Captain's Quarters Key

"An unusual area? All right, let's take a look!"

Lin Yuan agreed to Bai Ling's suggestion without the slightest hesitation.

Since every stitched beast had several seeds inside its body, Lin Yuan had already obtained enough rubber seeds.

Now that he had enough rubber, Lin Yuan began considering what else he could gain.

And Bai Ling's suggestion happened to fit his thoughts perfectly.

Having a humanoid radar with high spiritual sensitivity really did make exploring dungeons convenient.

Lin Yuan could not help marveling inwardly.

As for the danger, since Bai Ling had suggested taking a look herself, presumably she had weighed the risks, and it should not be too dangerous.

That was what Lin Yuan had thought, anyway.

But the farther they went in the direction Bai Ling had indicated, the more things seemed wrong.

Before this, even when Lin Yuan had entered a rubber tree hollow and invaded a Rubber Beast nest, only the Rubber Beasts from that particular nest had fought back. The other nests had shown no response.

It was as though each Rubber Beast nest only looked after its own affairs and cared little whether the other nests lived or died.

But as Lin Yuan advanced toward the place Bai Ling had pointed out, more and more nests began mobilizing.

Even distant nests several giant trees away began sending forces to block Lin Yuan, as though the direction he was heading in violated a taboo shared by every nest.

Fortunately, the ram made from the Frost Sea Serpent Horn was powerful enough. Its short-cooldown area attack came with crowd control, making it ideal for clearing the field.

Braving the increasingly ferocious tide of beasts, Lin Yuan forced his way to the destination Bai Ling had marked.

It was a clearing enclosed by dozens of exceptionally tall giant trees.

These giant trees extended their branches, using their own bodies as the framework of an enormous cage.

Bang! Bang!

An enormous creature, even taller than the giant trees around it, was ramming the tree cage, trying to break free.

It was a giant turtle more than ten stories tall!

Its shell was covered in spikes and strange patterns that seemed to form some sort of totem.

But the shell, which should have been incredibly hard, was now riddled with cracks. The patterns were broken and fragmented, as though someone had forcibly erased most of an entire totem.

The giant turtle's eyes were clouded. It seemed so terribly old that even moving was difficult, and it could only ram its head against the giant trees every so often.

Bang!

Clearly, this giant turtle, which would have qualified as a monster even in the world of Ultraman, had reached the very end of its life. It had no strength left to break through the surrounding giant trees' encirclement.

Lin Yuan also keenly noticed that the rubber trees around the giant turtle were constantly scattering seeds.

Within just a few seconds, hundreds of seeds had landed on the giant turtle.

Like leeches, these seeds wriggled, trying to burrow into the giant turtle's body, but its shell was too thick for them to penetrate.

Still, some lucky seeds managed to slip through the cracks in its shell, and whenever they did, the giant turtle's eyes grew dimmer.

At the sight, Lin Yuan understood.

No wonder the Giant Tree Forest had barely reacted to either Lin Yuan's invasion or the adventuring party's infiltration.

The entire Giant Tree Forest had been devoting its strength to surrounding and killing this giant turtle!

The place Bai Ling had sensed truly was the most crucial location in the Giant Tree Forest.

Without needing any spiritual sensitivity, Lin Yuan could tell with a single look that this giant turtle was an extraordinarily powerful transcendent creature.

Only because its lifespan was nearing its end had these rubber trees dared to set their sights on it.

But what should he do next?

Lin Yuan found himself at a loss.

Find a way to kill the giant turtle?

Leaving aside whether he could penetrate that thick hide and shell, who knew whether a creature of this caliber had some means of making one final, desperate attack?

Then should he turn around and kill the rubber trees instead?

It was hard to say whether the giant turtle would be friend or foe once it got out.

Surely he could not just wait here helplessly?

The giant turtle looked as though it was on its last legs, but for a creature renowned for its vitality, lingering in that state for several weeks would hardly be surprising. Lin Yuan did not have that much time.

While he hesitated, the giant turtle acted first.

Its enormous but dim eyes swept over Bai Ling. She immediately shuddered and crouched down, covering her eyes, as though she had sensed something extraordinary.

Then those enormous eyes swept over Lilia, pausing briefly and revealing humanlike surprise and confusion.

After that, the giant turtle looked at Lin Yuan and stared fixedly at him.

Lin Yuan froze for a moment, feeling as though it was trying to convey something.

But he had no Sanity, so he could not sense a thing!

"Uh, could you just speak instead?"

Lin Yuan asked cautiously.

The moment he finished speaking, the giant turtle really did open its mouth.

But rather than speaking, it spat out a tiny streak of light that flew straight toward Lin Yuan!

Lin Yuan was about to react when he realized that it was not an attack. The light was carrying something over to him.

It was an antique-looking bronze key.

Lin Yuan instinctively caught it and put it into his storage.

[Captain's Quarters Key]

[A key the ship's guardian beast continued to watch over faithfully even after the captain's death. Can be used to open the door to the captain's quarters.]

[Special item. Cannot be taken out of the dungeon.]

The captain's quarters?

Lin Yuan immediately thought of what he had seen in the beginner dungeon.

The islands on this sea were all, in essence, ships.

"So this is the key to the captain's quarters of this dungeon island-in other words, this enormous island ship?"

"This giant turtle was the island ship's guardian beast, and it didn't want the key falling into these rubber trees' hands?"

Having pieced everything together, Lin Yuan looked up at the giant turtle.

But he saw that the faint flame of life in its eyes had already gone out completely.

Then the giant turtle's body disintegrated entirely, turning into black powder that drifted away and vanished.

This was not what happened after a normal death.

Lin Yuan had an intuition that this giant turtle should actually have died long ago, but had forcibly exhausted every bit of strength in its body to keep the key out of the rubber trees' hands, holding on until now.

There had been no strength left anywhere in its body, which was why it had crumbled into drifting dust after death.

"It held on so stubbornly just to keep the key out of these giant trees' hands, and didn't even mind giving it to someone like me who had only just barged in?"

Lin Yuan felt that these giant trees might not be as simple as they appeared.

But before he had time to think, a sudden change swept through the entire Giant Tree Forest!

In an instant, countless Rubber Beasts poured out of the various nests in a seemingly endless stream, all their gazes fixed firmly on Lin Yuan!

"This is bad! We took what mattered most to them. We have to leave quickly. Something big is coming out from deeper inside!"

Bai Ling had returned to normal at some point and urged Lin Yuan anxiously.

"Something big from deeper inside? Is it the Tree King the adventuring party mentioned? How fast is it?"

At this critical moment, Lin Yuan asked calmly.

"Not fast. It'll take about fifteen minutes to get here. But the Tree King's aura is terrifying, about the same as yours... when you first came out of the coffin."

As Lin Yuan continued moving around outside, his durability had kept dropping because he was beached. Now, less than seventy percent remained.

Bai Ling had keenly sensed the change in Lin Yuan, but to her, this was simply more irrefutable proof that he was not human.

No wonder this powerful, uncanny being usually had to hide in a coffin.

Lin Yuan paid no attention to Bai Ling's thoughts and merely considered the current situation quickly.

If Bai Ling's senses were accurate, fighting the Tree King on land would be unwise.

Retreating was indeed the better choice.

"But we can't retreat immediately." Lin Yuan surveyed the Rubber Beasts around them, which had clearly gone berserk, his tone cold. "If these Rubber Beasts follow us from a distance, we'll never escape the Tree King's pursuit."

"While they've lost their reason, we need to wipe out all these Rubber Beasts that can move freely through the forest, and then retreat. Only then can we truly escape the Tree King's pursuit."