Chapter 29 Into The Predators’ Layers Part 6

The wolf on the opposite side quickly rushed towards Abrafo. He grabbed a twig in his left hand and swung the knife into an attacking position. Abrafo hit the wolf in the face with a twig and slit the wolf's throat with a knife. The wolf quickly backed away from Abrafo, but it still guarded Abrafo and was ready to attack once it was sure that Abrafo had let his guard down.

Abrafo regained a bit of strength in his right leg and faced the wolf with his knife and the twig, and he scooched slowly towards U-ri.

Abrafo yelled, "U-ri, you old bastard, you better hope I don't survive, or I'll crush you until your old bones are broken into a million pieces! You hear me!"

U-ri didn't look up at Abrafo and continued to turn the pages of the book. "Yeah…yeah…yeah… I hear you very clearly," U-ri said from inside the safety of the magical bangle.

Chun's head is close to Yul, and she wraps her tail tightly around Yul's body. She hisses at Yul, "You little minion, do you think you can escape from my territory?" Her laughter grows louder as Yul struggles to resist her tail. "So cute…" She laughed. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy my lunch today."

Michio dashed out from the treetops and aimed his three-section staff at Chun's head. Chun raised her hands in surprise to block Michio's three-sections staff and loosen up her tail that wrapped around Yul. Yul coughs heavily and falls to the ground. The power of Michio's three-sections staff sent Chun straggling back towards the tree. Michio landed on the ground and walked quickly towards Yul. With the help of Michio, Yul stood up slowly with his sword.

Chun looked down at her hands, it seemed that her left arm was the most seriously injured by Michio's blow. She could feel the intense pain shooting up to her upper arm and her hands began to shake as she looked angrily at the two mortals standing a few feet away. She didn't dare to make a move immediately, for fear that she would not know the true strength of the two mortals in front of her. During her many years of life, all mortals who entered her layer have become her food, and the two mortals standing in front of her may not be ordinary mortals. She stared at them, wondering if she should attack now or play with them until they were exhausted. She turned her gaze to the pond. Suddenly, she had an idea. All she had to do was to throw them into the pond, and let the angry undead at the bottom of the pond deal with them.

Yul looked at Michio and said, "She hesitated, let's do it while she's not paying attention."

Michio muttered, "What do you want to do? Remember it's a big snake."

Yul said, " "You're the one with the spell, so you hold her by the tail while I attack her in the front."

Michio looked at Chun and said, "Alright!" He threw a blank white paper into the air, clasped his hands, and began to chant.

Hearing Yul's sudden scream made Hajime forget everything that happened in front of him. Hajime knew that Yul was the strongest fighter among the five of them, so Yul's painful scream meant that others must be in more serious dangers. His heart and mind are only worried about the safety of Yul and the others. His mind was no longer in the game of dream with the old woman. He turns to see if Yul will scream again, but the silence of the forest makes him worry about Yul even more. Hajime abandoned his sleeping body on the other side of the magic wall and rushed towards the direction of Yul's scream.

The old woman screamed, "No! Come back..."

Hajime turned his head and saw the world he had imagined slowly disappearing, and the old woman also began to evaporate into the air. He looked at his sleeping body leaning against a tree not far away, and his sleeping body was also slowly evaporating into the air. Not only that, but everything around him began to evaporate.

Hajime looked at the old woman madly and said, "You old witch, you tricked me."

The old woman screamed, " You have been trapped by the ancient sacrificial circle, there is absolutely no way you can get out of this forest alive!" She screamed and disappeared into thin air.

Hajime smiled smugly, reached into his carry-on bag, and took out one of his carved eagles. He threw the wooden figure into the air and said, "If I can't walk out of here, I'll fly out of here." He climbed onto the eagle's back, and the eagle flew up to the mountain.

When the eagle soared into the sky, Hajime looked down at the ground, and found that he and his companions had entered a forest that looked like a human skull.

Hajime murmured to himself, "This is what she meant when she said that I will never be able to leave the sacrificial circle. The whole forest is the sacrificial circle." He continued to ride the eagle to the top of the mountain.

Michio's white paper talisman quickly turned into twenty spears floating in the air in front of Michio. He looked at Yul and screamed, "Now!"

Yul and Michio charged forward. Yul rushed directly to Chun's upper body, while Michio ran towards Chun's tail. Michio raised his right hand high, and the spears flying behind him also flew high. When Michio waved his hand froward, the spears quickly landed on Chun's tail, pinning Chun's tails to the ground.

In pain, Chun escaped Yul's sword slash, her body circled back to Michio, summoned a crystal spike on her right hand, and aimed the spike she summoned at Michio's abdomen. In a fit of rage, Chun directly released her crystal spike at Michio who was standing beside her tail and controlling the spears.

Yul dashed forward and swung his sword to cut the crystal spike in half, but because Yul's energy was not as strong as Chun, the other half of the spike pierced into Yul's right shoulder. The intensity of Chun's spiritual energy caused Yul to drop the sword to the ground, sending Yul a few feet away from Michio. When Yul hit the tree trunk, he stopped. He felt a sharp pain in his lower left back.

Chun quickly summoned another crystal spike to her right, sneering at Yul and Michio who was standing beside her tail. She gritted her teeth and said, "I'm going to kill you slowly. I'm going to chew your flesh piece by piece until I'm satisfied with my revenge." She knew that Michio had to use internal force to keep her tail on the ground, so she swayed towards Yul, lying defenseless and unarmed on the ground. She points the crystal spike at Yul's left leg and smiles evilly at Yul.

From the corner of Michio's eye, he saw a black figure jumping from one treetop to the next very quickly and the black figure was heading towards them. There was only one giant snake, he thought, and they had gone to such lengths to kill it, and now they had another predator as fast as a shadow lurking at them. Michio couldn't decide whether he wanted to help Yul or defend against the dark shadows flickering above the treetops.

The moment Chun raised her crystal spikes towards Yul, the predator in the treetops leaped from hiding and the big black panther grabbed Chun's right hand and pulled Chun's arm to the ground. At the same time, the three wolves rushed forward and began to attack Chun's left side.

"Hajime!" Michio screamed happily. "Yul, our mage is here to save us. Ha... ha... ha..." Michio rushed over and helped Yul up.

The black panther starts attacking Chun's left side, while the three wolves attack Chun's tails. The black panther was no less ferocious than the three wolves. He grabbed Chun by the arm and tore open her flesh.

Seeing the beast aggressively attacking Chun, Michio clasped his hands together. "Karma…karma…" he said shaking his head.

When Yul picked up his sword, the panther and the wolves had already pinned Chun to the ground. Yul walked to Chun.

Chun pleaded, "Please don't kill me… please… I regret…please…I repent."

Yul plunges his sword into the middle of Chun's throat, and he pulls it back. Chun's mouth was immediately filled with blood, she was clutching her neck and was about to suffocate. As she struggled to die, her tail flicked back and forth and crashed into surrounding trees. After a while, Chun finally died.

Michio smiled at Hajime and said, "You came just in time." He looked at the black panther that was roaring at him. "Ah... Hajime, do you think you can make your panther go away?"

Hajime looked at the panther, then at Michio. "You're afraid of my panther, he just saved your life. How ungrateful?" He snapped his fingers and the panther, and the three wolves turned back into three little wooden figures and floated back into Hajime open palm.

Michio smiled and said, "Thank you."

Hajime said, "Yul, that map must be a trap to lure us here to be eaten by these monsters. The whole forest area is a sacrificial ground. When I looked down from a high altitude just now, this woodland is like a human skull."

Yul said, "Chun said that if we want to enter No Man's Land, we must have the five keys to open the Gate of Reality." He looked at Hajime. "Your ancestors once reached the Gate of Reality, but they didn't have the key, so ended up suffering severely."

Hajime asked, "How do you know she's telling the truth? After all, she's a monster."

Michio said, "Yul, I know that in the past Hajime may have drawn conclusions without careful consideration, but this time I have to agree with Hajime."

Yul's gut tells him he's on the right path, so he pulls out the map from his inner robe, but it still doesn't reveal any new clues. The lotus is still the only thing shown on the map. Yul looked at Hajime and Michio, and said, "What if this map doesn't take us to No Man's Land, but instead, it takes us to find the keys?"

Hajime disagreed with Yul and said harshly, "You're incredible. Did you go crazy after your fight with that snake woman?" Hajime took a few deep breaths, knowing he might have gone a little too far. "Let's put it this way, if what you say is true, this forest is not a small forest. It would take a lifetime to find a key in this forest, and time is what your kingdom doesn't have."

Yul walks to the dark pond where Chun came out from. He looked at the dark water, and there seemed to be something shining reflected back to him.

Hajime asked, "What are you looking at?"

Yul asked, "When you look down, what do you see?"

Hajime looked down at the pond, and no matter what its reflection was, the pond looked like an eye was watching him. He backed away quickly. "Yul, it looks like an eye." He panicked. "Could there be another snake down there?" He suddenly felt cold sweat running down his spine.

Yul stares at the pond and asks, "Could that thing be the key?"

Hajime said, "No, it doesn't look like a key, but it looks like an eye."

Yul sighs, "Until we seek the truth, we don't know." He dives into the pitch-black water.

Hajime said worriedly, "Yul! Get out quickly."

Yul turned around to look at Hajime and with a quick smile at Hajime, he took a deep breath and swam toward the shiny object at the bottom of the dark pond.