The Great Merchant in the Cataclysm

Chapter 80: Strategic Retreat

After 5 minutes, Zhang Mu stood up and stretched. This was his first time using the potion and truth to be told, the first-rank recovery potion’s effect matched its price and its rare quantity.

“Nothing more can be said. You really get what you pay for. Next time I see No. 35 I will give him a 5-star rating.”

Zhang Mu was in a good mood. However, the minute he heard the scratching sounds coming from outside the cage, his good mood was destroyed and he started to feel irritated. The joy on his face faded away, “Are they not done yet? When are they planning to stop burning me?”

At this moment, he suddenly thought of a solution that could easily take care of the ten mutated tigers without much effort. He immediately got hyped up again. He whispered in the direction of the mutated tiger, “Since you all want to come in so badly, I shall let you all in.”

Zhang Mu walked around the cage and somewhat identified the different positions of the mutated tigers. In the end, he chose the Southeast direction. There was only a single mutated tiger scratching fervently in this direction. Its Fire-type energy was probably used up already as the vines in this part had not been under any fire attack for the past minute. A fire attack would at least burn a layer of the vines, but if it was just the mutated tiger’s claws, not even half a layer of vines would be affected. This was enough to show how strong and durable the vines of the Bloodvine Lotus was.

Suddenly, the vines at this part of the cage retracted. The mutated tiger thought that it had scratched opened a hole and immediately felt energised. It pushed one of its claws inside and squeezed its head through the hole. At first, it wanted to grab hold of Zhang Mu’s body. But then, it realised that Zhang Mu was standing not far away and smiling at it, saying, “Welcome.”

The mutated tiger instinctively felt that there was danger. It wanted to pull its head out but realised a scary thing. It couldn’t move at all!

The vines that retracted were moving back into position and the hole was shrinking. The mutated tiger desperately wanted to get out of the cage. It pushed its limbs repeatedly against the walls on the outside of the cage but to no avail. It was stuck.

The other nine mutated tigers realised that something odd was happening and all gathered around, trying to drag the mutated tiger out. They started attacking the vines that were near the tiger. The vines were in a dire situation. With the combined and concentrated attack of the tigers, the outer walls of the cage got thinner and thinner as the vines were unable to replace itself fast enough,

However, Zhang Mu had a solution. He just directed all the other vines, except the ones on the outer wall, to this part of the cage. The mutated tigers were too stupid to realise that the defense in the other areas had weakened and continued to look for a breakthrough here. Because of this, the Bloodvine Lotus managed to regenerate fast enough.

Zhang Mu didn’t bother about the battle that was happening outside. He was casually inspecting the mutated tiger. The mutated tiger forgot about its fear as it saw Zhang Mu walking nearer and tried to strike. However, it was unable to even touch Zhang Mu. When it attempted to open its mouth, vines appeared and controlled its head, paralysing its movement.

After stroking the tiger’s beard for a while, Zhang Mu decided to not waste any more time. He immediately pulled out his Obsidian Beetle claw and pierced it through the temple of the tiger. The tiger died before it could even cry out in pain. Its body stopped moving and its eyes started to blur.

Zhang Mu retrieved the beast-core and commanded the Bloodvine Lotus to open a gap the size of a head. He then pushed the head of the dead tiger forcefully, causing it to fall heavily onto the ground behind and kicking up a layer of dust. After that, Zhang Mu didn’t close the gap. Instead, he opened the gap wider and even created another hole.

Engulfed by pain and hatred, the mutated tigers didn’t sense the danger and walked right into the trap set by Zhang Mu. Zhang Mu immediately carried out his plan and reaped their lives. One of the mutated tigers secretly kept a bit of his fire-type energy and wanted to breathe fire on Zhang Mu’s head. However, it was found out by the vines embedded in its body and the Bloodvine Lotus immediately gave a signal to Zhang Mu.

Zhang Mu instantaneously directed the vines to protect him against the flames, after which he let the vines close the tiger’s mouth shut, preventing it from releasing its fire-type energy. The fire-type energy was trapped inside the mouth of the tiger. Zhang Mu could feel the heat coming from its chin. He pierced the claw into the tiger and the heat dissipated. Without wasting any time, Zhang Mu pushed the dead tigers out of the hole and repeated his actions again.

However, when he killed yet another two mutated tigers, the other mutated tigers no longer dared to come close to the cage. This was too scary. Their comrades had died one by one. Their arrogance and ferocity had changed to fear.

The four mutated tigers wanted to retreat and look for assistance. Zhang Mu smiled as he watched them. He waved at them and said, “Come here, come here.”

The mutated tigers were no longer tricked. The more relaxed Zhang Mu appeared, the more in danger they felt. One of the mutated tigers had already backpedalled and was preparing to scamper away.

“You have all become smarter. It’s an improvement. But, I have used too many crystals to fight with all of you. You need to leave your beast-cores as compensation.” Zhang Mu tone became cold as he released all the vines towards the four mutated tigers.

With an average of five vines to one mutated tiger, Zhang Mu didn’t even need to take any other actions before the Bloodvine Lotus brought back four beast-cores to him. Not dawdling any longer, Zhang Mu kept all of the mutated tigers corpses in his Merchant’s Ring. Those are all worth a fortune.

“Stupid dog, come out and bring me away from this place.” Zhang Mu shouted to the sky. A few seconds later, the mutated wolfdog ran over demurely as it looked at the blood stains on the ground. Zhang Mu hurriedly climbed onto the wolfdog’s back and they ran off to the meeting point.

As he rode on the wolfdog, Zhang Mu softly said, “This is called a strategic retreat. Right, stupid wolfdog?” The wolfdog obediently nodded its head. It also felt that they should have run away sooner.

More than ten minutes after Zhang Mu had left the battlefield, a loud roar resounded through the village. The roar was filled with sorrow and anger.