Chapter 36
The gathering place was in a state of bustle.
Lu Renshuang and Qiu Min rushed to the periphery. The seeds of the alien plants were scattered on the scorched earth and spread into a circle. Ye Sheng used his supernatural powers, and green ripples expanded along the way. New buds broke through the ground wherever they passed, and branches and leaves grew at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In a blink of an eye, rows of thorny brambles surrounded the gathering place.
Lu Chenyuan stood at the highest point, his clothes rustling, his sharp eyes sweeping every corner. The war beasts were lurking in the dark, and with the strange effects of the alien plants, this defensive battle should not be difficult.
The premise is that the number of evil beasts is not too large.
A week later, the alien plant defense wall took shape. As night fell and strange growls emanated from the periphery, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. It had finally arrived.
Roar... Ugh...
The evil beasts surged out from the darkness, with foul-smelling saliva dripping from their mouths, their crazed eyeballs bulging out of their sockets, their mutated limbs twisted, and they ran straight towards the gathering place at an alarming speed.
Leading the charge was a pack of massive corpse wolves, their bones bared beneath their rotting fur. Driven by their instinctive prey, their attack lacked any tactical tactics, but their numerical superiority and lethality were no less significant. Countless other beasts followed closely behind, their dark shadows nearly obscuring the entire base of the mountain, stirring slight tremors across the flat ground.
The little wolves who were still in the gathering place whimpered and took a few steps back, shock in their eyes. Those twisted and mutated ones clearly still retained the aura of their own kind, but had turned into bloodthirsty monsters.
The other beasts instantly launched their attacks. Zhuifeng lunged forward first, his nimble form slicing a streak of white light through the air. Shunying then flanked from the left, his dark form blending seamlessly into the night. The two great cats, one in front and one behind, formed a pincer attack, their sharp claws gleaming coldly in the moonlight.
A shrill cry came from the sky. Da Cang and Xiao Cang spread their three-meter-long wings and circled to gain momentum. The feathers on the edge of their wings had been metalized, and every flap of their wings created a whistling sound in the wind.
Bang!
The first corpse wolf slammed fiercely into the alien plant wall. The seemingly calm vines suddenly erupted, binding the nearby beasts like pythons. Spikes pierced into rotting flesh, and Da Cang seized the opportunity to swoop down, its massive wings unleashing a hurricane of sharp blades. Every beast in its path was toppled, and a foul, bloody mist splattered across the scorched earth.
But this is just the beginning.
More beasts rushed forward, stepping on the corpses of their companions and leaping out. Zhuifeng and Shunying coordinated tacitly, one biting the hind legs while the other used its sharp claws to tear at the soft abdomen. Xiaocang quickly filled the gap, and his iron claws accurately gouged out the eyeballs.
The five chicks of the goshawk stood on a high place, their down rippling in the strong wind from the distant battle. Their feathers were not yet fully grown and their flying ability was insufficient. They had not had time to learn hunting techniques from their parents when they accidentally came across this battle.
The little ones huddled together nervously, but couldn't help stretching their necks out of curiosity to look. When they saw their parents tearing open the beast's back, they excitedly flapped their tender wings, uttered weak cheers, and even began to imitate them clumsily.
The battle lasted for a long time. Jiang Zihan held a telescope and stared closely at the movements at the battle site. The arrival of these evil beasts was too unusual. They had no ability to think, so how could they suddenly appear in groups at the same time?
There were human figures moving at the foot of the mountain in the distance, and soon a group of black shadows appeared.
There are more in the back mountain!
But now everyone is stuck in front, and the only defense behind is the alien plant wall.
Jiang Zihan's palms were covered with cold sweat. When she covered her chest with her fingertips, she accidentally touched the cold metal whistle. She was slightly stunned and then immediately put the whistle into her mouth.
Ding——!
A sharp whistle pierced the noise, and Shunying's ears stood up instantly. His muscle memory reacted before his consciousness, and he clenched his sharp teeth and bit off the spine of the beast in front of him. When the black blood spurted out, he had already left the place and turned into a black lightning and headed straight towards the back mountain.
The humans' hearing wasn't as good as the beasts', and given the distance, they had no time to return to defense. Jiang Zihan's eyes flushed red. To propel the whistle farther, he instinctively activated his mental power. The frequency of the unique whistle, laced with mental fluctuations, suddenly spread, rushing through everyone's minds like a torrent, focusing all their attention.
Qiu Shi, who was fighting with the evil beast, felt that all the scenes in front of his eyes slowed down. He moved sideways to avoid the evil beast, and with two "swoosh" sounds, the sniper bullet accurately penetrated the opponent's brain.
Phantom Cat and her three kittens shuttled back and forth on the battlefield. Although the kittens were still a little immature, they already had some of their mother's grace when leaping. They knew that they were not strong enough, so they specifically targeted the joints of the evil beasts with their claws.
The whites of Awen's eyes were bloodshot, enveloping his black pupils. In the past, he always went crazy when he overused his eyes, but this time, after hearing the whistle, his heart was unusually calm, and all the distorted energy seemed to be soothed.
Flames splashed everywhere, and a fiery red pheasant was suspended in the air, its feathers glowing brightly, and scorching flames spewed out of its mouth. The twisted creatures let out shrill howls, and once the flames touched them, they spread wildly like ignited kerosene. Within seconds, the air was filled with the stench of burnt flesh.
Lu Chenyuan ran towards the back mountain. Suddenly, he stopped. The restless and distorted energy in his body became quieter than ever before. He turned around and looked directly into Jiang Zihan's eyes. He said in a deep voice, "Control me."
"What?" Jiang Zihan didn't react for a moment.
Lu Chenyuan raised his hand and tapped his forehead: "Use your mental power to control this place." His voice was firm and unquestionable.
Jiang Zihan took a deep breath and tentatively sent out a wisp of mental power. The moment the pure white energy touched Lu Chenyuan's brow, he felt a coolness on his head, and the distorted energy instantly became docile.
His mind became calmer than ever before.
He felt that his condition had reached its peak, and he activated the exoskeleton parts that he had rarely used. The silver-gray mechanical structure extended from his shoulders, and the distorted energy that he had to suppress desperately in the past began to supply energy continuously, without affecting his own condition at all.
boom!
Heavy fists wrapped in lightning smashed down, spider-web-like cracks spread out, and each punch carried astonishing power. The evil beasts fell one after another like harvested wheat.
Kui Feng slowed down a few paces to catch up. Seeing this, he was slightly startled. Then he said without hesitation, "Doctor Jiang, don't worry. Just let me lead you."
Jiang Zihan channeled some of her mental energy, and Kui Feng's legs began to glow, and the wooden leg armor began to wrap around his entire leg. This was her assumption during the previous surgery, but the distorted energy was moving at a snail's pace. But at that moment, it seemed to suddenly become enlightened and began to accelerate along the predetermined route.
Cold sweat kept breaking out on her forehead, but Lu Chenyuan and Kui Feng's movements became more and more smooth. The two men and one beast actually blocked the suddenly appearing evil beasts outside.
Snap!
Jiang Zihan suddenly remembered the crisp sound of ice breaking. The mental power that had been controlling the two of them, which was almost exhausted, surged again and spread out in all directions like a stream. The warriors who were fighting fiercely paused, their fatigue washed away, and their movements became powerful again.
As daylight dawned, the last beast finally fell to the ground. The exhausted people sat down wherever they could. Kui Feng leaned against the wall, his scorching gaze burning holes in Jiang Zihan.
Jiang Zihan felt a chill down her spine. Seeing a tall man with such an expression was really a bit unsettling. She took two steps back calmly and slipped towards the clinic when no one was paying attention, but bumped into a strong embrace at the corner.
Lu Chenyuan supported her and asked, "Are you mentally exhausted?"
Jiang Zihan paused and shook his head silently.
From the beginning of the battle, she began to hear the ding-dong sound of increasing points. Her current account suddenly jumped to four digits. The mental power consumed at night was replenished. She was only one or two thousand points away from upgrading to level 4. She didn't have to worry about her vitality being deducted for the time being.
Lu Chenyuan breathed a sigh of relief, "You go and rest first. I'll be out for a bit. These beasts are a bit strange. They don't seem to be attacking spontaneously."
Jiang Zihan looked at him silently, as if it was planned in advance.
After everyone left, Jiang Zihan opened the system panel. The system released a new task about the reproduction of war beasts, and the reward points were just enough for her to upgrade.
Her eyes narrowed involuntarily. Was it a coincidence?
She scanned the area carefully, but the system still didn't show any signs of abnormal mental reactions. She gradually became confused. Was her mental strength and abilities truly completely dependent on this system?
If mental power can also be upgraded in actual combat, why has the system never given any prompts or tasks?
Are the sources of those reward points really the system’s own energy?
In order to verify this hypothesis, Jiang Zihan began to stop turning on the system and record her mental power fluctuations in different time periods. After her mental power became abnormal, her perception of mental power seemed to have been elevated to a higher level.
A few days later, her heart sank as she watched the fluctuating data. Even though she didn't perform surgery on any war beasts, her mental power was still growing slowly, but at midnight, this power would strangely fall back to the baseline, as if those improvements had never happened.
"It's actually like this..." Jiang Zihan suddenly opened his eyes wide.
The system's claim of "extracting vitality after points are exhausted" was a complete lie. It had been silently draining her mental strength.
So was the original owner’s death really an accident?
She paced back and forth in the clinic, feeling a little irritated. It was true that she had been brought into this world by the System, so while she was wary, she was also grateful to it. But if the original owner's true cause of death was also related to the System, then this meant that the System was not harmless, and she would have to reconsider her coexistence with the System.
At this moment, a new wave of evil beasts suddenly arrived.
The roar was deafening, and the awake Moonlight Rabbit huddled into a ball. After being frightened, its energy began to overflow uncontrollably.
Those pure healing white light balls seemed to emit an alluring fragrance, which instead stimulated the evil beasts to become even more crazy, and their attacks became more ferocious.
Jiang Zihan tied up Moonlight Rabbit with a restraint belt and finally took out the scalpel. She had to perform a deformity suppression operation on the little guy immediately, but what lingered in her mind was the terrible conjecture about the truth of the system.
The moment the scalpel appeared, she clearly felt that a strand of her mental strength had been drained away again.
But the surgery cannot be stopped.
Jiang Zihan gritted his teeth and continued, when suddenly there was another loud sound of sneak attack from outside.
The explosion shattered the windows; it was no noise a beast could make.
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