Sail Shadows in the Sea of ​​Fog

Chapter 170 The Vanished Beast and the Vanishing Tunnel

Whatever we've deduced...

Yun Ji steered the conversation to the most pressing issues at hand: "First, how do we deal with the ferocious beast outside? Second, are there any other ferocious beasts in this tunnel?"

"Or perhaps, is this place a den of ferocious beasts?" Cheng Lang put it more bluntly.

“This handsome gentleman, you are the fleet commander. And this noble lady, you are the vice-fleet commander.”

Yun Lan asked in a pretentious tone, "So, what you just said means you intend for me to bring my first mate, Miss Yafso, and the resourceful Mr. Shenba to solve the problems you raised?"

"Would poisonous mushroom spores be effective?" Yavso immediately offered up her secret weapon.

"Please don't laugh at Shenba's intelligence," Yun Ji said helplessly.

"Sister, Princess Yunlan is praising my resourcefulness," Shenba reminded her with a smug look.

"Fine, I take back what I just said." Yun Ji was increasingly helpless.

"Then I'll take back what I just said," Yun Lan said apologetically. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean any harm."

"It's alright," Yun Ji readily forgave the other party.

"Why?!" Shenba immediately became displeased, and his voice rose a little. "Why?"

"Ding!"

He was only halfway through his sentence when a steel arrow flying from afar pierced through the blanket blocking the observation hole and struck the rock wall again, scattering a large number of sparks.

But this was only the beginning, not the end. The ferocious beast, which had somehow returned and emitted no foul odor, fired its first steel arrow and then pressed its crossbow against the observation port, swaying it along the inner cone as it began to fire in rapid succession.

Amidst the terrifying clanging of impacts, steel arrows embedded themselves into the rock wall directly opposite the observation hole, creating gradually shrinking rings. At the same time, heavy knocking sounds echoed from outside the observation hole!
The force of the blow was so great that the rock wall they were leaning against began to vibrate, and large and small stones were tilting downwards through the cone-shaped observation hole.

"This is not the way to go!"

As Cheng Lang spoke, he pulled off the firefly necklace. "We must leave here before he can create an even bigger breach!"

"His blind spots aren't wide enough for us to retrieve the burrowing beetle! We need to distract him temporarily!"

As Yun Lan spoke, she had already created a patch of thorns in the observation hole to try and block the movement of the crossbow.

Even though the thorns had grown onto the beast's arm, they did not stop it in the slightest. Instead, they were easily broken as the beast moved.

"Xiao Bao! Attack him from behind!"

Yun Lan issued a new command, and the undead archer suddenly appeared and then passed through the rock wall.

"Get ready, we're taking out the tunneling machine."

Yun Lan was halfway through her sentence when her eyes widened in surprise and she exclaimed, "Xiao Bao just said! That ferocious beast has two sides! The other side also has guns and crossbows!"

After several unsuccessful attempts to entangle the crossbow with his whip, and nearly being dragged away by the ferocious beast like a fish, Cheng Lang immediately shouted, "Tell Xiao Bao to go to the end of the tunnel!"

"And then?" Yun Lan asked instinctively.

"Attack whatever you can!"

As Yun Ji answered the question on Cheng Lang's behalf, she and Shen Ba each forcefully threw the glass bottles that Ya Fu Suo had just handed them into the observation hole!
"Eat this!"

As Yafso spoke, she stuffed a breadcrumb the size of a thumb into Cheng Lang's mouth, and then stuffed one into the mouths of the others in turn.

"what is this?"

While crunching away, Shenba continued to throw glass bottles outside with great effort.

"The eggs of a type of worm that specifically eats mushrooms!"

Yafso gave an answer that made Yun Ji and Cheng Lang want to vomit, but Yafso's subsequent addition forced them to swallow the worms in their mouths.

"With so many different spores mixed together, I'm not sure what the final effect will be! But these insect eggs might be able to keep us alive, just maybe!"

As Yavso spoke, she took out several more bottles of nutrient solution and smashed them around. Instantly, a large number of glowing mushrooms visibly grew on the ground and walls.

These mushrooms grew and decayed rapidly, filling the hastily constructed stone chamber with a strong smell of rotting mushrooms.

Compared to them, the ferocious beast outside the observation hole began to sprout a large number of mushrooms on its arms, chest, face, head, and even the crossbow, releasing a dense amount of spores.

These spores mixed with the airflow stirred up by the crossbow bolts, were agitated by the ferocious beast's patting motion as it patted the mushrooms on its body, and entered its body with its breath.

However, he was ultimately a ferocious beast. These spores, which were deadly toxins to humans and most other life forms, were nothing more than a few sneezes to him, and did not even affect the speed at which he fired his crossbow bolts.

Not only that, even amidst his repeated sneezes, he still had time to take another crossbow from the hand of the person hidden on the other side of his body, and seamlessly took over the firing while passing the empty crossbow behind him. He then pulled out the hammer from his waist and continued to pound on the seemingly exceptionally hard rock wall.

“These rock walls seem too hard for him!” Yun Ji was the first to notice the anomaly.

"That's true! But it's not that it can't be opened! Where is Xiaobao?!"

Cheng Lang, who was also helping to throw the bottles, responded loudly while scratching various parts of his body with one hand.

He didn't know if it was the poisonous mushrooms or the insect eggs he had just eaten that were causing the intense itching all over his body.

"It says it's still drifting forward!" Yun Lan, who was also scratching herself all over, shouted in response.

"Make it faster! And make some noise while you're at it!" Cheng Lang said, throwing out another glass bottle.

"No! These spores are completely useless against that monster!"

Yafso frantically began brainwashing herself, "Think of a way! Quickly, think of a way! By the Mushroom God! Tell me what you need!"

"Are there still mushroom gods on the Star Sea Continent?!" Cheng Lang shouted.

"Now there is!"

Yafso slapped his forehead with his palm. "Captain! Poseidon's blood! I need Poseidon's blood to energize the spores!"

"How much do you want!" Cheng Lang asked, already holding a cup of Poseidon's Blood.

"Let's try a cup first!" Yafso shouted.

"After you finish this cup, there are three more to come!"

Cheng Lang shouted something the others couldn't understand, and at the same time threw the cup of Poseidon's Blood in his hand away. "Smash!"

With a crisp cracking sound, the wine glass, no bigger than a thumb, was smashed to pieces by the beast's large hand that was slapping mushrooms before it even hit the ground.

But it was this action that caused a huge amount of Poseidon's blood to gush out of the small wine glass, even washing the ferocious beast far away before it could react, and a considerable portion of it almost filled the rat hole where Cheng Lang and the others were hiding.

It was only at this moment that Cheng Lang truly realized how "massive" the small wine glass containing Poseidon's blood was, far surpassing the capacity of the ship bottle.

But this wave of Saidong's blood came surgingly and disappeared just as suddenly, and whether it was just my imagination or not, the ferocious beast seemed to have let out a scream.

"Was he screaming just now?" Cheng Lang asked the people around him, while already taking out all of Poseidon's blood from his body.

"I think I heard it too."

Before Yun Ji could finish speaking, Cheng Lang had already tossed out the second, third, and fourth cups!

"We have none left."

"Poseidon's blood costs two thousand a cup! But we only have one life!"

As Cheng Lang spoke, the first cup of Poseidon's Blood shattered, and the surging blood instantly filled the entire tunnel. After briefly washing over their rat hole and the other end of the tunnel, it disappeared.

"Yunlan! Tunneling! Beetle!"

Cheng Lang shouted intermittently during the intervals between the release of Poseidon's Blood, while also throwing out the Firefly Necklace and taking out the giant burrowing beetle.

"Go! Where! Drill!" Yun Lan shouted intermittently, but with Yun Ji's help, she struggled to crawl into the beetle's carriage.

"Block it! Talk later! Quickly!"

Cheng Lang continued to pour out Poseidon's Blood as he responded, by which time he had only a few bottles of Poseidon's Blood left!
Under such expensive, even luxurious, cover, the digging beetle turned around with lightning speed, pressed its cross-shaped horns against the observation hole, and spewed out a large amount of grayish-white bubbles.

Before the rapidly expanding bubbles could solidify, the ferocious beast let out a threatening roar, raised its crossbow, and continued firing while retreating to avoid the bubbles that seemed particularly dangerous to it.

Fortunately, the rapidly solidifying bubbles caught the crossbow bolts, and with the hole, which was now larger than a human head, blocked, Cheng Lang and the others were finally safe.

"How many cups are left?" Yun Ji asked.

"This is the last cup," Cheng Lang said, handing the last cup of Poseidon's Blood to Yun Ji for safekeeping.

"You are truly a generous captain," Yun Ji said jokingly as she accepted the last cup of Poseidon's Blood.

She had just seen clearly that with each cup of Poseidon's blood poured in, the tunnel was now covered in mushrooms.

Most importantly, who knows where those surging, nutrient-rich Poseidon blood might have washed those spores to in the repeated washes, and what kind of trouble it might have caused?

"Gentlemen, I have good news and two pieces of bad news," Yun Lan greeted the crowd.

"Shouldn't it be one good news and one bad news?" Cheng Lang shook his head. "Let's start with the good news."

“Xiao Bao has already floated to the end of the tunnel,” Yun Lan said.

"What's the bad news?" Yun Ji asked.

"The bad news is that there are a total of eight tunnels leading to all directions from there," Yun Lan said.

"What's the other bad news?" Shenba asked first.

"Another piece of bad news is that those tunnels, just like the ones we had on Windmill Island, used gates made of silver, which Xiao Bao couldn't possibly pass through."

Yun Lan paused here, "Also, Xiao Bao was just caught by a strange trap hidden above his head, and it seems he can't get back. By the Valkyrie's grace! How did Fan Hart get caught too!"

"Fan Hart has been arrested?!" Cheng Lang exclaimed with delight. "Quick, have Xiao Bao ask him!"

"He has been dismembered."

Yun Lan's face paled. "Xiao Bao said that Fan Hart was dismembered, every body part was torn off, and Xiao Bao is scared! It seems to have been sent into a tunnel! It...it has lost contact."

Although the two pieces of bad news had turned into three, Yun Ji remained remarkably calm and said, "Remember which tunnel it is; we might still have a chance to save him."

"Although I am somewhat sad."

Yun Lan patted her chest with exceptional ladylike grace and said with the detached indifference typical of nobles, "But it's actually a good thing that Xiao Bao is dead. I've long wanted to ask the captain to whip him to death."

"At least with him around, he can help us keep an eye on that ferocious beast outside."

Cheng Lang shook his head with a hint of regret. "Yun Lan, block the spiral staircase leading down this tunnel, then we'll go around to the side and try to trap the beast in this tunnel."

"I'll give it a try!" Yun Lan said, and was the first to burrow back into the digging beetle.

First, following Cheng Lang's instructions, they risked drilling a hole to connect to the spiral tunnel and released a large amount of bubbles to completely block it. Then, Yun Lan manipulated the digging beetle, along with the other dusty "passengers," to carefully open a new tunnel along the side of the tunnel, leaving a narrow observation hole from time to time in an attempt to get around to the front of the ferocious beast.

However, it wasn't until they had circled around to the vicinity of the tunnel "hub" where Xiao Bao had been captured and opened one last observation hole that they finally succeeded.

Even with the help of Cheng Lang's highly poisonous whip, Yafso was able to overcome the side effects of everyone eating the insect eggs, but the ferocious beast disappeared!

"Where did it go?" Shenba asked the question that everyone was wondering about.

"The problem must be in the tunnel we just passed."

Cheng Lang said, "If there's no problem on our side, then the only possible sides with forks in the road are the other three sides."

If there are no forks in the other three sides of that tunnel, then it can only mean that the ferocious beast may have crawled inside one of the doors and hidden there.

“I do have a solution,” Shenba said at this moment.

"any solution?"

Although Cheng Lang didn't know if the cobblers of this world knew who their triploid was, he wouldn't look down on Shenba, that crybaby; he was just a little too naive.

"Let's seal this place up with foam!"

Shenba pointed to the observation hole, which was not much bigger than his finger, and said, "Seal it completely. Wherever we want to go, we can just use the big bug to burrow in that direction."

“This seems like a really good idea!” Yun Lan was the first to agree.

"In that case, let's block up this tunnel next to us first!" Cheng Lang pointed to the tunnel parallel to theirs and gave the order.

(End of this chapter)