Ed mumbled something under his breath that sounded a lot like, "I'm the one who's supposed to be the tank."
Neither Li Ban nor Zhu Yao paid him any attention.
"How are your legs? Do they feel like you're losing control?" Zhu Yao had assigned Li Ban to ranged attacks out of consideration for the fact that he had just swapped out his legs.
She was also afraid that if Li Ban charged right up to the monsters, there wouldn't be anything left for her to do.
To be part of a team and contribute absolutely nothing.
Zhu Yao hated that.
"I'm fine," Li Ban said, waving a hand.
His legs had been wiped down with highly purified well water. They were incredibly sturdy now, leaving him with no worry that they might snap mid-fight.
He even planned to contribute a bit of that water as a shared medical supply for the team after they had fought side-by-side a few more times.
Zhu Yao glanced at Li Ban's thighs but said nothing more, turning toward the spot where the monster had crawled out.
"Since a monster came from there, it's highly likely we'll find supplies left behind by the dead."
In the Recycling Station, there was no death in the traditional sense.
However, those who devolved into monsters or were shattered into pieces were still referred to as "the dead."
They had lost all control over their own lives.
They did not retain even the slightest bit of autonomy.
"Let's head over. Ed—you stay behind and watch the car?" Li Ban suggested.
"Yeah," Zhu Yao agreed with a nod.
Ed was a bit reluctant, but his say in this team had been reduced to the absolute minimum.
Spear in hand, Zhu Yao took the lead.
Li Ban held his bow and arrows in both hands, ready to draw and fire at a moment's notice.
Though his hands were occupied, his legs were incredibly agile. He leaped and maneuvered without ever losing his balance.
Even when scaling the window the monster had just crawled through, Li Ban simply kicked off the walls with both feet and vaulted up, not needing his hands at all.
Zhu Yao felt like she had barely cleared the window before Li Ban dropped in right behind her.
She couldn't resist casting another glance his way.
Li Ban chuckled. "Don't look at me. Watch your step."
Knowing she had lost her composure, Zhu Yao pursed her lips and returned her focus to the potential battle ahead.
The interior of the collapsed building was a dim room blanketed in dust and stunted plants. Toppled debris lay heaped on the floor or dangled in midair.
Li Ban noticed that one object hanging in midair appeared to be a painting once mounted on a wall. The surface had carbonized, making it impossible to tell what the image used to be.
Its plastic frame was mostly shattered. Stripped of any salvage value, it had simply been left behind.
"This must be the living room," Li Ban noted, glancing at a thoroughly ruined leather sofa. "There should be springs inside. Are they on the supply list?"
"Springs? If they're intact enough, they should be useful. Even if the supply depot won't take them, we can try selling them to someone else."
Zhu Yao had never closely examined a sofa before.
Before entering the Recycling Station, she had only ever sat on meditation cushions or solid wood chairs.
Since arriving, she hadn't been in the mood for luxuries. Her seats had essentially been reduced to wooden crates and large rocks.
Li Ban stepped up and tore away the cracked leather and the fabric lining underneath, revealing individual pockets of steel wire springs inside.
Most of them were intact.
He gathered the whole, resilient springs and stuffed them into the burlap sack Zhu Yao had brought along, then slung it over his shoulder.
The two continued to navigate through the sideways rooms.
Since most of the doorways were no longer at floor level, their search required a fair amount of climbing and jumping.
They wove through different floors, hunting for a path among the collapsed walls and pillars.
Although monsters nested here, they clearly didn't bother tidying up their lairs.
In the midst of their search, Zhu Yao suddenly spotted some unusual marks.
They looked like the scratches left behind by someone roughly sweeping away their own footprints.
Zhu Yao often did the exact same thing, so she was quite familiar with the signs.
"This way. There might be someone here."
Monsters never cleaned up their tracks.
They followed the trail upward, discovering several man-made climbing aids along the way.
These included furniture stacked into makeshift stairs and soft ropes dangling in midair.
Eventually, they arrived at a room secured by a heavy steel door.
It was obvious at a glance that the original owner had been exceptionally paranoid about security.
Since the door was now situated on what served as the ceiling, reaching it proved difficult even after they piled up debris to step on.
Just as Li Ban was debating whether to use the Rending Technique to tear through the security door's locking mechanisms, Zhu Yao hopped down from the furniture ladder. She reached into the burlap sack they had temporarily set on the floor and pulled out one of the springs they had just scavenged.
She tore open the fabric pocket, inspected the gauge of the wire, bent the ends of the steel spring, and hurried back over, ready to pick the lock.
Li Ban looked at the security door, then at the crude piece of wire in her hands. "I know people can pick locks with a wire, but can you really open a heavy-duty door like this with one?"
Zhu Yao had been quite certain initially, but his doubt made her hesitate.
"Maybe... let me just give it a try?" she said, holding up the wire.
"Alright. You try first. If it doesn't work, I'll handle it."
Li Ban stepped aside, largely because he wasn't sure if whatever was inside the room was worth expending a spell on.
Zhu Yao nodded. Craning her neck upward, she began working the wire into the lock.
Her movements were surprisingly practiced.
It was as if she had done this countless times before.
A few moments later, Li Ban actually heard the click of the lock cylinder retracting.
Zhu Yao reached up, twisted the handle, and the heavy door swung entirely open.
"The door looks sturdy, but the lock itself is an older model. It's not the hardest kind to pick."
"How are you so good at this?"
"When I first returned from the Northern Continent rift with heavy injuries, I searched everywhere for resources to restore my spiritual rhinoceros." Zhu Yao stared blankly for a moment, then shook her head. "In truth, I knew I'd barely find any spiritual rhinoceros here. But... I just couldn't accept it."
A powerful 7th Tier Dark Moon Priest had lost all her spiritual rhinoceros shortly after entering the Recycling Station.
The catastrophic fall from grace had driven her to use every method conceivable to reclaim her power.
A thought suddenly struck Li Ban.
What Zhu Yao lacked was spiritual rhinoceros.
And it wasn't as if the camp had no spiritual rhinoceros at all.
But in the eyes of the camp's leader, using that spiritual rhinoceros elsewhere held far more value than spending it on Zhu Yao to rebuild her as a combat asset for the camp.
Why was that?
Wouldn't a 7th Tier Priest serve as the ultimate survival guarantee for any camp?
While Li Ban pondered this, Zhu Yao pulled herself out of her past memories. She gripped the doorframe and, with a slight heave, hoisted herself into the room above.
Once inside, she let out a sharp hiss of breath.
Li Ban immediately vaulted up after her.
Following her gaze, he found that inside this tightly sealed room sat a monster—with nothing left but its head.
The creature's maw was a full half-meter long.
Aside from the mouth, there was no skin or muscle left on its face.
Its eyes, nose, and ears were nowhere to be found.
Li Ban walked over and looked down at the exposed skull.
"There are obvious teeth marks on the missing sections and the bone. He was gnawed down to this state by someone."
He suddenly paid closer attention to the monster's mouth. Reaching out, he peeled back the quietly drooping lips, revealing razor-sharp teeth inside.
He compared the monster's teeth with the bite marks across its face.
Li Ban pressed his lips together and said, "He ate himself."