The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 22: When the Professor Knows Magic, No One Can Stop Him
Chen Qinghan patted my back. I looked up at him; he remained silent, gesturing toward the darkness ahead and turned off the headlamp.
Being without light was no big deal for me. After the light went out, I saw someone ahead slowly walking toward us.
No, I quickly dismissed that thought; the person was not walking but floating toward us.
Chen Qinghan must have noticed something unusual about that person, which was why he quickly extinguished the headlamp. When there was light, the person floated directly toward us, but when the light source disappeared, they floated for a bit before spinning in place.
In the darkness, Chen Qinghan grabbed my arm and made me crouch down with him.
Swish... swish...
The sandy ground around us made small friction noises. Something was moving across the sand. We remained utterly still, even when something slipped across our feet and calves; we didn’t move an inch.
"Qinghan... Qinghan..." Miss Scream’s voice suddenly appeared in front of us.
And it seemed to be coming from the person spinning in place. In the ancient tomb, all sorts of strange things could happen, but I would never believe the person in front of us was Miss Scream.
The reason was simple: Miss Scream had long hair, while the person ahead had short hair and seemed to be a man.
Imitation—I considered this possibility, but for imitation to occur, the imitator must have come into contact with the one being imitated, or at least heard her voice.
If the things beneath our feet were attracted to light sources, perhaps we could use something luminous to divert it.
The headlamp couldn’t be thrown away, Chen Qinghan still needed it. I looked at the corpse beside my feet and noticed the electronic watch on his hand, which had a glowing function.
I gently took off his watch and threw it with force after turning it on. The light from the electronic watch was weak, but it was caught by the thing beneath our feet.
We watched as the electronic watch was wrapped by a dried vine, which tightened until it crushed the watch.
The dried vine stretched out from under the sand. Though it could move, it was a plant. I couldn’t communicate with plants; anything without intelligence has a generation gap with me.
I tried throwing an empty wallet, but this time the dried vine didn’t pursue.
Concluding that the dried vine would attack luminous objects, it wasn’t interested in non-luminous dead objects.
Wen Jing and Boss Lu both had light sources, so they were targeted by the dried vine. The watch and its owner were the best proof.
Suddenly, a beam of light lit up not far from our side, tracing a parabola before landing at our feet.
It was a wolf-eye flashlight, the strong light revealing the positions of me and Chen Qinghan to the dried vine.
Damn it, someone was playing dirty!
There wasn’t time to think. Chen Qinghan swiftly cut down two whipping dried vines.
But more dried vines came up from the sand. I quickly picked up the flashlight and ran toward the place it was thrown from.
The dried vines were chasing the light source, leaving Chen Qinghan and coming after me.
The person hiding in the sand tried to get up and escape but was struck on the back by the flashlight I threw.
His response was quick and agile. He grabbed the dropped flashlight and threw it back at me.
I instinctively kicked the flying flashlight away, which fortunately landed on a dried vine and was wrapped by it.
Unfortunately, the crisis wasn’t over. Maybe because of the light, the dried vine knew everyone’s position. The three of us weren’t spared, and we were all surrounded by the dried vines.
The Water Monster was still calling out to me, and their situation on that side was becoming more and more dire.
This dried vine must have been growing underground for countless years. No matter how skilled Chen Qinghan was with his sword, he couldn’t cut all of them.
The person who threw the flashlight at us seemed to be making a last-ditch effort. He pulled the gun from his back to the front and shot at the approaching dried vines wildly.
Bullets broke the dried vines attacking him, but only a small portion of them. Breaking the ones in front of him was tough enough, let alone those behind, making a 360-degree sweep nearly impossible.
He had a gun; Chen Qinghan had a sword. I didn’t have any weapon at all, but the dried vines just surrounded me without doing anything else.
"Use fire!" The cut vines around Chen Qinghan were already piling up like a bird’s nest. If things stalled any longer, he’d end up buried in them.
I hurriedly rummaged through my bag, finding a stack of yellow paper left by a Daoist after his death. I had kept them because I found the symbols on the paper pretty.
I threw the lit yellow paper upward, and the burning paper pieces fell onto the dried vines, setting them ablaze after a moment.
These dried vines were too dry, containing no moisture at all, quickly turning into a sea of fire.
Chen Qinghan cut a circle of isolation, pulling me inside, while the person trying to harm us was trapped by the fire vines, his bullets all used up.
At this point, more dried vines emerged from the sand, trying to extinguish the fire but ended up setting themselves ablaze instead.
"Ah—" That person was suddenly wrapped by a dried vine and lifted into the air.
A bowl-thick dried vine, blood red in color, emerged from the sand, distinct from the others.
It rushed out, stabbing straight for the person’s heart, creating a gaping hole in his chest.
Gurgling sounds, like drinking water, came from the red vine, yet not a single drop of blood flowed from the person’s wound. His face turned ghostly pale, and then it swallowed the still-beating heart.
Clearly, the corpse we saw earlier was also its "handiwork," and this thing was much fiercer than a cannibal tree.
Seeing the main culprit emerge, Chen Qinghan charged forth with his sword, amidst the rising sea of flames. I feared he might get burned rushing in like that, so I quickly threw my clothes to him.
What I threw was a cloak, so Chen Qinghan didn’t have to struggle to drape it over himself.
This clothing was immune to water and fire, unaffected even by flames, providing complete insulation, much better than a firefighter’s asbestos suit. It was lightweight and didn’t feel cumbersome at all.
With my cloak on, Chen Qinghan fought the red vine like a tiger with wings. He knew martial arts; it had been decades since I’d seen anyone skilled in martial arts.
Once, tomb robbers trapped in the main tomb chamber were as formidable as heroes in martial arts movies, idly practicing their fists in the chamber when bored.
I enjoyed resting in the coffin, disliking activity when idle, so I always thought training fists was foolish, just burning calories uselessly, dying even faster after food ran out.
But seeing Chen Qinghan wield his sword was different; defeating the red vine would mean we could escape, a significant difference.
"Go! Go!" I was tempted to blow a small trumpet to cheer him on, but feared distraction, so I quietly encouraged him.
Chen Qinghan stepped on the wildly dancing dried vines, leaping high, splitting the red vine in two.
Scarlet liquid spurted out as the red vine finally fell to the ground lifeless.
I was about to clap and cheer when I felt the entire sandy ground trembling, the ground arching upward as if something were rising.
Fine sand slid downward, and the ascending object was massive, spongy underfoot.
