The apocalypse struck, and I became a druid.

Page 200

Deputy Leader Qian stopped and raised his hand to signal the team to halt.

He looked at Wang Jianshe, who immediately closed his eyes to sense the energy. A moment later, he opened his eyes with a grim expression: "Inside... the energy reaction is very chaotic, there's more than one, and... something has already discovered us."

Almost as soon as Wang Jianshe finished speaking, a low and strange buzzing sound came from the depths of the passage, like countless hoarse throats chanting at the same time, or like the noise produced by rubbing some kind of bone instrument, making people's scalps tingle.

"Prepare for battle!" Deputy Leader Qian shouted, reached into his waist pouch, pulled out a polygonal core that shimmered with silver light, and smashed it into his chest without hesitation.

The next moment, his entire body was covered with a layer of flowing silver metal, which quickly expanded and took shape, instantly transforming into a sleek, technologically advanced silver suit of armor on his body.

Above his arm, two small cannon muzzles flashed with blue light.

Behind it, a structure resembling a missile launch bay emerges, with several small, silver-white missiles poised to launch.

This incredibly impactful transformation left Han Ning and the others stunned.

"What kind of ability is this... Iron Man?"

Han Ning was greatly surprised.

The invisible force field around the dragon accelerated its flow, emitting a slight whistling sound.

His arms suddenly grew larger, transforming into a pair of ferocious arms covered in blue scales, resembling the forelimbs of a lizard.

The claws at the end are sharp, and two constantly swirling streams of air gather in the palm.

Chen Hu let out a low growl, and dense mane grew from his body muscles, while two thick, long fangs emerged from his mouth.

Han Ning snapped out of his daze and patted Xuebing's skin.

"Ow~"

Snowcake responded, and a dark red light surged beneath its scales. The surrounding moisture was evaporated by the high temperature, producing a sizzling sound.

Li Qingshui subconsciously took a step back and hid behind Feilong and Chen Hu. The bone crown on his head flickered with a ghostly light, seemingly resonating with the deep buzzing sound, causing him to painfully cover his head.

The first to rush out were two monsters that were nearly three meters tall and resembled giant toads.

Their skin was slippery and covered with pustules. Their thick hind legs slammed into the ground, sending a foul-smelling gust of wind rushing towards Liang Shu and Feilong at the front.

The open mouth revealed layers upon layers of sharp, densely packed teeth.

Liang Shu snorted coldly, advancing instead of retreating. Her spear transformed into a silver streak, precisely piercing the gaping mouth of a toad monster and exiting directly from the back of its head.

At the same time, she twisted her waist to the side, dodging another's attack, and swung the spear shaft horizontally, striking the side of its head with a dull cracking sound.

Feilong was more direct. He pushed forward with both hands, and the toad monster that pounced on him seemed to have hit an invisible wall. Its movements suddenly froze, and the next second, its huge body flew back at an even faster speed, crashing hard into the stone wall and exploding into a pool of foul-smelling green slime.

Chapter 232 Strange Recovery

But more monsters emerged from the depths.

"Hoohoo!"

They come in various shapes and sizes; some resemble ferocious fish-men that walk upright, wielding crude bone weapons.

Some are completely distorted hybrids, as if forcibly pieced together from humans, fish, and other creatures, exuding a strong aura of corruption and madness.

Their eyes are mostly cloudy and dull, filled only with an instinctive hatred and killing desire for the living.

Deputy Chief Qian raised his arms, and two scorching energy beams shot from the cannons on his arms, blasting away a monster that resembled a giant starfish that was trying to climb up the top rock wall to launch a surprise attack.

"Boom!"

Then, the missile launch bay behind them opened, and several micro-missiles shot out, trailing plumes of flame, exploding in the area where the monsters were most concentrated, creating a pile of debris.

Wang Jianshe did not directly participate in the frontal combat. His eyes were slightly closed, his ten fingers twitched, and an invisible spiritual impact spread out.

The charging monsters all paused, as if momentarily confused, creating an excellent opportunity for the others to attack.

Chen Hu roared as he charged into the enemy ranks, his upper body transforming into a muscular, bristly humanoid boar monster.

Relying solely on terrifying power and defense, it rampaged like a war chariot, leaving limbs and broken bodies flying in its wake.

Zhao Kai stood protectively beside Yu Na, his giant axe wielding so powerfully that it was impenetrable, cleaving two fishmen who were trying to bypass the main battlefield in two.

Yu Na's face was pale, but the fire in her eyes remained undiminished. She kept pointing in a certain direction and urgently reporting the location:

"Three high-speed moving targets on the left!"

"Something is gathering energy up there!"

Han Ning and Xue Bing stood guard at the front side of the team.

Snowcake occasionally exhales a scorching breath, burning small mutants that try to rush in from the side into charcoal.

The battle was very brief.

These monsters aren't particularly strong individually; they're not even as powerful as the water ghouls outside.

They are roughly between the Blackstone and Great Blackstone levels, but there are quite a few of them, and they are exceptionally frenzied and fearless of death.

A few minutes later, the passage gradually quieted down, leaving only a mess of wreckage and flowing viscous liquid, the stench of which was almost suffocating.

"All cleaned up?" Feilong shook the sticky liquid from between its claws and looked at Wang Jianshe.

Wang Jianshe carefully sensed for a moment, nodded, then shook his head: "There are no survivors for now, but the energy field here is very strange, so it's best to be careful."

After a short rest, the group treated their minor injuries. Chen Hu's arm was splashed with some kind of corrosive liquid, causing a small patch of flesh to rot. He used a dagger to cut away the rotten flesh, then calmly sprinkled on some medicinal powder and bandaged it up.

Guided by Li Qingshui, they stepped over the monster's corpse and finally entered the so-called "Sleeping Chamber".

This is a huge circular cave, several times wider than the previous council hall.

In the center of the cave is a bottomless pool of water, its color dark and exuding an extreme chill.

Around the pool stood dozens of enormous fish-man statues carved from some kind of black jade.

These statues are more exquisite and more sinister than the reliefs we've seen before.

They are in different poses; some look up at the sky as if in prayer.

Some gaze down into the deep pool, as if spying.

Some carried strange ceremonial weapons and had ferocious expressions.

Each statue's eyes are inlaid with eerie green gemstones, shimmering with an unsettling light.

On the four walls of the cave are niches carved out, each seemingly containing something wrapped in a thick, cocoon-like, dark green gelatinous substance. The specific shape is unclear, but one can vaguely sense faint life fluctuations emanating from them.

"This is it..." Li Qingshui's voice rang out.

"Those gelatinous substances... are the sleeping merfolk priests... or... the guardians they created."

"The entrance to the core area is located at the bottom of the pool, and it requires a specific method or token to open."

His gaze swept toward the deepest part of the cave, onto the tallest merman statue, which held a twisted bone staff.

The statue has a distinct groove on its chest.

The shape seems to subtly correspond to the bone crown on his head.

All eyes scanned back and forth between the bone crown and the groove on Li Qingshui's head.

"I understand……"

Li Qingshui understood, removed the bone crown from his head, and walked step by step to the tallest staff-wielding merman statue at the deepest part of the cave. He carefully aligned the crown with the groove on its chest and pressed it in.

Click.

With a soft click, it fit perfectly.

The empty eye sockets of the staff-wielding statue lit up, shooting out two ghastly green beams of light that enveloped Li Qingshui like searchlights.

"Ugh!" Li Qingshui groaned in pain, his body trembling violently in the green light, as if he were being forcibly scanned and invaded by some kind of force.

"Clear water!" Feilong exclaimed, instinctively wanting to step forward.

Just now.

Boom, boom! ! !

The entire cave trembled violently, and the walls and ground roared.

Cracks began to appear on the surfaces of dozens of black fish-man statues, with a chilling green light seeping through the cracks.

Within those niches, the eerie green gelatinous substance containing the unknown pulsated violently, riddled with cracks.

"What's going on?!" Deputy Leader Qian shouted, and the energy patterns on his silver armor lit up. He raised the muzzles of his arms, pointing warily at the niches that were about to emerge from their cocoons.

Feilong forcibly pulled the struggling Li Qingshui back to his side.

Chen Hu's mane stood on end, blocking Fei Long and Li Qingshui.

Han Ning felt it even more strongly.

A strong sense of crisis inexplicably arose.

The familiar sensation of a tingling scalp and a chill down the back returned.

"Nana, Lao Zhao, come back to me."

As he spoke, his body had already transformed into the shape of a star-shaped osprey.

Yu Na's eyes flickered violently with a ghostly blue light as she exclaimed urgently, "Many powerful mental fluctuations have appeared out of thin air, hmph..."

Halfway through her sentence, two streams of blood suddenly flowed from her nostrils, and she fell backward. Fortunately, Han Ning caught her and tossed her to Lao Zhao.

Click! Snap! Thud! Thud! Thud!

The gelatinous substance in the niche burst open one after another.

Thick, green liquid splashed and sprayed everywhere, from which ferocious figures leaped out.

They are about two meters tall, with humanoid torsos covered in slippery, dark green scales, interspersed with black spots.

Its head was a ferocious fish head, with bulging eyes that flashed with a crazy and violent red light.

Their claws are sharp as hooks, and some of them hold sharpened bone blades and spears.

“Vigg…traitor…annihilate…”

A chaotic and violent mental wave, filled with endless hatred, erupted like a tsunami from the staff-wielding statue whose eyes were still emitting green light, impacting the consciousness of everyone present.

"Roar!!!"

Dozens of awakened murloc guards let out inhuman roars and frantically pounced on Han Ning and his intruders.