White Forest

Gaofeng soon found himself within a gigantic white forest, however an eerie silence filled the air. There was no wind rustling the leaves, nor could any inkling of animals be heard. The ground was completely black and lacking in vegetation, as if these white trees had devoured all surrounding vegetation apart from other white trees. His heavy footsteps left deep imprints in the earth as he continued forging ahead. The forest seemed never-ending as he trotted along while his surroundings never changed. There were just white trees as far as the eyes could see, in every direction. Normally Gaofeng wouldn't tire out due to his powerful body, but even this powerful body couldn't keep going forever, and thus he was now panting heavily as he leaned his back on one of the giant trees. The moment Gaofeng relaxed, however, he felt great danger approaching. He vigilantly scouted for the coming danger, but found nothing. However, the tree behind him had subtly changed, with the branches drooping down and slowly moving towards Gaofeng. At the opportune time, the branches struck down and grabbed Gaofeng. He had sensed this attack coming at the last moment, but the tree was way faster than himself and thus he wasn't able to evade the attack in time.

Caught in the branches, Gaofeng struggled with all his might, however the branches only bent but never broke. The tree would never let such a delicious meal go once it had grabbed onto it. Suddenly Gaofeng felt a devouring force acting on his soul. He activated his symbol-chain soul and invoked the Divine Myriad Changes to stop the invasive force. The bright radiance of the golden symbol-chain soul was able to strive off the invasive devouring force, however Gaofeng felt that his spirit was quickly draining and that he couldn't keep up this for a prolonged period of time. He needed to get out of here, fast, otherwise death was the only option.

After considering his options for a split second, he decisively utilized Shimmer to cover his entire body in a searing sunlight. When the elastic white branches came into contact with this searing heat, they immediately backed off like a child would after touching a hot stove. Suddenly Gaofeng didn't seem like an easy treat. He was more like a porcupine, and the white tree had no desire to be drilled into with sharp quills. After Gaofeng was released, the force attempting to devour his soul disappeared as well. It seemed like the tree needed to have physical contact with the other party to be able to successfully drain the energy of their soul. Gaofeng was now shining brightly like a walking sun amongst these gigantic trees. The hanging branches parted in front of him to avoid coming into contact with the searing heat and burning light, creating an easily traversable path.

After thinking for a moment, Gaofeng concluded that these trees definitely were sentient. The question was, however, if they understood the human tongue. No matter what, Gaofeng had to try. He shouted using all of his might "SHOW ME THE PATH TO THE OCEAN OF BLOOD AT THIS INSTANT OR I WILL BURN DOWN THIS ENTIRE DAMNED FOREST! THERE WILL NOT EVEN BE ASHES REMAINING" The ensuing silence and lack of change made Gaofeng think that they really couldn't understand him, but after another ten seconds a light rustling came from one side of the forest. This rustling was the myriad of trees stretching out branches to their neighbors to communicate like a network of information nodes. A minute passed before the rustling of branches once again spread out and returned with the trees nearing Gaofeng in the center. The nearest tree then used a branch to draw an arrow pointing to the northeast, and the other trees opened up a straight path in that direction.

The trees seemed to behave like a hivemind. Individually they might not understand what he was saying, and individually they might not know the answer to his question, but by utilizing their entire network of trees they were able to easily communicate and exchange information with each other. This was an interesting concept to Gaofeng, whose Yin-Yang Dragon Fist manifested dragons had the potential to operate similarly. Hivemind communication wasn't included in the technique, however, so Gaofeng would have to eventually utilize the Divine Myriad Changes Heart to slightly change the technique to include such communication abilities. If Gaofeng was able to manifest Dragons to operate without his help, they would communicate with Gaofeng but not each other, however Gaofeng could be spared a great deal of trouble by having the Dragons share information, strategies and the like among themselves rather than Gaofeng having to be the one personally micromanaging them all.

After the branches moved out of his way, surprisingly the gigantic trees which happened to find themselves in that opened path silently moved through the earth and changed positions to avoid being in his direct path. When seeing that, Gaofeng had a moment of realization. The reason he felt like the forest was endless was not because it truly was endless, but instead that the trees subtly changed their positions to make Gaofeng feel like he was traversing in a straight line, while in reality they were influencing him to walk in circles. The forest wasn't small, however, so the circles could be large to the point of Gaofeng still feeling like he was walking in a straight line. He would have to be more vigilant about directions in the future, as he likely could have avoided this situation if he paid more careful attention to the trees in his surroundings. This entire ordeal seemed like a great hunting tactic on the tree's part. They exhausted the prey by having them never be able to leave the forest, and when the prey was at their most vulnerable, they struck to devour them. Luckily Gaofeng had Shimmer to ward off their attacks, otherwise even he might have fallen in this place.

Gaofeng was still tired, but adrenaline was surging through his blood at the moment, and so he decided to utilize it well. He didn't want to stay in this godforsaken white forest anymore. Who knows of the trees would only back away for a short period of time before they decided that they wanted to devour him despite utilizing Shimmer… Moving while utilizing Shimmer, his speed greatly increased. He felt like his entire body had become weightless, and he was simply an amalgamation of sunlight shooting forward through the woods. Naturally, his speed was far from the actual speed of light at the moment, but he was already able to move ten times his regular fastest running speed.

After about two hours of continuously running, Gaofeng finally found himself on the other side of this gigantic forest. What Gaofeng saw on the other side of the forest, however, was greatly surprising. There was actually a gigantic, bustling city here. This city was on the level of a kingdom's capital city, with sturdy city walls, towering buildings, heavily equipped guards walking the city-walls in pairs, and a bustling city entrance with large amounts of merchants waiting in line to gain entrance into the city.