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

Chapter 510 It's on Fire
The group walked over in a daze and gathered around the fire. They remained silent for a long time, looking at the familiar surroundings, speechless, and still somewhat dazed.

Zhang Haixing stared intently at the bronze door not far behind her. She was now unsure whether she was still in an illusion; she couldn't find the boundary between reality and illusion.

To truly break free from the illusion, she must capture the barrier separating the illusion; that is, she must find the time medium from which she initially entered the illusion.

She broke the silence first, subtly probing Zhang Wuxun, "The bronze door is right in front of us, how are we going to get in?"

Zhang Wuxun said nothing, but simply got up and walked towards the bronze door.

The crowd exchanged glances, then instinctively stood up and followed him.

Just as they were about to reach the Corpse Grass, Zhang Wuxun raised his hand to stop them. He glanced at Zhang Haixing indifferently and said to everyone, "If you don't want to fall into another illusion, just wait here obediently."

Wu Xie and Fatty exchanged a knowing glance, then put on anxious expressions as they watched Zhang Wuxun walk step by step into the clump of corpse grass.

Zhang Wuxun's footsteps were very light, as if he were floating in on clouds.

They soon realized it wasn't an illusion; something was wriggling under the corpse grass behind Zhang Wuxun, seemingly about to crawl out.

A hazy mist was constantly being released from the cracks in the rocks around the grass, and Zhang Wuxun's figure was gradually obscured by the rising mist.

Fearing that the mist emanating from the cracks in the rocks where the corpse grass grew might be poisonous, Zhang Haixing and the others quickly covered their mouths and noses and stepped back.

Countless slender tentacle shadows swayed in the mist, like ghosts weaving and crisscrossing within it.

Wu Xie looked closely and realized that it was the stem spores used for reproduction under the corpse head grass. It broke through the white bone at the root and grew out abruptly. The red threads quickly twisted and wrapped around to form a huge blood net, which became denser and denser, turning into a large blood ball that kept wriggling.

The white and yellow stems and leaves are dotted with stars, and the tangled blood vessels add an unexpected touch of beauty to the eerie scene.

Everyone stared in astonishment at the scene before them. They had fallen into the hallucination so quickly that they hadn't had time to experience the changes that the Corpse Grass could undergo.

The fat man's eyes widened, and he hurriedly gave Wu Xie a meaningful look. This wasn't the script they had agreed on before!
As Zhang Wuxun's figure was swallowed up by the large red expanse, Wu Xie's heart couldn't help but pound. But the calm and composed way Zhang Wuxun walked ahead indicated that he was aware of the situation. Perhaps the sudden surge of these spores was his doing. In any case, this charade had to continue.

Although he was anxious, Wu Xie still gave Fatty a look to reassure him and not let Zhang Haixing and the other man see through his act.

A hint of realization flickered across Feng's face amidst his fear. As he looked at the wildly growing corpse grass, he seemed to have made a connection to something, but he didn't say anything. He simply clutched his backpack tightly, his eyes fixed on the large, writhing blood mass.

Zhang Haixing keenly noticed that unusual emotional fluctuation. Her eyes flickered. She recalled the mysterious little tower and rhinoceros horn candle that Feng had taken out of his body in the previous illusion, as well as Feng's understanding of the bronze door. Some thoughts couldn't help but arise in her mind.

The scene before her was different from what she had seen before. Zhang Haixing made up her mind that as long as Bai Ci could take out the Ghost Seal from the Corpse Grass, she would immediately find an excuse to send the message out.

She already suspected that the reason she had hallucinated earlier was twofold: firstly, the bell hidden in the grass was the trigger, and secondly, it was also related to the bronze door itself.

Long ago, the Wang family already knew that the thing inside the bronze door possessed its own consciousness, and the level of understanding of this consciousness was extremely vast. The divine gift was its means of communicating with humans.

The hallucinations she had experienced earlier were so vivid that she had reason to suspect that what she saw was exactly what Tian Shou wanted her to perceive. Tian Shou had connected her consciousness with it, and the one attacking her from inside the door was very likely one of the things she was looking for. Thinking this, Zhang Haixing felt a surge of excitement, her gaze fixed intently on the direction of the bronze door.

Wu Xie, who had been observing her closely, frowned almost imperceptibly, becoming increasingly wary.

The blood-red ball continued to expand, and in just a short while, it had swelled to almost occupy half of the cave's space, forcing Wu Xie and the others to continue retreating.

The fat man paced anxiously on the ground, "That kid has been in there for so long, why hasn't he come out yet? Did he get eaten by this blood pill?"

"Probably not." Wu Xie's answer was ambiguous, and he hesitated. "Let's wait another ten minutes. If it doesn't work, we'll find a way to burn all these corpse grasses."

"Okay." The fat man nodded immediately.

“You don’t need to burn it.” Zhang Haixing suddenly spoke up, pointing at the blood pills, “It’s already on fire.”

"?" The fat man didn't hear clearly. "What do you mean by 'getting all slutty'?"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a huge explosion rang out, causing everyone's ears and the surrounding cavern to buzz, and a wave of scorching heat swept over them.

Everyone was thrown backward by the force of the impact. Wu Xie rolled several times on the ground before regaining his balance and hurriedly looked up in that direction.

The firelight completely illuminated the cavern red, and the enormous, wall-like blood-filled mass had shattered into countless fragments, burning and raging along with the corpses below.

Amidst the blazing flames, a dark figure strode out from the center, stepping through the steam, and waved what he was holding at them, saying, "Got it."

Wu Xie breathed a sigh of relief and quickly got up from the ground. Seeing that Zhang Wuxun was unharmed, he brushed off the charred blood from his own body and asked, "Did you start the fire?"

Zhang Wuxun nodded and explained, "When you were lying inside, the fresh blood and energy had already stimulated the reproduction of the corpse grass. If it's not burned, the spore cluster will explode when it expands to a certain extent. The spores will shoot out like bullets and pierce your skin. In less than three minutes, it will turn you into empty shells."

"Check carefully for any abrasions on the exposed skin. If there are any, you'll have to wrap them up. We'll be going over the remaining corpse grass later. These spores are smaller than a pinhead. Once they burrow into your flesh, they grow to the thickness of a chopstick before you can notice them. By then, they've already reached your internal organs. They'll break off easily and require surgery to remove them."

Upon hearing this, Wu Xie couldn't help but think of the mycelium that he had seen in the West Girl Cave, which was grown from human heads and looked a lot like hair. That thing was also attracted to fresh blood, and it was probably a similar species to the one in front of him.

The fat man brushed the scorched earth off his hair and glanced at the corpse grass whose fire was gradually dying down. "Even a thousand-year-old bodhisattva and a ten-thousand-year-old tortoise can't be burned clean by such a big fire. This thing should just be renamed 'Little Strong Grass'."

"Wildfire cannot burn it all, the spring breeze brings it back to life. This thing can never be completely killed. What is burned is only a part of the spores that are about to form."

Zhang Wuxun put the things he had taken out aside and patted his trouser legs, which were also quite soiled when he walked through them.

Zhang Haixing stared at the familiar jade box, her breath catching in her throat. Then, she immediately realized something. "This thing couldn't have been planted here by you, could it?"

Kakaka
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(End of this chapter)