At the same time.
Several vines that had been silently following behind suddenly shot forward, wrapping around the waists and legs of the last two people in the group. In an instant, the vines dragged them far away.
Before entering, Brother Zhang had already warned them: if they encountered danger, they must immediately shout.
The moment the two people were caught, they screamed.
"Ah, help, save me!"
Hearing their desperate cries, everyone in the group turned back at once and rushed toward the sound.
Perhaps because their screams were too loud, the surrounding plants that had been still until now began to tremble violently in place.
As Lan Jin ran, she felt the shivering of the plants all around. She was not too frightened—after all, it was broad daylight. But if it had been nighttime, it would have been completely different.
She quickly forced that thought away. To think of it was to slow her steps. Lan Jin and Ling Jiang rushed ahead, following the trail left by the dragging vines, until they found the two missing people.
But by then, the vines had already retreated, and the two victims were being fed directly into the mouths of man-eating flowers.
There were two of the flowers. One had a man half-swallowed, with only two legs kicking frantically outside its mouth. The other had clamped its jaws sideways on its prey, body inside but both head and feet dangling out.
When the man saw Lan Jin and Ling Jiang arrive, he cried out, "Help me! Save me!"
But his shout only caused the flower's mouth to clamp down harder, biting him so painfully that he screamed again.
"Ahhh!"
Lan Jin rushed forward first, unleashing her lightning ability. But to her horror, the electric current only made the plant convulse in pain and bite down even harder on the victim in its mouth.
The man-eating flowers were not very tall. Lan Jin stepped onto a stone, then leapt onto the head of one. Using the Violetbane Ring, she conjured a lightning spike and stabbed it directly into the stem of the plant.
Yet the flower clamped down stubbornly, refusing to let go, sinking its jaws even deeper. Lan Jin panicked. If this continued, the man would be crushed to death in moments.
On the other side, Ling Jiang was not faring any better. Ling Jiang transformed her bracelet into sharp claws and slashed at the plant's stem. She had expected her claws to slice through, but to her shock, they left not even a scratch. The plant felt no pain at all, as though her blows had struck solid stone.
Ling Jiang quickly switched to her ice ability, freezing the stem. But the immobility only made the jaws bite down tighter. The legs sticking out of the flower thrashed in agony.
By the time Brother Zhang and the others arrived, they had witnessed both women's futile struggle. Alarmed, Brother Zhang shouted, "Get down from there! Lao Gao, burn it!"
Lan Jin and Ling Jiang immediately leapt from the plants' heads. Lao Gao raised his hands and summoned his fire ability, flames engulfing the base of the flowers.
These plants truly feared fire. After Lao Gao burned them for a while, the mouths finally loosened, and the two half-swallowed victims tumbled to the ground.
Seeing they were free, Lao Gao quickly cut off the flames. He had been burning for so long that sweat poured down his temples. If he had continued, he himself might have collapsed.
And yet, even after such a long blaze, the plants still clung to life, wilted but not destroyed. Lao Gao, panting heavily, looked at Brother Zhang in doubt. "Are you sure these things can even be burned to death? I'm the only one with fire here. Even if you want my life, I can't burn down this entire forest."
"We brought gasoline," Brother Zhang replied. "These plants can only ignite with ability flame, so normal fire is useless. If even gasoline fails, then we blow the place up. But first, we must find the base squad members."
To set explosives, they would have to reach the heart of the growth. Otherwise, the bombs would do nothing.
Brother Zhang had prepared well. Fire was only his first option. If that failed, he had other plans. He firmly believed nothing could survive an explosion. But before anything else, they had to locate the ability squad. Without them, nothing else mattered. Judging from the situation, though, he feared those people were already beyond saving.
"Look! What's that? Looks familiar!"
Someone shouted from behind.
Brother Zhang turned to the direction indicated. There, in a corner, lay a backpack—the same kind carried by the base ability squad. Lan Jin flicked her whip and hooked it over, handing it to Brother Zhang. After examining it, his suspicion was confirmed.
"This belongs to our squad. There should have been three people who entered, but we've only found one bag."
"Maybe they got separated," Lao Gao suggested. "If one was caught, the other two would definitely chase after, just like we did. There's no way only one pack would be left behind."
Brother Zhang stared grimly at the dead leaves beneath the flowers. "Clear these two out first. Then we search around. Look under the leaves."
He pulled out the map and carefully checked their location. It matched the last signal coordinates almost exactly. "This area is within the signal zone. Search carefully."
The half-dead flowers were easier to handle. Surrounded and hacked at, they collapsed. A knife through the middle stem ended their final twitch. Under the heap of dead leaves at their base, they uncovered another pack from the base squad. No identification remained inside.
"Maybe it belonged to someone who came even earlier," Lao Gao said to comfort the group. "Let's keep looking. We should find more."
Brother Zhang had seen too many such scenes to need comfort. "There should be at least one person left. Maybe we can still find them. Even one is better than none."
With so many people searching such a small area, signs were not hard to find. But when nothing else turned up, they prepared to move on.
Just then, the vines lashed out again, snapping around Huang Jinghe and Lao Gao's waists. Though both men were strong enough to handle it, the others still rushed forward nervously, unwilling to risk the worst.
Dragged along by the vines, Lao Gao and Huang Jinghe were hauled into the territory of another patch of man-eating flowers. This time, there were three of them.
The moment all three opened their gaping maws at once, Lao Gao quickly summoned his fire. The flames roared, and the three monstrous mouths shrank back immediately.