Tomb Raiding: All Things Merge, Starting with 400x Strength

"What's that playing tricks on me!"

Hearing the commotion, the fat man pointed his gun at the bushes and opened fire.

More than a dozen bullets were fired, but there was no sound in the grass.

The group relaxed their guard, and just then a large snake, as thick as a water bucket, suddenly emerged from the bushes, raised its head, and pounced on them.

"It's a giant python!"

The fat man exclaimed in surprise and kept pulling the trigger, bullets flying out and hitting the giant python.

The python's entire body was covered in scales, which were as hard as metal, so bullets couldn't hurt it at all.

At that moment, the grass on the other side also began to shake violently.

Immediately afterwards, all the grass in all directions began to shake.

Suddenly, four or five enormous python heads emerged from the bushes.

They could raise their heads four or five meters high, and with their gaping maws open, they pounced on the crowd.

The part extending out of the grass was four or five meters long, and with the part hidden in the grass, these giant pythons were at least eleven or twelve meters long.

Each of them was larger than the black-haired snake mother that Zhang Hao had killed.

The fat man kept firing, while Wu Tianzhen gripped her dagger, ready to attack at any moment.

Yi Sa and Ding Yudie continuously used the "Overturning River Hand" attack.

Neither guns nor the "Overturning the River" technique could inflict the slightest damage on the giant python; they could only watch helplessly as it pounced.

Several enormous mouths were already upon them, about to be swallowed whole by the giant python.

Everyone panicked.

Just then, the giant python suddenly stopped all its movements, frozen in place as if time had stood still.

"what happened?"

"do you died?"

Wu Tianzhen, Fatty, Yi Sa, and Ding Yudie all looked completely bewildered.

The giant python was about to successfully devour them, so why did it suddenly stop moving?

What happened next completely surprised them.

The giant python suddenly lowered itself in front of Zhang Hao, its head swaying slightly from side to side, appearing to be bowing down in submission.

Everyone looked at Zhang Hao, waiting for him to give an explanation.

Zhang Hao smiled and waved his hand: "Don't look at me, I don't know either. Maybe it's because there's something about me that they're afraid of."

He just made it up casually, but others took it seriously.

Wu Tianzhen exclaimed with delight, "I understand now! It's because of the Black-haired Snake Mother's inner core!"

"That's right, they must have sensed the aura of the Serpent Mother's inner core to be acting like this!"

"It seems the black-haired snake is quite powerful; a single inner core is enough to withstand these giant pythons."

……

Only Zhang Hao understood what was going on; the ability he gained after fusing with the inner core of the Black-haired Snake Mother was the ability to control snakes.

However, since others have already explained it for him, there is no need for him to waste any more words.

Several giant pythons blocking his way was not a solution, so Zhang Hao had a thought and the pythons turned around and scattered.

"Uncle, do you remember the food chain in the mural we just saw?"

After the giant python left, Wu Tianzhen spoke up.

"Yes, there's a giant python in the cave that eats people, but in the end, something else will eat the python."

“That’s right, but the mural is incomplete and we can’t tell what exactly ate the giant python. Why don’t we go over there and find out?”

"Boss, I think Tianzhen's suggestion is good. You have the snake mother's inner core, so the giant python won't attack us. Let's go and see what it is that eats the giant python. If we don't find out, we'll always feel pressured."

"Ah."

Zhang Hao nodded in agreement; he also wanted to know what kind of creature could swallow a giant python that was over ten meters long.

So the group chose the direction in which one of the giant pythons had left and chased after it.

At the same time, something deep inside the cave was moving rapidly along the ground towards the giant python.

Zhang Hao, Wu Tianzhen, Fatty, Yi Sa, and Ding Yudie followed the giant python for several hundred meters, already deep inside the cave.

Suddenly, countless tentacles emerged from the grass, instantly wrapping around the giant python and dragging it deeper into the cave.

Yi Sa and Ding Yudie were both stunned.

"Could that have been the terrifying monster deep in the rainforest?"

"Even a giant python is powerless against those tentacles."

"We're probably not even enough to fill that monster's teeth!"

……

Unlike Yi Sa and Ding Yudie.

Zhang Hao, Wu Tianzhen, and Fatty breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the tentacles.

"So that's it!"

"No wonder it was able to devour the entire giant python."

Yi Sa and Ding Yudie, hearing Tianzhen and the fat man's conversation, asked in confusion, "What is it?"

"Nine-Headed Hydra Cypress!"

"What? You're saying the monster that ate the giant python was the Nine-Headed Hydra Cypress?"

"The Nine-Headed Hydra Cypress, also known as the Octopus Tree or the Man-Eating Tree, grows countless tentacle-like vines. They sense living things around them by vibrations, and even a slight increase in our heart rate can trigger their attack."

"Damn it, the Sa Sa Khmer King's Tomb is guarded by the Hydra Cypress, and we have no way to enter it safely."

The fat man burst into laughter when he saw how scared Yi Sa and Ding Yudie looked.

"With Brother Zhang Hao here, what's there to fear about the Nine-Headed Hydra Cypress? Even a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand of them are nothing to worry about!"

“The fat man is right. My uncle has a Celestial Stone on him, and the Nine-Headed Cypress doesn’t dare to come near him.”

"Celestial Stone?"

"The boss actually has a Hydra Berk Star Stone on him, that's great!"

Zhang Hao smiled. He didn't have any Heavenly Star Stones left; he had already fused them in.

However, he is now like a celestial stone, and even the Nine-Headed Cypress dares not approach him.

After confirming that the monster deep inside was the Hydra Cypress, the group felt relieved and proceeded easily into the cave.

Suddenly, a corpse appeared in the bushes.

Yi Sa rushed forward to examine the body. He turned the body over and realized that it had been dead for who knows how many years, with only a pile of bones remaining.

When it flipped over, its head fell to the ground and rolled several meters away.

Yi Sa pulled a small notebook out of the pocket of the corpse's shirt.

She opened the notebook and looked at it; it was filled with tadpole-like characters.

"SaSa, what's written in the notebook?"

Ding Yudie couldn't wait to ask.

"Wait, too much time has passed. The paper has long since become moldy and rotten, and some parts are difficult to identify."

After a long while, Yi Sa finally spoke: "During World War II, a Japanese officer unintentionally led his troops into the rainforest and unexpectedly obtained a Khmer pagoda while passing by a temple."

The stupa is a magical treasure that can heal all things.

Decades later, the Khmer pagoda had been completely destroyed, but his son contracted a terminal illness.

Helpless, he had no choice but to send people to the Cambodian rainforest to search for the temple, hoping to find another Khmer pagoda.

Unfortunately, they encountered a giant python and terrifying monsters along the way. Of the dozens of people in the group, he was the only one left. Before dying, he left behind this information, hoping the officers could use it to escape the monsters' attacks.

A magical treasure that heals all things.

Zhang Hao immediately understood that the Khmer pagoda must be a special item.

Looks like this trip wasn't in vain again.

The Khmer king's tomb is guarded by a giant python and a nine-headed cypress tree, which would be a dead end and a dangerous place for others, but he could both control snakes and restrain the nine-headed cypress tree.

The entire tomb seemed tailor-made to present him with treasures.