Summit Cave

Lin Shen could now be certain that those sacrifices were members of the Qi and Wang families.

What was strange was, what exactly had made them sacrifices for the Heaven Sacrifice?

People had also died on the way to Gourd Mountain, and Lin Shen had already possessed the Heaven Sacrifice skill then, yet the Heaven Sacrifice had not been triggered at that time.

After turning it over and over in his mind, Lin Shen's gaze finally fell upon the watch.

If there was any difference between now and before, it was that they had all come to this planet and gained watches capable of teleportation.

"Could it be that anyone with a watch counts as my teammate? Tian Xin has a watch too—does he count as my teammate?" Lin Shen suddenly had the urge to go back at once, kill Tian Xin, and test it out.

After thinking it over, Lin Shen still suppressed that impulse.

Ignorance was frightening, so Lin Shen wanted to know more and understand, as thoroughly as possible, what kind of world this truly was.

Wei Wufu was a window through which he could understand the world. The problem was that the window was not large enough, and it was somewhat defective too—very difficult to pry open.

Tian Xin's window was large enough, so Lin Shen still needed to learn more from him. He could not kill him so easily.

The Qi and Wang families had suffered grievous casualties. Nearly all of their Steel Grade members had died; no Steel Grade could possibly survive a battle like this.

The Alloy Grade Gene Mutators had not fared much better. If not for the Crystal Gene Level pets in Qi Shuheng and Wang Tianer's hands holding things together, they would have nearly been wiped out as well.

Lin Shen had no intention of rushing out to help. He merely lay low and watched the battle in silence.

It was cruel, but that was the law of survival.

If he had not been lucky enough to acquire the Fire Seed ability, he would likely have fallen into the hands of the Qi and Wang families long ago. His fate would only have been worse than death.

The most eye-catching figures in this brutal battle were undoubtedly Bai Shenfei and those two Black Birds.

Bai Shenfei fought the Giant King with all her might. Though she had failed to gain the upper hand, she had not been completely suppressed by the Giant King either. The two were trading blows evenly enough.

Lin Shen estimated that the Giant King was most likely a Mutated Crystal Grade, roughly on the same level as that Azure Python.

Bai Shenfei could actually battle the Giant King without falling into a disadvantage. Her level was not much worse than Tian Xin's.

Those two Black Birds were equally ferocious. They circled through the sky before diving down from time to time. Even Alloy Giants could not withstand a single claw strike; their heads would be torn apart outright.

The Crystal Grade Giants also dodged and blocked in panic before the Black Birds, not daring to confront them head-on.

The two Black Birds alone held back more than ten Crystal Grade Giants, while the other four Crystal Grade pets could not gain any advantage even in one-on-one fights.

"How did these people end up surrounded by giants in a place like this?" Lin Shen frowned as he surveyed the surroundings.

By all rights, the area around this mountain was completely barren. With so many people, why had they not hidden in the Steel Forest, where concealment was easier, instead running to this bare expanse?

And with so many of them being surrounded so tightly by the giants, that was even more abnormal.

"Could they have been surrounded while trying to climb the mountain? But why would they want to climb this lone, isolated mountain?" Lin Shen could not help studying the mountain.

The mountain was not particularly high, only a few hundred meters. From afar, he could see rows upon rows of pits on its slopes, far too many to count.

After estimating their number, Lin Shen figured that the giants usually curled up inside those pits like stones.

The Qi and Wang families had wanted to climb the mountain and failed to realize those were not natural rocks, only to end up surrounded.

"What exactly did they want to do up there?" Lin Shen was too far away to see what the mountain held.

"Those giants should all have been drawn down by them. If I go up the mountain now and take a look, I might be able to reap some benefits." The power inside Lin Shen's body kept rising, surging and roiling within him. Lying here and doing nothing was truly uncomfortable.

He acted as soon as he decided. Lin Shen circled around to the other side of the mountain and carefully checked that there were no Gene Mutator Giants before beginning his climb.

Even if there had been Gene Mutator Giants, Lin Shen would not have feared them. As long as he did not encounter the Giant King, he would not even need to use the Fire Seed ability. With his physical strength alone, he could contend with those giants.

With the Heaven Sacrifice's enhancement, all four of his attributes had already broken through twenty and were closing in on thirty. He was fully qualified to fight ordinary Crystal Grade Creatures.

As the number of sacrifices increased, his four attributes were still growing, merely at a slower pace now.

The giants had indeed all been lured away by the Qi and Wang families. There were quite a few pits on this side of the mountain too, and they had undoubtedly been places where the giants rested.

He climbed all the way to the summit without seeing even a single Steel Giant, but he discovered a cave.

"No wonder I found nothing on the way up. The cave is on this side. You can only see it from the front. Could those people have been surrounded by the giants because they wanted to enter this cave?"

Then another thought struck Lin Shen. Were they trying to hide inside the cave, or had they discovered something within it?

Fortunately, Lin Shen did not need to agonize over that question. He only needed to sneak into the cave and take one look.

He glanced down the mountain. The battle had grown even more brutal. Fewer than twenty people remained from the Qi and Wang families, while an unknown number of giants had been killed or wounded. Giant corpses littered the foot of the mountain.

The Giant King and Bai Shenfei were fighting even more fiercely. Neither had any spare attention to spare for the mountaintop.

Lin Shen flattened himself against the ground and crawled toward the cave. He had no desire to draw the Giant King over.

Fortunately, the Giant King truly had no capacity to be distracted by anything else, and Lin Shen entered the cave without incident.

"Gene Mutation Egg!" The instant Lin Shen entered the cave, he saw the Gene Mutation Egg in a pool at its deepest point.

The cave was quite large but not deep. He could see all the way to the end at a glance. At such a high place, there was unexpectedly a hot spring pool at the very back, with steam still rising from its water.

At the center of the pool lay a Gene Mutation Egg like a black diamond, half a meter tall. It was the largest Gene Mutation Egg Lin Shen had ever seen with his own eyes.

One look at its shape told him that it was a Crystal Gene Level Gene Mutation Egg.

"Could this be the Giant King's offspring? If it is, then I've struck it rich." Lin Shen jumped into the pool. The water was not deep enough to cover even his calves.

He grabbed the Gene Mutation Egg with both hands and tried to lift it. To his shock, his first attempt failed to raise it.

Lin Shen was greatly startled. He currently had 27 points of strength—he could casually lift an elephant one-handed and play with it like a ball—yet he had failed to lift this thing. Just how heavy was it?

Of course, Lin Shen had not expected it to be so heavy, so he had not used much force.

This time, Lin Shen spread his stance and embraced it with the posture best suited for exerting strength. Sure enough, he lifted the half-meter-tall Gene Mutation Egg, black as a diamond.

"Damn, this is heavy!" Lin Shen felt somewhat strained. He carried the Gene Mutation Egg outside the pool and set it down.

It was simply too heavy. All his strength went into holding it, making him far too slow on foot.

"Good thing Gene Mutation Eggs are egg-shaped." Lin Shen directly rolled the Gene Mutation Egg toward the exit. Other than this Gene Mutation Egg, there was nothing else in the cave.