Tomb Raider: What the hell is this strange commission?

To be honest, for a moment, Chi Yu really had the urge to pin the man with black glasses to the ground and beat him up.

But Chi Yu's reason suppressed this impulse, allowing the man with black glasses to continue standing in front of him intact.

We can't waste time on Black Glasses, his additional target is still waiting for rescue.

On the map, Zhou Zixu's icon had been flashing on and off since the beginning, which meant that his health condition was not very good.

Chi Yu tried hard to divert his attention away from the man with black glasses, called up the map details, and checked the places marked as safe.

Fortunately, this zombie hall was not originally set up to completely prohibit people from passing through.

Although there are not many safe places to stay, they can be connected into several paths for people to walk on.

After confirming the route, Chi Yu did not delay any longer and stepped into the zombie hall. This time he was too lazy to look at the condition of Black Glasses, and only left him a message: "Follow."

Only after actually entering the hall did Chi Yu feel firsthand the uniqueness of this area.

All the sarcophagi were placed in designated positions according to a peculiar pattern. Although they were scattered in different places, they had a tendency to support each other, and a huge formation was thus formed.

The person who set up this formation was very skilled and completely locked the energy inside the hall without any escape.

A cold energy enveloped the hall, keeping the temperature extremely low.

Chi Yu glanced at the frosted areas on the sarcophagus and felt that this was a natural freezer, or in other words, a natural morgue.

However, although this is a morgue, Chi Yu can hardly feel the deathly aura in it.

That strange energy kept flowing in the hall, relaxing and tensing.

Even if some corpse qi occasionally comes out from the cracks in the sarcophagus, it will be swept into the circulation and quickly purified into pure energy to feed the corpse.

Feeling the rhythm of energy, Chi Yu even had the illusion that the hall was breathing.

But soon, Chi Yu dispelled this idea from his mind and turned his attention to another thing.

The energy generated by this cycle is obviously more than what the corpse can absorb. As time goes by, the energy in the hall should be overflowing.

In other words, under normal circumstances, this hall should have been covered with ice and snow long ago, rather than just a thin layer of frost on the sarcophagus.

Obviously, something is wrong.

Chi Yu shone the flashlight around and discovered that this zombie hall was not as undecorated as the previous hall, but was covered with winding vines everywhere.

These vine-like plants appeared out of nowhere and covered the walls completely. Not only were they not afraid of the coldness in the hall, they were also happily absorbing and exhaling the energy within.

Chi Yu was silent for a moment, then shone the flashlight onto the beams. Sure enough, the top was also completely blocked by these plants.

When you realize that the things around you don't match what you imagined, your cognition will be refreshed.

Chi Yu retracted his previous description of the hall as a "morgue" and now felt that he might be in a jungle.

If we consider that the owner of this place was once the Queen Mother of the West, then the correct description for this place should be a "jungle wonderland" or a "paradise of paradise".

"What are you thinking about?"

Chi Yu retracted his gaze and shook the flashlight, "I was wondering, do these vines look like the carvings on the stone slab we saw on the bluestone platform before?"

The man wearing black glasses felt his eyes hurt by the glare from his light, but he thought that these things grew everywhere anyway, so he shifted his gaze to a place away from the light and observed those plants that did not need sunlight and still looked vibrant even when growing out of season.

"You mean these things are like tree roots?"

"Hmm." Chi Yu looked at the root hairs that were clearly illuminated by the light, and his eyes turned from top to bottom. "Although in the image we saw at that time, these roots grew downwards, but the ones in this room are obviously not."

The man with black glasses smiled as he continued, "It's really rare to see tree roots growing from the bottom to the top."

This kind of thing is just rare for him, not that he has never seen it before. Chi Yu looked back and felt that this person's experience was really rich and colorful.

"Through these tree roots, I realized that the direction we were looking at in the original image was wrong. The tree did not grow straight from bottom to top, but upside down, with the roots at the top and the branches and leaves at the bottom, completely growing against common sense."

The man with black glasses said "Wow" in a supportive manner.

Chi Yu paused and continued with his conclusion: "So there must be a huge space below, enough to accommodate the giant trees that are nourished by these tree roots."

This may be why the Stranger Territory map is systematically divided into three layers: upper, middle and lower.

Chi Yu recalled the murals in the dome hall, which depicted snake women performing a sacrificial dance around a giant tree. He thought that the huge block at the bottom should be the core altar of this map.

The central block where Zhou Zixu is located is connected to it. As an area that can be connected to the core altar, it should also be an important place with many mechanisms.

"So what's underneath? Is there any necessary connection with us saving Master Zhou?"

"No, I just wanted to say it because you asked."

"Okay." The man with black glasses shrugged.

As time passed, the two of them gradually walked to the back half of the zombie hall, and the scene here was different from what they saw in the first half of the hall.

The wild tree roots seemed no longer satisfied with absorbing energy from the air. They fell from the walls, connected to different sarcophagi, and even pried open the coffin lids and took root on the corpses inside.

The corpse had been destroyed beyond recognition by those greedy tree roots. Chi Yu could see signs of their struggle, but in the end they were unable to break free and were completely transformed into nutrients by this miraculous creature.

Chi Yu continued to walk forward, but was pulled back by the man with black glasses behind him.

"Don't go any further. This road is not passable."

The man with black glasses spoke very softly. Under Chi Yu's puzzled gaze, he stared into the depths that the flashlight had not yet reached.

It was a wide open door, behind which lay a dense group of snakes.

These snakes seemed to be hesitating about something and did not rush into the zombie hall all at once after discovering them.

But the man with black glasses could feel that those tiny, needle-like gazes were staring at him.

It was as if waiting for them to step into the snake's nest without any knowledge, and then swarm over them.