Chapter Eighty-Eight: Earth - Beast Tide (Twenty-Nine)

Sun Meng already understood what Mu Xingye was going to do, but he had no intention of stopping him. As Mu Xingye had said, this was, in the end, still a match, and there had to be a winner and a loser.

"If the rules have already been announced, could something unexpected happen at the mine later on?" Sun Meng asked, looking toward Pix.

"I've already set up a detection system. If anything abnormal occurs, it'll sound an alarm," Pix said.

"Alarm, alarm. A large number of mutated monsters have appeared inside the mine. The defensive robots are estimated to buy us three minutes and twenty-eight seconds." As the mechanical voice rang out, Pix glanced at the display. "Activate the contingency plan. Convert one-third of the resource robots into self-destruct units to stall for time. Recover the rest immediately." He looked at Sun Meng. "I'll have to trouble you to take a look. It seems this is the real test for the next stage. I need to make new preparations."

Sun Meng nodded and rushed out of the spaceship, flying swiftly toward the mine. The already-opened recovery device had contracted into a metal sphere, waiting only for the explosion so it could roll away at once.

Sun Meng stopped in midair. Below him, a tremendous explosion erupted from the mine.

The giant tree above was blown to splinters, and the metal sphere used the force of the blast to roll rapidly toward the spaceship.

At the mine entrance, amid thick smoke, a metallic serpent-like monster burst out and charged straight at Sun Meng in the sky.

"So fast!" The afterimage left where Sun Meng had stood was pierced straight through by the metal serpent.

He drew his bow and loosed an arrow. Gold-red inner energy burned like flame as three arrows shot in succession toward the serpent's eyes and the vital point just below its throat.

But the next instant, a layer of golden energy formed over the serpent's body. Though it looked thin, it forcefully blocked all three arrows.

"A domain close to the body? Something made purely for defense. What a troublesome thing." Sun Meng's figure left several afterimages in the air, attacking from all directions, yet the final target remained only one point: the vital spot below the serpent's throat.

Sensing the danger of this attack, the metal serpent quickly coiled its body, trying to cover its weakness.

In the next instant, the arrows struck the domain around it. With eight arrows stacked together, they broke through the domain's limits and slammed hard into the scales at the serpent's vital point. Fine cracks appeared, but in the end the scales were not shattered.

This level of defense startled Sun Meng. Could this be the monster specifically prepared for this assessment? A creature of this caliber would be a disaster for the mid-stage second-tier participants.

Yet Sun Meng's attack also made the metal serpent feel the threat. It no longer continued attacking him; instead, it watched him warily, searching for an opening to kill him in one strike.

He changed to a special arrow, one of ice-blue color.

Yes, this was the special arrow previously used by Yi Gang to shoot down that second-tier late-stage bird monster, a duplicate produced through the system's power. The difference from the original lay in its spirit. The one in Sun Meng's hand was only at the level of late second tier, lacking the original's ability to reach the perfection of second tier when infused with will.

The moment that arrow appeared, the metal serpent could no longer endure it.

With a springing motion, it rushed at Sun Meng. Instinct told it that it had to kill him before he could shoot that arrow, or else it would die.

A trace of mockery appeared at the corner of Sun Meng's mouth. The arrow flew, and with the support of his inner energy, a flash of cold light reached the serpent's head in an instant. The chilling frost made the serpent feel as though it had returned to the winters of its childhood. Even its body seemed to grow sluggish, and it almost wanted to sleep.

The ice-blue light passed straight through the serpent's head, circled once, and then returned to Sun Meng's hand.

The serpent's corpse fell to the ground, twitching a few times before going still.

After receiving the system's prompt, Sun Meng stepped forward and transformed the serpent's body. As a result, ninety percent of it was directly counted as special metal, while the remainder became points from flesh and blood.

"It seems there may only be this one monster for now. That's not right." Sun Meng only then realized that although the battle had been quick, it had not been quiet. More importantly, there should have been many monsters surging out from the mine just now, so why was there not a single extra one now?

Should he go take a look at the mine? Sun Meng looked at the five-colored earthen shield in his hand. This thing could protect him, unless whatever was inside was far beyond reason.

With confidence in hand, there was naturally no need to panic. Holding the five-colored earth shield, always ready to place it before him, he made his way step by step to the entrance. Burn marks remained, and the ground had been scorched black, but there was no trace of any wreckage.

Going another ten-odd meters inside, aside from the walls of the mine being pockmarked by the explosion, nothing seemed amiss.

That was the greatest abnormality of all. His perception was not for nothing; he had clearly sensed a wave of energy from many monsters rushing out here earlier.

Only when he reached the bottom of the mine they had excavated did a piece of ore that had fallen from the wall suddenly turn into a monster.

Sun Meng acted at once. Gold-red inner energy formed a giant hand, which he slammed down, smashing the newly formed monster into fragments.

It seemed to be a signal for the beginning. More and more ore fell from the walls, but after those stones turned into monsters, they did not attack Sun Meng. Instead, they turned on their own kind. The corpse of the monster Sun Meng had killed earlier was devoured in an instant.

The monsters that had eaten it clearly grew larger by a full circle, and their strength also increased somewhat. They then began a merciless slaughter of their weaker kin nearby.

These monsters fed on the rare metals and grew continuously. In other words, the monsters previously blown to death had all been eaten by that last serpent, which was why it had become so powerful. Then where was the normal growth limit of these creatures? If a swarm of them were slaughtered and ended up birthing a monster on the same level as that serpent, who would get credit for killing it?

Sun Meng instantly thought of these two questions and decided to stay and continue exploring.

With a casual wave, he slapped to death a batch of newly formed little monsters and, before the nearby monsters could react, collected the ore first.

This should count as exploiting a bug to farm points.

Sun Meng felt a trace of guilt in his heart, but his hands only worked harder.

It seemed the monsters also realized that Sun Meng was standing guard over them. As soon as they were born, they began drilling into the walls. Once they touched the ore, their bodies would fuse into it. Though they would not revert to ore, they would instead slowly absorb the ore and grow larger, their speed slowing by quite a bit.

Watching the number of monsters dwindle further and further, Sun Meng felt somewhat annoyed. Had the system discovered what he was doing and begun to regulate it?

Another hour passed. The new monsters emerging from the walls all started at the initial second tier. Even Sun Meng could no longer casually slap a whole batch to death, so he gave those monsters room to grow. In the blink of an eye, more than ten second-tier initial-stage monsters escaped his attacks, and rather than charging Sun Meng, they ran as fast as they could.

After fighting for another hour, Sun Meng suddenly felt a bad premonition. The next instant, he flew straight toward the mine entrance.

Immediately after, a pair of huge eyes appeared on the wall. They glanced at Sun Meng as he fled, then vanished.

"That feeling... definitely something above the third tier!" Sun Meng took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down as quickly as possible. It seemed the system had its limits and methods of restraint for this kind of behavior. One could take advantage of things, but not hope to dig loopholes and upset the balance.

Still, in that short while, his gains had been quite good. He wondered whether he could come here once every day in the future. If that were possible, it would be wonderful.

Back on the spaceship, Sun Meng told Mu Xingye about what he had encountered.

"So it really is like this. The system is now beginning to breed these mutated monsters, and even the ordinary monsters outside have started dropping large quantities of rare metals," Mu Xingye said. "But I've already released the other coordinates. Those people came to the same conclusion as I did, so we still have a great advantage."

Pix said, "The new robots have finished production. I've found that land in normal areas can also be excavated."

Sun Meng and Mu Xingye's eyes lit up. That was excellent.