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

Chapter 545 This is going to be fatal
A slightly bluish liquid flowed from its severed wrist, seeping down the cracks in the stone in streams, emitting a foul, indescribable smell.

It smelled like the kind of fish that had been dead in a jar for three months, and the smell that seeped out from the crack when the lid was opened.

"Cough cough cough... Ugh..." Wu Xie took a deep breath, about to speak, but then inhaled a strong odor that made him feel nauseous.

He frowned, took several large, hurried steps back, and tears welled up in his eyes.

The smugness he felt after defeating the monster vanished instantly, and all his arrogance dissipated.

"This thing is actually alive! But the smell is too strong. Where did the Khampa people catch it from?" Wu Xie turned to ask Zhang Wuxun.

Zhang Wuxun silently covered his mouth and nose, looked at the liquid, and muttered an analysis: "The blood is blue, and its blood contains a lot of copper."

"This might be an ancient fish species that lived in the waters of a volcanic pool and was infected by the radiation from the surrounding meteorite minerals," Zhang Wuxun reasonably guessed.

“Look, its claws still have webbing that hasn’t completely degenerated.” Zhang Wuxun reached out and pointed with disgust at the black claws lying on the ground.

Wu Xie reached out and hooked the claw closer to examine it. He hadn't looked closely before because of the urgency of the situation, but now he realized that the tips of the claws were one piece with the fingers. In other words, this thing was born without nails; its fingers were just thin sticks.

Wu Xie's eyes widened in surprise. "What?! You mean it's a merman?"

"Huh? Maybe." Zhang Wuxun didn't expect Wu Xie to guess the merman so quickly, but after thinking about it, it wasn't impossible.

However, since they haven't seen the monster in its entirety yet, they can't draw any conclusions.

Zhang Wuxun paused as he spoke, "It could also be some distant relative of the merfolk, but this stuff smells absolutely awful, like the stomach of a fermented dead whale."

He looked behind him and thought, "I reckon Fatty and the other guy will be drawn in by the smell soon too."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the fat man's voice came from the gray fog, "Damn it, who the hell blew up the latrine?"

The fat man appeared right after his voice, first looking Zhang Wuxun and the other man over, then said, "You two sneaked in here, and you made it stink! What are you doing? I was sleeping soundly, and this smell is killing me..."

Suddenly, several unwilling roars came from inside the stone tower. The monster struggled and rammed against the inner wall of the stone tower, trying to get out. The dull thuds were mixed with the dragging sound of chains.

The fat man stared blankly, asking, "What's that noise?"

Looking around suspiciously, he whispered, "Are there really no other living creatures here besides the four of us?"

After the fat man's voice appeared, the monsters inside the stone tower also woke up from their silence and began to stir.

Zhang Haike peeked out from behind the fat man, glanced at the stone tower, and immediately understood, "You've tampered with Bamlakang."

"Bamlakang?" Wu Xie asked, puzzled. "What is Bamlakang? Are you talking about that stone tower?"

“A palace tower used to suppress demons in Sakya culture,” Zhang Haike said. “It’s this stone tower. It’s a trap. Luckily, you didn’t completely free it.”

Zhang Haike walked quickly to the stone pagoda, rummaged around in the corner for a while, and took out a bundle of old-fashioned hand grenades. He showed Zhang Wuxun and the others the fuses at the ends of the wooden handles. Each fuse had a nearly transparent thin wire attached to the end.

Seeing this, Zhang Wuxun squatted down and placed the flashlight flat on the ground, letting the light shine on the area around the bundle of grenades.

Everyone immediately saw that, under the light and shadow, countless thin lines stretched straight around the grenade bundles in the dust floating in the air, like a spider web weaving across the base of all the wooden towers, only half a foot from the ground. If a person walked by, the moment they lifted their foot, the grenade would be detonated.

The fat man was silent for two seconds, then took a few steps to the side and picked out another bundle of grenades from the burial goods on the wooden tower shelf. He found similar bundles of grenades in several other wooden towers. Only then did the fat man realize that he was a little scared and cursed, "Damn it, the end is hell! This is clearly it. Who planted these mines? They don't give people even the slightest chance of survival."

The dense network of wires made him break out in a cold sweat. Wu Xie breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that it was Mu Yu who led him in. If he had taken the wrong path and gotten trapped in the maze, he probably wouldn't have even had time to strike a pose before being blown into a stir-fried shrimp.

The stone tower was very thick, like a leaky golden bell. As the group talked, the creature inside, realizing it couldn't break free no matter what, roared in frustration for a while before finally quieting down.

"No more movement," Wu Xie said to everyone in a low voice. He thought to himself, "They made two such big cuts and went through all that trouble, they've probably bled to death."

"Let me see if it's dead." Wu Xie said, crouching down to lean over, but when he looked up, he met a red eyeball in the gap.

“…!” Wu Xie was taken aback.

He immediately realized that the thing inside the stone tower was not only not dead, but was pressing its face against the gap in the lattice, its crimson eyes gleaming with a cold light, staring at Wu Xie outside with a ferocious and resentful look.

"Whoa!" Wu Xie couldn't help but take a step back.

The face in the crevice was dark and dry. When it realized it had been discovered, it let out a strange cry and its head spun ninety degrees like a rusty wheel, revealing its two bright red eyes, which moved up and down, looking sinister and extremely eerie.

Without a word, Zhang Wuxun raised his hand and fired a shot. The bullet flew into the gap, and the black face was hit on the head and sent flying back into the tower. The rusty blood exploded around like a crushed persimmon.

The fat man whistled and raised his hand to show the bullseye, "Ten rings."

Hearing the sound of its entire head and body hitting the ground as it fell, Wu Xie breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "Shouldn't it be completely dead this time?"

Zhang Wuxun grunted in agreement, walked closer, avoiding the traps and wires, looked into the gap, and gave an OK sign with his hand, "Solved."

Only then did the fat man have time to ask in detail. He looked at Wu Xie and said, "What happened? Is this rotten thing back from the dead or what?"

Wu Xie recounted what had happened honestly, adding at the end, "This thing was probably originally alive, but we just woke it up."

Wu Xie firmly stated that no matter how you look at it, the blame should not be placed on him.

After listening, Zhang Haike chuckled and said, "The door should be behind it. If you want to know what it is, just open it and see."

The fat man was really curious and eagerly lifted his leg to step over a few threads. Looking back at the increasingly dense threads, he realized there was nowhere to put his foot down and immediately retreated with a bitter face.

"No, it's too difficult. I'm not skilled enough to show off."

The fat man gestured for them to proceed, then shook his head. "Which expert is it?"

Zhang Wuxun pondered for a few moments and said, "Let's go around by another route. We must get into this tower."

Wu Xie asked in surprise, "Why?"

“I think the path should be inside the tower,” Zhang Wuxun said in a deep voice.

A sudden snowstorm swept across Kunlun Mountain, half for plum blossoms, half for the passing year—from "A Hundred Flavors Shared at This Moment."

(End of this chapter)