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The Ouroboros Serpent seemed to be startled by his words and hurriedly said, "Witches who would betray the Church are just a rare existence, most witches still long to battle for humanity and for Holy Temple City."
"Who are you talking about, you?" the Hellhound scoffed.
The Ouroboros Serpent, having been choked by her remark, could only muster a forced smile.
Ma Lu, patting the head of the purple-haired girl, said, "Don't be so rude to your companions."
She bit back, sinking her teeth into his hand, yet Ma Lu was now clad in armor from head to toe, including his hands; the Hellhound's teeth collided with the vambrace on his hand, making a clang sound.
Even so, she still did not let go, growling from her throat like a wild beast.
The Ouroboros Serpent standing by was already dumbfounded, while Yun Que and the Bliss Bird seemed to have long grown accustomed to it.
About an hour and a half later, the flying vehicle arrived above a valley.
Like most places outside of Holy Temple City, the valley was also teeming with life, filled with various grasses and vegetation, but it also bore many traces left by humans.
When disaster struck, those buildings made of steel and concrete—office buildings, stadiums, shopping malls, and residential areas—proved to be more resilient than their builders.
While some had collapsed due to the ravages of war, most had stubbornly endured.
Only now, their appearances had drastically changed; walls that were once sleek and tidy were now draped in a cloak of green, and even in the cracks of the bricks, various plants stubbornly peered out...
Ma Lu directed his warhorse to land in the middle of a soccer stadium.
The patch of grass in the center of the stadium had now truly become a meadow, with weeds growing almost as high as his waist.
No sooner had he landed than Ma Lu saw four red dots converging towards them on the Chessboard Map.
One of the red dots had already entered the Traveler's Bracelet's detection range.
It was a 2-star ingredient Ma Lu had never seen before, named—Transparent Bitter Melon.
By its prefix, it appeared to be a semi-invisible unit?
Indeed, compared to the wilderness, enemies in the abandoned city were much more dangerous.
After all, as the once dominant species on this planet, the survivors had also waged a violent war against Energized Plants before retreating to Holy Temple City.
But Ma Lu was not discouraged, his combat strategy, of course, wasn't that simple. He just wanted to take this opportunity to do more experiments, to try to get a clear grasp of the new item's characteristics.
Now, finding out that the stone couldn't be used to smash people was also a discovery.
Seeing the first choice of position failed, Ma Lu didn't insist and moved one square to the left.
The next moment, a cubic stone block of 4m x 4m x 4m seemingly appeared out of thin air on the road in front of the hospital.
Yun Que and the others had seen it happen once and were somewhat prepared, but Ouroboros Serpent almost popped its eyes out of their sockets.
No longer could it maintain its previously docile facade and started asking everyone it met, "Did you see it? Did you see that a huge stone block suddenly appeared on the road in front? How did it get there?!"
"It's probably placed there by the Master of Order," Ma Lu said casually, "Let's go."
"Where to?"
"To that stone block over there, then climb on top of it," Ma Lu said as he opened his travel bag and took out the climbing hooks and ropes he'd prepared in advance.
"Why climb on top?"
"To test the effects," Ma Lu replied and had already activated his armor, walking towards the stone block. The four witches hurriedly followed.
Ma Lu threw the climbing hook to the other side, securing it before having Bliss Bird climb up first, followed by Yun Que and Ouroboros Serpent.
As for Ma Lu himself, he stayed with Hellhound to block the nearby energized plants that had been disturbed. Once Ouroboros Serpent also got on top of the stone block, Ma Lu had the purple-haired girl disengage from the fight as well, followed by himself last.
By the time Ma Lu was ready to climb up, he had already been thoroughly entangled by an energized plant, so he simply carried the plant up with him to the stone.
However, not long after he reached the top, the energized plant was dealt with by the joint hands of the four witches.
As for the remaining energized plants hoping to attack those on top, they couldn't climb onto the stone block like Ma Lu and the others, so they could only circle around the stone block.
Success!
Ma Lu was quite delighted to see this. During previous battles, he had noticed that most energized plants didn't seem very adept at climbing.
After all, they were creatures that grew in the soil, and even if they had legs to run and jump, they clearly didn't want to be too far off the ground.
So, he came up with a sudden idea to use this stone block as a fortress, to have those with long-range professions initiate attacks from atop it, while those in close combat took care of the stragglers.
At least, judging from the response of those energized plants, this combat strategy was feasible.