Chapter 45: The Vortex Claw Crab

Unwittingly, the trio and the lizard had already penetrated about a hundred meters deep into the fog zone.

Aside from the mirage worm they encountered at the very beginning, they had not run into any other monsters.

After all, it was only a little over a hundred meters.

Lin Qianqian walked slightly behind and to the side of Han Ning, her compound bow half-drawn, a special arrow shimmering with a faint glow nocked to the string. Her charming eyes scanned their surroundings unceasingly, not daring to let her guard down for a single second.

Suddenly, Xuebing stopped swimming ahead, half its body breaking the surface of the water, and let out a muffled roar from its throat: "Rwaah..."

Almost simultaneously, Han Ning and Lin Qianqian caught the anomaly.

"Watch out!" Lin Qianqian warned.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Several arm-thick water arrows, condensed to a near-solid state, shot forth without warning from the dense fog on their front left.

Their speed was astonishingly fast, carrying a chilling intent to kill, aiming straight for Xuebing and Han Ning at the front of the formation.

In Han Ning's visual and spiritual perception, the origin of the attack was completely empty, filled with nothing but a vast expanse of white.

"Awooo!"

Xuebing reacted extremely quickly, its thick hind legs kicking off the water, and its massive body erupted with an agility that defied its size, narrowly dodging the strike aimed at its head.

However, one of the water arrows still grazed past its neck, shearing away a large patch of flesh and blood.

This was enough to demonstrate the sheer power of the attack.

Han Ning's reaction was no slower.

The moment he sensed danger, he hurriedly ducked his body.

A water arrow streaked right over the top of his head, carrying a wave of biting cold.

Before he could even straighten up.

Another tricky water arrow, as if calculating his evasive trajectory, shot silently from the lower side, targeting his waist and abdomen.

At the critical juncture, over a dozen thick, long vines burst through the air from around Han Ning, intertwining into a solid vine shield.

Bang!

The water arrow smashed heavily against the interwoven vine net.

The immense impact caused the vines to vibrate violently, the dark green vine bodies sinking inward as water splattered everywhere alongside pulverized wood chips.

Although he successfully blocked this fatal blow, the overwhelming force transmitted through the vines made Han Ning's blood churn, forcing him to take a step back and splashing the standing water loudly.

At this moment, Han Ning finally understood why Lin Qianqian insisted on bringing a psychic awakener.

His Natural Blessing could not be maintained in a released state at all times; facing this kind of sneak attack, it was simply impossible to guard against entirely!

"Over there!" Yu Na's eyes flashed with a deep, dark glow as she pointed toward an empty area.

There was a discrepancy of at least a meter or more compared to the direction from which the water arrows had been fired.

The mist churned there, revealing nothing at all.

Hearing the warning, Lin Qianqian drew the string of her compound bow.

Swish!

The arrow left the string, its shaft covered by a layer of flowing, wave-like white halo, shooting silently into the blank fog.

The arrow plunged into the thick mist.

Hum!

The next instant, concentric rings of visible, pearlescent white light waves expanded outward, centered on the point where the arrow had vanished.

Swept by the ripples, a ferocious silhouette emerged like a negative in developing fluid, forcibly outlined from the completely transparent state of "nothingness," marked by a glaring gray-white halo.

Though the mist was white and the marker was white, there was a distinct difference in hue, allowing Han Ning to see it very clearly.

It was a monster comparable in size to a large water vat.

It possessed a heavily armored body covered in dense, spiral patterns.

At the front of its body, a pair of gigantic pincers were raised high, their tips not being ordinary pincer blades, but sharp, spiral points resembling high-speed drills.

At this moment, they were slowly halting their rotation, dense water vapor gathering around them.

Its tail was a thick, elongated eel-like appendage covered in fine, dark blue-black scales.

The tip of the tail split into several slender tentacles flashing with dangerous blue-white electric sparks, twisting gently in the water as if they possessed a life of their own.

Every twist generated tiny, crackling explosions.

The entire monster exuded an overbearing sense of raw power.

"Damn it, it's a Vortex-Armored Crab! No wonder these hundred-plus meters were so quiet."

Lin Qianqian quickly rattled off the key information.

"This monster has astonishing physical defense; ordinary attacks can barely breach its armor. Its drills fire high-speed water jets, its tail can release high-voltage current, and it can emit mental fluctuations that disrupt thought processes—it's extremely dangerous. Its weaknesses are in the joint gaps and its relatively vulnerable eyes."

The compound bow in her hands hummed and vibrated, an arrow condensed with pearlescent white light leaving the string, shooting precisely toward the gap connecting the Vortex-Armored Crab's tail to its torso.

The arrow burst open upon hitting the shell, crazily scattering the energy and tiny electric arcs trapped within its shaft.

The Vortex-Armored Crab's body tilted slightly from the explosive impact, and the dancing electric tentacles on its eel-like tail were thrown into momentary disorder.

"Rwaah!"

At this moment, Xuebing moved.

Its grayish-white body lunged out like lightning, its sharp claws swiping viciously at the joint of one of the Vortex-Armored Crab's supporting rear legs.

"Clang!"

A harsh scraping sound rang out, sending sparks flying across the hard joint armor.

The pale green pattern around the tips of its claws lit up abruptly, and an imperceptible trace of greenness seeped into the armor gaps like a living creature.

"Rustle..."

The Vortex-Armored Crab, which had been preparing to raise its dual pincers, froze once more.

"Now..."

With a thought from Han Ning, fifteen vines tore through the water, twisting during flight into three exceptionally thick vine pythons with sharp front ends, slamming into the disrupted joint of the Vortex-Armored Crab.

"Thud, squelch..."

The hard shell was finally pierced.

Foul-smelling slime mixed with shell fragments sprayed outward.

"Rustle!"

Under the combined onslaught of attacks.

The Vortex-Armored Crab could not help but let out a painful hiss, its body twitching violently.

A transparent ripple mixed into its hiss and expanded outward.

The fog was forced back in a vacuum ring by an invisible force.

Flap~

The invisible ripples swept across the pale blue protective barriers on the surfaces of the three humans and one lizard.

"Ugh!" Yu Na let out a muffled groan, her petite body trembling as a trickle of blood flowed from her nostrils.

"Crack... snap."

With Yu Na helping to resist the mental shock, Han Ning did not need to split his focus.

The three vines rapidly shrank, drilling into the flesh of the Vortex-Armored Crab's joint like parasites, continuously spreading, growing, and driving straight in, before countless branches simultaneously tore outward.

"Hiss-gah..."

A teeth-grating sound of shattering bone echoed alongside the Vortex-Armored Crab's shrill, warped shrieks.

One of its heavily armored rear legs was forcibly torn and ripped off at the joint by the vines.

The Vortex-Armored Crab's body completely lost its balance, leaning heavily to one side with a loud crash.

The excruciating pain ignited the Vortex-Armored Crab's ferocity.

It tried its best to raise its pincers.

"Hum~"

A high-speed rotating water jet shot straight toward Han Ning's head.

Before the water arrived, the low-pressure wind it kicked up whipped Han Ning's hair into disarray.

Han Ning was about to dodge.

Lin Qianqian's explosive arrow fired once more, striking the rushing water jet and stalling the high-speed current for half a second.

Taking advantage of this opening, Han Ning whipped out a vine with his left hand like Spider-Man, wrapping it around a piece of abandoned concrete pillar nearby.

Then, controlling the vine, he swung to the right, rapidly widening the distance between himself and the water current.

"Go to hell!"

Simultaneously, he controlled the vines inside the Vortex-Armored Crab's body to drive deeper and churn!

The branching vines acted like venomous snakes, crazily drilling toward the Vortex-Armored Crab's relatively vulnerable inner chest cavity along the torn wounds.

"Awooo!"

A white shadow flashed.

Xuebing leaped forward with all its might, pinning the Vortex-Armored Crab beneath it and incessantly hammering the connection between the chest and abdomen shell with its hard head.

Bang, bang, bang!

Continuous heavy impact sounds rang out, making it difficult for the Vortex-Armored Crab's toppled body to shift.

The fatal drill pincers swept frantically across Xuebing's chest, leaving behind massive amounts of blood.

"Rapid Growth!"

Han Ning concentrated his intent.

The vines within the Vortex-Armored Crab's body seemed injected with violent vitality, crazily expanding, churning, and piercing.

Tearing muscles from the inside, pulverizing internal organs, and destroying everything in their path.

"Hiss... gah..." The Vortex-Armored Crab's shrill shriek cut off abruptly, turning into an air-leaking wheeze.

Its massive body twitched violently a few times, its rotating drill pincers hanging down powerlessly, and the electric light on its eel tail rapidly dimming.

The heavy shell covered in spiral patterns could no longer protect it, and its pincers, still maintaining a raised posture, smashed heavily into the murky standing water.