Wasteland Border Inspector

Chapter 233 Shielding Against Pollution, the First Rune!
June 8, Shegang Bridge, a lake monster attack?
Cheng Ye felt a buzzing sound in his head, and his previous confusion was instantly dispelled. He felt as if his Ren and Du meridians had been opened, and his whole body felt refreshed.

We've finally obtained a crucial piece of information that will allow us to defeat the enemy!
It turns out that these crab-men, who were parasitized by the magic eye sponge and transformed into infected and fused bodies by the crystallized poison water, did not die from the later flash flood, but had already died at the hands of the "water monster" before the flash flood broke out!
No wonder he could hear Zhou Mazi talking about the flash flood, but didn't react at all.

The most direct way to kill a Deathrattle Tentacle Infected is to reveal that it is "already dead".

This fact cannot be fabricated or obtained through torture; the time, place, and scene of the infected person's death must be accurately stated.

The three elements can be vague; how exactly one dies or how horrific the process is is not important.

However, the three points of "when, where, and by what" are indispensable and cannot be wrong.

Clearly, Zhou Mazi also vaguely understood Cheng Ye's purpose, and even though his consciousness was becoming increasingly blurred, he still managed to blurt out the key information in one breath.

"Can you still remember what that water monster looked like?" Cheng Ye pressed, his heart tightening slightly.

The city of Yunshi, where Yueye Shelter is located, is only a tributary of the Linjiang River nearby.

However, this tributary is much wider than the Baishui River, by more than 20 meters.

Downstream from here, it merges into the main riverside road, and after about forty kilometers, you will reach the Shegang Bridge.

From Shegang Bridge to Baishui River, the distance by waterway should be only about 100 kilometers!
"Tentacles, lots of tentacles," came the intermittent voice.

Zhou Mazi's voice was intermittent, and his body convulsed even more violently. Blood and foam were constantly seeping from his face, neck, and even between his fingers.

Without the "resurrection power" provided by the Deathrattle tentacles, it's clear that it's no longer alive.

tentacle?

Is it a variant of the Deathrattle Tentacle?

Cheng Ye frowned. There were too many variants of this source of infection. There were at least forty known close relatives alone. Without more information, it was impossible to make a judgment.

Zhou Mazi clearly hadn't seen clearly what kind of tentacles they were, and just kept repeating those two words.

Realizing he couldn't get any more information from him, Cheng Ye's face suddenly darkened.

Such vital information concerning human lives should have been detected and reported to headquarters by the scouts stationed around Happiness City, even if Yueye Shelter City was too busy dealing with the impending wave of infection to verify it.

However, when they entered the room, the information provided by the checkpoint did not mention this matter at all.

There is only one possibility: Yueye Shelter City not only failed to inform the surrounding shelter cities, but also deliberately concealed the news!

Damn it!

They deserve to die!

In the wasteland ravaged by the infection source, the reason why large shelter cities can stand firm is because of information collaboration. Once someone crosses this line, it will only lead to more people dying at the hands of the infection source.

But now Yueye Shelter City has voluntarily broken this agreement.

Cheng Ye took a few deep breaths, suppressing his anger, and his gaze returned to Zhou Mazi. His voice softened slightly: "Do you have any other wishes? Tell me!"

"I...I..." Zhou Mazi stammered twice, then suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood. A glimmer of clarity flashed in his cloudy eyes as he pleaded, "Let me die, don't let me become infected again and harm people."

"I will grant your wish!" Cheng Ye replied in a deep voice.

"Thank you very much." Their eyes met, and Zhou Mazi suddenly smiled with relief. His body went limp and he fell completely still.

Cheng Ye squatted quietly for half a minute until he was sure the man had stopped convulsing before standing up and drawing the red sword from his waist.

With a flash of cold light, Zhou Mazi's head was cleanly and decisively severed.

Immediately afterwards, he swung his knife to pierce the armor plate on the other man's chest and shattered the still faintly beating heart into pieces.

With the two major fatal weaknesses of the human body completely destroyed, even the strongest source of infection could not possibly bring him back to life.

"Zhou Mazi, may you rest in peace," Cheng Ye said silently in his heart.

Those who can become fusion beings must possess some kind of strong obsession.

Knowing he was doomed, Zhou Mazi was still able to provide crucial intelligence with a clear head, even asking only to "not harm anyone," which is enough to show that he must have been an ordinary person with principles and beliefs during his lifetime.

Pity.

Such a person, unfortunately, encountered a sanctuary city that concealed the truth, and a group of fools who disregarded life, ultimately suffering a tragic end where he died and was parasitized.

When they were alive, Zhou Mazi and he were enemies on opposing sides, and they would fight to the death whenever they met.

After his death, Zhou Mazi returned to the human camp. Cheng Ye felt a pang of sadness, but he couldn't utter a single word.

Wow.

The surrounding life energy was still gathering towards him, so Cheng Ye immediately focused his mind and absorbed the energy with all his might before the crab-man caught up.

Over the years, Tan Ming's pollution has long been proven to be controllable, and the panel has never warned of any related risks.

Although I was still a little apprehensive when using his power, I felt much more at ease than when using the giant earth flea as a source of infection.

The crimson armor became increasingly solid under the continuous nourishment of life, and even the patterns of the rune on its surface brightened a bit.

Until the energy broke through a certain critical point, the outline of the lower right corner of the rune completely solidified, and Cheng Ye's body shape changed again.

It struggled to grow from 1.8 meters to a height of 2 meters, standing in the cave like a small iron tower.

"It seems that breaking through the suppression of the Mian Shi runes won't be so easy; only the initial increase in size was relatively simple."

Cheng Ye nodded to himself.

When I withdrew my senses, the vegetation within fifty meters had completely withered and turned yellow, and even the moss on the ground had turned into fragments. The crab-men behind me had finally caught up, a dense, large swarm of them.

He took a deep breath, focused his energy, and suddenly turned around, roaring at the crab swarm: "June 8th, Shegang Bridge, the water monster attacked, you are all dead!"

The sound exploded like rolling thunder, clearly reaching the ears of every crab-man.

boom!
A nearly tangible white mental wave suddenly descended from the "white clouds" above.

Is this a case of isolated mental pollution?

A suffocating, near-death feeling instantly overwhelmed him, as if an invisible hand was choking him, and Cheng Ye's body stiffened.

However, he was not disappointed. The "red cloud" above his head responded immediately, and a blood-red aura surged into the armor through the connection, instantly igniting the runes with blazing blood flames.

As soon as the blood flames ignited, the white fluctuations were blocked from the body.

Despite the intense flames, the fluctuations were forcefully repelled and vanished into thin air.

Under Cheng Ye's watchful gaze, most of the crab-men who rushed over staggered and knelt down on the ground, making strange "gurgling" sounds in their throats.

Crimson tentacles of deathly speech extended from their mouths, but with no targets to parasitize nearby, they could only futilely knot in the air before finally falling limply to the ground.

With just one sentence, nearly three hundred crabmen died on the spot, without even a chance to resist!
One-fifth of the crabmen are still standing. It is clear that they did not die in the attack on Shegang Bridge on June 8, but in some other disaster. This statement did not trigger their deathrattle weakness.

Cheng Ye didn't rush forward to clear out the remaining crabmen, but instead looked down at the battle armor.

The part of the rune that had just solidified in the lower right corner became blurry again, and its size continued to shrink until it finally returned to just over 1.2 meters.

Although I can't communicate directly with Tan Ming, this change has already made one thing clear.

"Does breaking through the mental pollution of the Ten Thousand Earth Conch Shells require energy?"

Cheng Ye was overjoyed.

As long as the target can be visualized and the patterns of consumption and replenishment can be found, there is a way to deal with it.

The most terrifying thing about the conch shell is that humans cannot resist its spiritual pollution.

No matter how much energy one possesses, the spiritual level is fragile and easily shattered.

But now, Tan Ming's blood-red armor perfectly conceals this weakness.

In other words, the situation has finally returned to a "fair fight," and he only needs to deal with the crab people.

The key information that triggers the Deathrattle tentacles is like a "magic" that requires energy; as long as there is life to replenish it, it can be used repeatedly!

"This is truly the most wonderful experience I've ever had."

Compared to the support from Happiness City behind the scenes, Tan Ming's real-time collaborative assistance is more reassuring.

He stopped using 'magic' to expend energy on the remaining crabmen and charged forward with his twin swords. Crimson and purple sword light flashed among the crabmen, and each strike could take the lives of several crabmen.

When only a dozen or so remained, his body suddenly jolted, and a view panel automatically popped up:

The collector has detected escaping biological information and is automatically absorbing it.

[Absorption complete. The Water Cave Crab's characteristic (Living Water Essence) has reached its maximum value. You can continue to accumulate it. Maximum storage capacity: 200%]

"The essence water is full again?"

Cheng Ye was stunned for a moment, suddenly feeling as if he had stumbled upon a treasure trove.

Especially when looking at the crabmen who were still rushing in from afar, and then returning to the prompts on the panel.

He was stunned, never before had he gripped the knife so tightly.

In his eyes, those crab-men no longer seemed ferocious, but rather transformed into individuals with enhanced characteristics.

"Just two more doses of essence will be enough to feed the Shrinking Giant Flea. What effect will feeding it have?"

"If we can accumulate seven or eight portions of essence, wouldn't it be incredibly easy to raise fish in a pond in the future?"

"."

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind, but the next second, seeing more than a dozen crab fusion bodies emerge from the crab swarm, their six crab claws whipping behind them, Cheng Ye turned and ran without hesitation.

Compared to the blood-red figure who only knows how to fight recklessly, his biggest advantage is his ability to hold back.

While collecting features is one aspect, the more important goal is to reduce the energy level of the conch shell and weaken the immortal artifact for collection. The lush green trees withered and turned yellow at a visible speed, the vines shriveled and drooped, and even the withered branches and leaves on the ground seemed to have had their last bit of moisture drained away.

As life force continued to flow in, the blurry rune on the armor became clear again, and his height increased from 1.2 meters to 1.8 meters, his body once again brimming with power.

During this time, three more blood-red figures rushed in from a distance.

Before Cheng Ye could raise his hand to stop them, those figures turned into blood with a "crack" and merged into his armor without hesitation, making the blood light even brighter.

"No, can't we just stay alive and follow my commands to fight in team battles?"

Cheng Ye had a headache.

If we had thousands of blood-red figures to help, the pressure of dealing with the crabmen would be much less.

But these "Tan Ming clones" didn't give him a chance to explain at all; they immediately merged with him, as if they were afraid of causing him trouble.

"Perhaps we need to collect more of Tan Ming's characteristics before we can command them?"

He glanced at the encyclopedia, but ultimately gave up on the idea of ​​taking off his armor and killing a few more "Tan Ming" to farm traits.

Now both the Wraith and the Magic Eye Sponge are watching him. Without the protection of his armor, it's hard to say whether he can even escape, let alone activate his special ability.

Anyway, Tan Ming is already entrenched underground in Shi Province, and there will be plenty of opportunities to collect it later, so there's no need to rush.

After another fifty-meter radius of life was drained, Cheng Ye's size continued to grow, breaking through to 2.1 meters. Standing in the cave, he could almost look down on those crab fusion bodies.

Between continuing to kill the crabmen and continuing to absorb energy, Cheng Ye paused slightly, but ultimately charged forward with his twin swords.

The energy of the Wanling Earth Conch has two indicators.

The crab-man is its blue bar; as long as all the infected don't die, it has unlimited blue bars to fight against Tan Ming.

The vitality of vegetation is its maximum mana; only by maintaining vitality can it unleash its full potential.

To weaken it, you have to cut off both ends.

"October 6th."

As the familiar roar subsided, like mowing grass, hundreds of crab-men who had been chasing after them collapsed to the ground, their bodies struggling violently, their mouths gushing out slime and tentacles.

Cheng Ye stepped forward and cut off several fallen Deathrattle tentacles, but didn't get any more crucial information, only collecting the most basic "Deathrattle Tentacle" illustrations:
[Deathrattle Tentacle]

[Description]: An aquatic parasite native to deep-sea silt layers, its body is translucent grayish-brown. It often entangles dead wood, corpses, or rock crevices at the bottom of the water. When its tentacles come into contact with the body of a dead creature, they quickly pierce the skin or scales, injecting parasites and reviving it in the form of a "resurrected one".

During the parasitic period, the Death Whisper Tentacle will rely on the fragments of the deceased's memories to lock onto their unfulfilled wishes and drive the resurrected to act toward those wishes. If a creature clearly points out that the resurrected is "already dead," the resurrected body will immediately lose its support, and the parasitic tentacles will also die along with it.

[Current Parasitism Probability]:
Direct contact (probability of contamination: not yet; transmission only to the deceased)
[Currently Included Features]:
Perception of the deceased (19.27%)

Deathrattle* (6.15%)

With only two simple characteristics, Cheng Ye glanced at them and then looked away.

He couldn't equip any skills marked with an asterisk (*), and he didn't want to be parasitized by the Deathrattle tentacles.

The extracted characteristics are most likely only the lowest level Lv1, which cannot be fused with the Lv5 Shrinking Giant Lice, and can only be fused with the Flame.

"I wish I could encounter a supernatural being that could accommodate all my traits someday."

Cheng Ye muttered to himself, then turned and left the battlefield.

He didn't know how things were going with Rokuk, so he deliberately ran deeper into the dense forest.

It's unclear whether the Wanling Earth Conch modified the cave space, but the size of this cave is truly outrageous. Even though his size has now returned to 2.1 meters, he ran for almost ten minutes and still couldn't see the end.

Once we've contained the Myriad-Eyed Conch and the Magic Eye Sponge, we can transform this cave into a secret base.

In the future, with the connection via the above-ground elevator, it should be difficult to conduct experiments or even secretly farm here without being discovered.

As Cheng Ye drew out a glimmer of hope, he pondered in his mind.

After all, all you have to do is imitate the method of the conch shell and seal the entrance with cotton.

Of course, the premise is not to alarm Lord Tan.

The tree beside him was drained of its last breath, its withered trunk crashing to the ground. As energy surged in, his size increased again, breaking through to two and a half meters.

Another wave of crab-men rushed in from afar. Cheng Ye shouted out the key information, and the crab swarm instantly collapsed. His size also dropped back to 1.8 meters.

He immediately switched to a new area of ​​vitality and continued extraction, and his size quickly returned to 2.4 meters.
Another wave of crab-men arrived to their deaths.
They used the life force created by the conch shell to fight against the crab people who used it to protect life force.

This "tit-for-tat" approach made Cheng Ye feel quite satisfied.

To his even greater surprise, as he drew away the attention of most of the crab-men, the remaining blood-red figures finally had a chance to catch their breath and began to frantically absorb life force throughout the cave, evolving into many powerful individuals.

Some of the blood-red figures grew to two meters tall, with broad and fat bodies, and muscles on their arms that looked like they were about to burst, transforming them into muscular men who could smash several ordinary crab people who came to harass them with a single punch.

Some are as thin as monkeys, yet they are as tall as three meters, with arms and legs as thin as blades, capable of reaping large areas of crabs with a sweeping motion.

There are also several incredibly large "fat guys" that have grown to four meters tall. Even a crab fusion would be smashed by a sudden jump and a stomp on its shell.

Most importantly, these evolved crimson figures no longer rush to merge with him upon seeing him.

When the two meet, they will voluntarily give up the living space under their feet, indicating that Cheng Ye can absorb it, and then they will turn around and go to other places.

"Hey buddy, don't go!"

Cheng Ye watched the four-meter-tall 'fat man' turn and leave with a rumble, and couldn't help but call out twice, "Tan Ming! Tan Ming! Come back and join us!"

If such a powerful fighting force could be commanded, their combined strength would be far greater than if they fought alone.

Unfortunately, no one could understand him. Instead, they were like magnets, not even giving him a chance to get within fifty meters of him, and silently clearing out the scattered crabmen from a distance.

However, thanks to the activities of these "allies" in the surrounding area, the crabmen's pursuit was significantly weakened, and Cheng Ye was finally able to focus on absorbing life force with peace of mind.

"Okay, I'll suck it in."

He simply squatted down on the ground, pressed his hands into the soil, and frantically tore at the surrounding green energy with his mind.

After you finish vacuuming one area, immediately switch to another.

Unbeknownst to him, his size had quietly increased to over three meters, making him look like a moving pillar standing in the cave.

The white pollution wave above his head, belonging to the Wanling Earth Conch, seemed to realize that it could not do anything to him, and after hovering for a moment, it dispersed.

Only the Sponge Eye remained unwilling to give up, still using invisible marks to lock onto him and lure the crabmen to come and hunt him down, but it posed no threat at all.

Buzz.
Buzz.
The runes on the armor's surface began to flash frequently, and the previously blurry outlines gradually became clear.

The lower right corner, the lower left corner, the upper right corner, the upper left corner—more and more strokes were filled with energy, and the shape of the rune gradually focused, vaguely revealing a complex pattern with blood-red lines.

Cheng Ye could clearly feel that his connection with Tan Ming was growing stronger, and he could even faintly touch an invisible boundary.

This boundary was finally broken as his height increased to 3.5 meters.

Boom.

It was as if a thunderbolt had exploded in my mind the moment the last stroke of the armor rune was filled in.

Cheng Ye suddenly looked up, and countless illusory images suddenly appeared before his eyes:

He saw ordinary, blood-red figures lying on the ground frantically absorbing life force, only to be surrounded and beaten by the crab-men.

They saw a skinny, monkey-like figure darting through the forest, his arms sweeping like a sword saint's storm, causing the crabmen to retreat in defeat.

They even followed a four-meter-tall fat man and experienced the dull sensation of falling from the sky and crushing the crab fusion body with one sit on it.

"This is."

Cheng Ye exclaimed in surprise, subconsciously focusing his gaze on two ordinary, blood-red figures in the scene being attacked by more than a dozen crab-men.

The next second, the other images faded away instantly, and a strange sense of "control" surged into my heart.

He tried to use his mind to make one of the figures take two steps back, and the figure actually retreated nimbly, barely dodging the crab claws that the crab man smashed down.

Immediately afterwards, he manipulated the figure to leap high into the air and kick the crab-man's head behind him.

The crab-man clearly hadn't expected its "target" to suddenly retaliate, and took a solid kick, its head snapping to one side, with dark green fluid oozing from the corner of its mouth.

"I can actually control it?"

Cheng Ye was completely shocked. As the connection grew stronger, he even had the illusion that he had become a blood-red figure. His body control was incredibly smooth, without any hesitation.

Moreover, he only realized at this moment that these blood-red figures were not weak at all, and their physical qualities far surpassed those of ordinary crabmen. They were just lacking in combat instinct, which is why they were easily surrounded and attacked.

With remote control, the besieging crabmen were all killed in less than half a minute.

He tried to disconnect from the control, and a clearer connection suddenly came from above.

Cheng Ye looked up in astonishment at the red cloud that was always swirling above the cave.

No way?
Is Tan Ming turning himself into a "router" that can send and receive "signals" inside the cave?
Just now, when he was controlling the clone, it felt like his thoughts were first transmitted to Hongyun, and then Hongyun forwarded them to the blood-red figure below, much like remote assistance between computers.

"So it wasn't that the previously collected characteristics were insufficient, but rather that this complete rune was needed as a receiver?"

Cheng Ye realized what was happening and couldn't help but reach out and touch the runes on the surface of the armor.

The fingertips did not touch any physical object, nor did they feel anything, yet a clear thought seemed to be engraved into the mind.

Cheng Ye was slightly taken aback, and subconsciously looked away, no longer looking at the rune on the armor that had become fully visible.

Strangely, even when I looked away, the image of the runes in my mind did not become as blurry or dissipated as before.

The direction of every line, the curvature of every stroke, and even the almost imperceptible jagged marks on the edges of the runes are all so clear that they seem to be right before my eyes, imprinted in the depths of my memory without the slightest error.

这 是
(End of this chapter)