"Damn it, Fatty, you better hurry up! We're really in deep trouble now!"

Fatty fumbled even more frantically at the base, the sounds of things clattering and scraping echoing around him. It seemed he had triggered multiple mechanisms in his clumsy attempts.

Fatty turned to look at me, a sheepish expression on his face. "Sorry, Master."

I felt an overwhelming urge to hit him.

Sorry?

I thought to myself, it's always "sorry" with you. You're rarely *not* sorry, Fatty.

However, I swallowed the words that were on the tip of my tongue.

As the mechanisms were triggered, the palace began to emit strange sounds. Some sounded like mechanical movements, others like the collapse of earth and stone, and still others like the unfurling of vines.

At the same time as these sounds mixed together, the palace suddenly began to shake violently. The ground trembled, and it felt as if the whole structure was about to collapse.

Even so, the wailing sound was still closing in on us. It was a piercing sound that seemed intent on devouring us whole. Fatty, Rouyi, and Jennifer slowly moved closer to me, and the four of us stood back-to-back in a circle, knives in hand, ready to defend ourselves.

While my eyes were focused on the source of the wailing, I was also alert to any other sounds within the space.

Before long, the wailing was coming from just a short distance in front of us.

Fatty and I stared at the source of the agonizing sound, which was now within arm's reach. We were both shocked and couldn't help but exclaim, "What the hell!"

The source of the wailing was none other than the head of the woman that Fatty had sliced off earlier.

The woman's head was being manipulated by a red mangrove branch. This unusual branch was continuously growing out of the wound where the head connected to the neck, and the newly grown part was slowly forming into the woman's new body. However, although this new body had the beginnings of a form, it was not yet fully restored.

By the time the woman appeared before us, the red mangrove branch had already helped her to reconstruct the outline of her upper body.

I never would have imagined that the red mangrove had such a function – that it could actually help the woman regenerate her body and be reborn.

Or perhaps the woman's head was the key to her life and death.

Seeing this scene unfold before my eyes, it suddenly occurred to me that if this were to happen in front of simple, unsophisticated people from ancient times, they would likely believe that this woman, empowered by the mystical force of the red mangrove, was the Queen Mother of the West, a guardian of the sacred mountains.

Therefore, I speculated that the rumored Queen Mother of the West could very well be a misunderstanding based on this very monster.

If we were to study history closely, we might even be able to find something in the old texts that showed that "the Queen Mother of the West is someone else entirely."

This woman before us was definitely not the "Queen Mother of the West," because she had used her sorcery to kill Dodge, and this act proved that she was definitely not a compassionate immortal from ancient mythology.

How could an immortal deliberately kill someone? Judging from her actions, it would be no exaggeration to call her a demonic being.

In the midst of my thoughts, I noticed that Fatty had been staring blankly at the woman's head ever since it had descended, and his expression was becoming increasingly dazed.

I thought to myself, this is bad, Fatty is about to be ensnared!

So, I raised my foot and gave Fatty a hard kick in the rear. "Fatty, wake up! Don't look into her eyes!"

Fatty was sent stumbling forward by my kick, and he fell to the ground with a thud.

"Who the hell is attacking me, Fatty here!" Fatty cursed, rubbing his butt. "Damn it, that hurt!"

He didn't even know who kicked him. Fatty might really be under the woman's spell.

"You were almost ensnared by that woman's soul just now. You're lucky I saved you." I looked down at Fatty, who was still sprawled on the ground, with a look that suggested I had just gotten my revenge. However, this kick of mine was not actually meant to avenge the slap Fatty had given me earlier. It was purely coincidental. Fatty quickly scrambled to his feet, scratching his head. "I was ensnared by that old hag?"

I asked Fatty, "Do you remember what just happened?"

Fatty's face was filled with worry. "I just remember that I seemed to have glanced at that old hag... and then I don't remember anything else..."

"Yes, you yourself realized that you were ensnared. Then there's nothing more to say."

Just as I was explaining to Fatty why I had kicked him, the palace suddenly began to shake even more violently. It was shaking so much that we could barely stand.

Although the screams of the head in front of us were shrill and spine-chilling, it didn't seem to be attacking us.

The real danger to us was this shaking palace.

If the palace were to collapse, we would definitely be finished.

I scolded him, "Fatty, what mechanism did you open? This is insane."

Fatty said innocently, "I don't know. I just swept across that base randomly. Those mechanisms were all like teacups, and I knocked them all over. I feel like... I might have opened all of them..."

As he said this, Fatty became a little sheepish and didn't dare to look me in the eye.

I didn't really mean to blame him. "Let's get out of here first. Let's save our lives before anything else."

I pointed to the palace gate and said to the other three as I walked, "Let's go outside the palace and take cover first!"

The wailing head did not block our path, and I secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

But just as I was about to step out of the gate, a stone slab suddenly rose up from outside, completely blocking the doorway and trapping us inside the palace.

At the same time, the shaking of the palace caused me to fall to the ground.

This is bad, this is bad.

Damn it.

We're really going to die here.