Tomb Raider: What the hell is this strange commission?

"You said you spent nearly half a century in Lop Nur setting up these things in order to revive the spiritual spring."

The stone-faced man's gaze shifted to Xie Yuchen.

Xie Yuchen looked at the stone-faced man and said, "I have seen your formation, and you are very accomplished. To be honest, if I met you somewhere else, or if I met someone else who knew about it, I would definitely choose to treat you as a guest of honor."

"But since you have reproduced the formation of the Queen Mother of the West, you should also be aware of the impact of the Queen Mother of the West's original actions on this place. Therefore, you should also understand that what you want to achieve now is..."

Xie Yuchen paused and chose a more euphemistic way of saying, "--something that is almost impossible to succeed again."

Hearing this, the stone-faced man’s overly thin face twisted for a moment, as if he was about to have a fit, but he quickly held himself back.

It looked at Xie Yuchen and Chi Yu and sneered, "The earth vein energy here is dead, but the one outside is still alive."

"The dragon vein branches extending from Kunlun are everywhere here. I spent so much time carefully selecting the one that can include the entire Lop Nur, and arranged a luck-changing ceremony on it."

"The time is almost up... I am about to achieve my goal..."

As the stone-faced man spoke, a few more words uttered quickly, words that sounded like a spell and that Xie Yuchen could not understand.

So Xie Yuchen also quickly glanced at Chi Yu.

Chi Yu shook his head gently at him, meaning that this was not a behavior that required defense.

So the stone-faced man was simply venting his emotions.

Xie Yuchen sighed.

He didn't quite understand the other person's mentality, but he still had to say what he had to say: "So what you're thinking of doing is to forcibly transfer the water source and dragon veins in Lop Nur here."

"But as far as I know, the drying up of Lop Nur was caused by the water conservancy project of the Tarim River and the subsequent interruption of the flow of the downstream river."

Xie Yuchen said, "Moreover, Lop Nur completely dried up in the late 1970s, more than a decade has passed since then, but the water in Lop Nur has disappeared, and the springs here have not been reactivated by you, let alone revived by your so-called 'spiritual springs'."

Hearing this, the stone-faced man yelled in anger. He raised his hand, and the finger that looked like it had no muscles at all, like only a piece of skin attached to the joints, tremblingly pointed at Xie Yuchen:

"You know nothing! Originally, all things have no attributes, but as long as there are people, when all these things are seen by people, they have shape and potential, and the same is true for the environment."

"The drying up of the spiritual spring is inevitable due to overuse, but as long as we change the direction of the spiritual spring and replace this small dragon vein with a stronger dragon vein tributary, those dissipated things can temporarily return! This is what I have always wanted to achieve!"

Xie Yuchen's lips moved, but no sound came out.

Although what the stone-faced man said now were all what he wanted to know, the other party's emotions were obviously out of control.

Xie Yuchen was not sure whether he should interrupt the stone-faced man and take over the rhythm of the conversation when he was about to tell him everything.

——This may cause him to miss a good opportunity, but the good thing is that the decision of whether to go to war or not lies with him and Chi Yu.

But if they let the stone-faced man continue talking, then when the other party finished speaking his mind, the two of them would face each other's attack directly, and at that time, Chi Yu...

"Let him continue."

Chi Yu noticed Xie Yuchen's doubts. He looked at Xie Yuchen and said softly, "Since you want to know the truth, then listen to it, but only before the fight begins."

"——When the fight starts, I won't stop." Chi Yu said, "So, you have to seize the opportunity."

The stone-faced man could no longer hear what they were whispering.

After years of hard work were burned to the ground and are now being questioned, it urgently needs a channel to vent its anger.

It was temporarily unable to find Chi Yu's weakness, so the remaining rationality made the stone-faced man stay put, but he could not avoid verbal confession - even to the enemy.

"Do you think the drying up of Lop Nur is a joint choice of man and nature?" The stone-faced man roared, "--No! Not at all! It's me! It's me who's trying my best to lobby one uncivilized guy after another to push those plans!"

"If it weren't for you, if it weren't for you guys! If you destroyed the altars I set up in every earth vein hole, in two months, when the sacrifices sealed in the amber are completely transformed into dragons, the energy tide detonated by it will change the environment of the entire Lop Nur! The spiritual spring will be revived, and I only need to take a handful of it... but now there is nothing!"

It became more and more excited as it spoke. Its pale eyeballs bulged out from its originally deeply sunken eye sockets and stared straight at Xie Yuchen: "Forty-nine years, nearly fifty years! How many more fifty years can a person have in his life? I don't have time to find another way!"

"——You are the ones who destroyed everything I should have had!"

After saying that, the stone-faced man let out a scream that was completely beyond the capability of a human vocal cord to produce, and turned into a shadow and pounced towards Xie Yuchen.

The earth-colored mud spots were no longer soft. Under the control of the stone-faced man, they seemed to have vitality in an instant. They squirmed and protected the stone-faced man, and launched an attack on the two of them at the same time.

They covered the sky and the earth, surging with murderous intent, and brought up a howling gale in this closed underground cave, causing the dark green candles to sway wildly.

As the lights kept flickering, Xie Yuchen became the main target of the stone-faced man.

The mud dots that gathered together gradually changed in the process. They no longer looked simple, shapeless things. In the surging earth-colored ocean, a long and narrow bird's beak poked out from it.

After the first one appeared, the second and the third followed. In a trance, their eyes seemed to begin to flicker with a faint light of the same color as the candlelight. They spread their wings and rushed towards Xie Yuchen at an even faster speed.

Before this, Xie Yuchen, who had dealt more with ordinary people, did not have any means to break this kind of attack, so he could only use weapons to shoot away the attacking mud birds while dodging frequently.

——This is an unfair battle.

As the relatively weaker party in terms of numbers, the stone-faced man gave up on Chi Yu, who he could never see through, and prepared to prioritize dealing with this guy who spoke hurtfully but was not threatening enough.

This is a choice that anyone would make, but it is also the most wrong choice - they should not ignore Chi Yu's existence because of this.

A dark blue energy field quietly rose in this bleak green and dim space. Golden spells were silently written by the bone pen. They bloomed in the air, stopping the clay birds that approached without permission in mid-air.

But that is not complete confinement. If you look closely, you can find that the clay birds are still moving towards the target at an extremely slow speed.

It seemed like a subjective delay from the human perspective, or like invisible tentacles extending from the void, capturing all creatures that stepped into the hunting range.

The clay bird was never able to get close to Xie Yuchen, and could only fly into the flame like a moth. Under the irresistible force, it turned into an earth-colored mud dot again, and then suddenly dissipated under the effect of the spell.

The space was rippling like the tide, and the two parties who caused all this didn't even exchange glances.

They stared at each other, and at this moment, their thoughts reached a strange consensus - kill him.