When the Third Exploration Team arrived outside the Bamboo Forest again, everyone felt differently than before. Previously, they had come here just to rest, and they had all been completely relaxed. This time, they were going to destroy the place where they had once rested, and they had no idea what kind of resistance they might face.
As usual, the team split into two scouting parties, one led by Qin Shuanghai and the other by a teammate. They once again began surveying the Bamboo Forest's perimeter.
Today, the Bamboo Forest was slightly different from yesterday.
The monster carcass they had found the day before had disappeared.
Yesterday, quite a few Bamboo Leaves had fallen in the Bamboo Forest, leaving many branches bare. Today, however, every branch was covered in leaves, and they didn't look newly grown.
At the base of every bamboo stalk, dark red had spread over the original blue-green, as though the stalks had just absorbed blood and were slowly digesting it.
They estimated that the Bamboo Forest covered about three mu. Based on its density, it contained more than five hundred bamboo stalks in total.
"I'll try going in first. The rest of you, split into groups of three or four and gather dead branches and some dry grass elsewhere. Whatever you do, don't act rashly before I come back," Lin Chenxing instructed.
The team members were used to Lin Chenxing always putting himself on the front line, and they knew what he was like, so they didn't try to stop him.
After stepping into the Bamboo Forest, he noticed no signs of movement. Everything was quiet and safe once more, as if the forest had only become unusually aggressive by chance that one day.
After carefully observing the bamboo deeper in the forest, Lin Chenxing saw that the closer they got to the center, the more dark red there was at the base of the stalks. The bamboo there was also taller.
Suddenly, he felt a faint tremor from underground. Realizing he shouldn't go any farther, Lin Chenxing quickly retreated a few steps. Only then did the ground gradually grow still.
Lin Chenxing inspected the bamboo stalk with the most dark red at its base, starting there and working his way upward until he reached the top, which he could just make out with the naked eye. Its texture looked finer than that of the other stalks, almost like jade.
Lin Chenxing judged that this stalk had to be the heart of the entire Bamboo Forest, and the most important one. In fact, as long as they destroyed it, the rest of the Bamboo Forest would no longer pose much of a threat.
However, if they attacked the central stalk without dealing with the others first, the rest would swarm them. It was safer to take things steadily and cut down and burn the bamboo stalks one by one from the outside in.
So, to avoid being attacked by the bamboo along the way, Lin Chenxing quickly left the Bamboo Forest and returned to the others.
"Captain!"
The people waiting outside called out to him.
Lin Chenxing said, "Next, we'll throw all the firewood into the Bamboo Forest. There's no need to go inside and spread it around."
Everyone agreed and began tossing in bundles of firewood and dry grass until none was left.
Then Lin Chenxing took out a small can of gasoline, opened it, lit it, and threw it into the Bamboo Forest.
The can hit the ground and spilled its gasoline. The burning fuel landed on the firewood, and flames instantly burst up.
The Bamboo Leaves rustled through the forest once more, falling in sheets as they tried to slice up all the firewood and snuff out the flames before they could spread.
But Bamboo Leaves were flammable, too. Even though they could cut through anything, wood's natural flammability wasn't so easily overcome—unless it all became jade, like the stalk at the very center.
With the help of the Bamboo Leaves, the fire grew stronger instead of weaker, and spread over an ever-wider area. It looked ready to burn down the entire Bamboo Forest.
But bamboo had more than leaves and stalks. It also had roots, and the Bamboo Roots spread throughout the ground beneath the entire forest.
As the Bamboo Roots surged, they formed whip after whip, lashing at the fire and kicking up clouds of dust. At last, they managed to keep the flames from spreading any farther.
Fortunately, the fire burned up more than a mu of bamboo—nearly two hundred stalks. The bamboo near the burned area also lost nearly all its vitality, its stalks charred black.
The fire attack had worked.
Next, Lin Chenxing and the others prepared to poison the Bamboo Forest. They would use Glyphosate, a herbicide that could spread its poison throughout an entire plant as soon as even a little touched its roots, stalks, or leaves, hastening the bamboo's death.
To make sure it worked quickly, Lin Chenxing had prepared highly concentrated Glyphosate. It was in glass bottles, too, so they only had to throw them down to break them and soak the surrounding bamboo in herbicide, which the plants would absorb.
The bamboo's ability to absorb things was evident from the monster carcass. They didn't need to worry that it would take ten days or half a month; the poison would probably spread through all the plants in a very short time.
Once they had finished, all that remained was to wait.
After waiting a full five hours, Lin Chenxing and the others finally saw the bamboo begin to change. Dark spots appeared on many stalks, while the leaves quickly turned yellow and fell.
More than two hundred stalks had changed, which meant fewer than a hundred remained.
Everything was going according to plan, and everyone grew excited.
At last, it was time to begin the final stage.
After two rounds of culling, the remaining bamboo could no longer be eliminated by those methods. Fortunately, there wasn't much left. They could get rid of it all with the simplest method of all—chopping it down.
This time, the team members weren't carrying their preferred weapons. Each had a one-handed axe and a large shield strapped to their back to protect them from the Bamboo Leaves and Bamboo Roots.
There was nothing else they needed to do this time. They only had to chop at the base of each bamboo stalk. Finally, after clearing away all the bamboo, they would spread another round of Glyphosate over the ground and repeat every few days until the bamboo could no longer grow back.
The plan was thorough, provided the bamboo didn't have any other means of attack besides those two.
As everyone advanced toward the remaining bamboo with their shields raised, the Bamboo Forest began to fight back.
The rustling of the Bamboo Leaves grew piercingly loud, and they shot toward the exploration team in sheets.
"Clang, clang, clang." The Bamboo Leaves embedded themselves in the shields one after another. Each leaf struck with little force, but there were so many that the team's advance slowed considerably.
At last, nearly all the Bamboo Leaves in the forest had been fired, but the shields had grown thicker from being covered in leaves—and much heavier, too.
Once the Bamboo Leaves were spent, the bamboo launched its second attack. One after another, the Bamboo Roots tore free of the earth, whipping through the air and striking at the group. When they hit the shields, tremendous force traveled from the shields into everyone's arms, stopping their advance.
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