CHAPTER 139: CHAPTER 140: THE PATH TO THE UNKNOWN

The trembling voice echoed through the passage, intertwined with panicked and rapid breathing.

Lin Yue and Bai exchanged a glance.

A person? Are the ones coming from over there people?

Bai nodded slightly, as if he could now guess Lin Yue’s thoughts, making Lin Yue really want to vent his sarcasm.

The passage continuously emitted a series of faint, fragmented sounds. Lin Yue thought it didn’t sound like one person; it seemed more like a group of people had arrived.

What kind of luck is this, running into someone else in these Underground Ruins in the middle of the night besides himself?

Furthermore, if they shout about Tang Country again...

Lin Yue felt it was strange that out of the ten thousand people in the group, he hadn’t seen many from Tang Country, yet he always seemed to encounter them.

He discovered that the probability of hearing Tang Country’s language had been quite high recently.

However, encountering people in these Underground Ruins wasn’t exactly a good thing.

While guarding against each other, they also had to pay attention to the Lizardman, which was truly difficult.

So, how should he respond to what the person just said? Or rather, how to avoid encountering the other party?

Bai flapped its wings, stretched its arm forward, reminding Lin Yue that they were getting closer.

Lin Yue suddenly had an idea.

He gestured to Bai inside and then pointed to his own mouth.

Bai widened its eyes but quickly caught on, and shouted inside, "Gawoo!!"

A roar erupted, causing the passage to echo tremendously!

"Wh-What! There’s a monster!! Run, run!!"

The sound of them running gradually grew distant until it vanished.

Nevertheless, Lin Yue’s Alloy Compound Crossbow remained aimed.

He didn’t relax his vigilance; if possible, he didn’t want to get involved with anyone here in the Underground Ruins.

Anyone who saw him and Bai would likely lose their calm, leading to unnecessary trouble or even battles.

Such incidents had happened many times, not to mention that he seemed to be getting more famous, making him increasingly a target for others.

"Bai, let’s go, follow them." Lin Yue reopened his flashlight and, together with Bai, followed the footsteps of that group towards the passage on the left.

Though the group came from the left, it didn’t mean he couldn’t go there; exploring maps didn’t conflict with others. Furthermore, Lin Yue always felt that this place wouldn’t be as simple as the map indicated.

"Gawoo." Bai indicated that there were no enemies, and Lin Yue proceeded confidently in that direction.

However, he also noticed that the passage’s roof here was much higher than before, and even the stone walls on both sides were smoother, unlike bricks, resembling more natural rock.

This gave Lin Yue the illusion that he was walking in a mine.

Their footsteps had disappeared, not knowing if they had run farther away or entered some unknown Relics Gate, but for now, they wouldn’t disturb his map exploration.

"Another intersection ahead..."

Lin Yue found that the conditions on both sides of the intersection were different; one led to an unknown place, seemingly the edge of the zone map, while the other direction was more complex, leading directly to a massive space, like the previous altar.

He wasn’t interested in exploring other areas for now, so it seemed he had no choice.

After walking a few steps, he came across two Lizardman corpses tossed on the ground. Lin Yue thought for a moment and threw the Lizardman corpses from his Storage Space onto the ground here as well.

It appeared that these two Lizardmen were likely killed by that group earlier.

Lin Yue walked from the passage towards the large space, without encountering anything noteworthy until reaching this massive space’s end, where he found something familiar again.

Wooden Gate!

The patterns on this gate were identical to the one he had seen before, carved with eerie lines and circles, making it hard to discern any intended meaning.

Is this another altar area?

Yet, this place lacked the miraculous scent found at the altar; instead, it emitted a nauseating stench.

The stench... Lin Yue sniffed, seemingly accompanied by a strong scent of blood.

"Gawoo!" Bai suddenly stood up at the gate, its two claws raised, mouth open wide,

Lin Yue instantly understood, there were enemies inside!

Bai seemed to identify the enemy’s threat based on smell when alerting Lin Yue. Creatures like Mutant Sheep or Spotted Wolves on the ground would be ignored by Bai, not even glancing; even humans wielding weapons rarely attracted its attention.

Regarding opponents like the Monster Winged Dragon in the Secret Realm, Bai would sound a warning; of course, it did the same with Lizardmen in these Underground Ruins.

However, when encountering an entity it couldn’t completely handle, Bai would prevent him from approaching, advising him to escape together.

Lin Yue placed his hand on the trigger, wanting to know if the enemy inside the gate was a Lizardman or a powerful mutant creature?

Lin Yue gently opened the gate, and the pungent stench became even more intense!

"Sa! Sa!" Three Lizardmen, wielding stone blades, saw him and charged out, yelling loudly. Lin Yue’s mind was utterly calm, resolving the foremost one with a Crossbow Arrow, then piercing the throats of the remaining two with an Iron Spear!

Three Copper Treasure Chests lay on the ground, and as Lin Yue looked into the room, he realized he might be facing the most terrifying sight in his life!

Countless jars nearly covered the entire space, with remnants of dismembered human limbs seeming to float within the jars and scattered on the ground, some torn apart halfway...

Those Lizardmen had been slicing what seemed to be legs and arms, with a nearly solid layer of blood covering the earth!

Lin Yue breathed deeply several times, barely managing to calm down.

He realized what this place was!

The contents of those jars must be food for the Lizardmen, sourced from the same helpless Survivors he had grimly encountered before.

Even Lin Yue, who felt little seeing corpses, was somewhat shaken by the sight.

Who could have imagined this is where the Lizardmen cook?

Lin Yue wiped the sweat from his forehead, pondering how to deal with these things next.

They couldn’t be burned; any fire would quickly smoke out the cave, putting him in danger, so he had to prevent the Lizardmen from accessing them.

After some thought, he decided to build stone walls to seal these things inside the gate, letting them rot away so the Lizardmen couldn’t reach them.

Immediately, he constructed five stone walls, pushing them one by one with Bai to lean against the gate, making it challenging for outside Lizardmen to enter.

After this, Lin Yue felt slightly relieved.

Initially, Lin Yue thought the Lizardmen were using humans as sacrificial offerings, severing heads before casting them into the jars to finish.

It turns out the relationship is more like predators and prey.

Humans were practically delivering themselves to their jaws, continually entering through the System-opened Underground Ruins Gate!

"Let’s go, Bai." Lin Yue felt he had equated these Lizardmen with Mutant Sheep in his mind.

These were all things the System created, to threaten human survival.

Eliminating them altogether wouldn’t be unreasonable, right?

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