Chapter 61 Failure

In the cold lake water, the bone sphere floated motionlessly, looking just like a lifeless object.

If he hadn't witnessed it up close and seen it bristling with spikes all over, Lu Qingyu probably would have been fooled by this harmless appearance, right? Looking at the scene before him, Lu Qingyu couldn't help but want to laugh.

If, initially, he still harbored fear toward this guy, after understanding everything, there was nothing left to be afraid of.

At this moment, under Lu Qingyu's instruction, Qin Changsheng had stopped his previous camouflage combat and remained quietly in place. As an extension of his body, Momo had already taken in every single movement of both Lu Qingyu and this strange enemy.

Until now, Qin Changsheng still didn't quite understand where the winning opportunity Lu Qingyu suddenly mentioned was supposed to come from.

Qin Changsheng had tried using Momo to launch a close-range attack on the bone sphere before, but it left absolutely not a single scratch. The hardness of this thing was much higher than that of ordinary human bones. This made sense; bones were inherently the strongest part of the human body, and this spherical bone was clearly mimicking the toughest bone of all—the cranium.

When he was bored, Qin Changsheng often liked to watch live broadcasts of boxing matches. In boxing, attacking the head was a very effective tactic, as most of the human nerves were concentrated in the facial area. A heavy blow there could instantly dizzy an opponent.

However, most professional boxers, unless they had absolute certainty, would never casually launch an attack on a person's head. One of the reasons was that while attacking the head could quickly KO an opponent, once you hit the wrong spot, the one who ended up getting injured would be yourself.

And this easily miscalculated spot was the human frontal bone.

Facing a straight punch aimed at the head, an excellent boxer would use a risky tactic: intentionally using their own forehead to block the opponent's fist. In this way, the punch originally intended for a KO would instead shatter the attacker's fingers against the frontal bone.

The most rigid part of the human body is the skull.

And the giant bone sphere right now was equivalent to a skull with its thickness magnified dozens of times. Any attack landing on this spherical surface would have its force easily deflected, and in the end, the one getting hurt would be oneself.

From Qin Changsheng's perspective, at least his own ability had no advantage whatsoever when facing such a layer of defense; he simply couldn't figure out how they could win relying solely on himself.

If possible, he felt the safer approach was to use Momo to continue creating gaps, buying time for himself and Lu Qingyu to escape. This guy was completely blind outwardly; as long as they ran far enough, they would definitely be able to shake him off.

Yet Lu Qingyu clearly didn't see it that way. For some reason, this time he was much more stubborn than Qin Changsheng.

"Trust me." Facing Qin Changsheng's suggestion to run away, Lu Qingyu's reply was exceptionally concise: "I'll handle it."

He would handle it—he said it with utter ease. Qin Changsheng felt extremely anxious inside, not out of concern for Lu Qingyu, but rather for Wu Yutong, whose fate was tied to Lu Qingyu's. He had no idea what percentage of certainty Lu Qingyu possessed, but once he made a misstep, Wu Yutong would die along with him.

This was by no means the time to act tough or stubborn. If he could, he really wanted to forcefully drag Lu Qingyu away. Unfortunately, they were also being kept under constant surveillance by the enemy at the same time; getting too entangled with Lu Qingyu could trigger an attack at any moment.

Things having reached this point, all Qin Changsheng could do was trust Lu Qingyu.

Lu Qingyu stared intently at that motionless bone sphere. Since he dared to make such a claim, he was already thoroughly confident in his mind.

Admittedly, any substantive physical attacks launched from the exterior would find it nearly impossible to shake this rigid bone sphere.

However, to take this fellow down, he wasn't going to use any physical attacks.

"My Shanhai beast, the Sleepless Monkey, doesn't possess overwhelming physical strength. If it comes to a contest of raw muscle, anyone could step all over me." Behind Lu Qingyu, a figure faintly materialized—it was a cyan-blue monkey with two branch-like horns sprouting from the sides of its head, fully bloomed with camellias.

This form was seen with crystal clarity by Qin Changsheng's Momo. This was the first time he had ever witnessed Lu Qingyu's Shanhai beast reveal its true form.

"The strength of the Sleepless Monkey has never lain in its brute force, but in its ability."

Lu Qingyu gave a light chuckle, his lips parting without producing a sound: "Six Teas: White."

This voice was one Qin Changsheng had heard before.

Long-buried memories suddenly surged into his mind, and Qin Changsheng instantly recalled the scene he had witnessed right before losing consciousness in the previous game.

The massive mountain of corpses had been instantly frozen into an ice sculpture at the very last moment, and the one who performed that breathtaking feat was precisely this Lu Qingyu before his eyes, along with his Shanhai beast, the Sleepless Monkey.

At this moment, as the past scene repeated itself, Qin Changsheng instantly understood what he wanted to do.

So that was it!

He saw one of the camellia flowers on the Sleepless Monkey's head suddenly shed a petal, and a white, mist-like ripple spread through the water. Immediately afterward, a layer of frost suddenly appeared on the outer perimeter of the bone sphere. Before the person inside could even react, the ice rapidly grew thicker, instantly making the bone sphere more than three times larger!

This was the true ability of the Sleepless Monkey!

The freezing of the bone sphere drastically increased its weight, causing it to sink directly toward the bottom of the lake. Lu Qingyu's strategy was extremely clear: since the bone sphere could not be cracked from the outside, he would simply abandon all physical attacks and rely on ice to increase the weight, letting the bone sphere drag itself down!

The pressure at the bottom of the lake, combined with the growing thickness of the ice outside—no matter how hard the bone structure of the sphere was, it would eventually be crushed to death by the sheer excess weight. This was determined by the inherent properties of matter itself.

Qin Changsheng was very fond of watching all kinds of science fiction movies, especially monster movies. In such films, there was often a common flaw: real-world physics could not produce gargantuan beasts like the ones on screen. The load-bearing capacity of biological skeletal materials determined the size a creature could grow to; once the overlying muscle became too heavy, it would inevitably cause the bones inside to be crushed.

And what was attached to that bone sphere right now was not some soft, spongy stuff like muscle, but ice of a far more terrifying weight!

The water pressure at the lake bed, coupled with the weight of the ice itself, would take only a moment to directly crush this seemingly indestructible bone sphere. As for the person inside, their fate would only be even more gruesome.

Lu Qingyu's move was not only clever, but also exceptionally cruel. Wrapped in ice, even if the person inside woke up to the situation now, it was already too late to escape.

Even if they managed to break out of the ice, at such a deep underwater depth, without the outer bone sphere for protection, the water pressure was no joke either.

A thousand words summed up in a single sentence—he was a dead man.

Unfortunately, in this world, accidents always happen.

Just when both Lu Qingyu and Qin Changsheng thought their plan had succeeded, the accident happened.

They saw countless sharp spikes suddenly protrude outward from the sinking bone sphere. The spikes kept growing, directly piercing through the layer of ice covering the outside and bursting forth.

Before Lu Qingyu could react, the bone sphere spun rapidly within the ice, and the bone thorns on top acted like the teeth of a chainsaw, instantly slicing apart the ice wrapped around the exterior. The ice layer instantly disintegrated, and Lu Qingyu's plan had failed!