce beast warriors emerged from the bottom rock caves, replacing the original eight.
This change immediately made Chen Yan abandon his thought of leaving.
After considering for a while, he decided to stay, took an energy bar from his pocket, tore it open, and slowly chewed it.
Chen Yan remained lying in wait for a few more hours until the warriors guarding the Divine Tree roots shifted again.
He glanced at the time in his mind.
About every five hours, there was a shift change.
After getting the information he wanted, Chen Yan quietly left.
Returning to the cave entrance outside, before getting close, Chen Yan heard a snorting sound coming from near the entrance.
Big White was lying by the rock at the cave entrance, with its paws pressing down on the beef, energetically tearing at it.
Chen Yan’s approach made Big White immediately arch its body, but after a glance at Chen Yan, it visibly relaxed.
The big guy warmly ran over and rubbed against Chen Yan for a while.
"You eat without worry, I see. Eating the beef when I’m not around—isn’t it afraid it could be a trap left here by strangers?"
Chen Yan laughed, wrapping his arms around Big White’s neck as he spoke.
Big White simply kept rubbing against Chen Yan, purring softly, seemingly indifferent.
"Did you know these meats were left by me?" Chen Yan was surprised.
Big White turned its head, looking at a backpack still inside the cave near the mountain wall.
Chen Yan chuckled, patting Big White on the head, "Clever creature!"
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The following days became somewhat monotonous.
Since Chen Yan wasn’t planning to act immediately, all he could do was spy from the shadows and wait!
Each day, he quietly slipped into the cave’s depths, observing from the mountain’s stomach-space wall’s opening for a few hours before returning to the outer cave entrance to rest and eat.
He chose to place his sleeping bag inside the cave, and when he slept, Big White would snuggle up to him.
There was another thing that Chen Yan found very interesting.
The "eternal night" of this place had vanished, and now the sun had come out, but the weather had turned into "eternal day".
Previously, it felt like an endless night, and now it seemed as if the sun overhead would never set, and night would never fall again.
Chen Yan secretly observed and waited for a full three days.
On the fourth day at noon, Chen Yan climbed once again to the cave entrance of the mountain’s interior to observe.
This time Big White also came along. This clever big cat skillfully crouched low, crawling close to the ground, and snuggled quietly beside Chen Yan without making a sound.
Chen Yan had lost count of how many times he had used the telescope to secretly observe the situation on the mountain’s interior ground.
But this time... suddenly!
Chen Yan’s fingers on the telescope suddenly tightened.
He furrowed his eyebrows, his expression slightly changing.
In the field of view of the telescope, on the mountain’s interior ground, at the southeast position near the cave of the Divine Tree.
A monster from the Fierce Beast Race was slowly pushing a rickety cart into the mountain’s interior.
Monsters pushing carts were not uncommon in the mountain’s interior. Because there were hundreds of miners extracting ore, there were always such carts going in and out transporting ore.
But what surprised Chen Yan was...
In the cart bed, there was clearly something — with the dim torchlight around, from Chen Yan’s elevated vantage point, he could just make out a bright, shining sword placed in the cart bed!
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The monster pushing the cart seemed to intentionally or unintentionally head towards the roots of the Divine Tree in the central area of the mountain.
Soon, it pushed the cart over a bump, the miners had already prepared the mined ore for loading, but it did not stop, instead, its steps quickly headed further in.
When it was just a few dozen steps away from the Divine Tree, Chen Yan observed this Fierce Beast Race monster with the cart distinctly slow its steps.
Its walking style was peculiar, as if it were secretly making certain posture adjustments.
Steps, rhythm, breath, all were being adjusted step by step!
Chen Yan’s eyes lit up, but simultaneously his expression also changed!
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"Hey!!"
Just as the monster with the cart went over another bump, a voice suddenly came from behind.
The cart-pushing miner initially pretended not to hear, and after pushing forward another two steps, a harsher shout came from behind: "Hey!!!"
The surrounding overseers and the Guard Warriors under the tree looked over, and the cart-pushing monster reluctantly stopped.
Behind, an overseer stared coldly at it, holding a whip, pointing at it, then pointing next to himself — where there was a pile of already mined ore.
"Come load it! What are you wandering for!" the overseer shouted in dissatisfaction: "Are you blind! There’s so much here, can’t you see?!"
The cart-pushing monster was briefly silent, its posture momentarily stiffened, but quickly relaxed again.
It looked deeply at the pile of ore the overseer was pointing at.
In an instant, its eyes moved, but its hands firmly gripped the cart handles, standing motionlessly in place.
The overseer was even more dissatisfied, raising the whip in his hand, cursing as he walked over.
When he was less than three steps from the cart-pushing monster, the overseer was yelling with curses, raising the whip to lash down at the cart-pushing monster!
Swoosh!
The whip did not land on the cart-pushing monster, as it suddenly sidestepped away but reached out and grabbed the whip in midair.
Before the overseer could react, the cart-pushing monster tugged fiercely at the whip, pulling the overseer towards itself.
In the next moment, it had already grabbed the overseer’s neck, and before the overseer could finish cursing angrily, this guy was lifted overhead with one hand.
With a toss of its hand, the overseer was hurled in the direction of the nearest guard monster under the Divine Tree!
A cry of alarm, and the overseer who was thrown landed on top of that guard monster’s head.
The guard monster was shocked, unable to react in time to jump up, hurriedly just pulling out the War Blade in front, roaring, and slashing down from midair!
With a scream, blood sprayed everywhere, and the overseer was split into two halves in midair by a single slash!
The two pieces of the body fell to the ground, internal organs and blood splattering everywhere.
The monster warrior holding the blade roared in anger, while the other seven guard monsters simultaneously drew their long blades and charged over.
Yet the cart-pushing monster moved even faster!
It crouched low, grabbed the sword from the cart bed, then stealthily dashed forward, reaching the guard warrior in the blink of an eye!
The opponent growled lowly, stepping back to raise the blade to slash, but with a ’puff’, the sword already pierced through its throat.
Pierce, withdraw!
A spray of blood flew out, while the cart-pushing monster simply sidestepped to avoid it, moving agilely like a feline, swiftly slipping past the side of the corpse of the one whose throat had been pierced.
Its target was clear: the Central Divine Tree!
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[Some matters delayed me today, I’ll update with three thousand words first. Another three thousand words are not finished yet; I’m writing it now and will post it later].
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