Corpse Recovery Diver
Chapter 374 - 66_6

Chapter 374: Chapter 66_6

The juices either dripped onto the masked man’s body or gathered at his feet after hitting the ground.

Run Sheng sniffed: "It’s that thing’s blood."

It was the blood of the lizard snakes, so the masked man was also a link in this cyclical feeding system. The woman above in the underground palace who dreamed of ascending to meet the Snake God was just one of his pawns, endlessly circulating to nourish those lizard snakes.

Behind the doors of the underground palace was the lair of the lizard snakes. When food was scarce, they would also kill each other, and their blood would be collected, funneled through holes, and finally accrue at the masked man’s location.

He’s been postponing his decay in this way.

Li Zhiyuan had to admire his ingenuity; those hobbyists who enjoyed constructing small-scale ecosystems for viewing would probably rush here by train overnight if they knew of his existence, hoping for a learning opportunity.

As for that big thing that attacked the exploration team earlier on, it was probably the dominant ruler among the lizard snakes under their own vicious infighting. Logically speaking, it was impossible for such a large species to exist in an ecosystem like the exploration area, but who would have thought that there was someone building this system beneath it, one that would spawn such a creature every few decades or centuries?

Li Zhiyuan even suspected that the reason Yin Zhiwang and his group of four had found this place was likely to deal with this big thing that was harming the people.

Capable of sailing the seas even in the Spring and Autumn period and then returning to the Southwest to bewitch and control a small nation to serve his purposes.

Such a character, if he hadn’t become a corpse and had to hide here, would probably have made a name for himself in history and perhaps even inspired legends and tales under normal circumstances.

At this moment, the chest of the masked man heaved up and down, his hands clutching the armchair, seemingly eager to stand up. But his body was too weak, so weakened that even as a corpse, he lacked the strength to stand.

No wonder he had not acted on his own earlier but instead used Underworld means to summon the enforcers at the door.

Seeing him struggle, Run Sheng went straight for his chest with a shovel.

"Bam!"

His chest was fragile, caving in immediately.

Even Run Sheng himself was startled by the effect; he had never encountered such a vulnerable corpse before, but he did not hesitate to take another swing with his shovel at the man’s head.

"Bam!"

The mask flew off, and the head burst open like a bitter gourd.

The reason it was a bitter gourd rather than a watermelon was that his body beneath the clothes had become very thin, akin to a shriveled mummy.

As a corpse that couldn’t even retain moisture, it was clear that he had run out of energy.

Now, he was finally at peace.

"Over here, here’s a dug out stone stair. You can climb up." Xue Liangliang already made his way behind the chair, where there was a semicircular platform leading upward.

Run Sheng shouted: "Let’s go!"

Li Zhiyuan was being carried by Tan Wenbin at the moment when he saw Wenbin deliberately approach the headless corpse of the masked man and started rummaging through the clothes.

Tan Wenbin was scared, his hands trembling. After all, even a dead corpse, especially such a peculiar one in this place, was terrifying to touch.

But Wenbin was overcoming his fear, and soon he found a bell: "Xiao Yuan, want this?"

"Mhm."

The boy knew Tan Wenbin was trying to find his own role within the team. No matter how scared or disgusted he was, he was adding value to the team.

The last search at the waistband yielded a handful of black paste, like rotten straw.

"F*ck, this better not be shit!"

Just as Tan Wenbin was about to throw it away, Li Zhiyuan suddenly brightened: "Keep it, Zhuangzhuang!"

"Eh?"

Though he didn’t understand why, since Brother Xiao Yuan wanted it, even if it were shit, Zhuangzhuang would stuff it into his chest and carry it out.

That wasn’t filth... Li Zhiyuan realized it was a rotted bamboo slip.

A bamboo slip that the masked man had always carried with him—what kind of secrets might be documented on it?

The value of these secrets could be countless times more precious than the bell.

And the decayed bamboo slips could be restored and their text extracted; Li Lan used to do such work.

"Binbin, move it!"

"Coming!"

Tan Wenbin didn’t linger, carrying Li Zhiyuan up to the semi-circular area to start climbing the ladder. The ladder was steep, Xue Liangliang was first, Wenbin second, and Run Sheng supported from below.

Everyone knew freedom was just above, so they each tapped into their deepest reserves of strength, desperately climbing.

As they climbed, Xue Liangliang saw something moving ahead of him, and the entire ascending passage shook as though something was about to burrow out from within.

"Climb faster, it’s coming!"

After shouting, Liangliang continued upward. The others quickly kept pace, and when they had ascended a bit more, the walls they had just passed burst open as a massive, long body snaked out from within. But instead of pursuing them upward, it headed straight down.

Being carried, Li Zhiyuan could keep looking down, counting the length of the creature and marveled... it’s really long.

Soon, booming noises came from below; the creature entered the underground palace and seemed to have triggered a collapse, a chain reaction not unlike a minor earthquake. Terrifying dust billowed up from below, engulfing the four entirely.

Fortunately, they were not far from the top. With their last bit of energy, they finally climbed out of a very ordinary crevice in the rock from the outside world.

All four collapsed on the ground, facing the sky, breathing in the fresh air, looking up at the sun and the blue sky:

"We’re finally out..."