38: Chapter 38 Strange Gray Mist
"Retreat to the roof!"
Lin Mo made a split-second decision, not bothering to pack up the tent.
He turned and rushed toward the dilapidated staircase, calling out to the other two.
Niu Dachun grabbed the backpack on the ground and followed closely behind, swinging the Gilded Frying Pan in his hand with a whistling sound, batting away a blue tentacle that lunged toward him.
With a crisp "snap," the tentacle was struck and bent at an eerie angle.
Dark green sap splattered onto the wall, instantly corroding it into a dense mesh of small holes and emitting a pungent odor.
Lin Mo caught a glimpse of this from the corner of his eye, and his heart skipped a beat.
This thing's blood was actually corrosive; if it touched them, the consequences would be unimaginable.
The three of them scrambled up to the second floor.
Lu Mengmeng threw out the Devil Vine with a backhand motion. The black vine coiled around the steel bars at the stairwell like a spirit snake, instantly expanding and thickening to block the passage completely.
"It can hold them back for a while!"
She leaned against the wall, gasping for breath, her bangs damp with cold sweat.
Lin Mo rushed to the window in a few strides, shoved open the creaky wooden window, and leaned out to look down.
At this sight, he immediately gasped.
He saw more tentacles emerging from the sandy ground like boiling water.
A dense, blue "tide" was washing over the ruins, climbing up the walls and shimmering with an eerie, cold light under the moonlight, making one's scalp tingle.
"This is a whole swarm!" Lin Mo's pupils shrank. He didn't dare to hesitate further and immediately raised his hand to condense his Soul Power.
"Soul Skill: Diamond Seal!"
A giant furnace covered in golden patterns condensed in mid-air.
It crashed down with a heavy sense of oppression.
"Thud!" Amidst the muffled impact, more than a dozen tentacles that had just climbed to the base of the wall were smashed, breaking off and splattering dark green sap like rain.
"Hiss, hiss, hiss—!"
Sharp hissing sounds came from where the tentacles had broken, sounding like some kind of collective wail.
But this did not stop the subsequent assault; more tentacles surged forward.
They frantically lashed and wrapped around the walls, causing the entire building to tremble slightly, feeling as if it would be torn to pieces at any moment.
Lin Mo kept slamming down Diamond Seals one after another.
His internal Soul Power was depleting rapidly.
Lu Mengmeng and Niu Dachun could only watch helplessly, unable to help.
Because neither of them had any suitable means to deal with these tentacles.
After smashing for a while, Lin Mo felt the effect wasn't very good, so he had no choice but to use the Exploding Furnace Soul Skill!
"Boom, boom, boom!"
The sound of explosions echoed through the night.
The firelight from the Exploding Furnace bloomed like scarlet flowers in the dark night.
The scorching shockwave blew away swaths of tentacles, and the dark green sap vaporized under the high heat, creating a pungent smoke.
But this violent attack only bought a moment of silence.
Before the smoke had even dissipated, more tentacles had drilled out of the sand, rushing toward the second floor like sharks smelling blood.
"No good! My Soul Power is draining too fast!" Lin Mo clutched his tight chest; the continuous use of the Exploding Furnace had almost drained him dry.
"If this keeps up, I'll collapse before they even climb up here!"
The Exploding Furnace Soul Skill was only a Profound-tier, low-level Soul Skill, so its power was limited.
"Then what do we do? Are we going to lose our lives here today?"
Lu Mengmeng was so anxious she was jumping on the spot.
"There are too many of them. It seems we can't stay here." Lin Mo, however, wasn't too worried.
Although he couldn't deal with this swarm of tentacles, he had ways to escape.
With a "thud," Lin Mo released an Pill Furnace.
"Get in quickly!"
The three of them didn't waste words and hurriedly climbed inside.
Once the lid was closed, Lin Mo immediately activated a Profound-tier, high-level Soul Skill.
"Furnace Chariot!"
The Pill Furnace instantly grew larger, and scorching flames ignited on its body.
Then, like a wheel of fire, it rolled out of the building.
"Rumble—!"
The Pill Furnace, wrapped in flames, crashed out of the second-floor window.
The furnace body crushed the sandy ground, leaving a charred trail emitting white smoke.
Those tentacles that were surging forward frantically curled up like burning cotton thread the moment they touched the flames on the furnace.
The dark green sap hissed under the high temperature, emitting a nauseating odor.
Lin Mo didn't dare to stop; he picked a direction and ran with all his might.
The swarm of tentacles behind them was like a blue frenzy, churning and chasing through the sand, their shrill shrieking like maggots attached to bones, following relentlessly.
He didn't know how long they had been running when Lin Mo's spiritual sense suddenly detected a layer of hazy mist ahead.
The pale gray mist was like a flowing veil, shrouding the scene ahead in blurriness.
The wheel of fire charged straight into it.
Lin Mo immediately felt as if his internal Soul Power was being sucked up by an invisible sponge, and the rate of consumption accelerated sharply.
His originally abundant Soul Power was draining at a visible rate, and even the glow of the wheel of fire dimmed slightly.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to charge out of the mist.
The moment he stepped out of the mist, the abnormal drain on his Soul Power disappeared, and everything returned to normal.
But after this ordeal, his Soul Power was mostly depleted, and the rotation speed of the wheel of fire slowed down until it finally crashed into a metal lump with a "clang" and came to a complete stop.
The Pill Furnace turned into starlight and vanished.
The three of them collapsed on the ground like three dead snakes, gasping for air, their chests heaving like bellows.
After a long while, Lin Mo gradually recovered.
He climbed up from the ground and looked up.
In the darkness ahead, a black silhouette appeared.
It looked like a humanoid silhouette lying on the ground.
Lin Mo hurriedly took out a flashlight and shone it over.
When he saw the general shape of the thing, Lin Mo's pupils shrank.
"This, this is... a mecha?"
To be precise, the thing in front of him was a tattered mecha.
"B-Boss, what is this?" Lu Mengmeng and Niu Dachun, after taking some motion sickness medicine, also gathered around.
"A mecha! A type of high-tech killing weapon!" Lin Mo's expression was calm, but his voice trembled slightly.
A mecha—that was every man's dream.
And to have a clearly scrapped mecha lying right in front of him, it would be a lie to say he wasn't excited.
But it was pitch black now, and Lin Mo couldn't see its full appearance.
"Let's go, let's see if we can get inside and stay for the night, then make plans when it's light out."
Lin Mo climbed onto the mecha with his bare hands and felt around in the dark to find the hatch.
He pried at the hatch with his hands, and with a soft "click," it opened.
The rust-covered hatch slid inward, revealing the pitch-black cockpit inside.
A smell mixed with engine oil and dust rushed toward them.
Where the flashlight beam swept, he could see cracked display screens and scattered control levers.
Lin Mo jumped in first; the leather of the pilot's seat had long since weathered away, and as soon as he sat down, it crumbled into dust.
"Looks like it's completely wrecked."
Lin Mo sighed but didn't get up.
The metal shell of the cockpit could at least block the wind and sand.
It was much safer than camping outside.
"We'll spend the night here!"
Niu Dachun and Lu Mengmeng, hearing this, also climbed in.
The three of them squeezed into the cramped space, each finding a corner to rest.
After the thrilling escape they had just experienced, all three of them were exhausted.
Lin Mo, having consumed a lot of Soul Power, found a comfortable position on the seat and closed his eyes.
But in his heart, he was thinking back to the mist that had spread for over ten kilometers.
Inside that mist, his Soul Power consumption had accelerated; if it hadn't been for the limited range of the mist, all three of them might have died in there.