Li Ban had never been this sensitive to malice before.
But after entering the Recycling Station, he had temporarily lost the spiritual rhinoceros and elements he usually relied on, leaving him with only physical combat and his own vigilance.
Under these conditions, his spirit had unexpectedly grown much sharper than before.
He no longer perceived things solely with his eyes.
"Above us!" he shouted, warning his two companions.
Only then did Ed realize that the thing Li Ban had struck wasn't a real vine.
The thing Li Ban had just hit revealed its true form from within the canopy.
It was actually a pair of hands hidden among the branches.
The palms were only half the length of a normal human's, but the ten fingers were over ten meters long, draped across different branches.
Now startled, the vines moved incredibly fast, blurring into phantoms in midair.
Li Ban released his grip, dropping his bow and arrow. Drawing the axe from his waist, he quickly batted away the vine aiming for the back of his head.
At the same time, he sensed a new, nauseating presence rapidly approaching.
It was dense and clustered, like pustules on a toad's back.
The synchronized sound of objects tearing through the air rang out behind him again.
He quickly rolled forward.
Five or six vines simultaneously pierced the ground where he had just been standing.
The moment Li Ban stopped, he swept his axe backward, severing several vines behind him.
A few late-arriving vines dodged the strike, paused for a fraction of a second in midair, then split into two paths, thrusting at Li Ban's chest from opposite directions.
Li Ban dodged to the side again, but as he stood up, his head accidentally brushed against a drooping Swing Vine.
The scene before his eyes instantly changed.
The deadly, swerving vines vanished, replaced by a crowded Laboratory.
The man who had spoken to Li Ban before appeared once more.
This time, he didn't ask Li Ban any questions. Instead, he said directly, "When the situation permits, come find me at Wanghai Cliff."
His eyes remained fixed on Li Ban with unerring accuracy.
"The guy who took the Director's place."
Li Ban narrowed his eyes, but he had absolutely no time to ponder the man's words right now.
Remembering that he had seen the illusion when he stood up, he immediately crouched back down.
The moment he broke contact with the Swing Vine, the hallucination vanished.
But at the same time, five or six vines were already right in front of him.
In the distance, Ed and Zhu Yao were also fighting. A vine had already pierced Ed's chest. Zhu Yao's situation was unclear, and Li Ban didn't have time to look closely.
Above them, even more malice seemed to be bearing down.
Dodging was useless. The sound of tearing air approached from other directions—new attacks were imminent.
Li Ban narrowed his eyes.
Spells!
Protection Spell!
Rending Technique!
In an instant, Li Ban stopped focusing his intent on the vines in front of him.
He first cast a protective barrier over his head, then unleashed the Rending Technique upon every source of malice he could sense!
Almost in the very next second, three vines struck his shield, while the other two pierced his neck and chest.
Although there was no physical pain, the sensation of being impaled was still unpleasant.
It gave him a hallucinatory feeling of brushing past death.
Having cast his spells, Li Ban raised his axe, chopped off the two vines lodged in his chest, and swept it horizontally to block the attacks coming from his flank.
With that casual block, he deflected the incoming side attacks.
The vines flew far away, drifting lightly as if they were dead objects, no longer controlled by any force.
All attacks ceased.
Even things on Zhu Yao's side fell quiet.
"Smack!"
A palm, sliced vertically in half, fell to the ground.
Inside the severed wound, a writhing clump of pinkish-white matter was faintly visible.
However, this pinkish-white matter had also been sliced open, and a sparse, powdery substance leaked out.
More severed palms hung suspended in midair, caught in tangles of vines and swaying back and forth.
Zhu Yao and Ed, who had just been fighting, both looked toward Li Ban.
"Impressive," Zhu Yao said. "To think you could find the weak points of every enemy so quickly."
She recalled the skin monster Li Ban had killed earlier.
At the time, Li Ban had claimed it was luck. Thinking about it now, perhaps he simply possessed the ability to rapidly locate a monster's vital points.
Seven or eight palms had dropped nearby.
There were likely more that hadn't fallen.
With a single Rending Technique, Li Ban had actually targeted every enemy and finished them all off at once.
This meant his spirit was already incredibly strong.
Observing Li Ban earlier, Zhu Yao had thought he was merely a rookie who had just become a Priest. Now, however, it seemed he might be a Star Glow Priest.
Zhu Yao could originally have done this as well. But after her Wizard Embryo Fragments had been depleted for so long, her spirit had withered to the point where it was only slightly stronger than an ordinary person's.
Ed didn't think nearly as deeply. He simply echoed her "Impressive," then went to check the fake Cottonwood Vine Li Ban had struck on the tree.
Tearing open the vine's outer skin, he found red tissue inside, not cottonwood fibers.
"Fake," Ed sighed with regret.
"It grew out of a monster's body. Naturally, it's fake," Li Ban said, yanking down a vine dangling in front of him and pulling the connected palm down with it.
Behind these palms, there were no arms or bodies.
The palms themselves were independent monsters.
But as Li Ban flipped through these monster palms, he couldn't find a mouth.
Monsters existed to eat people.
Like an unbreakable addiction, it constantly drove them to devour humans endlessly.
Therefore, monsters had to have brains, and they definitely had to have mouths.
Failing to find a mouth on the palm, Li Ban pulled out the two vines stuck in his chest.
He discovered that although the tips of these two vines were extremely sharp, there was a small hollow hole in the center of each.
Moreover, when they pierced his body, they hadn't gone clean through to the other side; instead, they embedded themselves in his flesh.
This must be the palm monster's mouth.
A straw used to suck up human flesh.
"I've never seen a monster like this before." Zhu Yao also pulled out all the vines stuck in her arms and back, conveniently yanking out the five from Ed's body as well.
"These monsters have tiny main bodies and hide deep in the canopy. Without spells, they're incredibly hard to kill. And with their mouths at the very tips of the vines, they can attack without leaving themselves open to counterattacks." Zhu Yao had also seen the hollow holes at the front of the vines. She frowned, feeling a sense of unease.
"Plus, the terrain here in the Swing Forest is far too perfect for these monsters to hunt. If they hadn't actively attacked, I wouldn't have even known they were there."
"With so many of them... why has no one ever reported this to the camp?"
Li Ban threw aside the vine in his hand. Normal people in the Recycling Station couldn't transplant monster limbs, or they would very likely turn into new monsters themselves.
"It works out well. We can go back and report this to earn an intel fee. But for now, while no other palm monsters are approaching, let's quickly search the area to see if there are any other Cottonwood Vines."