Chapter 226: Giant Eyeball
Lin Ye took out the Waste Stones from his loot space, the pitch-black rocks piling up to fill the entire room.
"The one on the far right should have something good inside, yes, that one, and the one in the upper left corner that most resembles a human head. The others are all mediocre, might yield something when opened, but not very valuable."
Little Ye quickly helped Lin Ye pick out the valuable Waste Stones over the phone.
Lin Ye put away the Waste Stones. This place was relatively dangerous, so he planned to open them back at the Shelter.
"By the way, I'm currently implementing a risk hedging plan. What do you think?"
Lin Ye explained the plan regarding the mental hospital to Little Ye.
"You're insane! Is this something you can just casually hedge? While theoretically possible to complete, the implementation process is extremely dangerous. If you slip up and the hedge fails, you'll be left with only multiplied risks."
Actually, Little Ye didn't think the risk hedging plan was impossible to complete. She also wanted to find someone to try integrating the powers of multiple dangerous Planes, but the prerequisite was that this person wasn't Lin Ye.
"Can you help me? I want to give it a try."
Lin Ye didn't want to wait until the tenth tier to start changing his physique. The Abyss might not wait that long for him. "...I can, but my understanding of the physical body isn't deep. Let me ask my friend first, and I'll tell you the results next time we meet."
Little Ye actually already had some ideas, but before implementation, she needed to confirm a few things.
"Thank you. Is there anything you need on your end?"
Lin Ye asked.
"Not for now. Time is almost up. You'd better enter the portal first. I'll hang up after you go in."
Even through the phone, Little Ye could clearly perceive the surrounding environment.
"Okay, I'm going then."
Lin Ye grabbed Number 43 and quickly walked into the portal.
"Goodbye."
Little Ye said one last time.
Passing through the portal, the two returned to the second floor of the cabin. Lin Ye glanced out the window and found that the area outside the cabin was now overgrown with yellow-green weeds. To return to the underground station, they could only traverse through these weeds.
Not only that, but these weeds showed a tendency to further invade the cabin. Some weeds had already moved inside the cabin.
These weeds gave Lin Ye a very bad feeling. After thinking for a while, he finally decided to take a look at the cabin's basement before passing through the weeds.
Lin Ye: Through the portal, I've returned near that previous green portal. If this isn't random, you all should quickly use the portal to return.
Zhou Yi: Okay, we've already found the second green portal, but the monsters in the room are quite troublesome.
Truso: It's good that you're safe.
Lin Ye pulled open the trapdoor leading downward, revealing a vast, bottomless space below. A hollow wooden suspension ladder connected to the cabin's first floor.
Just this suspended ladder, which looked dangerous, was enough to stop most explorers who didn't want to commit suicide.
Lin Ye took out a flashlight, held Number 43's hand, and descended along the ladder into the underground space. The underground space was very deep. Only after descending over a hundred meters did he sense something below.
But considering the eyeball's influence, Lin Ye wasn't sure if what he sensed was real.
Only when the light beam illuminated the ground below did Lin Ye confirm that his perception wasn't mistaken.
There was nothing below, except for a white portal standing in the center of the underground space.
'What is this?'
Lin Ye didn't rashly approach the portal. This underground space was very strange; the portal was clearly part of some trap.
As a trap expert, Lin Ye couldn't possibly step into such an obvious trap.
Lin Ye used his mental wave detection method to perceive the surroundings and quickly found a large number of blood-red eyeballs deep within the walls and ground.
'I knew it was like this.'
Lin Ye wanted to return to the cabin along the ladder but discovered that numerous root systems were hanging down from above. In just a few dozen more meters, these roots would reach their heads.
'To think there wasn't even the slightest movement.'
Lin Ye took out the Cross Scepter and was about to deliver a powerful strike downward when he suddenly noticed that the spiritual energy concentration in the underground space was decreasing.
This wasn't sensory distortion caused by the eyeballs but an actual ongoing event, because Lin Ye could clearly feel that the spiritual energy under his control in the surroundings was diminishing.
Clearly, those root systems above were forcibly absorbing the spiritual energy from the environment.
After some thought, Lin Ye took out a pitch-black metal cube with three-centimeter sides from his loot space, triggered it, and casually threw it downward.
That was the Compressed Spiritual Energy Bomb he had obtained earlier. Ever since learning to compress spiritual energy, he had long wanted to test this bomb's power, and he also wanted to learn more advanced spiritual energy compression methods.
Boom!
Due to Lin Ye's precise timing control, the Compressed Spiritual Energy Bomb exploded the moment it hit the ground. Violent spiritual energy swept through the bottom layer of the underground space, completely shredding numerous explorers hidden underground with root-filled bodies.
Standing on the precarious suspended ladder, Lin Ye quickly absorbed the surrounding spiritual energy and injected compressed spiritual energy into the Cross Scepter.
The white portal remained unaffected by the explosion, still operating steadily in the center of the ground. Lin Ye planned to clear out the things below and then leave through the portal.
But before dealing with the things below, Lin Ye didn't intend to approach the portal; it was definitely very dangerous there.
Just as Lin Ye was absorbing spiritual energy, numerous eyeballs gathered in the underground space. The eyeballs contacted and absorbed each other, finally merging together. Giant eyeballs formed from the fusion of many eyeballs appeared on various walls throughout the underground space.
The entire underground space's walls and ground were covered with these fused giant eyeballs. Inside the giant eyeballs grew varying numbers of smaller deformed eyeballs. Now, all these eyeballs were looking at Lin Ye, watching his every move.
Lin Ye directly aimed the Cross Scepter at the portal and shot all the compressed spiritual energy inside toward it. Under the influence of these eyeballs, he could no longer rely on perception to make decisions; all he could rely on were his five senses and experience.
As a trap master, his experience told him that there must be something wrong near the portal.
However, the compressed spiritual energy shot from the Cross Scepter didn't hit the portal but struck the empty ground in the center, triggering a chain of spiritual energy compression explosions.
Lin Ye hadn't missed; the portal simply wasn't there in the first place.
A bizarre creature composed entirely of eyeballs and root systems walked out from the portal. It looked at Lin Ye and made strange sounds.
"You're really hard to deal with. Good thing you didn't know that gathering large numbers of eyeballs can alter sensory information, or I might have been crushed to death in the compressed space. How did you know I was near the portal?"
"Simple deduction. That portal was clearly not fake, so there must be a trap near it that would prevent me from passing through, such as a powerful individual hidden underground... What are you? Have I seen you before?"
Lin Ye didn't understand why this damned thing was targeting him.