Chapter 168 [Pulangti of the Swamp]

Chapter 168: Chapter 57: [Pulangti of the Swamp]

The surface of the swamp was covered with duckweed-like aquatic plants. Their leaves were so densely packed that the water beneath was completely hidden. At first glance, it looked like a meadow, but a single step would plunge a person into stagnant water and mud of unknown depths.

The trees towering here also gleamed with a verdigris hue, but they were a different kind of Rusted Copper Giant Tree. They were thick and sturdy, their trunks swollen as if engorged with water. Massive aerial roots spread like wildly proliferating tentacles, forming three-dimensional bridges and mazes above the water.

"There might be iron ore here," Samael said in a low voice. "The water is slightly red..."

He recalled a piece of knowledge he had read somewhere before. Underground rivers would wash over iron ore deposits, causing some of the iron elements to dissolve. This dissolved iron would be carried downstream into swamps. Since swamps had few water outlets, the iron would become concentrated within the marshlands.

The swamp water would gradually precipitate iron-bearing deposits, and the iron-loving anaerobic bacteria in the peat layer would metabolize to produce loose, spherical bog iron.

It was said that Viking iron weapons were forged using this bog iron. They would search for colorful oil slicks in the swamps to locate the metabolic traces of thermophilic anaerobic bacteria. By digging through the peat layer, they could find spherical bog iron nodules. Using sun-dried swamp peat as fuel, they could forge high-quality ironware.

He silently noted this down, thinking, "The scouring of underground water... There should be iron ore beneath Pulangti’s swamp and Lahador’s lake."

He vaguely remembered unlocking a material called Holy Iron in the materials science glossary earlier. It might come in handy during the Necromancer Civil War. He didn’t have any iron ore on hand, but in an emergency, he could secretly mine some from underground.

"There are suspected traces of Burrower activity over here," Talia said, examining the peat. She identified footprints that looked like a crawling arthropod. "They were fleeing, trying to escape from something..."

"The Undead?" Samael asked quietly.

"I’m not sure. The traces here are very strange..." Talia hesitated. "Look."

She pointed at a nearby tree trunk, where a massive splatter of corrosive fluid looked like the residue of an explosion and a burn.

"Perhaps some kind of self-destructing Undead?" Samael recalled the types of Undead Gwyneth had mentioned before. "The swamp water tans the skin of corpses, turning them into tough, dry leather like mummies, and it also ferments humus into an acidic, explosive fluid akin to an unstable Magic Potion."

"That’s enough, you don’t need to describe it any further," Talia said, baring her teeth in disgust. "The Demon Race is just battle-hungry due to boundless energy, we aren’t perverts."

"No, no. Anshiba said that Pulangti of the swamp likes to study all kinds of Undead byproducts, including artifacts and infectious agents, and equips his subordinates with them," Samael recalled. "This probably isn’t a self-destructing Undead, but rather some sort of mass-producible explosive projectile. Since more than half of the corpses in the Heart of the Remains have decayed, bodies and the Undead are now a precious resource that Ghost Knights must manage carefully. Pulangti couldn’t possibly waste valuable Undead on suicide tactics.

"The unarmored Undead nearby are now within the range of my aura and won’t attack on their own initiative. Search with peace of mind. Let’s achieve our goal and get out of here before Pulangti discovers us."

"This kin of yours seems to enjoy bullying small animals," Talia muttered as she walked around the Rusted Copper Giant Tree with the corrosion marks. Pinching her nose with one hand, she used the other to poke at a shriveled corpse behind the tree.

It was a medium-sized crocodile, completely covered in duckweed.

Half of its skull bore the scarred burns of some acidic explosion. Two barbed Nether Copper Short Fish Spears were embedded crookedly in its back armor. A massive bone fishhook was firmly snagged in the corner of its mouth, tearing open a brutal wound with the hook’s tip nearly embedded in the jawbone. The blood around the wound, mixed with foul water, had mostly dried up.

The crocodile’s corpse was riddled with injuries, but there were no fatal wounds. It had likely been injured by Pulangti’s Undead subordinates and frantically fled with the spears stuck in it. It barely managed to shake off its pursuers, only to die from excessive blood loss.

Otherwise, its body would certainly have been taken back to Pulangti’s tomb. The crocodile was large, and the quality of its materials was high. If Pulangti had successfully hunted it down, he would never have left its corpse to rot in a place like this.

He mentally sketched an image of Pulangti, thinking, "An Artifact Master... A hunter who excels at using his environment. Perhaps he’s an angler."

Talia wandered around, knocking on things here and inspecting things there, before finally halting in front of a set of tracks.

"This kin of yours is quite ruthless," Talia muttered. "Judging from the footprints, the Burrowers originally lived in the central area of the swamp, but they were hunted by the Undead and fled in a panic. Something likely happened to their original nest, and it was completely abandoned.

"There are some excavation marks here, left behind when they were looking for a new nest location. However, the soil in this area is loose and leaks terribly. It’s a sign of a hive migration."

"Ah, Pulangti was probably too lazy to build his own tomb, so he seized the Burrower nest in the center of the swamp to use as his burial chamber," Samael said, coming to his senses. "What about the Burrower Empress, then?"

"It looks like they haven’t been able to find a watertight spot to dig a nest yet. If she hasn’t been killed, the Empress is probably hiding in a temporary nest somewhere with the other Burrowers.

"Alright, get ready to dig." Talia grabbed the Earth-Devouring Demon Insect by the neck and pulled it away from a piece of rotten wood. "Look for solid strata around here. If we hit a hollow cavity, we might get an unexpected harvest."