Because his cheeks were torn, Muller could open his mouth wider than a typical Blood Corpse.
At the moment of biting, he used his ability to manipulate flesh and blood to arm himself with two extra rows of teeth.
Three rows of sharp teeth bit into Ed's arm, snapping tendons and breaking bones almost instantly.
With a forceful jerk of his head, he tore the young man's arm off.
Success!
Muller was secretly pleased. With flesh and blood, he could continue to wear down the lich. This young man seemed to be an important member of their group. He wondered if infecting him would cause trouble for the others.
I really hope to see them fight each other.
Completely unaware that something was amiss, Muller instantly slipped into the shadows. He needed some time to process the flesh and blood; there were still several corpses nearby, and he had plenty of opportunities.
Thinking this, the sound of large chewing came from the shadows; Muller was already absorbing the life force from the arm.
But at that moment, a sharp pain suddenly entered Muller's brain.
It hurts, it hurts so much!
Where exactly does it hurt?
Mouth, throat, stomach...
Why am I in pain all over?
The pain, which came almost instantly, nearly made it impossible for Muller to maintain his stealth movement.
One of the players' Shadow trembled violently for a moment, and Muller endured the excruciating pain and entered a deeper state of stealth.
However, no one noticed this slight incongruity; everyone was focused on Ed now only had one hand.
"Boss, are you alright?"
One player mustered his courage and asked.
As soon as he finished speaking, he saw some wriggling plant tissue growing from the severed part of Ed's arm.
These soft, clay-like tissues rapidly divided and grew, and in just a few breaths, Ed gained a brand new arm.
Aside from the lack of sleeves, it's exactly the same as before.
"Don't worry, I'm fine."
Ed smiled at the players:
"Someone else is involved."
As he was saying this, a sudden, violent coughing sound echoed from the cave:
"Cough cough cough! Ugh! Cough cough--"
Muller's body convulsed uncontrollably, and like a dolphin in an aquarium, he suddenly emerged from the Shadow of a player.
He knelt on the ground, his body convulsing, but his upper body remained in a position resembling retching.
"Ugh, ugh!!"
He spat out a large pile of sawdust, mixed with strands of blood and writhing, fleshy worms.
After gagging a few times, Muller seemed to feel that it wasn't working, so he opened his mouth as wide as possible and put his right hand directly into his throat.
He gripped his esophagus tightly, and his clenched fist brought out a long string of blood-stained thorns.
These plants were living well inside his body, but they were uprooted in an instant.
Even Aberration plants have their tempers; faced with this situation, the Blood-Drinking Thornbush all planted their roots into Muller's hands.
Seeing that he couldn't shake off the Aberration plant in his hand, Muller, who was in a hurry to remove the parasite in his stomach, didn't have time to think and immediately started rubbing his right hand with his left.
The Blood-Drinking Thornbush in sharp spikes accept all comers. They rub the left hand against the right and move the needle to the left, then rub the right hand against the left and move the needle back. By repeatedly rubbing the two hands together, the needles are evenly distributed.
At this moment, Muller was like a mouse on a sticky trap, struggling but unable to escape the sticky board.
Time was of the essence, Muller knew what was most urgent.
These bizarre, Aberration plants feed on blood, and a large portion of it ends up in their own stomachs.
If one were to consume flesh and blood in this state, more than half of it would likely become food for these Aberration plants, leaving one with very little power.
Seeing the electric snakes gathering nearby, Muller gritted his teeth.
Summoning the bone blade is too late; things have come to this, and all we can do is...
With a sudden swift movement of his left hand, he grabbed all the thorns and splinters.
His relatively clean right hand forcefully probed into his throat.
Amidst retching and spasms, Muller ripped off his stomach, which had been Blood-Drinking Thornbush.
Tempted by the even more vivid flesh and blood, Muller successfully removed most of the thorns from his left hand using a portion of his own flesh.
The pain returned to a tolerable threshold, and electric snakes surged forth from the surrounding area.
Muller stared incredulously at the seemingly harmless young man in the crowd, and let out a desperate cry:
"What the hell is this thing? What kind of power do you have?"
Ed looked around, and finally pointed to himself:
Are you talking about me?
He turned his head and paused for a second, then gave a familiar smile:
"Young Blood Corpse, you're quite perceptive. Why don't you guess which system's power I possess?"
"If you guess right, I'll reward you with a job that includes room and board, how about that?"
Looking at the boy's expression and hearing his familiar, teasing words, Muller's pupils suddenly trembled:
"You can see this; you've been watching this all along!"
Ed neither confirmed nor denied Muller's accusations. As the leader of the players, what's wrong with him looking at what his subordinates are doing?
Look at these guys. After realizing they might be being watched by an NPC, instead of being annoyed by the invasion of their privacy, they're all beaming with joy. Some are even sending text messages to other players who are interested in Muller's speculation.
"Won't you guess?"
Ed stepped forward, his tone and expression unchanged, but the oppressive aura made Muller breathless.
He had traversed the lands of the Demonic Tide for two hundred years, yet he had never encountered such an outrageous enemy...
No, the Grand Duke must know about this, otherwise there will definitely be big problems later!
Therefore, I should seize the opportunity to escape now, and I must escape with as much information as possible!
"Who are you..."
Muller wasn't interested in a job with room and board included; he simply wanted to know why Ed's abilities were even more bizarre than his own.
The ability of that Aberration plant to absorb blood and life force is almost comparable to that of its own Devouring Worm.
How is that possible?
How can this be a plant?
At that moment, he finally realized just how desperate those people he had slaughtered as inferior livestock must have been in their final moments.
Muller gritted his teeth and asked in a low voice:
"You are a plant symbiotic..."
Plant symbionts are a common term for people who follow Plant Compatibility system, with Tree Worship Church as a prime example.
Although Muller found Ed's abilities strange, he ultimately concluded that the spiky thing was nothing more than a Aberration plant.
As soon as he finished speaking, Muller subconsciously cast an inquiring glance at Ed.
But all he could see was a fireball, several times larger than the ball lightning from before, slowly expanding in the boy's hand.
His arm, which had lost its sleeve due to his own biting, was now covered with a dense layer of crimson scale armor.
"I'm sorry."
Ed said:
You guessed wrong.