"Bone Horse, take Daji and Wood Eight and leave first!"
Ethan tied both Daji and Wood Eight onto the bone horse's back. Only then did he slap the bone horse on the rear, telling it to carry one person and one cat out of this huge pit first.
As for the other residents, even if Ethan wanted to save them all, he simply did not have the strength to do so.
This mud monster was truly too perverted.
Not only were splitting arrows useless against it, even fire arrows had no effect. It hid underground, and the only time you could hit it was when it poked its head out, like playing whack-a-mole.
But no matter how much you hit it this way, you could only ever strike the part that surfaced. The main body was completely untouchable.
["Lord, this should be the witch's giant worm cluster. It has extremely strong magic resistance."]
The scarecrow seemed to recall something and immediately said to Ethan, [ "Its true body should be underground, a huge mass of worms. You must find a way to kill all of them! Otherwise, this thing will endlessly split into new worms. No matter how you kill it, you'll never finish it off!"]
"I'm not a damn pangolin. How am I supposed to go underground and kill it?"
Ethan was speechless.
And at that moment, he suddenly saw more than ten patches of soil on the ground beginning to crack open.
It was as if something was about to break through the earth at the same time.
"More than ten heads? What kind of monster is this?"
Ethan was shocked. He quickly pulled out another tycoon arrow. Even if tycoon arrows couldn't hit the underground main body, hitting more than ten heads of the same monster should be fine, right?
["Mud monsters continuously split themselves, just like earthworms,"] the scarecrow hurriedly explained, ["But because their bodies are extremely long, they easily tangle together. In reality, it's not one monster with over ten heads. It's countless ones twisted into a single mass, which is why it looks like there are an insane number of heads."]
"Holy shit!"
(;ﾟДﾟ)!
Ethan was completely stunned on the spot.
A monster tangled into a ball like that felt just like a clump of hair, thousands upon thousands of strands woven together. No one knew how many strands were inside, but every side had loose ends. That was downright terrifying.
Boom!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Countless sounds of earth exploding rang out, and more than ten mud monster heads all burst out of the ground.
The instant the mud monsters broke through the soil, countless foul-smelling heads with saw-like teeth launched attacks at Ethan.
And the remaining few stinking heads locked onto Herb Three and the others. Aside from the scarecrow, who was not attacked, everyone else became prey for the mud monsters.
Whoosh!
Ethan swiftly leapt onto the scarecrow standing in the center, stepping on its head. Only then did he aim at the largest mud monster head emerging from the very center of the pit and fire a tycoon arrow straight at it.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
In that instant, the splitting arrow divided into countless arrows, shooting out in all directions.
Once the mud monsters were hit, the massive force of the splitting arrows immediately knocked them off course. The mud monsters all shook their heads and wailed in pain.
Roar!
"Aooo!"
Countless screams echoed from underground.
Immediately after, the mud monster heads that had been hit all rapidly retreated back beneath the earth.
And once the splitting arrow lost its target, it stopped splitting. All the arrows it had split into vanished at that moment, and the main arrow fell from midair.
It was just a pity… Once a splitting arrow had split once, it was already wasted.
[Arrow: This is just an ordinary bronze arrow. Usable with shortbows and longbows. Cannot be used with enchanted longbows.]
One split consumed all the spiritual energy inside the splitting arrow. Recovering it for reuse was impossible. Still, Ethan didn't waste it. After all, shortbows could still use it.
Now that he had a household to support, he naturally wouldn't let a single coin go to waste.
He quickly picked up the arrow and put it back into his backpack.
"Hiss!"
At this moment, the bone horse also jumped back down into the pit.
The Daji and Wood Eight that had been on its back were gone. It seemed they had been brought to a safe place, and only then had the bone horse returned to help Ethan.
Ethan hurriedly tied Herb Three and the other two residents onto the bone horse's back, letting it take them out as well.
"Go!"
The bone horse responded with a sound.
Then it leapt again, jumped out of the pit, and the sound of its hooves quickly faded into the distance.
With the bone horse helping, the pressure on Ethan eased quite a bit.
But there were still six residents left in the pit. Ethan had already spent quite a lot of materials upgrading them. If they were eaten by the mud monster just like that, the loss would be enormous.
So… He still had to do his best to protect them.
"Gurgle~ Gurgle~"
It was coming again.
Not long after the bone horse left, the sound of something burrowing through the ground rang out once more.
This was the sound that always appeared right before the mud monster broke through the soil.
But when Ethan scanned his surroundings… he found no signs of cracking ground anywhere.
"What's going on?", Ethan frowned, "Could it be retreating?"
The scarecrow shook its head, ["Unlikely."]
Ethan asked, "Why do you say that?"
["Because this mud monster has clearly been hungry for a long time,"] the scarecrow said, ["If it were going to retreat, it should've done so when three of its heads were instantly killed earlier! And this sound of the soil writhing should be coming from right beneath our feet. It doesn't sound like a retreat."]
"That's true. Its speed is one kilometer per minute. If it were retreating, it should already be half a kilometer away by now."
Ethan readied his tycoon arrow and stared intently at the ground.
Until—
Pop!
A faint sound of earth breaking rang out.
Only then did Ethan notice that one resident's body suddenly twitched, as if something underground had risen and pushed him upward!
"Oh no! It's hiding beneath the resident!"
Ethan aimed the tycoon arrow at the resident, but the resident's body blocked the mud monster, making it impossible for him to aim.
And at that instant, the scarecrow roared in anger, ["Lord, shoot now! That resident is already beyond saving."]
"Ah!"
Even without the scarecrow saying it, Ethan was instantly furious, because he saw a mud monster's massive head burst straight through the resident's chest, piercing out of his body.
The resident's entire body was even lifted high into the air, stuck directly on the mud monster's long, long neck.
"Roar!"
After eating human flesh, the mud monster became even more excited.
After its massive head pierced through the resident's chest, it even twisted and turned toward another resident, opening its jaws to bite down.
Whoosh!
Ethan dared not delay any longer.
His fingers released the bowstring, and the splitting arrow shot straight toward the mud monster's huge head at full speed.
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