Chapter 223 - 222: Big Head

Chapter 223: Chapter 222: Big Head

Ye Zheng’s expression chilled.

Feng Ling, however, didn’t seem to care. She stood calmly before her.

Just then, a Mouse Monster half the height of a person suddenly shot out, lunging straight for Ye Zheng’s face!

Ye Zheng raised her right claw and swiped viciously! A second Mouse Monster appeared, mouth agape with sharp teeth, and lunged for her right arm!

For a split second, Ye Zheng’s right claw froze mid-air. She didn’t know whether to press the attack or pull back to dodge.

By the time she snapped out of it, Feng Ling had already caught both Mouse Monsters with her Teeth and Claws. They dangled in mid-air, shrieking chaotically.

"See? I told you you were slow, but you wouldn’t believe me," Feng Ling taunted.

Ye Zheng’s face darkened, but she said nothing.

She stood there for a moment before turning and heading for the truck’s cargo bay.

Feng Ling called after her, "You only get half an hour to rest! Come relieve me after that."

Ye Zheng paused, stunned for a moment. Then, her expression softened. "Yeah, got it."

The cargo bay door closed, leaving Feng Ling alone outside.

Feng Ling circled the truck, the two Mouse Monsters still dangling from her grasp. She hadn’t killed them yet. ’Why are there so many of these things?’ she wondered. ’A few more pop up every couple of minutes. Could it be some kind of spawn mechanic?’

’For example, maybe this area is set to spawn five monsters. If I capture five of them alive and don’t kill them, maybe more won’t spawn.’

’But then again,’ Feng Ling thought, ’the Maze’s mechanics probably aren’t that gamified. Every creature in the Sanqing Mountain Maze is a product of reproduction. They’re not just data; they’re living, breathing genetic constructs.’

Still, with the long night ahead, it was worth a shot.

Feng Ling resumed her patrol around the truck.

She stopped killing the humanoid rats. Whenever she encountered one, she’d simply capture it. After all, the tendrils on her body were numerous and long enough to string the Mouse Monsters up one by one.

When she had the sixth one dangling, a new Mouse Monster still appeared.

Feng Ling immediately killed all the captured Mouse Monsters.

Now she was certain. It wasn’t a fixed spawn of five or six. Instead, new monsters were emerging endlessly from somewhere, methodically trying to drive the truck out as if it were an invader in their territory.

’When morning comes, I’ll have to figure out where these things are coming from. It might lead to a new clue.’

A rustling sound echoed from within the fog as the Mouse Monsters scurried across the ground.

Feng Ling followed the sound with her eyes and saw three Mouse Monsters dragging the corpse of a fallen comrade, scrambling deep into the mist.

Feng Ling was about to commend them for their loyalty—monsters who knew to retrieve their fallen—but then she watched them rip the corpse apart in a few deft moves. One grabbed a thigh, another an arm, and they hastily carried off all the pieces of meat.

’So they weren’t collecting the body for burial.’

’What are they doing, then?’

The old Feng Ling might have followed them out of sheer curiosity. This time, however, her primary mission in the Maze was to find the Divine Statue and help Ye Zheng lower her Pollution Value. Feng Ling didn’t want any complications before completing her objective.

A moment later, she spotted a few more Mouse Monsters coming to "collect" the bodies.

Feng Ling tagged one of the Mouse Monsters, intending to use Mother’s Thoughts to observe their movements when she had a spare moment.

The nearby corpses and severed limbs were dwindling. Pools of blood gradually congealed on the ground like dark red glue.

Once the last monster’s corpse had been dismembered and carried away, the Mouse Monsters started attacking Feng Ling!

Feng Ling counterattacked with her Bone Blade, stealing a glance at her phone.

The interval this time was seven minutes.

’So, they’re always here,’ she realized. ’It’s just that they prioritize collecting fresh, bleeding corpses before attacking the living. That takes time, which gave us the illusion that they were spawning on a timer.’

Feng Ling sliced an oncoming humanoid rat in half at the waist, her gaze fixed on the thick fog.

’The number of monsters here is staggering. If we go deeper into the Maze, we won’t be dealing with three or five at a time, but thirty, or even fifty.’

’Better to wait for dawn.’

Feng Ling recalled that rats were nocturnal. She hoped the Mouse Monsters wouldn’t be as active during the day. Fighting an endless horde was exhausting, both physically and mentally.

After Feng Ling killed a few more Mouse Monsters, silence fell once more.

She climbed onto the roof of the cargo truck to rest, watching from her high perch. Occasionally, a few Mouse Monsters would dart out of the fog, squabble over a corpse, and vanish back into the mist just as quickly.

Once all the nearby bodies were gone, a new wave of attacks would begin.

Feng Ling did a quick mental calculation. ’Assuming a six-minute interval between attacks, I’ll have to fend off about eighteen more waves before dawn.’

’...This is going to be a grind.’

She turned to the Cat Spider and Cat Owl. "Have you two had enough of a break? How about you take a turn for me~?"

Cat Spider: "HISS HISS HISS!"

Cat Owl: "ROAR ROAR ROAR!"

’What kind of weird noises are these?’ Feng Ling thought. ’Next time I hatch something, I’ll try for a creature that can make normal sounds.’

The Cat Spider and Cat Owl rested for about ten minutes before joining the fight, giving Feng Ling a chance to slack off.

Ten-some minutes later, Ye Zheng emerged from the cargo bay. Feng Ling was finally relieved and went inside to lie down.

She told Li Qing what she had discovered, but unfortunately, he couldn’t glean any insights from it, nor could he use the information about the Mouse Monsters to deduce anything about the Maze Master’s form.

An hour before dawn, they enjoyed a rare moment of peace.

It was hard to say if they had killed all the monsters in the vicinity, or if the creatures themselves had simply grown tired.

...

Dawn in the Maze was a strange affair. The surroundings gradually came into focus and the light grew brighter, but it was impossible to tell where the sun was rising from.

The sky remained shrouded in a gloomy, overcast fog.

The fog on the streets had thinned considerably, with visibility now at about forty or fifty meters.

An empty street, a somber sky, and a large truck covered in scratches and bloodstains parked at an intersection. Add some horror movie music, and it would be a perfect shot from a scary film.

Feng Ling carried a drone to the roof of the truck. After some fiddling, she managed to get it airborne, albeit a bit clumsily.

The drone’s camera feed was transmitted to her phone, giving them a bird’s-eye view of the entire Maze.

Huangfu Miaomiao, Xu Yiming, and Li Qing gathered behind her to watch.

At first, they could see the antique-style shop buildings of the pedestrian street. But after the drone flew some distance, the difference between the Maze and the real world became obvious.

After all, Guangshan City was a major metropolis full of skyscrapers, but here in the Maze, almost no building exceeded seven stories.

The architectural style was also a perfect replica of the pedestrian street—a mix of antique buildings with flying eaves and modern structures of concrete and steel.

The drone continued on, gradually approaching the city’s edge.

The view on the screen looked familiar to Feng Ling. "I’ve been here before," she said. "I think it’s called Nanhai Pier. This river flows right out to sea."

"This Maze is huge!" Huangfu Miaomiao exclaimed. "It even has an ocean."

"Can you get a shot of the ocean?" Xu Yiming asked.

"I’ll try..." Feng Ling adjusted the camera’s angle. A gigantic human head appeared on the screen.

Everyone froze.

Because it was the head of a woman, emerging from the ocean’s surface, as large as an island.