Chapter 382
Words:1399Update:22/06/28 12:12:34
Sanji put his feet together and spun on the spot. The whirlwind swept the gravel to both sides, like a probe drilling into the ground. An inward-facing hole was gradually cleared out in the thick sand.
Scorching hot steam rose from the sand, but strangely, Sanji felt that the temperature of the soles of his feet was dropping. Sanji's eyes lit up, and his feet continuously pounded the sand like sharp bayonets. Amidst the friction between the sand, he felt as if he had pierced through something solid, making a "puchi" sound.
It was cold and slippery, like stepping on the intestines of a cold and wriggling monster. Zoro suddenly pulled out his sword, and the blade swept past Sanji's feet. A dark hole suddenly appeared in the hole, and a few pieces of the black sticky fungus blanket were cut in half and fell on the sand. They were still wriggling tenaciously, trying to shrink back to the ground.
"Disgusting, what kind of plant is this?" The broken part of the fungus blanket fell beside Nami's feet, and she suddenly had goosebumps on her feet. She suppressed her disgust and fear and looked over.
"It's a bit like a fungus plant. The activity of the cells is very scary. I have not seen this plant in the biological encyclopedia in Dr. Culeja's study, so it's an unknown plant." Choba took out a pair of metal tweezers from nowhere and cut a piece of the fungus blanket, put it into a glass bottle, and put it into his backpack.
"Why is this thing under the desert?" Usopp pressed the goggles on the bridge of his nose, as if it could make his vision farther and clearer. The sand under his feet flowed down the broken hole, and new black sprouts grew out of the edge of the fungus blanket that was cut by the sword. They were growing rapidly, as if they would heal in a few breaths and cover the hole again.
The inside of the hole was very dark, and a cold and dangerous smell drifted out of the hole. Luffy bent down, and his hands suddenly extended into the hole. Soon, he grabbed something as thick as a normal person's arm. He squeezed it tightly, and his body outside the hole turned to the others and said, "I'm going down first!"
Before Nami and Usopp could stop him, Luffy disappeared and flew in like a spring. Zoro narrowed his eyes and grabbed Usopp without saying anything. Usopp grabbed Choba and the three jumped in together.
"Nami, let's go in too!" Sanji picked up Nami and jumped in.
Ten minutes later.
Deep underground, Usopp turned on the flashlight and swung it around. What he saw were countless thick roots wrapped in a layer of coarse sand. From afar, it looked like a wrinkle on the wall. But when he peeled off the sand, he saw dark tentacles as thick as an arm.
They looked like vines of plants, but they also looked like the tentacles of some kind of monster. They guessed in their hearts, but they could not be sure what kind of monster this "black curtain" that seemed to have hollowed out the entire underground was.
"It's actually empty underground. These things and the fungus are supporting the flowing sand above us." Usopp stared at the deep, empty, and silent darkness with his mouth agape. The eerie grandeur made him shudder. "How big is it down there? Could it be that the whole of Alabasta is like this?"
Usopp shook his head and denied this horrible idea. But even if it was only a part of it, it was still scary enough. It was holding up the desert above. How much power did it have to contain to do that?
"Choba, do you know what this is?" Nami carefully peeled off the sticky sand, revealing a dark tentacle below.
Choba tried to use a pair of tweezers to cut off a section and collect it for analysis, but the sharp tweezers were unable to hold it. "I don't know. I've never seen such a thing in any books."
After a few fruitless attempts, Choba looked at Sauron for help. Sauron waved his sword casually, and the blade easily cut through the thick sand surface. However, the moment it touched the black surface, it slid away as if it had cut through a smooth curved mirror.
"Hmm?"
Zoro was stunned. He instantly drew his sword and slashed again. The terrifying swordsmanship that could cut through steel was still strangely deflected. Cracks appeared on the black and smooth roots. They were not cut by the blade, but by the impact of the force transmitted by the blade. There was a huge difference between the two.
The former was a superb sword technique, while the latter could only be attributed to brute force. It was the kind that was extremely crude and wasteful because Zoro knew that more than half of the force transmitted by the blade had slipped away and hit the air.
"It's too smooth to cut through the stress point." Zoro's eyes were filled with thoughts. Choba did not think too much. He quickly used tweezers to grab a small section from the cracks and put it into a bottle. This time, there was no obstruction. It seemed that the strange smoothness was only limited to the surface.
Rustle rustle rustle … A strange sound came from afar in the dark and silent underground. It was like the sound of ink being crushed, or countless insects chewing on flesh and bones. Usopp was the most nervous. He was the first to prick up his ears. The sound in his eardrums became clearer and clearer. It was not an illusion. He pointed in the direction of the sound and said, "Over there. It's coming from above."
"That seems to be the direction of the battlefield," Sanji added.
The straw hats looked at each other. Luffy took the lead and walked towards the source of the sound. Usopp's flashlight shone faintly as it swayed back and forth. In the cold darkness, Usopp felt that someone was peeping at them from a corner.
"What a strong smell of blood!" Everyone stopped and raised their heads to look up. The moment the flashlight shone over, everyone's faces twitched in unison. Their pupils constricted into pinholes, and the hair on their bodies stood on end. Their faces turned unnaturally pale.
The sand layer above their heads was flowing. Withered and coarse tentacles pierced into the sea of sand, abruptly pulling fresh corpses out of the sand. In the violent friction, blood splashed out like beads. Countless incomplete or relatively intact flesh were dragged out of the sea of sand and into the underground space by the tentacles. The dense tentacles covered in blood waved above their heads. The whole scene looked like a bloody and horrifying processing factory, the raw materials of which were the corpses that had just died on the battlefield.
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