Not again

Despite Jeff's complaints, he kept it to himself. After following Zhao Wei around for a few weeks, although he didn't join any of the hunts, he could still see the kills Zhao Wei and his pets brought back and was pretty impressed by his capabilities. The kid was different from him, he specialized in dealing with monsters and fighters which were similarly powerful in their own way. Jeff could manage himself most of the time, but if he'd met the likes of the catfish beast whose defense was nigh impenetrable, nine out of ten times he'd just run away instead of looking for trouble. And yet, the kid through a mix match of preparations, ingenuity and brute force managed his fights pretty well.

For him it was a little different, the kill was focused towards humanoid beings. Against that type, there were few who could say they could actually defend themselves once he really made a move. Even the match against Zhao Wei couldn't actually represent his real strength, then, the boy had already prepared to tussle with him. But if he was actually coming for the kill, if he started stalking Zhao Wei and turning invisible from afar, there was no way Zhao Wei could defend against him. After all, you can't prepare for something you can't see.

In the end, even if all these thoughts ran through Jeff's mind, the main point was that he was pretty sure that Zhao Wei didn't do anything without reason. And sure enough, after a few seconds pass, the grinder began to slow, some of it's parts groaning and creaking in protest as no small amount of sparks began to fly.

It took another 10 seconds for all the gears to stop shifting, allowing him and Jeff to drop down in relative safety. Obviously, the twig he threw down was already layered with the quick cement trap, several even. Zhao Wei felt like he'd rather pay money instead as he really had too little traps in stock these days as he had quite a few traps now and the speed they were coming out at became way slower. The quick-cement trap could only be produced once every 2-3 days and he'd used a bulk of it in trying to trap the last beast, those he could use right now numbered less than the fingers on one of his hands.

As they reached the grinder, they finally understood how massive this contraption was. This thing was made to be able to turn things that were about a tenth the size of Jormugandr into minced meat. Despite the size difference in comparison, a beast that size could still level several blocks in any city of the old world just by being there, now the biggest question to Zhao Wei was why or how anyone could make something like this.

They looked around the space they had access to, but there really wasn't a door or something anywhere, it would seem that the only way in is to get turned into meat paste. So Zhao Wei decided to do the next best logical thing, walking up to the spinning parts of the grinder, Zhao Wei looked around for anything he could hold onto.

Once he found one, he slipped his fingers in and began to pull it upwards. Blue veins began to bulge on Zhao Wei's skin as the floor under his feet began to crack under the pressure. Right now, Zhao Wei actually regretted throwing down a quick cement trap. If he hadn't, maybe he'd be able to lift a single individual piece on his own, but after bonding several of it's pieces together, Zhao Wei found himself nearly unable to budge it.

Only after several seconds of pushing himself to the limit did it move an inch but alas, Zhao Wei let go of it in the end, causing the whole thing to fall back down with a large thump. It was made to face giant beasts, so of course it'd be at least as heavy if not heavier than it's intended target, the fact that Zhao Wei even budged it was already quite a feat on it's own.

As he turned to look at where Jeff was a moment ago, he realized Jeff had vanished again, probably doing more scouting. Since there wasn't really anything he could do now, he settled down for a while to regain his strength to attempt at pulling the mechanism up again. After while though he got bored and stood up to give it another shot. Just then he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Jeff, you got me one ti..." At first, he thought it was Jeff, appearing from thin air again, but he distinctly felt that the fingers were much harder than Jeff's chef hands could ever be.

The hand's grip immediately hardened on his shoulders, the fingers sinking in. Zhao Wei gritted his teeth, this was the first time any humanoid of his size was able to make him feel pain with their grip strength alone, and judging by it's shape on his body, it was definitely human if not human-like. Zhao Wei used his flexibility to swing at the hand holding him as it began to push him to the ground. He'd thought he was already plenty strong, and yet he was getting overwhelmed very quickly right now.

But as his arm hit the hand, it suddenly broke off in the place where he hit. This didn't make any sense, it showed immense strength and yet crumbled in a single impact. As he picked up the part that was still attached to him, he only saw a hand made out of some kind of stone, finally turning around he noticed the rest of the arm that broke off creep back into the wall.