Chapter 350: The Swamp of Dark Corruption

‘They’ve all been alerted. Could it be a trap to lure the snake out of its hole?’

Brody furrowed his brow.

“Have the numbers been confirmed?”

“Confirming.” The guard lowered his head to look at the control panel, where a group of blue little crabs scurried quickly, forming two numbers in the grids representing areas A1 and C3: “4” and “8.”

Then, he suddenly looked up and reported:

“There are 4 intruders in area A1, and 8 in area C3.”

Brody clearly remembered that the people Zachary had asked him to look after were four Empire citizens from other star systems.

But now there were an extra 8 people.

‘What was going on? Could they not be part of the same group, but actual intruders?’

Brody’s gaze instantly turned sharp.

“We must not let them break through the crab wall!” He immediately waved his hand and issued an order, “Activate the crab wall at its highest level!”

Blockading the Dark Swamp was his mission. Now that enemies were actually trying to invade it, he had no way to worry about Zachary’s request anymore. He could only go all out. As for whether those four could survive, that would be up to fate.

-“It’s over, something big is about to happen!”

-“Little Fish came up with a clever idea, and now Lao Zhen and the Saints’ Hand Society are in for it!”

-“On the other side, Lao Zhen is really screwed!”

Five kilometers above the ground, fierce winds howled. In the center of the iron sheet, Lin Zhen, Zi Jiu, Aili, and Anvil sat cross-legged, back to back. A thin, paper-like iron sheet floated steadily.

They held onto handles on the iron sheet that seemed cast from it, stabilizing themselves. At the same time, they leaned forward, looking through the thick clouds at everything on the ground far below.

When they saw that the thin red line encircling the entire land was left behind them, the blonde girl couldn’t help letting go of the handle and waving her fist.

“We made it!”

Hearing this, Lin Zhen also showed a faint smile. ‘I didn’t expect crossing the crab wall to be so simple—just floating by at high altitude.’

‘We really shouldn’t have wasted so much time with Leng Xiaoyu back then. Otherwise, we might have already caught Chatosi by now.’

He shifted his gaze from the crab wall and looked further. Soon, he saw in the center of the red circle a vast area completely different in appearance. The land there changed from brown to deep black, with pools bubbling with black gas scattered everywhere.

The vegetation was withered and twisted, some bearing deformed black fruits. From time to time, huge monsters emitting black gas passed through the jungle.

At the center of the deep black land was Small Luoding City. It was that dead city, the starting point of all this pollution. All the buildings of Luoding City were black and tilted.

They were covered in blood-red, ferocious vines that looked like blood vessels. For some reason, the entire city had sunk. The lower half was hidden in a perfect circular pit, while the upper half was exposed.

Coupled with the sharp roofs characteristic of Shell Clan architecture, these buildings looked like daggers randomly thrust into the ground.

“Dark Swamp.”

Lin Zhen softly uttered the name of this land, and finally understood why the Empire had given it that name. Because at this moment, Small Luoding City really looked like it was trapped in a quagmire, slowly sliding into the depths of the earth.

“Is Chatosi hiding in this place?”

Although Aili was also startled by the scenery of the Dark Swamp, she didn’t care about the cause of this land. She only cared about the exact location of Chatosi, who knew information about the Saints’ Hand Society.

She scanned the entire city back and forth, as if trying to find Chatosi’s figure among them. But they were too far from the ground, with clouds in between; even a star energy user couldn’t see the details clearly.

“Looks like we’ll have to search after landing.”

Aili pursed her lips. Just as she withdrew her gaze, she suddenly heard Anvil beside her exclaim. She turned to look. Anvil was pointing at the distant ground in surprise.

“Look over there, the crab wall is moving!”

At the same time as Anvil’s exclamation, Lin Zhen also noticed the abnormality of the crab wall on the ground.

He manipulated the iron sheet to descend rapidly, soon passing through the clouds. This time, they all saw clearly.

The crab wall wasn’t moving…

It was growing!

Countless red little crabs surged from the base of the wall, like an endless red tsunami, constantly crashing against the crab wall. But the purpose wasn’t to destroy the wall, but to build it!

With each crash, the red crabs covered the wall with another layer. In the blink of an eye, the height of this wall, originally only twenty meters, doubled.

Moreover, as the crab wall grew, some anomalies quietly occurred around them. Little crabs, several times smaller than the red crabs and semi-transparent, silently appeared from the air.

Though their numbers were far from the exaggeration of the red little crabs forming the wall below, they were still densely spread in every corner of the sky, tightly surrounding Lin Zhen and the others.

-“Holy shit, my trypophobia is acting up!”

-“Do they really have to draw this disgusting scene so detailed?”

-“Classic ‘budget spent on the blade handle’, already used to it.”

-“The Shell Clan’s detection methods… we’ve been discovered!”

Lin Zhen’s face instantly changed. He let go of the handle and stood up.

The next second, these transparent crabs gathered together, turning into a storm that blew toward them.

Lin Zhen raised his hands. Silver-gray liquid iron flowed out quickly, using the iron sheet as a base to form a metal cube two meters in length, width, and height.

From the outside, the metal cube seemed completely sealed, but it was covered with ventilation holes even smaller than these transparent crabs.

Bang!

The semi-transparent ‘storm’ crashed directly into the metal cube.

The immense impact instantly sent the cube flying dozens of meters away. If not for Lin Zhen using metal to firmly secure himself and the others inside the cube before the impact, just that one impact alone would have been unbearable.

Lin Zhen tried to manipulate the metal cube to descend. Staying at this high altitude was definitely not a good idea. But the crab storm continued to blow incessantly.

Although the metal forming the cube was a high-strength alloy that sustained no damage from the impacts, it still prevented Lin Zhen from controlling the cube to descend for the time being. The metal cube was like a rubber ball, being knocked around everywhere.

“We can’t keep being hit like this!”

Lin Zhen suspected that the crab wall below would likely form a fully enclosed hemispherical wall in a very short time.

If they delayed any longer, when they descended, they would most likely face a pincer attack from both the crab wall and the transparent crabs.

Many ants can kill an elephant. The number of these crabs was almost endless; even by attrition, they could definitely wear them down.

Just as Lin Zhen was thinking this, planning to give up controlling the cube and let it descend by its own weight to escape the continuous impacts, the impacts suddenly stopped.

The next second, the metal cube suddenly dropped, and the interior was plunged into absolute darkness. Immediately after, a fine, piercing sound came from all directions simultaneously.

That sound was like constantly scraping a blackboard with fingertips, making one’s scalp crawl.