Tomb raiding live stream: Starting as the mute Zhang

The door closed behind me, severing the last ray of light and sound from the outside world.

Absolute darkness enveloped everything, thick as ink that couldn't be dissolved. Only a few beams of flashlight, like fragile knives, struggled to pierce this profound veil. Within the beams, dust particles danced slowly in the air.

The air was cool, dry, and carried a musty, earthy smell, along with a faint, indescribable metallic rust. It was very quiet, so quiet that you could hear the sound of your own blood flowing and the suppressed breathing of the people around you.

"Damn, it's so dark." Fatty Wang's voice echoed in the darkness, sounding a little weak.

"Don't talk nonsense," Wu Xie said in a low voice, "to save battery power, and... to save some energy."

The flashlight beam shone, illuminating the surroundings. It was a downward-sloping passageway, roughly carved, with uneven rock walls bearing obvious chisel marks. The ground was covered in gravel and dust, making a rustling sound underfoot. The passageway wasn't wide, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side, but it was quite high; the flashlight beam couldn't reach the top.

Zhang Qiling and "Zhang Qiling" were already ahead. Neither of them used flashlights; they walked steadily in the darkness, as if they could see everything clearly. Only the occasional faint light reflected from the rock walls outlined their silent, upright figures.

A floating live-streaming sphere flew in from behind, automatically activating night vision and fill light modes, turning the screen a ghostly green. The camera focused on the dark passageway and two figures almost blending into the darkness ahead. The live chat scrolled rapidly:

Prophet: We're inside! It's so dark!

A solution to those so-called experts who disagree: These mute Zhangs don't use flashlights, so their night vision must be superhuman, right?

Brother's fan club: Husbands, watch your step!

After walking for about several dozen meters, the passageway began to widen and the slope became gentler. The smell of metallic corrosion in the air seemed to have become a little stronger.

"Look at the ground." Zhang Qiling, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped and shone his flashlight on a corner of the ground.

The group crowded around. Under the beam of light, some things were scattered on the ground. There were several pieces of metal, rusted beyond recognition, shaped like the remains of some kind of tool. There were also some dried strips of cloth, their original color unrecognizable. Most conspicuous were several small, grayish-white fragments of human bone, scattered in the dust.

"Someone has been here." Xie Yuchen squatted down and carefully parted a piece of cloth, revealing a copper coin covered in green rust, a Qing Dynasty style. "It's been quite a while."

"Are you here to find that tree too?" Jiang Xun Gu asked.

"Perhaps," said Zhang Qiling, "he didn't go out."

These words made the atmosphere even more tense. Fatty Wang tightened his grip on his entrenching tool and muttered, "An inauspicious start..."

"Keep going," Zhang Qiling said, and continued forward. His voice sounded exceptionally clear and calm in the tunnel, inexplicably reassuring.

The tunnel continued downwards, seemingly without end. The air grew increasingly cool, and a faint, cloyingly sweet, fishy smell began to mingle with the metallic rust, as if something had been rotting for a long time.

After walking for another ten minutes or so, a corner appeared ahead. Turning the corner, the space suddenly opened up.

It is a huge, naturally formed cave. The ceiling is so high that the top is invisible, with countless stalactites hanging down, gleaming with a damp, eerie light under the flashlight beam. The cave floor is an uneven rocky surface, filled with puddles of varying sizes, the water black and still.

In the center of the cave stands a colossal object.

The creature's roots were deeply embedded in the cave floor rock, its trunk so thick it would take a dozen people to encircle it. It possessed a dark, bronze-like luster, neither gold nor wood, its surface covered with jagged knots and deep longitudinal grooves, much like the bark of an old tree. But it didn't grow straight upwards; instead, it stretched out countless branches of varying thickness, also bronze-colored, into the endless darkness above in a twisted, almost struggling posture. These branches intertwined, their roots tangled, some disappearing into the darkness of the cave ceiling, others extending horizontally, weaving a vast and eerie three-dimensional net within the cave.

What's most chilling is that many things are hanging, attached, or half-embedded on those bronze "branches" and in the grooves and nodules of the main trunk.

It's a cocoon.

They varied in size and shape, and their colors ranged from grayish-white to dark brown. Some were intact, while others were broken, revealing dark, empty cavities or shriveled, indescribable contents. These cocoons, densely packed like deformed fruits or sleeping pupae, hung silently on this enormous, lifeless "bronze tree."

The entire cave was filled with a sweet, pungent, and putrid odor, the source of which was these eerie cocoons.

"This...this is the divine tree?" Fatty Wang tilted his head back, his flashlight beam trembling as it swept across the suffocating cocoons. "Why does it look...so eerie?"

“It’s not a tree,” Zhang Qiling stared at the bronze trunk and slowly shook his head, “It’s… something else.”

"A structure," Zhang Qiling added, his sharp gaze sweeping over the grooves and nodules on the main trunk's surface. "There are seams, there are casting marks."

"Artificial?" Wu Xie gasped. "It's so big... how did they get it in here?"

"It might have been cast directly here," Xie Yuchen said, his voice tightening, "using this natural cave... but the scale and purpose of this project..."

The camera on the levitating live-streaming sphere slowly panned across the enormous bronze "tree" covered in eerie cocoons, fully revealing this surreal and terrifying scene. The live-streaming chat exploded with comments:

Prophet: My God! What the hell is this thing?!

A solution to those who disagree with the so-called experts: A bronze tree? This is a tree? This is a monster!

The guy's fan club: What are all those things hanging up there? They're scary!

Just as everyone was stunned by the sight before them, a very faint "crack" sound, like something breaking, came from a certain direction overhead.

The sound was very soft, but it was exceptionally clear in the deathly silent cave.

Everyone fell silent instantly, and flashlight beams were all shone towards the source of the sound.

It was a thick bronze branch pointing diagonally upwards. Hanging from the branch was a dark brown cocoon, about half a person's height. At this moment, a crack appeared on the surface of the cocoon.

The crack widened, and a hand—no, it couldn't be called a hand—a limb covered in a dark brown chitinous shell with a sharp bone blade at the tip, pierced out of the crack and tore outwards.

Then came a second identical limb.

Then, a flat head, devoid of distinct facial features and consisting only of a mouth covered with fine, sharp teeth, emerged from the crack. The head turned, seemingly "looking" at the point where the beams of light below were concentrated.

"Something's coming out!" Ah Ning warned sharply, instantly raising her crossbow.

Before she could finish speaking, a dark shadow suddenly sprang out from the cracked cocoon! It was so fast that it left only a blur in the air as it pounced straight at Jiang Xun Gu, who was standing a little ahead!

Jiang Xun Gu reacted extremely quickly, rolling to the side the instant the shadow pounced, and raising the short blade in his hand.

"Clang!"

The clash of metal was deafening! The short blade sliced ​​through the creature's shell, sending sparks flying. The creature was deflected, landing on a nearby rock, where it bounced and pounced again. This time, its target was the black bear beside it.

Black Bear let out a "heh," neither dodging nor avoiding. Just as the shadow was about to pounce on his face, his right hand, clad in a fingerless glove, shot out like lightning, precisely gripping the lower part of the creature's flat head—where it seemed to be a joint. He squeezed with all his might!

"Snap!"

A sickening cracking sound. The thing let out a short, sharp screech, its struggle instantly weakening by half. Black Bear seized the opportunity and slammed it hard to the ground, his left foot following closely behind.

"Pfft!"

Thick liquid splattered. The thing twitched a few times, then stopped moving.

The whole process took less than three seconds.

At this moment, throughout the cave, the hanging cocoons began to crack one after another! More cracks appeared, and more similar monsters, covered in dark brown carapaces and equipped with bone blades and mouthparts, were struggling to break free of their cocoons!

"It's a Bronze Armored Corpse Cockroach!" Zhang Qiling said, looking at the monster's corpse trampled to death by the Black Bear on the ground. "A Bronze Tree Symbiote, a Grave Guardian Bug. It's the most ferocious and fastest in the early stages of metamorphosis."

"Quite a few." Zhang Qiling glanced at the writhing cocoons around him, his tone still calm, but his hand was already on the hilt of the sword at his waist. However, he didn't move, his gaze falling on Hei Xiazi, A Ning, Jiang Xun Gu, and Xie Yuchen, Huo Xiuxiu, Wu Xie, and Wang Pangzi, who quickly gathered to form a defensive formation.

"Practice," he whispered to Zhang Qiling.

Zhang Qiling nodded and withdrew his foot from the path he was about to take. The two stood on the left and right, like two gatekeepers, protecting the flanks at the front of the group, but did not take the initiative to attack.

It's as if to say: You can handle these little troubles yourselves.

Black Bear grinned, shaking off the slime on his hands: "Alright, those mute Zhangs have given us a chance to shine. Hey guys, wanna stretch our legs?"

As they spoke, five or six bronze-armored corpse cockroaches, having emerged from their cocoons, pounced from different directions! They moved swiftly, leaping between bronze branches and rocks with treacherous trajectories.

Aning knelt on the ground and fired her crossbow in rapid succession! The specially made spiral arrows whistled out and accurately pierced the mouthparts or weak joints of the two corpse cockroaches, pinning them firmly to the rocks or bronze branches behind them, making them scream and struggle.

Jiang Xun Gu and Hei Xia Zi stood back to back. One used a short blade to parry and slash, focusing on the joints; the other used skillful force and heavy techniques to grab, pinch, throw, and stomp, with extremely high efficiency. Jiang Xun Gu severed the forelimb of a corpse cockroach with a single stroke, and Hei Xia Zi took the opportunity to crush its head.

Instead of engaging in direct combat, Xie Yuchen and Huo Xiuxiu used the terrain, employing cold flames and powerful flashlights to disrupt the cockroaches' senses, creating shooting opportunities for Aning. Wu Xie and Fatty Wang leaned against a large rock; Fatty swung his entrenching tool, swatting away approaching cockroaches like flies—not killing them, but blocking them. Wu Xie, meanwhile, used his hiking stick to poke at the cockroaches' mouthparts and soft parts of their abdomens, their coordination surprisingly smooth.

The battle was fierce but brief. These bronze-armored corpse cockroaches, though ferocious, had just emerged from their cocoons, their shells not yet fully hardened, and their movements were somewhat stiff. With Hei Xiazi and his team's targeted attacks and coordinated efforts, the first batch of a dozen or so emerging corpse cockroaches were all dealt with in just two or three minutes. Thick, foul-smelling sap was spilled everywhere, and severed limbs and broken bones were scattered across the ground.

The cave returned to silence for the time being, with only slight wriggling and cracking sounds coming from some cocoons in the distance, but they seemed to be intimidated by the carnage here and did not break out immediately.

"Is it done?" Fatty Wang panted heavily, looking at the mess on the ground, his entrenching tool covered in slime.

"For now," Zhang Qiling said, his gaze drifting deeper into the darker branches of the bronze tree. "There's more, deep inside."

"Looks like this tree doesn't welcome guests." Black Bear wiped his hands and looked at Zhang Qiling. "Mute Zhang, what's next? Should we force our way through, or find another way?"

Zhang Qiling didn't answer immediately. He walked to the trunk of the bronze tree and reached out to touch its cold, rough surface, which smelled of rust. His fingertips slowly moved along a vertical groove, as if sensing something.

Zhang Qiling also walked to the other side and did the same thing.

A moment later, Zhang Qiling withdrew his hand and pointed to a spot near the bottom of the main trunk. There was a particularly large nodule there, its shape vaguely resembling a distorted human face.

"Here," Zhang Qiling pointed to a symmetrical location on the other side, "is the entrance."

"The entrance?" Wu Xie asked in surprise. "Go inside the tree?"

"Hmm." Zhang Qiling nodded. He took out the unified jade eye again, which emitted a faint glow in the darkness. He placed it close to the center of the "human face" nodule—there was a very shallow indentation there that matched the shape of the jade eye.

At the same time, "Zhang Qiling" also took out a black bone fragment and attached it to the symmetrical tumor on the other side.

I waited a few seconds.

From inside the trunk of the bronze tree came a low rumble, like countless gears starting to turn. Then, the "face" tumor, along with an area about the size of a door panel around it, slowly caved inward, then slid to one side, revealing a dark, downward-pointing hole behind it.

A wind, even more ancient and chilly than the cave itself, carrying a strong bronze aura, surged out from the cave entrance.

At the edge of the cave entrance, under the flashlight beam, you can clearly see man-made steps leading downwards into the darkness.

The levitating live-streaming sphere captured the entire bizarre process of the hole opening. The live chat was flooded with comments:

Prophet: There's still a path inside the tree!

A solution to the experts' dissent: What exactly is this structure?

The guy's fan club: They're going down again! How exciting!

Zhang Qiling withdrew his jade eyes, glanced at the dark cave entrance, and then at "Zhang Qiling".

Zhang Qiling also took back the bone fragment and nodded to him.

Without saying anything more, the two bent down and stepped into the staircase entrance inside the tree trunk, one after the other.