Chapter 393: The living forest!
"Hmph! To dare kidnap my aunt and trouble my mother... I'll beat the hell out of them black and blue!" Duan Li snorted inwardly as he made his way into the forest with wide strides.
"Although, now that I think about it, I've never even met my mother's sister before.."
To think that I have an aunt all these while... I wonder what she looks like... maybe short like my mother?
Tap! Tap!
As they walk deeper into the forest, tall trees of tens of meters in height began to gradually cover the sky with their canopies, eventually blocking most of the sunlight altogether! Also, the trunk of these trees were so big that the smallest would required at least five people to hug it whole!
Furthermore, the sound of cicadas and other small insects started to tone down as they went deeper, until their surroundings felt like it was night time and became eerily silent.
"Damn, this place is scary..." Wei Shang said.
"Yeah, and did you guys notice the thick spiritual Qi in here? The saturation is probably similar to what we have in the residence court, but here, they are naturally formed instead of using special runic formations to gather Qi..." Fei Longwei replied. Even though he knew about this place from his clan before, he had never set foot in it.
"En. Even in our Wei and Qin Empire, a place such as this forest with high amounts of spiritual Qi saturation is quite rare. However, by the looks of it, it is no wonder why the spiritual Qi here is so thick, it's because of the spores around us!" Zhang Liao added.
Wang Dong and Shen Murong that has been listening on the side chimed in, "Eh? They are thick because of the spores? What does that mean?" they asked.
With his arms folded on his chest, Lu Bu turned to answer, "We already know prior to entering that the spores are poisonous here and they are mixed in with the spiritual Qi from the trees and plants. As a result, it is highly likely that, all the living things in this forest are probably already aware that if they tried to breathe in the spiritual Qi, they will quickly die."
"I see..." Shen Murong nodded in comprehension, "With nobody absorbing the spiritual Qi, they slowly piled up to become abundant here! That makes sense!"
Swish!
Suddenly, they heard a subtle rustling on the bush nearby, and everyone halted their footsteps as they turned towards the direction of the noise.
Wengg!
Extending her soul sense, Elder Cheng Chao chuckled, "Well, it appears that the truth is actually not that simple. We have company!"
ROAARRR!!
A loud, piercing and earth-shattering roar echoed as a huge black figure of about 5 meters in length and 2 meters in height suddenly pounced on them!
"Shadow Panther!" everyone widened their eyes in surprise and dodged the latter's attack!
Su! Su! Su!
ROAARRR!!
Seeing that its ambush had failed, the shadow panther roared angrily, and stared at Duan Li's group with menace!
"This thing is a 3 star monster from the West region of the empire, how is it possible that it is here?" Wei Shang said in surprise along with Wei Wang's furrowed brows.
Their Wei clan originated from the West part of the Jiu Empire, and they were fairly familiar with the shadow panther; used as the last trial for those that wanted to graduate and become a fully fledged assassin!
However, to defeat a shadow panther, one must at least be in the Golden Core realm. Otherwise, they would never catch the movements of the other party!
It was only fortunate that they were not ordinary cultivators the moment they followed Duan Li. After all, mere Core Formation realm cultivators would find themselves be severely injured and maimed with that previous attack, and even death was not out of the question!
"How are they here? I thought living things would die in this place from breathing in the poisonous spores?" Wang Dong scratched his head and asked.
Of course, they were not really worried about the shadow panther, given how overpowered their party were. If they so wished, the shadow panther could even be chopped into pieces for their dinner later on. They were only curious about the exotic being to be alive in such a place, and this prevented them from ganging up to K'O the monster until they could satiate their curiosity.
Hearing this, the others also agreed that this situation was weird.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
More shadow panthers started to leap out from the shadows of the dark forest, and some even latched themselves on the trunk, waiting for the opportunity to attack them!
One becomes two, two becomes five, five becomes twenty, and the numbers continued to increase!
"There are tens of them? Well, its time for some light exercises then.." Shen Murong stretched his arms, and others also prepared themselves for a fight!
However, before they could even get into action, Duan Li's annoyed voice echoed, "We don't have time for this. Die for me!"
His arms flickered for a moment before thousands of small wooden lances bolted out towards each of the shadow panthers in an instant and pierced them right on the head! These were the remaining Nine Roots tree wooden boxes from his spatial ring!
Psh! Psh! Psh!
"I-In an instant.."
"All headshots.."
The crowd gasped at how Duan Li didn't even need to look at the shadow panthers and determine their position, going straight for the attack, and at 100 percent success rate at that!
Such marksmanship was just too insane!
Even a Nascent Soul realm expert like Elder Cheng Chao was surprised. While she could try to do the same by using her soul sense to identify their position, it would be impossible to throw tens of lances as accurately as Duan Li, not to mention thousands!
After all, only the malleable properties of the Nine Roots tree were unique, but the properties of being controlled with a thought was not.
She could name a few materials that could be controlled with one's mind or gestures, and there were even techniques such as Fei Longwei's dark arts to affect the movements of anything it touches during the battle of the Spring Blossom village against the bandits!
But the more one controlled, the less accurate would be their control on them! This was the exchange of balance!
However, this balancing rule was obviously not applied to this Jiu Imperial Overseer in front of her. Thus, this made her witness another part of Duan Li's absurd prowess!
In reality, it was actually the work of Duan Li's Tetra Soul Sense; they could lock onto any number of targets and the thought process passed onto them. Basically, it was an automatic process for him. The exchange for this though, was quite a hefty amount of spiritual Qi, but Duan Li's spiritual Qi reserves made that expenditure look like a drop in the ocean!
"Don't cause unnecessary ruckus, otherwise the enemy might notice us!" Duan Li reprimanded them before turning around and continue walking deep into the forest, following the trail that was scouted by Cucko's minions before.
"..." everyone looked at the dead carcasses of the shadow panthers around them.
This isn't a ruckus...?
As they walked deeper into the woods, more and more monsters came out from the shadow, and some were even strong enough to be considered as a 4 star monster!
"As expected of a forbidden region... they weren't called forbidden for just one reason..." the crowd nodded in realization.
But...
Looking behind them, all they saw was the dead bodies of monsters that tragically died by the hands of Duan Li, or more specifically, his wooden lances.
Like a demon incarnate, any path that he trods were spilled by thick blood!
The journey continued on and monsters keeps on attacking them left and right without fear despite countless of their kind was slaughtered by Duan Li mercilessly, until they stumbled upon a pile of monsters which were familiar to them.
Shadow panthers!
"Look! The trail!" Shen Murong pointed.
The trail that they had followed disappeared into the ground as if melted ice!
What is going on here?
Pop!
Dilong the Earth dragon appeared on Duan Li's left shoulder.
"Master, the trees and the monsters from before are working together!" Dilong said and explained further.
As an Elemental Spirit Origin, she was suspicious at how the Earth spirits were so malevolent in nature in this forest, similar to predators. Nevertheless, she only thought of it as unique and nothing else before, but now that she was sure, she had to tell her master!
"Hahahaha! I see.. well played!" Duan Li finally realized and gave out a short laugh.
The trail was actually in circles, and it was made by the roots of the forest!
"I've heard that the forest is alive, so its actually like this.." Fei Longwei said with a grim expression.
The trees would lay trails for humans to follow and made them walk in circles. Then, if anyone got killed by the monsters, as the bodies of cultivators were packed with nutrition and spiritual Qi, they would then absorb it as nutrients to stay alive. In exchange, the monsters were allowed to breathe in the air without getting poisoned!
This was how the seemingly deadly forest was teeming with monsters. Migrating monsters were given opportunity to quickly become strong in this forest due to the thick spiritual Qi, so a deal of hunting cultivators in exchange for a premium place to cultivate was far too good of an opportunity to pass!
Furthermore, dead monsters would also be absorbed as their food, so they had the upper hand in this exchange as well!
Otherwise, if they continued to poison anything that enters, it would only be a matter of time before all living organisms would avoid them altogether. In such case, without nutrients to absorb from other living creature, they would run out of food to grow and eventually become extinct!
So this forest is trying to hinder me...
I was only planning to burn a tiny portion of this forest before to trap the kidnappers, but now I have to change my mind!
...