Chapter 43: Saving Unpermitted Chapter 43

Chapter 43: The Battle Commences

The impact of the waves was rather overwhelming, crashing so hard on the big body of Monday the broadsword that it had to let out a screeching scream. Luckily, everyone was made so giddy by the waves that they didn’t notice. The extremely thick protective suit turned all slippery after being drenched in water, forcing Shu Jun to exert so much power just to pull on his two sides. During the whole process, he also had to suppress Monday’s aura. What a miserable mess he was.

However, before the next wave came down, Zhu Yanchen stretched out his arms and firmly hugged Jun’s waist, pressing him close against his own body. His hug was so tight that even when the two of them flipped in the current and banged onto the rock wall, there were still no signs of separation.

With the current in the center of the water flow not moving too rapidly, the thick protective suit became their cushion. It was just that after the current gradually dissipated, the land and the sky became completely engulfed in darkness, making them look like fish that had been caught in a net.

Since the Erosion Marsh wasn’t planning to directly drown them, the water quickly dispersed. As soon as Hu Yan could stand up straight, he turned the short-range communication device to its peak capacity, then launched a flare into the sky.

“Everyone, gather now!” Hu Yan ordered.

The communication device made an unpleasant rustling sound, and under the brilliance of the flare, the giant liquid pillar of the Erosion Marsh slowly squirmed.

They had been pushed to near the giant liquid pillar. Zhu Yanchen and Shu Jun’s instructions now came into effect — Everyone started using their oxygen support and anti-erosion protection, Hu Yan’s condition wasn’t too bad. On the other hand, the number of tarpaulins was limited, so the players could only share among themselves. Although the thirteen people were scattered to different places, they could still form groups of two to four members. With protection granted by the tarpaulins, any sharp pieces in the water flow wouldn’t damage their protective suits.

“This is bad, the concentration of erosive substance is too high. It seems that the short-range communication device won’t be able to last long.” Hu Yan lit up an electroluminescent lamp and glanced at the readings. “This Erosion Marsh doesn’t seem right. It’s like a Venus flytrap.” 

“I had a brief look at it just now. Including us, there are four groups of people wrapped in tarpaulins.” Yu Jin recalled, “As long as your people don’t wander off too far, the situation won’t get so bad.”

“The frontline team consists of our best combatants. It’s unlikely they’ll wander off, what I’m afraid is —”

“We… are inside the mountain…” Before Hu Yan finished speaking, an intermittent voice came from the communication device. “We were pushed into a cave… can’t find the way…”

Hu Yan sighed and shined the light on the ruins of the rocky mountain that was full of caves: “This is what I’m afraid of.”

Yu Jin also heaved a long sigh: “To be honest, I’ve never seen such a weird thing. At most, I’ve encountered some strange mutated monsters. But this one is totally off the charts.”

Shu Jun thought for a few seconds: “The groups outside the rocky mountain, gather at the light. One Eye, stay here to help Hu Yan. Haze and I will go into the rocky mountain to find the rest.”

“I’ll come with you.” Hu Yan shook his head: “The cave is narrow, I can widen them. Else, you might not be able to deal with that… that thing that pretends to be Xiao Zhang just now. Besides, I’m now the captain of Blackbird, I can’t just sit idle waiting for you two to die.”

“I’ll come too. Expand my knowledge a bit.” Yu Jin thrust the fluorescent road marker into the ground: “My two brothers fight better than me, but in any case, inside and outside the mountain are barely a few steps away, so I might as well give you a hand.”

His voice carried a hint of smiling: “I’m quite familiar with this kind of mountain. They say kindness must always be reciprocated, and I can’t earn some canned food by just doing nothing.”

“You can come with us. But when it’s time to retreat, you have to retreat.” Shu Jun looked at the cave.

If Hu Yan was there, needless to say, it would be very easy to retreat. The concentration of erosion was extremely high here, and Hu Yan’s ability was strong. If the situation turned out unfavourable, Hu Yan could at least bring people out faster than Shu Jun.

As the water flew towards the center, apart from the group that was washed into the cave, the other two groups weren’t far apart. After the two groups assembled, Hu Yan briefly explained the current situation.

In addition to the four of them, seven other people had gathered here. The missing members consisted of one guy and one girl.

“Now that everything is uncertain, you all gather here first and make sure to not split up. We’ll head inside to find the others. If we don’t come back within three hours, you’ll turn on the purifier to its maximum power and retreat as fast as you can.”

“It’s best not to turn it to the maximum power.” Zhu Yanchen, who had been quiet, suddenly spoke.

Hu Yan remained calm: “Why so?”

“The marsh’s original intention was to get us to move closer to the center on our own volition, then it sent out a fake messenger. If it had wanted to hunt us down, it wouldn’t have had to bother using so many tricks. It simply could have waited for you to walk past.”

If the three hundred core members of Blackbird were present, it would be understandable that the Erosion Marsh wanted to catch them all in one go. But, there were only thirteen of them here. This was too superfluous. There was no reason to hunt like this, not to mention, the Erosion Marsh wouldn’t want to waste its energy too.

Zhu Yanchen explained patiently with a tone that was neither too high nor too low: “After it gathered us at the center, it didn’t kill immediately — Reasonably speaking, as long as it keeps the water, we won’t have much chance to survive. From my point of view, it’s more likely that this marsh wants to watch us.”

“……That can’t be. Brother, does an Erosion Marsh really have this kind of intelligence?” Hu Yan lowered his voice: “It’s just a lump of erosive substance after all.”

As soon as these words were spoken, he choked — Looking at the fake Xiao Zhang, it was hard to say that Erosion Marsh had no brains.

Marshal Zhu didn’t linger any further on this aspect and simply changed the angle: “Regardless of its purpose, so far, its attacks haven’t been aggressive. The energy stored inside a purifier is limited. If it’s turned on to its maximum capacity, it won’t be able to last until you get out of this heavily eroded zone… Before the Erosion Marsh shows any tendency to attack, it’s better to save it.”

“That makes sense. Alas, it’s the first time we’ve been directly pulled this close to an Erosion Marsh. Previously, Zhu Yanchen always gave an evaluation report on the marsh.” Hu Yan scratched his head.” Shu… ah no, Grey Claw, what do you think?”

Shu Jun always liked whimsical ideas, so Hu Yan expected him to come up with some strange proposal.

“My opinion is the same as Haze.” Shu Jun now suddenly understood Zhu Yanchen’s mood — After knowing the truth, he never ever wanted his team members to take risks again: “The situation isn’t right. Safety is our top priority.”

“……Okay, that’s that then.” Hu Yan gave some precautions to the rest of the team members. “Don’t try to be a hero and explore randomly. Stay here, keeping yourself alive is no.1 priority.” 

The rocky mountain had long been gnawed into strange shapes by the erosion. The caves were like an ant nest, extending in all directions without any sight of the bottom. If the players were simply trapped somewhere, with Hu Yan’s ability, they would definitely not need three hours. But since this Erosion Marsh even knew how to make a ‘balloon’ with human skin, things were no longer so easy to judge.

As they walked in, no one knew whether the call for help and those knocking sounds were made by ‘humans’.

Hu Yan’s mind was straightforward, but he was definitely not an impulsive man. He directed the rock walls to separate then gather, such that they could avoid many dead ends and that they wouldn’t have to walk in narrow rock passages that might suffocate them. The path was altered by Hu Yan into straight and even passages, where the four of them could turn around and escape at any time.

However, as they went in deeper, faint cries for help started coming from all directions.

“It should not be on those two sides.” Yu Jin twiddled some fiber on the rock wall. “Looking at this piece of tarpaulin, they should have been washed to the far left.”

“Thank you, brother.” Hu Yan twisted the lamp in annoyance — They were getting closer and closer to the liquid pillar and all the equipment was being quickly eroded, while the lamp kept flashing on and off, making everyone really dizzy.

“I’ve collected a lot of corpses at the edge of an erosion zone before, but I didn’t expect that some of those skills could be used here.” Yu Jin turned his head and muttered to Shu Jun.

Shu Jun: “……” Has this person gotten infected with Hu Yan’s frustration?

“I hope they’re all okay. When I think about the possibility that those cries didn’t come from humans, I get goosebumps… Wait, there are some traces over there, let me go see.” Not staying idle, Yu Jin leaned in as soon as he spotted something gleaming at the entrance of the cave.

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“What do you think about this situation?” Shu Jun took the opportunity to turn his head and ‘interviewed’ the only Erosion Marsh expert present at the scene.

“It’s still watching.” Zhu Yanchen stared at the readings on the monitor: “If an abnormal marsh is found, the exploration team must consist of the best combatants. Now it seems that it intends to trap this team to death here, then wait for the next batch, then the next batch, until it’s able to determine that human beings no longer carry any intimidating technologies.”

Unlike Sweet Vanguard, who was desperate to die, this marsh wanted them to resort to all means of survival. It was too crude to just directly kill them all.

This Erosion Marsh likely wouldn’t attack before it was sure that these humans were worthless.  Rather, it would observe them quietly — After all, even if it did nothing, the air with such a high concentration of erosive substance was enough to kill the team.

We can’t attack rashly, Shu Jun thought. If he really beat up this Erosion Marsh, the ‘Leader Marsh’ hiding behind this would definitely become alert. Right now, they’d better find the missing team member as soon as possible, then try to leave as inconspicuously as possible.

But if they could think of this, the marsh could also think of this.

Two hours passed and the four men found nothing. Finally overwhelmed, the lamp returned to complete darkness after a click. Hu Yan sighed and started lighting up a glow stick. As the faint light illuminated the dark rock walls, the shadows that pressed on them from all sides made them feel truly suffocating.

In order to preserve their energy, the trapped team members didn’t cry for help anymore and instead knocked on the wall. Knocking sounds of similar frequency came from all directions, making everyone’s blood run cold.

“I have to rest a bit… This mountain is almost wearing me out. Why is there still nothing yet?”

Hu Yan had been altering the caves through the whole journey and exerting the most energy. Afraid that he might be exhausted at the most critical moment, he came to a halt and sucked on the liquid food with difficulty. The erosive substance concentration here was too high, to the extent that even eating or drinking carried high risks. Shu Jun stared at Hu Yan anxiously, secretly suppressing the erosive substance around him.

With the sound of their footsteps no longer present, only the uncanny knocking sound could be heard around here.

“Speaking of which, this ability is a bit similar to Sweet Vanguard.” Unable to withstand this stifling atmosphere, Shu Jun mumbled to Zhu Yanchen again. “If this Erosion Marsh had known how to fill human skin with stuff, I might not have been able to recognise it.”

“Sweet Vanguage’s ability is ‘creation’.” Zhu Yanchen stopped moving. “To be precise, it uses erosive substance to build a structure similar to a living being. Looking at those four-legged monsters, Sweet Vanguard’s ability to control shapes isn’t strong.”

“Why?” Shu Jun was a little curious. He was only able to heal wounds after obtaining this same ‘creation’ ability. Regardless of whether it was himself or Zhu Yanchen, he had never healed them to the point of warping them into strange shapes.

“Because your healing is partial restoration, which happens when the main shape is still intact. When she created those things, most of the victims in X City had been swallowed by the marsh. She could only extract information from the fragments of their corpses to create those four-legged monsters.”

Zhu Yanchen’s voice was low and grim.

“The ability of this Erosion Marsh seems to lean towards ‘imitation’. Rather than creating from scratch, it works like a mirror. If I guess correctly, it should have heard our conversation in the heavily eroded zone before proceeding to make modifications.”

Shu Jun understood this very well. Since it was a mirror, it certainly wasn’t to reflect what was inside. If it chose to fill that ‘human skin’ with pure erosive substance, it would be challenging to control the shape and make it even easier to be exposed.

“Mirror…… A Yan, I found out something.”

“Uhm?”

“Will it keep communicating with other marshes?” Shu Jun scanned the darkness around him: “I mean some kind of uninterrupted communication.”

“……That can’t be done. The transmission of information between Erosion Marshes is like mail correspondence. Even if it regularly sends information outside, there’ll always be a certain time gap.”

“I understand.” Shu Jun stroked his chin.

He gestured to the path that Hu Yan had opened up and a breeze blew around him, then he fell into contemplation.

“Damn, it really feels wrong.” Yu Jin said suddenly: “I’ve been feeling odd — we’ve turned so many roads, yet the distance of the knocking sound hasn’t changed much? And the path around here is too clean, I can’t find any traces of humans at all.”

“There’s still one hour.” Hu Yan clenched his teeth: “This place is not even that big? I don’t believe our hands are tied.”

Riding on the momentum, Shu Jun continued the topic: “Captain Hu, reaching this point, are you able to see the situation of the whole mountain?”

“Certainly I can…” He really wanted to just take down the whole place.

“Yu Jin, how many sources of knocking sounds do we find?”

“Five. Why are you asking this?”

“Captain Hu, let’s open passages for all the sources of knocking sounds. If someone shows the direction, you should be able to do it.”

“That can be done.” Even though it wouldn’t really help and just be a waste of effort, Hu Yan recognised this tone — Shu Jun must have thought of some mischievous idea.

“Let’s open it up now.”

Hu Yan and Yu Jin looked at each other. Letting out a snort, Hu Yan pressed his hand on the rock mountain. Meanwhile, Yu Jin cast a suspicious glance all over Hu Yan, but still, he earnestly tried to cooperate.

“The passage over there, yes, and over there — I’ll mark it for you with a highlighter.” He murmured the instructions.

The ruins of this rocky mountain weren’t big. They shook slightly under Hu Yan’s manipulation, causing a lot of fine dust to pour onto the four men’s heads. 

Then a wind rose.

The mild wind blew fiercely through the cave walls. They were nicely standing right at the heart of the rocky mountain at the moment, and dull clashing sounds reverberated from all directions.

Ten human skin balloons were pushed all the way out by the strong wind, bumping and rolling through the passages before slumping under the four men’s feet.

“……It’s more wicked than I thought.” Shu Jun murmured: “None of them are real humans.”

Yu Jin’s mouth opened and closed — Only players had abilities, and Hu Yan’s ability had been clearly written in his Player information. But this wind, it somehow doesn’t look like a natural wind. It must also be a special ability……

“It seems that this battle can’t be avoided.” Shu Jun drew his broadsword: “Lao Hu, open the way.”

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