The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 173 - 174: Monsters Staring at the Shovel

As I advanced by carefully following the map, I set a personal record for the shortest time getting back to the beach.

Unfortunately, our life raft had been washed away, but fortunately, Meng Qingyu’s speedboat was still there.

I checked the time; it was already evening. I swam to the speedboat, found two backpacks onboard, which contained spare sleeping bags.

I guessed that the false Meng Qingyu found these items cumbersome and left them on the speedboat, then they were too busy fleeing to come back for the spare sleeping bags.

I took the two backpacks and quickly returned to the jungle. I remembered someone saying that there were ’beasts’ roaming the beach at night, best to avoid them.

Everything had been smooth sailing; I didn’t need sleep, so I could march day and night. But no one expected that on my way back, I would encounter something extremely bizarre.

In a clearing in the forest, I was surrounded by a group of creatures that seemed to be women.

But I knew they were not human, for their lower bodies were arthropod-shaped like centipedes, with dozens of pairs of legs, moving swiftly and silently.

I suspected they were the ’beautiful-back women’ Old Shi and his team saw. They hemmed me in the center of the clearing, and each wore an expression of greed, extending their forked tongues, licking their wide mouths.

The scene felt similar to what the leader’s team described. Earlier in the forest, something licked my face; the leader’s team said it was a woman suddenly appearing from behind a tree.

Perhaps the beautiful-back women Old Shi’s team saw, and the slobbering women described by the leader’s team, were these Centipede Women.

"I say, you chose to act when I was alone, not sooner nor later, what’s that mean? Do you think I’m easy to bully?" I dropped the backpack and drew the dagger and knife from my waist.

With a dagger in one hand and a knife in the other, I was ready to show them a thing or two.

The Centipede Women closed the circle, each opening its mouth, spitting out clumps of sticky liquid.

Rolling in place, I targeted one of them, pouncing, and slicing upward with the knife, swiftly cutting a large gash in its belly.

Then with a sweep kick, I knocked it aside. Movies always say that speed is the greatest martial art, nothing too fast to dodge, be it sticky phlegm or venom.

"Playing dirty, huh? Anybody can do that~" Amid the screams of the Centipede Women, I executed a lazy donkey roll to escape their encirclement.

Their big sticky phlegm landed on the ground, followed closely by the internal organs of the Centipede Woman, spilling black-green intestines all over the place.

The injured Centipede Woman fell to the ground but didn’t immediately die, which enraged the other Centipede Women, who immediately turned to pursue me, spitting large clumps of phlegm after me.

With their many legs, I suffered from having too few legs, my two couldn’t compete with their dozens.

If I couldn’t outrun, then I had to fight. They had many legs, but not as long as mine. I noticed that after spitting one mouthful, they needed some time to produce another.

I began to play time zone strategy, fixating on one, letting it spit first, then slash and kick it.

If there wasn’t enough time, I’d maneuver behind one, using it to block those mouthfuls of phlegm.

Tests proved the phlegm had a paralyzing effect, even their kin hit would immediately lose mobility.

These creatures had a bit of intelligence. Realizing their plan to paralyze me wouldn’t work, they unleashed their killer move.

From their belly buttons shot out toxic needles, the needles were short, similar to those on thorns, but anything pricked by them would instantly corrode, forming a hole.

Whether in a tree trunk or on the fallen leaves of the ground, one prick made one pit.

The firing rate of the toxic needles was much faster than the anesthetic liquid. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, dozens fired at once in rapid succession.

As I moved to dodge, I tried to hide behind trees, not fearing the needles piercing me, but fearing they’d corrode my clothes into a perforated outfit.

With no spare clothes on the deserted island, going back wearing clothes full of holes would be embarrassing for the leader’s team to see.

The confrontation with Centipede Women eventually ended with them being slaughtered. One tried to escape, knowing I couldn’t outrun it, I picked up the folding shovel on the backpack, opened it, and threw it like a javelin.

The shovel head severed half of the centipede woman’s neck. I initially aimed at its head, but severing the neck worked just as well.

Its head tilted to one side, and its body immediately lost balance, running in an S-shape for a while. I seized the opportunity to catch up, delivering a flying kick that knocked it down, and followed up with a second kick to break the remaining half of the neck.

A dozen Centipede Women cost me half an hour, but I didn’t feel relieved as Old Shi’s team had also seen children, suggesting these dozen were just the vanguard of the Centipede People.

I picked up the backpack and continued on, moving slower than before. First, even at a fast pace, my legs couldn’t match their speed, making an escape attempt futile; they’d quickly catch up if they wanted.

Secondly, I feared they’d play dirty again, setting traps for me; not fearing their venomous needles, but wasting time if caught.

They didn’t hunt anyone else, hunting exclusively me; could it be they truly craved me, thinking my flesh tasty?

After defeating the first wave, the second appeared two hours later. They weren’t restricted by boundary lines, clearly, the entire jungle was their active area.

The second wave attempted to force me into a swamp. No way was I going to obey. As soon as one foot stepped into the mud pit, feeling something amiss, I immediately applied backward force while leaning back, flipping over on the spot.

Those Centipede Women thought I exposed a flaw, attempted to swarm me. Their arms were slender, seemingly underdeveloped; previous battles revealed their arms were powerless, having little impact in combat. Their attack relied on anesthetic and venomous needles.

But even if weak, it was still eight hands, four on each side, reaching to restrain me.

Only, I didn’t stop like they expected after one flip but flipped several consecutive times, making them miss their grabs or slip.

It drove them into a frenzy, yelling loudly as the venomous needles rained down like a bullet storm.

I lay on the ground rolling continuously, got pricked on arms and legs by several needles, but none penetrated the flesh.

Dodging left and right, they still turned my clothes into a perforated outfit.

Can’t I deal with them without Karmic Fire? Just as I was about to go berserk, a green light suddenly shot out from my palm, striking a Centipede Woman about to leap at me.

Its eyes instantly turned green, twisting around to spray anesthetic on its kin. Their close proximity meant several got hit, immediately paralyzing them.

It then fired toxic needles at the remaining unaffected ones, poisoning several kin in the blink of an eye.

The other Centipede Women, realizing the situation, abandoned dealing with me, joining forces to eliminate the traitor immediately.