Rest assured, they wouldn't let you off even as ghosts

The soldier's face went pale, but Bai Ye's terrifying strength left him no room to resist. He could only cautiously make his way into the grass.

Rustle, rustle...

Military boots scraped continuously against the weeds. The sound was faint, but at that moment, it seemed especially piercing.

As he ventured deeper, the bloodstains on the ground grew increasingly numerous, along with drag marks.

Those traces came to an abrupt stop beneath a large tree.

"Sir, the bloodstains end here," the soldier said shakily.

"Come back."

The soldier nodded repeatedly and hurried back at a jog. As the others drew closer, he felt slightly relieved.

But just as he was about to come within ten meters of them, he suddenly realized that their expressions as they looked at him were strange—shock, fear, disbelief...

His heart skipped a beat. Trembling, he turned around, and his soul nearly left his body!

A thick green vine hung down from the large tree like a python. At its tip was a huge flower bud. The bud split open down the middle, revealing serrated sepals like a beast opening its bloody maw, its interior packed with sharp barbs!

"Ah!!"

He screamed in panic and ran toward the others like a madman, while the thick vine crowned with a man-eating flower lashed at him like a living creature, swift as lightning.

"It's a Man-eating Flower Tree!" the officer cried out, his eyes widening.

"Open fire!" Bai Ye gave the order decisively. After a brief panic, the soldiers raised their guns and fired.

Bang bang bang...

Most of the dense barrage missed, but sheer quantity made up for their lack of accuracy. When several bullets struck the split-open flower bud, the man-eating flower vine actually let out a roar like that of an injured beast. Green fluid dripped from within, sizzling corrosively as it hit the ground.

The soldiers were overjoyed at the sight. Anything that could be solved with bullets was no problem.

With their confidence restored, the soldiers' aim improved as well. After several more shots, the vine's man-eating flower was riddled with holes and drooped weakly to the ground.

Just as they breathed a sigh of relief, Bai Ye's voice rang out from afar. "Why the fuck aren't you running?!"

Everyone froze in bewilderment. The next moment, a scene of despair unfolded before them.

From the canopy that blotted out the sky, thorn-covered green vines descended one after another, densely packed as though it were raining snakes in the forest.

Hundreds of green vines hung down, each one tipped with a man-eating flower sporting a bloody maw.

Man-eating Flower Tree

They fell from the sky, landing precisely above the soldiers' heads, and then... swallowed them whole!

"Ahhh..."

Screams rang out one after another. Whenever a soldier was swallowed by a man-eating flower, the green vine would rapidly contract and retract into the canopy a hundred meters above, seemingly to digest its meal.

Guns seemed exceptionally powerless at that moment. The man-eating flower vines appeared endless; every time one was shot down, more than a dozen immediately descended from the canopy.

A few clever soldiers realized the tree itself was the key, so they raised their guns and fired at it. But against a hundred-meter giant tree so wide that ten people could barely encircle it, bullets were like ants gnawing an elephant—utterly insignificant.

Having already reached a safe distance, Bai Ye watched the bloody scene before him with twitching eyelids. So this was Black Mountain?

"Save me! Save me, sir!" The officer, whose legs were inconvenient, had no time to flee beyond the Man-eating Flower Tree's range. Overwhelmed by panic, he lost his balance and crashed hard onto the ground.

Seeing this, Bai Ye rushed over.

The officer was immediately overjoyed. "Tha... ah, my legs!"

Before he could finish saying thanks, Bai Ye, who had rushed to his side, swiftly detached both of the officer's legs, then picked them up and ran off.

"Bai Ye! You bastard... give me back my legs!" The officer's eyes nearly split with rage as he watched Bai Ye's departing back.

The next moment, the shadow of death descended from above, and a bloody maw swallowed him whole.

Bai Ye and Li You possessed physiques beyond ordinary humans. With a group of cannon fodder drawing the Man-eating Flower Tree's attention, the two escaped its range without much danger.

A moment later, all the screams came to an abrupt stop. Over a hundred vines retracted into the canopy. Every soldier was dead, yet not a single corpse remained on the ground—only pools of blood proving they had once passed through.

"Brother Ye..." Li You swallowed nervously. "They... they're all dead. Only the two of us Transcendents survived."

"Don't worry. They wouldn't let you off even as ghosts."

"Ah!?" Li You's face turned pale. "No, Brother Ye, you were the one who brought them here. Why wouldn't they let me off?"

"Because even if they became ghosts, they still couldn't afford to mess with me. Naturally, they'd come looking for you."

Bai Ye casually brushed him off and continued onward with the two mechanical legs slung over his shoulder. Black Mountain was indeed dangerous, but it wasn't enough to scare him off. He was determined to obtain the Pangu USB Drive!

If there was a fifty percent profit, he would be tempted. If there was a hundred percent profit, he would dare take desperate risks. But the Pangu USB Drive offered far more than a hundred percent profit—it was a thousand percent, ten thousand percent!

A crystallization of Civilized Era technology, it contained not only methods for making people Transcendents, but also Life Engineering that could extend one's lifespan. Every single technology within was enough to make the major factions wage war.

As the saying went, wealth was sought amid danger and lost amid danger. Scratch out the second half; no need to remember that.

"Don't come looking for me, don't come looking for me..." Li You muttered repeatedly. "You were going to Black Mountain anyway. Dying in Black Mountain was only a matter of time. It had nothing to do with me... Brother Ye, wait for me!"

Beneath the green shade, the two traveled together. If not for their wary expressions, paired with Black Mountain's primitive scenery, they might have looked like they were out on a picnic.

"Brother Ye, don't get so close to the trees. I'm scared..."

"What the fuck are you scared of? This tree's so thin. One look tells you it isn't a man-eating—uh..."

Bai Ye raised his head speechlessly and saw a man-eating flower vine hanging down from the canopy. It was staring at him, ready to strike.

Though it had no eyes, it still gave him the illusion that they were locking gazes.

You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?

Bai Ye was truly at a loss. He had assumed Man-eating Flower Trees would all be as thick and massive as the previous one, so he had deliberately walked near thinner trees along the way. Yet he had run into another one.

"Brother Ye, run!" Li You struck out anxiously. With a fierce swing of his right hand, he directly blasted that man-eating flower vine apart.

"Run for what? These trees clearly have brains. They even know how to ambush people. If we don't teach them a lesson, they'll really think I'm prey."

Bai Ye had his own theory. He believed these Man-eating Flower Trees possessed instincts similar to those of predatory beasts. Wild beasts understood best how to seek advantage and avoid harm, where the strong devoured the weak. They hunted according to the hierarchy of the food chain and rarely provoked creatures stronger than themselves.

So at a time like this, he had to display his strength to avoid trouble.