The Mysterious Vines!

Maxwell saw her smile clearly.

But beyond that, Carline showed no other reaction.

"I still need to keep pushing," Maxwell thought.

"Now that Carline is Tier 5 and Eva is only Tier 3, it would be better to get them both to Tier 5." This would significantly enhance Maxwell's strength.

Among the female zombies, besides Tier 5 Carline and Tier 3 Eva, Maxwell had one Tier 2 female zombie.

Beyond that, there were no others.

"Inside the Red Fortress, besides those strange trees, there must be many more mutated zombies, right?" Maxwell pondered for a moment, then handed a knife to the Tier 2 female zombie and sent her out again.

The square inside the Red Fortress was now devoid of zombies. The Tier 2 female zombie reached the castle's main gate, which was covered with layers of plant growth.

Vines as thick as a human arm clung to it, a door too tough for ordinary people to open.

This was all within Maxwell's expectations; the knife he had provided to the Tier 2 zombie now proved useful. The Tier 2 female zombie used the knife to clear the plants from the gate for nearly an hour until it was clean.

Then, Maxwell directed the Tier 2 female zombie to start pushing the gate.

The heavy gate, long unopened, creaked loudly as it moved.

"I don't believe you can't hear this noise!" Maxwell said.

At that moment, something eerie happened. The vines that the Tier 2 female zombie had cut earlier suddenly began to regrow rapidly. Soon, the thick vines stretched out towards the Tier 2 female zombie.

However, the vines did not attack her; instead, they circled around her, as if observing and sensing.

The loud noise of the gate being pushed startled most of the zombies within the Red Fortress, causing them to start running and appearing in the square, although no mutated zombies were visible.

"It seems these plants are still problematic, but they don't attack female zombies," Maxwell pondered.

He instructed the Tier 2 female zombie to stand still and not move. The vines circled around her numerous times, seemingly because they detected nothing unusual, then crawled back down along the walls.

"If it were a male zombie, it would probably be swept away and torn to pieces, right? And if it were humans, they might end up like those people in Supreme Hall, locked up to nourish these plants as nutrients?" Maxwell speculated.

The large gate of the Red Fortress was quickly covered again by these densely packed plants.

Maxwell watched all this through a light screen.

"These plants can still be cut with a knife, but with such a vast jungle of vines everywhere, the only way to get rid of them might be to burn them all. However, it seems there's a way to avoid them, and I don't need to get tangled up with them," Maxwell thought, because he had just intentionally made the Tier 2 female zombie make a loud noise by pushing the gate to attract the zombies inside to come outside.

Now, the square was densely packed with zombies, with at least a few thousand present.

By taking this large group of zombies for himself, there probably wouldn't be many zombies left inside the Red Fortress.

Inside the Red Fortress, the Tier 2 mutated zombie under Maxwell's command also began to gather zombies.

However, just as the Tier 2 zombie was leading a group of zombies to climb over the high walls, the vines lying on the walls suddenly moved. They did not attack the female zombies, but instead withdrew from the wall, retreating to the top, making it impossible for the zombies to climb up.

"This has become somewhat troublesome!" Maxwell frowned.

Could the commotion earlier have alerted some presence capable of controlling these plants? But there were two mutated zombies that came earlier, and after fighting for so long, these plants did not react!?

Maxwell pondered for a while, unsure of what to do next.

He didn't want to let these thousands of female zombies go; such a number was not easy to come by.

But now, unable to climb the high walls and the gate unable to be opened again, was he really supposed to set fire to all these plants?

Maxwell looked at Carline, who stood quietly beside him. Now at Tier 5, Carline would definitely be formidable with fire!

But the forest felt very damp, and actually starting a fire could indeed be problematic!

After thinking for a moment, Maxwell made up his mind.

"Carline, burn this forest down!" he commanded.

Maxwell led Carline to a massive tree hundreds of meters tall and said to her, "Ignite it for me."

Carline, silent as ever, took out her thorn staff, from which a ball of fire emerged at the tip, quickly growing into a fireball.

Initially, the fireball was only the size of a baby's fist, but it grew larger over time. About half a minute later, the fireball on Carline's staff was the size of a soccer ball, blazing intensely.

With a gentle swing of her staff, Carline hurled the fireball towards the large tree.

"Whoosh!"

"Bang!"

Two sounds followed one after another.

"What, does this come with sound effects too?" Maxwell was startled.

Then, he heard a buzzing sound overhead. Looking up, he saw something resembling a fighter jet hovering mid-air, from which a missile launched and swiftly flew towards the dense forest.

"Let's go take a look," Maxwell suggested as he, Eva, and Carline retreated.

Although Carline had just thrown a large fireball that ignited the big tree, its impact naturally couldn't compare to that of the missile.

Moreover, the forest was vast, so Maxwell wasn't worried about being spotted.

Maxwell reached a higher vantage point, where the view opened up, taking advantage of the dense forest for cover.

The two missiles previously launched by the fighter jet had impacted a large area, destroying many trees and causing fires to rage between them.

The fireball Carline had thrown also ignited a large section of the forest.

Meanwhile, the fighter jet in the sky showed no signs of stopping; three more missiles were launched from under its wings, speeding into the dense forest.

Watching the direction of the missile launches, Maxwell breathed a sigh of relief.

The jet's target was clearly just this section of the forest and not the Red Fortress.

If the female zombies inside the Red Fortress were burned to death, Maxwell would indeed be upset!

"Can you handle that thing in the sky?" he asked.

Maxwell currently lacked effective long-range attack methods, and Eva didn't have the capability either. As for the Tier 5 male zombie, it evolved physical combat skills suited for close combat, not ranged attacks.

However, it seemed Carline might have some tricks up her sleeve!