Speak More If You Can

Bai Ye frowned deeply. He hadn't expected to encounter mutated beasts again so soon. First hyenas, then gray sparrows, and now black snakes. Just how many mutated beasts had escaped in the damned Black Mountain?

"Li You, give them the guns! Prepare for battle!"

Li You hurriedly called for the soldiers to take the guns. This was no time for infighting. They had to deal with the black snakes first.

Bai Ye yanked the officer to his feet and said coldly, "Have your men hunt the black snakes!"

"Yes, yes, yes!" The officer nodded frantically. Bai Ye didn't even need to tell him what to do at a time like this. He could beg for mercy when facing Bai Ye, a human, but against mutated beasts, words were useless.

Bang! Bang! Bang...

A barrage of gunfire erupted. The soldiers who had gotten their guns immediately joined the fight. If they didn't fight, they would die anyway.

As for the wastelanders, most fled in panic. Only a small number picked stones up from the ground and kept attacking the black snakes on the ground, but it was completely useless. Running would only get them killed faster, and stones couldn't kill the black snakes at all.

"Ah!!"

Screams rang out one after another. A panicked wastelander ran straight into the mass of snakes. More than a dozen black snakes slipped into his pant legs and crawled steadily up his thighs.

The reptiles' icy body temperatures made every hair on his body stand on end, goosebumps instantly spreading across his skin. He screamed in terror, jumping and flailing like a monkey as he frantically scratched at his body.

He threw off one snake, but more quickly crawled onto him. Finally, a black snake reached his neck. Its raised triangular head flicked a scarlet tongue before it plunged headfirst into his mouth.

"Ugh... urgh..." His eyes bulged as he let out two muffled whimpers. Then his body stiffened, and he fell into the writhing mass of snakes.

In an instant, countless black snakes covered him.

Bai Ye's eyelids twitched at the sight. Killing Ying and removing the officer's limbs had taken him thirty-three seconds. Now, only fifty-seven seconds remained!

Fifty-seven seconds wasn't enough to kill snakes. It probably wasn't even enough to escape.

There were at least a thousand of these snakes, carpeting the ground like a black blanket.

He didn't sit around and wait for death. Instead, he fired wildly.

Several scarlet blood vessels sprouted from the white bone barrel of [Breath of Bones] and stabbed viciously into Bai Ye's gun hand, continuously drawing out his blood and vitality.

Bang! Bang! Bang...

Scarlet bullets shot forth. Each powerful shot could kill two or three black snakes. If he got lucky and hit a dense cluster, one bullet could even kill five.

But even so, it was still a drop in the bucket against the sheer number of black snakes.

"Fuck, what kind of trash is this? It gives even less blood and vitality than the gray sparrows!"

Bai Ye cursed irritably. During a pause to reload, he glanced at the wastelanders nearby. Without weapons and in their panic, they had nearly all died. Only three or five remained, desperately struggling as they ran madly toward the soldiers.

But the soldiers couldn't hold on either. Bullets weren't convenient for dealing with black snakes wriggling across the ground. Some soldiers who were rushed at close range even abandoned their guns, pulling out military daggers to fight hand-to-hand.

Among everyone present, Li You was surprisingly the most efficient at killing snakes!

Gritting his teeth, he swung his bandage-wrapped right hand. His extraordinary ability, Magic Hand, activated instantly. A three-meter-long invisible hand descended from above, and one slap could crush dozens of black snakes to death. Even a huge palm print half an inch deep appeared in the ground.

Bai Ye's eyes lit up. He hadn't expected Li You to be somewhat useful.

"Li Zuo, how much longer can you hold on?"

Li You panted heavily. "Three... three..."

Bai Ye was overjoyed. "Three minutes is enough!"

At Li You's pace, he could kill at least two-thirds of the black snakes in three minutes. The remaining third would be easy to handle.

"Two..."

Bai Ye froze.

"One..."

With a soft thud, Li You's right hand dropped limply. Faint crimson blood seeped through the white bandages.

"Li Zuo, you fucking... Is this the time to be clever with me!? Do you think you're funny?"

Li You forced a smile. "Didn't I learn it from you, Brother Ye?"

"Can't you learn something good??"

Seeing that Li You was no longer reliable, Bai Ye turned his gaze to the officer. Since the officer and Ying had dared lead people into Black Mountain, they surely had some way of handling the mutated beasts along the way.

"How about I put your mechanical arm back on now?"

The officer gave a bitter laugh. "It's useless. A mechanical arm can't simply be attached. It has an internal neuron-linking device so it can move like a natural arm. You already cut the device apart, so putting it back on won't help."

"Fuck, then I'll send you to see Ying." Bai Ye picked up the officer and prepared to throw him into the snakes.

"Don't, don't... There's another way!"

Bai Ye narrowed his eyes and released him. "What way?"

"My mechanical arm has a self-destruct device. It's meant to take enemies down with me and stop them from dismantling the arm to obtain the technology. Although I can't activate the self-destruct device now, severe internal damage to the arm can trigger it.

"You just need to use the forbidden artifact to shoot the arm's connection point and trigger the self-destruct sequence!"

"Why didn't you say so earlier!"

Bai Ye kicked the officer hard, nearly knocking the breath out of him.

The officer hadn't said anything earlier because he didn't want to destroy his mechanical arm. One arm cost several million to make, and all four limbs together had cost over ten million. He had poured his entire fortune into those mechanical limbs to gain his current status.

If his mechanical limbs were gone, he would never have a chance to rise again.

Besides, he had thought that someone as strong as Bai Ye could easily handle the black snakes, so he had never planned to mention it. But now that Bai Ye was about to throw him to the snakes, he naturally didn't dare hide anything.

Bai Ye picked up a mechanical arm made of silvery metal from the ground and hurled it fiercely toward the densest part of the snake swarm. Once it landed, he aimed at the connection point and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Nothing happened. The mechanical arm didn't self-destruct.

"You dared to lie to me!" Bai Ye flew into a rage and kicked the officer again.

The officer's face turned deathly pale from the pain. He repeatedly said, "Impossible! I really didn't lie to you! There really is a self-destruct device inside!"

"Um... Brother Ye, I think you missed." Li You quietly reminded him from the side.

Bai Ye's face darkened. "Speak more if you can!"

He fired again. Bang! Bang! Bang! After three shots, he finally hit it.

When the bullet struck the mechanical arm's connection point, a crisp metallic clang rang out. Then... BOOM!!

It was as if ten grenades had exploded at once. A massive blaze shot into the sky, instantly blasting hundreds of black snakes away.

Countless charred half-sections of snake bodies fell from the air.

The remaining black snakes seemed to be frightened by the massive explosion. They turned and fled, burrowing underground and vanishing in the blink of an eye.

The crisis was temporarily resolved.

Everyone let out a relieved breath.