Chapter 157: All right, now it's humanity's crisis.
Eileen, with her Elf Archer set, naturally had a very good relationship with the Elf Archer from Dragon Warrior, and the latter, seeing Eileen's talent, taught her many things.
Among these were the perception of vegetation and wild animals, allowing her to more easily discern abnormalities in these children of the forest.
Just now, Eileen's Owl hadn't flown far. Her God's-eye view from above allowed her to see many things that couldn't be observed normally, including this red-skinned pterosaur.
Relying on her intuition, Eileen felt that the pterosaur's behavior was not right.
If she remembered correctly, ancient pterosaurs' feeding habits were actually similar to those of seabirds like gulls and ospreys, mainly eating fish, insects, small reptiles, and other dinosaur hatchlings. Their mouth structure was also not suitable for tearing prey but only for swallowing.
Since it wasn't a scavenger like a vulture, circling directly above their position was clearly problematic.
Combined with the description in the instance, which mentioned "dinosaurs attacking human outposts in an organized and disciplined manner," and Joe's statement that "the Stegosaurus pack has developed team discipline similar to canines," Eileen concluded that this lone red pterosaur might be positioned as a scout within its pack.
At this point, Eileen hadn't yet determined that the red pterosaur was a scout, but when Cheng Tian's heavy firepower vehicle completely tore apart the Allosaurus, and the red pterosaur unhesitatingly fled north, Eileen was certain.
It was going back to report!
So Eileen decisively drew her bow and shot an arrow, and Violent Storm Strike mercilessly pierced through the unfortunate pterosaur's torso. Carrying blood and shattered organs, the pterosaur wailed as it began to fall, and by the time it crashed to the ground, it was deader than dead.
Cheng Tian, who learned the reason for the shot from Eileen, also began to make a bold assumption.
That is, this pterosaur was not only a scout for its own pack but also carried the function of relaying information to other dinosaur packs. These packs, without direct conflicts of interest, might imitate humans in forming alliances.
Herbivores and carnivores might be irreconcilable, but there was a possibility of cooperation between herbivores and pterosaurs.
Soon, Cheng Tian and his group drove to where the red pterosaur had been smashed into a pulp, and the red pterosaur was lucky enough to drop a Mimic. Similar to the previous club Mimic, its keyhole had a "spade" pattern.
Cheng Tian seemed to understand a bit; these patterns should be inherited from adventure island 3.
In adventure island, there were a total of five types of dragons, and these five types of dragons would correspond to five patterns before being triggered.
Red Dragon / Fire Dragon = spade, Blue Dragon / Ice Dragon = Heart, Plesiosaur / Water Dragon = Diamond, Pterosaur / Flying Dragon = Club, Triceratops / Sand Dragon = Pentagram.
So, from this, it can roughly be judged that the Allosaurus, which was torn apart by concentrated heavy fire and dropped a club Mimic, should have had a "Flying Dragon" ability template, and this pterosaur, shot through by Eileen's arrow, was a "Fire Dragon" template?
...But no matter how you look at the Allosaurus's corpse, it doesn't look like it could fly?
Oh, that's right!
Cheng Tian clapped his hands, remembering the form of the so-called Flying Dragon template's ability manifestation. Besides flying, there was another aspect: "throwing rocks."
Throwing rocks + Allosaurus = mutated Kulu-Ya-Ku.
So you're a colleague~ Then you truly didn't die in vain!
While Cheng Tian and his group were opening the Mimic, Wu Tan also took the opportunity to dissect the red-skinned pterosaur and began to record.
The Red-haired Orangutan's hands were already second only to humans in dexterity, and Wu Tan, originally human, had long adapted to his elongated fingers. He could even use his feet for some uncomplicated dissection surgeries.
After poacher Joe confirmed with Cheng Tian that he didn't need the dragon corpse, he decisively joined the dismantling. Large chunks of dragon meat would be difficult for him to take, but dismantling some bones and teeth was possible, as some collectors liked these things.
Joe knew a collector who liked to collect various dinosaur teeth. As long as he could prove that these were teeth from a mutated pterosaur, he would definitely be able to sell them for a good price.
Two poker card Mimics of unknown color both dropped "corpse fragments" related to the main body. These items were critical evidence for players to submit regarding the source of instance blueprint mutations and were quest items.
"Mutated Foreclaw of Allosaurus" provided 8% completion, while "Mutated Gland of Pterosaur" only provided 5% completion. Cheng Tian estimated this might be related to their templates when they were alive; the stronger the template, the higher the fragment completion.
Calculated purely from data, players would theoretically need to kill at least 8 such dragon-beast combinations to complete the bounty quest, but in reality, it wouldn't work. Not only because of the Mimic drop rate issue, but also because materials submitted by party members needed to be calculated separately, and identical materials could not be counted repeatedly.
That is, the two aforementioned materials could no longer count towards completion; they needed to kill other mutated dinosaurs to get materials.
"You don't want them?"
Eileen looked at Cheng Tian, somewhat surprised, as he handed both quest items to her.
"My quest is a bit different from yours; I don't need these things."
Cheng Tian replied directly.
"Then what do you need?"
Eileen couldn't be blamed. Everyone took the quest together and entered the instance together, so how could the quest completion be different just because of different spawn points in the instance?
"Uh, I happen to have an egg-stealing skill that is quite compatible with this instance, so my quest objective has become stealing dinosaur eggs."
Cheng Tian still answered truthfully, while also mastering the essence of "only telling part of the truth."
However, Eileen, hearing such a reply, frowned and scanned him repeatedly, finally reacting sharply when her gaze settled on the grappling hook on Cheng Tian's left hand.
...Where's your shield?
At this moment, Eileen finally remembered why Cheng Mouren had seemed unfamiliar to her. The most crucial point was that Cheng Mouren no longer played with a shield; she hadn't seen him take out the incredibly conspicuous captain america's shield!
Cheng Mouren slowly but firmly averted his gaze, looking into the distance.
Alright, alright~~ Not going to say, huh! You just wait! When we get back, I have plenty of ways to pry your mouth open!
Eileen's eyes darted around.
When Cheng Tian looked back again, the female archer had already adjusted her mindset at lightning speed, hiding her mouth-prying plan deep in her heart. As if nothing had happened, she put the quest items into her inventory and no longer asked about Cheng Tian's shield or skills.
"Oh, that's right." Seeing Cheng Tian's gaze shift, Eileen pointed in the direction they had come from. "Those people behind us, don't they need to be dealt with?"
"No need. They'll be useful later. How murky the water can get depends on whether they play along."
Cheng Tian showed a blade-toothed smile.
After dealing with the Allosaurus and the pterosaur, they didn't encounter any other clueless wild dinosaurs on their way. The two groups following behind also kept their distance, neither too far nor too close, just trailing.
But as their destination drew nearer, the environment and atmosphere became increasingly unsettling.
From here on, there were numerous traces of artificial road-clearing. The ground in some areas was very flat, enough for wheels to pass, and the tree trunks by the road were also carved with many marks exclusive to poachers.
This was the temporary camp area developed by the Butcher Family organization, to which poacher Joe belonged.
And with the high-altitude vision of her Owl's soul, Eileen, a step ahead of everyone else, saw what was happening in the camp at that very moment.
In the original work, at this time, the Bald Butcher, whose height was almost on par with an ordinary adult Stegosaurus and whose fat jiggled, was slaughtering a very fresh Stegosaurus to satisfy his need for killing and eating raw meat.
But now... Triceratops and Stegosaurus were rampaging through the camp, pterosaurs either threw rocks during their swooping passes or spat out fireballs, not too big or too small, but enough to ignite the camp. In response, the human poachers and fat men weighing over 300 pounds were resisting with all their might, pulling out all their gear like machine guns and grenades, struggling against the combined assault of numerous dinosaurs.
And the true leader of the camp, the Bald Butcher with two cleavers in hand, was directly confronting the Stegosaurus guard, possibly the one Joe mentioned, who performed a "Sonic-style rolling impact"!
The twin blades and the mountain of spikes clashed wildly, sending out numerous sparks—
This hunting camp, established by the Butcher Family for poaching and capturing dinosaurs, was actually under active attack from dinosaurs!
The chapter is titled: "All right, now it's humanity's crisis."