Tomb Raiding: My Family's Last Clan Chief is Little Brother

Chapter 496 Below the Crack
The salt on the dried fish is still salt. You can scrape it off, soak it in water, and use it. Wu Xie's method was very effective. After splashing the salt water, many of the Nianaga lying on the tent spontaneously retreated.

During this time, Zhang Haixing deliberately brought in a Nianaga to test the effectiveness of bullets against this creature and see if she could find a new way to escape.

When they intermittently poured salt water onto the tent, they deliberately left a gap in the tent fabric where it was about to tear, and avoided this gap when sprinkling the salt water.

Soon, the depression became deeper and deeper. With a "rip," the tarpaulin was squeezed open by the weight of the object outside, creating a gap about an arm's length long, and a dark lump sank in.

Wu Xie immediately stood up straight to block the shadow from the gap. Fatty and Feng held the salt water bowls on either side, aiming at the opening and ready to pour the salt water on it at the command.

The dark figure cautiously peeked out, but Nianaga, hidden in the shadows Wu Xie had deliberately created, didn't sense any danger and easily slipped in through the torn gap in the tarpaulin.

Wu Xie and the others stared intently and saw the Nianaga, like clay flattened by a wheel, slowly wriggle in through the opening, instinctively avoiding any areas contaminated with salt water.

The shadowy figure, like a trail of sewage flowing down, slowly elongated downwards along the shadow cast by Wu Xie on the tarpaulin lining. After touching the ground, it continued to wriggle towards the end of the shadow beneath Wu Xie's feet.

Before it even got close, Zhang Haixing fired without hesitation.

Several gunshots rang out, and warm juice mixed with flying pebbles instantly splashed around. The long, black, ribbon-like thing was shattered into dozens of pieces of varying sizes by the penetrating force of the bullets, looking like jelly that had fallen to the ground and shattered, lying softly and scattered around.

The few pieces of "jelly" that had been scattered after the fire broke apart were still wriggling, trying to avoid the firelight and crawl into a place where they could be hidden in the shadows.

The fat man suddenly lowered his voice and said to everyone, "Have you guys noticed? This thing looks like an enhanced version of that earthworm monster. Even though it's been pulverized into dust, it's still alive!"

Wu Xie shone the beam of his flashlight on a piece of biological debris that had splashed near his feet, picked it up with his dagger, flipped it over, and said, "Look at this."

All eyes turned to them.

Wu Xie poked at the bottom of the fragment with the tip of his knife. There were many bumpy, uneven tentacles there. He analyzed, "This thing has a lot of tentacles on the bottom. It looks a lot like a starfish or jellyfish soaking in water. It must move around using these tentacles."

It seems their previous deduction was correct; this creature is indeed an underwater organism that crawls out of a hot spring and can stay on land for a considerable period of time.

Moreover, even with the destructive power of bullets, they can only tear this soft-bodied creature into pieces, but the broken pieces will not die. These fragments will be randomly pieced together and then merge into a living Nianaga without a fixed shape.

Wu Xie tried to use a knife to pick the two pieces of "jelly" together. In less than a minute, the two pieces of "jelly" wriggled and merged into one big piece, and the break was completely invisible.

Feng's face was ashen, as if he were at a funeral. He kept making the sign of the cross on his chest, muttering, "It's over, this is an unkillable monster..."

The fat man rolled his eyes in annoyance, and before the "jelly" pieces could stick together again, he used his finger to dip in salt water and flicked it onto them.

The "jelly" pieces began to shrink at a visible speed, crackling and steaming, and soon shrank into a puddle of sticky water.

Seeing this, Feng shut his mouth in silence.

Although this method could kill the Nianaga, it was far too inefficient. With so many groups of them outside, they could only kill a few even if they worked themselves to death.

Taking the initiative doesn't seem to be working, and right now, they can't think of a better way than to buy time.

Fortunately, their equipment was made of the most advanced military materials. Although it had more than a dozen holes, as long as salt water was poured on it in time, it could still hold on for a while.

To be precise, this thing's attack power is actually not that great. If it really is a jellyfish-like amphibious creature, then its attack method is very likely the same as that of a jellyfish, which is to release toxic substances through its tentacles.

However, jellyfish paralyze or poison their prey with venom, while Neanaga melts its food with the mucus secreted from its tentacles.

For example, the skeletons on the rocky mountain were most likely melted down and eaten by them.

The difficult night finally passed, and as soon as the sky began to lighten, Nianaga receded like a tide, disappearing without a trace in no time.

The fat man put on gloves and reached for the tent zipper, but as soon as he exerted force, the tattered tent could not bear the weight and collapsed completely, burying Wu Xie and the others underneath.

"..." The fat man cursed and swung his hands wildly to tear open the tarpaulin. He peeked out and saw that the rocks around the tent were covered with the slime left by the Naagi.

The fat man said angrily, "What kind of rubbish are these Nagas? They have no sense of hygiene at all. How can they poop and pee anywhere? Look at the mess they've made of this place, I don't even have a place to stand." Zhang Haixing also came out. Hearing this, her eyes twitched, and she frowned and said disgustedly, "Can you please not say it so disgustingly?"

Wu Xie also lifted the tarpaulin and crawled out, looking around. He discovered that the charcoal they had prepared last night was covered with a semi-transparent film that had dried and hardened into a shell.

Those thin films encased the charred nuclei that were not yet fully burned, and at first glance they looked like a pile of eggs of some kind of creature, crowded together, which was uncomfortable to look at.

The campsite was a mess, but after a few people tidied it up, it finally looked a little less unpleasant to look at.

After finishing breakfast at the crack of dawn, the group reorganized and redistributed their equipment and food, then followed Zhang Haixing as they continued their ascent into the crevice above.

Half an hour later, they reached the edge of the crevice.

There is a large platform here, recessed into the mountain rock, with piles of bones from the inside out, disorderly and chaotic, some of the bones even hanging directly on the edge of the cracks.

Peeking down, one sees many jagged stone pillars running horizontally through a crack three or four people wide. In some narrower places, white bones are stuck in the crack. Looking down, it's pitch black, with no end in sight.

The fat man made two "pi pi" sounds at Wu Xie, turned on the fog lights to shine down, and whispered, "Tianzhen, does this place look familiar to you?"

Wu Xie walked to the edge of the crevice and looked down. He saw that the mountain crevice below was gradually widening. Deeper down in the crevice, where the strange rocks were inserted horizontally, the light from the fog lamps illuminated a place where countless bronze chains stretched across, leading all the way to the dark abyss below.

"Changbai Mountain," Wu Xie murmured.

"What did you say?" Zhang Haixing walked over from the other side of the stone platform. She only saw Wu Xie's mouth move a few times from the side and did not hear what he said.

Wu Xie turned his head and looked at Zhang Haixing with an expression that was completely unfamiliar to her. He said quietly, "Miss, from now on, I will be in charge of everything here."

Zhang Haixing seemed to have an inexplicable obsession with the role of team leader. She asked unhappily, "Why?"

Wu Xie said, "I can take you to see the 'ultimate' that your Zhang family people talk about."

Zhang Haixing's eyes changed slightly. "You mean, the 'ultimate' is right below here?"

Wu Xie smiled mysteriously, then said to the others, "The temperature here is so high, there is likely to be live lava below, and the mountain is full of toxic sulfur vapor. Inhaling too much will cause respiratory poisoning and irreversible damage to the eyes. Everyone remember to wear gas masks before going down."

Feng asked, puzzled, "Why go down? Why not continue along the crack? The map doesn't indicate a downward direction."

Zhang Haixing took out the half-scorpion map from her pocket, looked at the two forks at the end of the lines, and wondered, "Could this fork in the road mean this?"

Wu Xie had already started to pull out a gas mask and put it on his face. His voice, muffled inside the mask, sounded more composed. "If you trust me, then follow me. If you don't trust me, then there's nothing I can do. You can choose to continue along the crack."

After saying that, he took the fog light from the fat man, fixed it to his body, turned the aperture to the maximum range of illumination, then picked up his backpack and climbed down from the edge of the crevice first.

There are many stone pillars below that can be climbed, and some of them are wide enough for two people to lie down side by side. Therefore, even though Wu Xie is not very skilled at rock climbing, he can hold onto the stone pillars steadily and find suitable footholds.

The fat man followed closely behind and climbed down. Their figures were quickly blocked by the stone pillars above and could no longer be seen. Zhang Haixing, standing by the crack, could only see the flickering lights below.

“Let’s go down too.” Zhang Haixing didn’t hesitate any longer. She put on her equipment, climbed down a short distance, and quickly caught up with Wu Xie and the other person ahead.

Feng watched their figures disappear below the rocks, then turned around, picked up the bones on the ground, arranged them into a strangely shaped tower at the edge of the crevice, stuffed a black object into the tower, and then climbed into the crevice, his speed even slightly faster than Zhang Haixing's.

The further you go in, the wider the gaps become, and the greater the distance between the stone pillars that stretch across the mountainside. In some places, the distance between them can be as far as two stories.

Relying on her excellent skills, Zhang Haixing easily flipped and jumped between the stone pillars without using ropes, quickly putting a distance between herself and Wu Xie and the others.

Wu Xie wasn't in a hurry. He secured the rope to the stone pillar and lowered himself down steadily. He would remove the rope after Fatty and Feng came down, and then continue in this manner as he slowly descended.

A new movie called "The Ghost City of the Mustard Seeds" has been released. Has anyone seen it?

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(End of this chapter)