Chapter 34: fierce battle

Lowering his head to look at the golden treasure chest before him, Xu Xin was somewhat hesitant to open it.

"Did I get here so easily?" Xu Xin vigilantly surveyed his surroundings.

At this moment, he was in the center of an entire sea of yellow flowers, with gently swaying yellow blossoms covering the ground all around.

A sea of flowers in the middle of a poplar forest seemed odd no matter how one looked at it.

He shifted his gaze to the treasure chest before him. Could the problem be with the chest?

The chest was entirely golden, its body even larger than the silver chest by a full circle. There was a keyhole on the body, and aside from the different color, it looked just like an enlarged version of the silver chest.

After some thought, Xu Xin still took out the golden key. He couldn't just stand there forever; this sea of flowers looked eerie, and staying in one place for too long would inevitably lead to trouble.

"Hm?" Coco on his shoulder tilted its head and looked at him, seeming somewhat puzzled.

"What's wrong, Coco? Did you notice something?" Xu Xin stopped his movement. This was the second time he had heard Coco's puzzled call.

Is there something wrong with what I'm doing?

Xu Xin looked at the chest once again.

Suddenly, Xu Xin sensed something amiss. His expression gradually grew serious, and he quietly took a step back.

He put away the golden key and expressionlessly stared at the chest. The stone spear he gripped tightly in his hand suddenly exerted force, thrusting violently towards the chest!

With a loud "bang", the recoil from the stone spear made his palm ache. What he heard was not the crisp collision of the stone spear with a metal chest, but rather the sound of two stones striking each other!

Stone fragments flew everywhere. Suddenly, the golden chest before his eyes began to become illusory, as if the surrounding space had become distorted. A strong sense of crisis once again rose in Xu Xin's heart. On the map, a red dot rapidly lit up.

Although the red dot hadn't fully brightened yet, it was already brighter than the black bear and vines.

This is a big one!

His thoughts raced like lightning, and Xu Xin had only one idea at this moment: Run!

He immediately dashed towards the nearest poplar tree, turning his head as he ran to glance at where the chest had been with his peripheral vision.

After the illusion faded, there was no golden chest left there, only a rock as large as the chest had been.

It really was fake!

At this moment, the rock was violently shaking. Suddenly, a crack appeared, gradually widening with a series of crisp sounds.

With a "bang", the rock shattered, and a huge blood-red flower rapidly sprouted from the hole left by the broken rock! The thick stem, covered in thorns like brambles, frantically extended upwards, lifting the flower to a height of nearly ten meters!

The petals were an eerily blood-red color, dotted with dense yellow spots. The center of the flower was deeply concave, filled with sharp red thorns, as terrifying as the mouth of a lamprey. The entire flower was blooming towards Xu Xin's direction like a bloody maw!

"Another giant monster! Is this a man-eating flower?!"

Because the rock shattering had taken some time, Xu Xin and Coco had successfully escaped to the nearest poplar tree. The small yellow flowers on the ground had become slightly sparser than in the center of the flower sea.

With some cover, Xu Xin felt slightly relieved. Coco had long since jumped down from his shoulder and was now emitting hoarse, sharp roars at the monstrous blood-red flower in the distance.

The horrifying center of the man-eating flower writhed, and a viscous liquid flowed from that bloody maw. Xu Xin immediately smelled an extremely pungent floral scent, and his head suddenly felt dizzy.

Fortunately, he was prepared, already knowing that this flower would affect one's mind. He pinched himself hard.

As his mind cleared, several thorn-covered vines had already lashed out in front of his eyes!

Xu Xin immediately leaned backward, and the whipping vine grazed past his nose, scraping across his face!

At that moment, another vine descended from above, seemingly aiming to impale Xu Xin directly into the ground!

In this crisis, Xu Xin dropped the stone spear in his hand. Supporting himself with both hands on the ground, he did a side flip, narrowly escaping the second vine.

The ground where he had been standing was like soft tofu, directly pierced by a large section of the descending vine!

Having dodged the second vine, Xu Xin hadn't even caught his breath when a strong sense of danger came from behind. Without thinking, he dove to the side.

With a crackling sound, the poplar tree in front of him was directly swept in half at the waist, falling to the ground with a tremendous noise.

This man-eating flower's vines could actually snap a tree in half!

Rolling on the ground, Xu Xin quickly stood up.

Affected by the flower's scent, he felt his movements becoming increasingly sluggish, as if carrying a heavy weight on his back. He was gasping for breath, but the more he breathed, the more floral scent he inhaled, making his mind increasingly foggy.

Xu Xin once again barely dodged the man-eating flower's vine attack, when suddenly his foot was caught by something. Looking down, it was another vine!

"Damn it!!" Before Xu Xin could react, he was directly pulled by the ankle and suspended upside down, being dragged towards the center of the man-eating flower.

"Hm! Hm! Hm!" Coco cried anxiously below. It hadn't been attacked by the man-eating flower; the flower seemed uninterested in it. All the vine attacks were aimed at Xu Xin.

Seeing Xu Xin dragged into midair, Coco charged towards the base of the man-eating flower. All the vines flying in the air emerged from that base.

Just as Xu Xin was about to be thrown into the bloody maw, Coco bit down on the base of the vine that was binding Xu Xin's ankle.

The vine paused slightly, and Xu Xin immediately pulled out a stone axe from his backpack, fiercely chopping at the flower's center that was like a bloody maw, now very close to his head.

The stone axe transmitted a sensation of chopping wood, and the man-eating flower let out a piercing scream. The sound was like a sharp whistle, emanating from the flower's center that resembled a bloody maw.

At the same time, the vine around Xu Xin's ankle loosened, and he fell onto the blood-red petals.

The texture of these petals was very similar to that of flesh and blood. The yellow protrusions on the petals felt like lumps of meat, and touching them made Xu Xin's hair stand on end, his arms breaking out in goosebumps.

The stone axe works! Axe-type tools are particularly effective against plants! As Xu Xin pondered this, he struck fiercely, swinging the axe down onto the fleshy petals.

The man-eating flower cried out in pain again, the huge flower trembling violently. The petals suddenly spread wide, then rapidly closed inward.

"This is bad, the flower is trying to trap me inside!" Xu Xin's face changed drastically as he frantically chopped at the petals with his axe.

To his surprise, the petals' closing motion suddenly halted. Due to inertia, the stone axe in Xu Xin's hand chopped hard into the petals. With a "crack", the axe blade sank into the thick petals.

"What's happening?" Xu Xin stood in the half-closed flower, his heart pounding violently, his hand gripping the axe trembling slightly.

He exerted a bit of force, and the axe came out of the petal. The petal that had been chopped gradually split along the gash made by the axe, then shattered into pieces falling to the ground.

Xu Xin touched the other petals with his hand. The originally fleshy texture had become very hard. When he applied force with his palm, the petals crumbled into fragments like dried flatbread.

It was the same situation as before with the vines beside the bronze chest. After launching a few attacks against him, it was as if all the moisture had been sucked out, leaving it dry and brittle, crumbling at a touch.

Fortunately, when the man-eating flower's bud closed, the stem leaned forward, so the flower was now only about three meters above the ground. Xu Xin grabbed the fragile edge of the flower's center, hung his body on the edge, then let go, easily jumping down.

The man-eating flower's dry and brittle body, now like a specimen, directly broke apart under Xu Xin's handling. The huge flower bud fell to the ground, shattering everywhere.