The two stone statues continued to slowly approach Xu Xin. At this moment, the male statue spoke as well, his voice carrying a hint of laziness, as if he had just woken up: "Did you take the contract card I made?"
So the contract card was indeed made by this statue!
Xu Xin raised his crossbow, pointing it at the statue: "I don’t know what you’re talking about."
The male statue laughed: "I’m not testing you. I can feel that my contract is in your backpack. Also," the male statue pointed at Xu Xin, "you’re wearing the ring I gave her."
Xu Xin glanced at the mutated beast ring on his hand, pressing his lips together. Although the situation was unclear, he felt a bit embarrassed.
The female statue made a gesture with both hands pressing down: "Keep calm. We mean no harm to you, at least not now. Your crossbow isn’t even of the purple grade, it won’t work on us."
She actually knew the tool’s grade and could even discern the grade of the weapon in Xu Xin’s hand!
Their stone bodies were blue grade now, and using a blue-grade crossbow with green-grade bolts really shouldn’t work on them.
"Who... exactly are you?" Xu Xin put away the crossbow and took out the rabbit-ear spear from his backpack, pointing the spearhead in the direction of the two.
The first shot below purple grade might stand a chance against these two things.
"Oh?" The male statue made a surprised sound, "Your spear is actually made from the materials of an intermediate mutated beast."
"His crossbow too," the female statue added.
"Ah, the crossbow was too small for me to notice." The male statue humanly rubbed his nose. By this time, the stone statues were already very close to Xu Xin, and the surrounding vibrations were gradually fading with each step of the statues.
Xu Xin caught information from their conversation. It turned out the mutated beasts that appeared after the altar sacrifice were intermediate mutated beasts.
At this moment, a small boy statue from the third room also ran out. Seeing the two statues, he happily ran while shouting: "Daddy! Mommy!"
It was indeed a family of three! Xu Xin’s expression was strange; he really couldn’t wrap his head around it.
"Whee." Keke pointed with a small paw at the family of three stone statues opposite them, letting out a soft cry, then pointed at the two doors Xu Xin had entered through before, "Whee!"
Xu Xin could understand Keke’s meaning—Keke was indicating that these three were not dangerous for the moment, but the things inside the two doors had become more dangerous!
That meant the mutated beasts and the mutated humans had come back to life!
Sure enough, howls and the sounds of something hitting a cage came from the two doors.
"The monsters in these two rooms have come alive. Aren’t you going to do something?" Xu Xin tried to make his voice sound calm, he pointed to the two doors.
"Those things." The male statue’s voice was full of indifference.
He stopped in front of the two doors, lifted his stone foot, and then stomped heavily on the ground.
An invisible wave of vibration spread from beneath the male statue’s foot, shaking the ground under Xu Xin and causing him to stumble and almost fall.
Meanwhile, the sounds from the two rooms also disappeared, becoming very quiet.
"How about that, pretty good huh?" The male statue spread his hands, smiling.
"Daddy is amazing!" The little boy statue clapped his hands, creating a sound of stones hitting each other.
"Don’t scare them." The female statue playfully slapped the male statue’s shoulder, also making a stone collision sound.
What the male statue demonstrated left Xu Xin a bit shocked. He hadn’t expected that just one stomp from the statue could make the entire passageway tremble. Everything in front of him was so bizarre, leaving Xu Xin without a sense of reality.
The stone family approached Xu Xin. One more step forward, and Xu Xin’s spear would pierce their stone bodies.
"Put down your weapon. Can’t we have a good talk?" The female statue’s voice was gentle and soothing, making Xu Xin almost instinctively want to lower his weapon.
But just for a moment, his mind cleared up, and he tightened his grip on the stone spear, watching the stone family ahead with more vigilance.
Her words could influence my mind!
"Whee!" Keke also bared its teeth at the female statue, probably sensing a threat.
"Oh, this little beast is quite fierce, just right for a test subject." The male statue made a gesture to scare the snarling Keke.
"Whee!" Keke hid behind Xu Xin, poking out its head to continue baring its teeth.
No matter how amiable their attitude seemed, Xu Xin couldn’t trust them.
If they wouldn’t harm survivors, then how could the group of mutated survivors in that room be explained, or the carvings left at the entrance!
"No need, you can just say whatever you have to say."
"Hey, kid, don’t be so ungrateful..."
"Chang Yin." The female statue pulled the male statue by the arm.
"...Okay, fine, not going to stoop to the level of a mere survivor." The male statue, his expression lively, pouted.
This male statue called "Chang Yin" had an outstanding noble air like a high-ranking superior when sitting inside the room writing, but as soon as he opened his mouth, his air was completely destroyed.
"What on earth do you want to say?" Xu Xin asked.
Now Xu Xin could return the way he came, as he had a broom that could drive away low-level mutated beasts, which should be able to handle those bats. But with this family of three blocking the only path, Xu Xin wasn’t sure of their strength and didn’t dare to act rashly.
Of course, he had another option: to walk backward. Although there were no rooms behind him anymore, the corridor was incredibly long, leading forward. But Xu Xin didn’t know what lay behind it, it might just be a dead end, so the most prudent method was still to go back the way he came.
"You came to our home and stole so many things, and now you ask what we want to say?" The male statue crossed his arms, looking at Xu Xin with an expression of disbelief.
"He also took my little windmill!" The little boy hugged the male statue’s leg, pointing at Xu Xin and shouting.
"Alright, alright, dad will help you get it back soon." The female statue patted the little boy’s head, making the sound of stone rubbing against stone.
Everything in front of him was so bizarre, Xu Xin didn’t know what to say, he could only grip the spear in his hand tightly.
He was really curious, what exactly were these statues?
It’s a pity the map couldn’t be used underground; otherwise, it could show if they were enemies. If it showed a red dot, then yes, if they didn’t show up like Keke or the crocodile, maybe not.
Seeing Xu Xin silent for a while, the other side spoke first.
"Since you’ve seen everything here, you must know what we’re doing, right?" The male statue named Chang Yin seemed to still be wary of the rabbit-ear spear in Xu Xin’s hand, and didn’t continue to approach.
"...You’re breeding mutated beasts here."
"That’s right," Chang Yin spread his stone hands open, his stone eyes widening and seemingly glowing with a faint red light, "Turning the flesh and blood of enemies into potions to enhance our side’s strength, that’s what we’re doing. How is it, isn’t it strong!"
Enemies? Xu Xin squinted his eyes. This statue referred to those mutated beasts as enemies?
"If you’re willing to cooperate with us, you’re very welcome," Chang Yin’s stone face revealed a smile.
"The last guy who cooperated with us died accidentally, and we’re short of a survivor to cooperate with. Oh, you’re wearing his backpack."
Xu Xin suddenly thought of the two mutated beast contracts in this backpack.
The owner of this backpack was actually a collaborator of these statues?