Spiked Man-Eating Tree

Tsk, this is way too creepy. Luo Chong quickly forbade everyone from eating this root and stopped the Elder from hitting her further.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Even stealing honey comes with the risk of being stung to death by venomous bees, let alone such sweet roots. Luo Chong didn't think harvesting this stuff would be easy, so he decided to go check it out himself tomorrow.

Luo Chong didn't believe in man-eating tree demons. Since he'd arrived in this strange world, he hadn't encountered anything he couldn't explain scientifically.

So, the reason he wouldn't let them eat it was actually because he was worried it might be poisonous, or have special ingredients that caused hallucinations or addiction.

You have to understand, nature is full of wonders. Poisonous mushrooms like opium poppies or hallucinogenic fungi aren't rare. After all, this isn't a fairy tale, and there's no great story of Shennong tasting a hundred herbs. In this harsh and realistic world, every edible species humans gain from nature comes at a bloody price.

Putting these thoughts aside for now, Luo Chong had the tired tribe members start preparing dinner. Dinner was very hearty: Dragon-Phoenix Soup, which was wild chicken stewed with snake, as well as roasted marmot, wild boar meat, and all their dried fish reserves.

That's how food storage worked – only if the day's harvest exceeded the consumption would the excess food be stored.

That night, Luo Chong couldn't sleep and remained extremely alert. He sat cross-legged next to the fire pit, adding firewood while carefully observing the changes in his body.

There was nothing he could do. He had been a bit careless and eaten that sweet root in the evening. The tribe members were sleeping soundly without a care in the world, but Luo Chong was still here waiting for nature's verdict, whether it would be "die from poisoning" or "nothing happens." He couldn't control any of that.

He sat there until the middle of the night. When the moon was high in the sky, the bored Luo Chong not only felt fine, but he also felt more energetic the longer he sat. He quietly slipped out of the cave, grabbed a wooden staff, and practiced the Armed Police Emergency Staff Technique he had learned in the military.

This emergency staff technique was a variation of the Shaolin Staff Technique. Its power was comparable to its original version, the Shaolin Little Yaksha Staff Technique, but the moves were simplified, making it easy to learn and more focused on efficiency. The entire technique was modified to be more lethal, losing the compassionate nature of Buddhism. Of course, this was a requirement of the military.

The Shaolin Staff Technique is the ancestor of all staff techniques, and its several smaller techniques are also very famous, especially the Little Yaksha Staff. This technique, although a staff technique, contains more of the essence of spearplay. Three parts staff, seven parts spear. Although there is no spearhead, the various spear techniques like thrusting, poking, and deflecting all carry a chilling killing intent.

Therefore, the Armed Police Emergency Staff, which evolved from it, further developed this ruthless style. The moves are wide and open, looking incredibly powerful.

Luo Chong picking up these cold weapon techniques he learned in his previous life again was out of necessity. This terrible place didn't have the modern firearms he was familiar with. He could only rely on these semi-ancient, semi-new cold weapon techniques to arm himself.

Just as dawn was breaking and Luo Chong was practicing with great vigor, a pair of large, bright black eyes reflected two beams of light from a crack in the cave entrance, like two ink-colored pearls. Luo Chong leaped high, thrusting downwards at an angle. The headless wooden staff pierced more than a foot into the ground, firmly embedded.

"Qu Bing? Why aren't you sleeping?"

Luo Chong walked to the crack in the cave entrance and picked up little Qu Bing, who was lying on the ground secretly watching. The child had been a little scared of Luo Chong after seeing him butcher the pig yesterday. Now, he didn't speak, but just buried his cold face in Luo Chong's neck and played by blowing bubbles.

It wasn't until it was fully light and the tribe members came out that the child started fussing about wanting to play.

Today's work arrangements were the same as yesterday. The only difference was that Qu Bing and his mother went with the Fishing Team, and Luo Chong took four younger brothers with the Gathering Team. He wanted to see how the so-called Demon Tree the Elder mentioned actually ate people.

Qu Bing's aunt cried all night yesterday. She had just arrived at the new tribe and suffered a grievance. Fortunately, the Chieftain saved her yesterday, otherwise she would have died a terrible death.

The group went around the back of the cave and headed into the jungle. Only then did Luo Chong realize that the tree's location was deep in the back mountain behind the cave.

There weren't many tall trees on this mountain, but the bushes were very lush. There were also quite a few fruit trees. And as they were walking, Luo Chong discovered something he had been longing for – chili peppers.

Hahaha, Luo Chong couldn't help but laugh up at the sky when he found the chili peppers. There were many half-dried, bright red chili peppers. He didn't know the variety, but they were quite thin, about a finger long, and a vibrant red, hidden among the bushes.

But the tribe members never ate this. This stuff wasn't filling, and its pungent taste made them think it was poisonous. It seemed he had to go out himself, otherwise good things were right under their noses and they wouldn't know it. The four younger brothers were instructed to just pick chili peppers here today and do nothing else.

Luo Chong continued with the Gathering Team. After crossing a ridge, a basin came into view. The land here was very fertile, and what nourished this basin were the pale green animal skeletons scattered everywhere.

Tsk, it was really chilling. This place looked like a mass grave, a pit of ten thousand corpses.

In the center of the basin, covered in bones, stood a strange tree about 60 meters tall. From a distance, it looked quite beautiful, like a large golden mushroom. Its huge canopy covered an area of 200 meters, and the sweet floating roots grew intertwined on the ground, covering an area of 500 meters.

However, the closer to the edge, the fewer of those root nodules there were. The closer to the center, the more root nodules there were. Those contained natural syrup. This pattern seemed to be attracting animals closer to the trunk. Could it be that the closer to the trunk they got, the faster they died? Otherwise, why would it grow like this?

Luo Chong wanted to get closer to take a look, but several women pulled him back, saying that they would die if they got close.

Tsk, my curiosity has been utterly piqued by you guys. Now that you won't let me look, my heart is itching like it's being scratched by cats and dogs.

Ignoring the tribe members' objections, Luo Chong insisted on investigating. He would just be careful if there was danger. With his current skills, he was confident he could escape.

Luo Chong was like a blind man, poking the ground in front of him with his spear with every step. This way, there shouldn't be any danger, right? He stepped only on the places he had tested, slowly moving towards the center.

Just like that, Luo Chong got closer and closer to the trunk. The moment his spear poked into the area covered by the tree canopy, the intuition cultivated over years as a special forces soldier immediately told him that danger was approaching.

Without a word, he quickly withdrew his spear and retreated the way he came. Just then, a whooshing sound suddenly came from above. More than ten sharp spikes, nearly 1.2 meters long, plunged straight into the ground, targeting the exact spot his spear had just touched.

Holy cow, damn it, that's too ruthless. It's a barrage of attacks right from the start. If I had just walked over there, I probably would have been turned into a hedgehog.

The more than ten spikes were very bizarre-looking. Each one had a diameter of nearly one centimeter, and the shortest was over a meter long. Their outer surface was light brown, smooth and shiny, perfectly straight and round, as if they were machined by a CNC machine.

At the tail end was a white flower the size of a bowl. Each flower had four petals, which acted as stabilizers for the trajectory during the spike's descent. Damn it, these were natural arrows! Those petals weren't just natural fletching.

After careful observation and repeated suicidal experiments, Luo Chong finally had a scientific explanation for this so-called Demon Tree.

Demon Tree was too exaggerated. Luo Chong changed its name to Spiked Man-Eating Tree. Although it was called a man-eating tree, it didn't just eat people. If other creatures walked under the canopy, it would attack them indiscriminately as well.

Those spikes grew on the canopy. The floating roots below were like a spider web sprinkled with bait. As long as a prey touched the area covered by the canopy, the spikes would launch an indiscriminate barrage of attacks on that spot.

The dead animals would turn into fertilizer for the big tree. If any that weren't completely dead were lucky enough to crawl outside, the spikes on their bodies would be carried elsewhere to take root and sprout, growing into a new man-eating tree. This could be confirmed by the saplings growing from the skeletons outside.

To put it plainly, this tree didn't have a brain either. It was just like plants such as mimosa or pitcher plants. Killing and parasitizing other animals was just a means for it to spread its seeds and reproduce, nothing magical about it.

However, the speed of the reaction arc, from the root being touched to the spikes falling from above, was truly impressive.

~

~

~

~

~

Cough cough, thanks to

'Bringing the Rolling War to the Heavens'

'Ice Cloud Speaking Moon'

'Night Walk'

Also, 'Blood Fiend' from the QQ Reader app.

To these four readers who gave rewards and support, Qing Shu bows to you all. Thank you for your support, and thank you to everyone who cast recommendation votes. I hope your recommendations, collections, comments, rewards, and character likes keep coming! Don't stop! Keep throwing them at me!

How does that saying go? "As long as it doesn't kill me, hit me as hard as you can." Just leave Qing Shu enough breath to keep writing for you all.