Since all these rules and superstitions are outdated, what's wrong with me indulging in some me

Kevin was shocked. The clothes he was wearing were combat jackets he had bought from the system store, yet An Zhiyu had torn them so easily.

An Zhiyu ignored him, deftly flicking the tip of her knife to move the torn fabric of her coat aside.

The next second, the swarm of insects stopped attacking Mark and instead rushed towards the ball of clothing, following the direction from which it had flown.

"The insects aren't attacking you; they're just strongly attracted to what's on your clothes."

An Zhiyu said calmly.

Everyone was taken aback, then looked at the mud and grime on the two men and suddenly realized what was happening.

No wonder the bugs were only targeting Mark and Kevin! No wonder their attacks were so frenzied!

Mark heard it too, and he tried with difficulty to take off his coat, but without Kevin, he was now the focus of the swarm's attention, and Lu Changsheng's talisman was still stuck to his coat, restricting his movements.

The amulet failed the moment Mark took off his coat, and a gray flying insect still managed to bite him hard on the back of his hand!

Mark groaned as a piercing pain and a rapidly spreading numbness shot through the back of his hand!

He endured the pain, and with lightning speed, his other hand slapped down, killing the insect on the back of his hand with a "smack." The insect's corpse exploded into a small ball of dark green liquid.

Fortunately, the danger was over. Mark's jacket was thrown out, and the swarm of insects was indeed attracted to it, rushing towards Mark's jacket.

However, the skin around Mark's wound visibly darkened.

"poisonous!"

An Zhiyu's eyes narrowed, and without the slightest hesitation, she twirled the sharp knife in her hand, the tip of which was already pressed against the center of the wound on the back of Mark's hand.

"Just bear with it."

Her voice remained cold and aloof, but her movements were frighteningly fast.

Before the words were even finished, a flash of light appeared!

"laugh--!"

A piece of flesh that had turned completely bluish-black was precisely and swiftly ripped off by An Zhiyu!

The movements were clean and crisp, as if they had been practiced a thousand times.

"Hmm!"

Mark groaned, beads of sweat instantly forming on his forehead, and blood gushed from the back of his hand. Strangely, the blood was also dark in color and had an ominous, viscous feel.

Removing the deepest poisoned tissue is the most direct way to prevent the toxin from spreading rapidly.

Kevin reacted quickly, immediately taking out a high-grade antidote from his system storage space.

Without hesitation, he injected the pale blue liquid into Mark's arm vein.

As the medicine flowed in, the alarming bluish-black color spreading across Mark's arm visibly slowed down, and even showed signs of slight retraction at the edges.

The blood flowing from the wound also seemed a little brighter in color.

Kevin and the others breathed a slight sigh of relief.

However, the relief wasn't yet complete—

Mark's pain did not lessen; instead, his brows furrowed even more deeply.

He felt that the numbness in his arm had indeed lessened, but a more eerie, chilling sensation emerged!

At the wound where the skin and flesh had been removed, several extremely fine, almost invisible dark green threads appeared in the newly seeping blood!

"No..." Lu Changsheng, who had been staring intently at the wound, suddenly said in a low voice, "The antidote has suppressed the symptoms, but the toxin is still there."

As if to prove his words, the bluish-black bruises on Mark's arm, which had begun to recede, stubbornly and slowly regrowed after a few seconds of pause.

"How could this be...?"

Kevin's face was grim. He had spent a lot of points to redeem this antidote, but he hadn't expected it to be so ineffective.

"Go inside!"

Lu Changsheng made a quick decision: this open-air environment was too dangerous.

The swarm of poisonous insects that had surrounded the house door in the morning had long since dispersed.

Lu Changsheng, Cheng Caijun, Mark, and Kevin carefully supported the heavy body of the burly black man, one on each side. Yamamoto Ichiro and Park Bo-soo helped support the broken leg to minimize the vibration.

With their combined efforts, the men carried the unconscious, burly black man into the house and carefully placed him on the earthen bed.

Kevin's face was grim. It was only the second day of the dungeon, and he hadn't gathered any information yet, but his companion had already been poisoned.

In just over a day, three people in the team had already shown abnormalities. Although no one had died, it was certainly a bad omen.

The group returned indoors and gathered together.

The room was dimly lit, and the air still carried the lingering smells of burning and faint blood. The group settled the unconscious, burly black man in a corner of the earthen bed and simply covered him with a dirty sheet.

Mark leaned against the wall, his injured arm temporarily bandaged with clean strips of cloth, but the bluish-black color still peeked through the edges of the cloth, slowly and stubbornly eroding towards his elbow.

Kevin stood beside him, his face grim.

The group sat in a circle.

"Time is of the essence, let's first summarize what we found this morning."

Lu Changsheng said in a deep voice.

"Kevin, what happened to you?"

Kevin took a deep breath and began to recount their ordeal, his tone filled with regret and lingering fear:

"We went east as planned. It went smoothly at first; the edge of the village was desolate with very few houses. We wanted to look for any villagers or unusual buildings. After walking for about fifteen minutes, we met a boy near a bamboo grove."

"juvenile?"

Lu Changsheng raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, he looked about fourteen or fifteen years old, wearing patched coarse cloth clothes, his face was a bit dirty, but his eyes were very bright. He took the initiative to greet us."

Kevin recalled, "He asked us if we were visitors from out of town, and said there was an 'old spring' on the east side of the village with beautiful scenery and exceptionally sweet water. He also said he could take us there to see it."

"We wanted to learn more about the village, and we thought it might be easier to get information from a boy, so we agreed. He walked ahead, his steps were quick, he knew the terrain very well, and he led us through the bamboo forest and around a small hill..."

Kevin's voice lowered, tinged with suppressed anger:

"We walked for about twenty minutes, and the road became increasingly remote, with hardly any signs of human habitation around. We started to feel something was wrong and asked him how much further it was. He pointed to a hollow overgrown with weeds ahead and said, 'It's just ahead. The spring is below that hollow; you have to go down that slope.'"

"We were on the safe side, so Mark asked him to lead the way. The boy readily agreed and took the lead down the rather steep slope."

We followed behind. At the bottom of the slope was a rather deep pit, overgrown with weeds, which did indeed look like the site of a dried-up spring. We were observing the surroundings…”

Kevin clenched his fist:

"That kid suddenly sped up and disappeared in a few darts."

"We realized we'd been tricked and tried to turn back. But just as we turned around, we fell into a ditch and got our clothes covered in mud."

Kevin's voice was calm, but carried a hint of barely perceptible irritation.

"Then you guys are actually quite lucky."