When Lin Jie stepped into this shrubbery that looked unnaturally vibrant, the sensation underfoot was a horrifying, fleshy feedback, as if stepping on the skin of so mollusk.
The air here was thick with a cloyingly sweet fragrance.
"Put on your gas masks."
Lin Jie reminded everyone.
Although there was no detection of obvious toxic reactions like when facing the Oil Ghost earlier, the [White Vulture's Mark] on his hand was sending him danger alerts with a slight yet persistent stinging sensation.
The feeling was as if countless invisible hands were gently stroking the back of his neck.
Evelyn and Julian quickly tightened their mask straps. Only Nadia rejected this modern protective gear. The Dayak hunter pulled a wad of herbs from a pouch at her waist and stuffed them into her nostrils—an ancient secret formula passed down for millennia in her tribe, used to combat jungle miasma and evil spirit auras.
The team advanced slowly, maintaining a highly alert combat formation.
The knee-high red flowers around them swayed gently despite the lack of wind.
"He's right ahead."
Nadia suddenly lowered her voice, her Parang blade slightly raised, pointing towards a clearing about thirty ters ahead.
There, the Black Lotus Sect Deserter they had been chasing to this point was kneeling on the ground with his back to them.
His dark cyan night suit was already tattered from snagging on thorns, and his left leg was twisted at an unnatural angle—clearly injured during the earlier frantic run, resulting in either a fracture or ligant tear.
But he seed to feel no pain.
He didn't even notice the four pursuers had closed in to such a dangerous distance behind him.
He just knelt there, hands raised high towards the depths of the fog-shrouded valley ahead, performing so kind of worship or supplication-like gesture.
"What is he doing?" Julian observed the eerie silhouette through his scope.
"He's pleading for help." Lin Jie's gaze passed over the Deserter's body, landing on the exceptionally large red flower in front of him. "Or... he's submitting his 'ticket'."
The Deserter clutched a black tal cylinder in his hand—a beacon used to send signals in ergencies.
Pulling the fuse would release a signal wave with a specific spiritual frequency, piercing through the interference-filled rainforest mist to alert comrades stationed inside the laboratory of an enemy attack.
This was originally his only way out.
And his final duty as a scout.
But he didn't pull the fuse.
His body trembled violently, a spasm akin to extre excitent.
"Save ... let in..."
The Deserter's voice was hoarse and broken, yet still clearly audible in the silent valley.
"I led them here... these are the best offerings... let in..."
He babbled nonsense while crawling forward on all fours. Behind his mask, his face was likely now a tear-streaked, snot-covered ss.
The world he saw was probably different from what Lin Jie and the others saw.
Under the hallucinogenic effect of the intense floral scent, this sea of flowers might have transford into a staircase to heaven in his eyes, with those ugly fleshy flowers as beautiful maids welcoming him along the path.
"This place is strange." Evelyn watched the readings on her detector going crazy. "The plants here seem to be releasing so kind of signal."
"Prepare to engage."
Lin Jie had no interest in exploring a madman's inner world.
He raised his [Serene Heart], the muzzle locking onto the Deserter's right hand holding the beacon.
Although he wanted the Deserter to lead the way, he absolutely could not let him send the alarm.
Just as Lin Jie's finger was about to squeeze the trigger.
A sudden change occurred.
The Deserter finally crawled to what he perceived as the "finish line".
He stretched out his arms and embraced the massive red flower before him, which was half a person's height, as if hugging a long-lost lover or mother.
"I'm back... Mother..."
He let out a sigh of contentnt.
Then.
The previously motionless plant suddenly "ca alive".
Its thick petals abruptly opened, revealing deep red stans inside, filled with mucus and covered in barbs and digestive glands.
Simultaneously, a rustling sound ca from underground.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!"
Over a dozen root tendrils, only as thick as fingers but dark red like muscle fibers, erged from the soil beneath the Deserter.
They directly pierced into the Deserter's body.
Thighs, abdon, chest cavity, neck.
The unprepared Deserter was turned into a pincushion by these greedy roots within a second.
"Ah—!!!"
An extrely shrill scream that had just erupted from his throat was abruptly cut off.
Because more root tendrils crawled into his open mouth, directly blocking his vocal cords and windpipe.
This wasn't simple physical piercing.
Lin Jie could clearly see that after piercing the human body, those roots began to wriggle and swell violently, as if countless tiny pumps were operating frantically, injecting so kind of highly effective anesthetic and dissolving fluid into the Deserter's body while greedily sucking the blood and spiritual nature flowing through his veins.
The Deserter's body visibly withered away.
His skin began to blacken and shrivel, like old tree bark drained of moisture.
The tal beacon in his hand slipped powerlessly, falling among the mucus-filled petals.
This was no sanctuary. This was a gaping maw.
"Don't go over there!"
Nadia grabbed Evelyn, who wanted to step forward to investigate. Nadia's face was terrifyingly pale.
"Those are the ghost mother's tentacles... they'll go berserk with just a touch of blood."
"He's dead."
Lin Jie lowered his muzzle.
The Deserter was no longer a living person, not even a complete corpse.
In just over ten seconds, he had beco an utterly hollowed-out skin, turned into fertilizer for this sea of flowers.
The massive red flower, after feeding on a grown man's flesh and blood, beca even more vibrantly grotesque. The gloss on its petals shimred with a nauseating red light in the dim illumination.
This was an absolutely perfect silencing scene.
No signal sent, no living witness left.
If they had recklessly followed him in earlier, their fate would likely be no different from that Deserter's.
But Lin Jie didn't retreat. His gaze remained fixed on the Deserter's skin that had fallen into the flower bed.
The skin hadn't been consud by the roots because those plants were only interested in flesh and blood.
"I want that thing."
Lin Jie pointed at the skin, less than two ters from the man-eating flower.
"Too dangerous." Julian imdiately objected. "The attack speed and density of those roots far exceed ordinary creatures, and we don't know how many more of those damn things are underground."
"I don't need to walk over."
A smile curled at the corner of Lin Jie's mouth.
His [Black rcury] trench coat suddenly shimred with an indigo glow.
"Evelyn, give one of those."
He extended his hand.
Evelyn paused for a mont, then understood Lin Jie's aning. She pulled a liquid nitrogen grenade, used to create instant low temperatures, from her backpack.
Lin Jie took the grenade, weighed it in his hand, then slightly crouched.
"Cover ."
Before the words fully left his mouth.
Lin Jie's figure vanished from his original position.
Utilizing the frictionless sliding characteristic of [Black rcury], he perford an extrely exaggerated loop acceleration along a large rock at the edge of this flower sea.
He ran three steps up the vertical side of that rock, using centrifugal force and the trench coat's grip to push his speed to the limit.
Then.
He kicked off the rock hard, his entire body shooting diagonally like a black cannonball towards the space above the man-eating flower.
"Hiss—"
The plant sensed the threat from the air.
Its petals, which had been digesting its prey, opened. Dozens of dark red root tendrils, still stained with fresh blood, shot skyward, attempting to intercept and kill this prey that had delivered itself mid-air.
But Lin Jie's posture in the air wasn't rigid.
At the instant before those roots could touch his body, he hurled the liquid nitrogen grenade in his hand fiercely down into the flower's center below.
"Bang!"
The grenade exploded in the heart of the stans.
Extre cold white mist erupted.
The elastic root tendrils, upon contacting the -196°C low temperature, beca stiff and brittle, their movents suffering a fatal pause.
And Lin Jie, seizing this mont, perford an incredible folding maneuver in mid-air.
The hem of his trench coat spread open. The [Phase Deflection] force field caused all the still-attempting smaller root tendrils to slide away.
His body skimd like a swallow gliding over water, performing an extrely brief, ultra-low-altitude pass over the skin.
Right hand reached out.
Five fingers hooked like claws.
Precisely and flawlessly grabbing the strap of the skin.
Then, using the forward montum, his entire body completed a forward roll, landing steadily five ters away in a safe zone.
"Crack."
The sound of ice shattering ca from behind.
That was the angry roar of the man-eating flower breaking free from its frozen restraints.
Countless root tendrils whipped the ground like frenzied venomous snakes, riddling that patch of soil with holes, but they had already lost their target.
The black figure that had snatched the trophy now stood outside their attack range, coldly watching it all.
"Madman..."
Julian looked at Lin Jie walking back unhard with the skin, pushed up his glasses, and offered a very fair assessnt.
Lin Jie ignored his exclamation.
He first used incense obtained from Su Sanniang—which could neutralize most curses and toxins—to fumigate the surface of the skin.
Only after confirming no strange spores or parasitic insects were attached did he unwrap the oilpaper package.
Inside was a neatly folded piece of parchnt.
Unfolding it.
An extrely detailed, complex map, complete with contour lines and vegetation type markings, appeared before everyone.
This was a defensive deploynt map.
Key nodes throughout this valley and the massive basin behind it were ticulously marked in red ink.
Watchtowers, hidden bunkers, trap zones, patrol routes.
The areas specially marked as "Biological Weapon Deploynt Points" were all clearly indicated.
This Deserter wasn't just a scout; he was a minor officer in charge of outer periter defense. Otherwise, he couldn't have possessed such core classified docunts.
Lin Jie's finger slid across the map, finally stopping at their current location.
A large skull symbol was drawn there, with a line of English annotation in a twisted handwriting beside it.
"Sector B - Pontianak's Garden"
And below that line, an even smaller red warning.
"Warning: High-concentration pheromone area. Entry prohibited without Class-A clearance."
"Pontianak..."
Nadia saw that word and took an involuntary step back.
"What's wrong?" Lin Jie looked at her.
"That's... that's the na of a malevolent ghost."
Nadia's voice trembled slightly, stemming from deep-seated childhood mories of a terrifying entity from stories.
"In our Dayak legends, Pontianak are vengeful ghosts of won who died during childbirth. They usually hide in banana trees, co out at night to seduce n, and then... use their sharp nails to rip open the n's bellies and eat their internal organs."
"That's superstition." Julian imdiately said. "Ghosts don't exist in this world, only spirits or UMAs."
"No, it's not just a legend."
Evelyn pointed at the warning about "high-concentration pheromones" on the map.
"That's a biological term. Pheromones are chemical substances, typically used for communication among insects or animals."
"But if it's 'high concentration'..."
Evelyn's expression turned sowhat grim.
"That ans sothing in this area is releasing a potent chemical weapon strong enough to alter biological behavior patterns, even control brain senses."
"Illusions."
Lin Jie closed the map, his eyes turning grave.
He finally understood why the Deserter had acted so crazed, why he mistook that man-eating monster for his mother.
Because he was poisoned.
And not a poison affecting the body, but one affecting cognition.
"We've entered the belly of the trap."
Lin Jie looked towards the red valley ahead, still shrouded in mist.
It still looked peaceful and serene. Those flowers still swayed gracefully in the breeze, emitting that cloying fragrance.
But in Lin Jie's eyes, this was no garden.
This was clearly a stomach sac, mouth agape, waiting for them to walk in.
And the entity called "Pontianak" was likely the ruler of this area.
A plant queen capable of manipulating minds through scent, making comrades turn on each other...
"Secure your masks."
Lin Jie tightened his grip on [Serene Heart] while pulling his trench coat collar up to its highest, covering all exposed skin.
"Check all equipnt seals."
"From here on, what our eyes see will no longer be real. What our ears hear will no longer be trustworthy."
"Even your closest teammate might transform into a monster wanting your life in the next second."
"Rember."
Lin Jie turned, staring intently into each person's eyes.
"If I go mad too."
"Don't hesitate."
"Knock out. Or... kill ."
The rainforest wind suddenly ceased.
A suffocating silence enveloped the entire team.
They knew Lin Jie wasn't joking.
Death might not be the most terrifying outco.
The most terrifying was smilingly plunging a knife into a friend's heart within that sweet dream.
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