I Pick Up Talents on the Interstellar Battlefield Chapter 1027 - 655: New Discovery_3

One second, two seconds, three seconds...

Spiritual Energy seeped into the tree’s veins like water, quickly coursing through its entire body, from roots to crown, from bark to heartwood, not missing a single corner.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

From the perspective of a Spiritual Energy scan, this tree was just an utterly ordinary tree.

"Did I misjudge it?"

Liang He’s brows knit slightly, a trace of uncertainty rising in his heart.

"Can’t find anything, huh? What’s so special about a damn tree? I’ll just chop it down."

Conis grew impatient, grabbed his Battle Sword, shifted his stance to build power, and hacked hard at the tree’s side.

"Hey, wait—"

Liang He raised his hand, wanting to stop him, but he was still a step too late.

Conis’s blade had already come down solidly on the trunk.

"Clang—!"

The clash of metal rang through the dense forest, vibrating their eardrums until they went numb.

Yet who would have thought—this strike, strong enough to cut through steel, was actually blocked by this seemingly unremarkable tree.

Not only that, at the exact instant the blade met the trunk, an eye‑searing Golden Light suddenly flared on the originally gray‑brown bark.

The Golden Light came out of nowhere and vanished just as fast, but in that split second it spread outward, shining over Liang He and Conis, who were closest to it.

Right after, a violent spatial distortion surged around the two of them, the air twisting madly, as if an invisible giant hand had grabbed hold of them.

"This is bad—"

Conis only had time to shout two words before the two of them were sucked away by the Golden Light and vanished from where they stood.

"Squad Leader! Deputy Squad Leader!"

"Where are they? Where did they go?!"

Watching their two leaders just blatantly disappear before their eyes, the Warriors present were shocked and anxious, rushing forward, crowding around the black tree, feeling and pounding on it. But the tree had already returned to its original state: gray‑brown trunk, rough bark, utterly ordinary, remaining completely unresponsive no matter how they smacked it.

"Move! Report back immediately!"

An old veteran reacted first and gave the order on the spot.

The Warriors didn’t dare delay even a second; they turned and sprinted full speed toward the direction of the Ice Extreme Pass Camp.

...

"I was just a second too slow talking, and you dragged me down with you."

Liang He stared at Conis, his expression blank and his tone so flat you couldn’t tell if he was angry or not, but the meaning in his words was very clear—it was all your fault.

Conis was so embarrassed he couldn’t say anything. He reached up to scratch the back of his head and muttered under his breath, "Who knew a damn tree was a trap tree, and you had to chop it to open it... Which genius designed this? This is just deliberately screwing people over."

Liang He shook his head helplessly.

What was done was done; blaming each other was pointless.

The most important questions now were—where were they? And how did they get out?

Liang He and Conis started surveying their surroundings at the same time.

They were at a huge three-way fork, seemingly inside some underground cave system.

The space was unexpectedly spacious, with an uneven rock ceiling overhead and a hard, icy stone floor underfoot. The air was thick with dampness and a faint, musty smell.

In front of them, three passages fanned out, each one pitch-black and unfathomably deep, their ends nowhere in sight.

The entrances were roughly the same size, their shapes almost identical, with no markings or signs to distinguish one from another.

The cave was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

Fortunately, their Armed Armor was equipped with night vision and full-holo scanning, so the darkness wasn’t a problem.

Liang He switched on night vision. The darkness in front of his eyes was instantly replaced by a dim green curtain of light, and the internal structure of the three passages became clearly visible—each was a naturally formed cave passage, with stalactites and stalagmites covering the rock walls, and a bumpy floor with shallow pools of water in some spots.

"A He, we can only pick one path now."

Conis turned to look at Liang He, sounding rather relaxed: "I’ll leave that to you. I trust your choice."

Liang He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he walked to the entrance of each passage and studied them carefully.

He crouched down to feel the rock under his hand, then reached into the passage to sense the direction of airflow inside.

Temperature about the same, humidity about the same, airflow speed about the same.

The three passages were almost identical, with nothing he could use to tell them apart.

So the only way to choose was by luck.

Liang He stood up, his gaze sweeping back and forth between the three-way fork several times before finally settling on the passage in the very middle.

I hope I really do get some good luck this time.

"The middle one," Liang He said.

"Got it!"

Conis didn’t ask for a reason at all. Since A He had chosen it, he’d just follow him.

The two exchanged a glance, then stepped out at the same time, heading straight into the middle passage.

In the darkness, their footsteps echoed through the narrow tunnel, the hollow, drawn-out sound making it feel as if something deep inside was quietly waiting for their arrival.