?We were walking around this dark forest, navigating it to try and find a way out. To exit from the same spot, we came from was not possible sadly. The Qi disturbance was too much and everyone here was incapable of leaving due to the power of the Sea of Demons and its restriction.
Flight was not possible and using the heavily damaged hoverboard was also out of the question.
I needed metal to fix it, a lot of st.u.r.dy metal, and an improved reactor, a reactor that's able to release Qi without it being affected by the Sea of Demons' atmosphere.
It was something for me to think of while we were wandering around this dark forest.
As I was thinking of how to leave this place. Something piqued my interest.
In front of us was a full forest of low-hanging trees, they looked like pine trees that stood tall, and every one of these trees emerged from the center of a boulder.
It was a new type of tree that I've never seen before, unnatural trees which brought to my attention something pretty strange. These trees had no fruits on them or flowers to pollinate.
"Don't touch that," I said as one of the soldiers seemed interested in a s.h.i.+ning crystal that was unnaturally imbedded into the bark of a low-hanging tree.
The soldier's arm froze as he retracted it, "Why? Is it dangerous?" he asked.
"You having to ask that question proves that you're incredibly unsuited to be spearing this group, look at your feet," I said.
The man looked down, and noticed what I meant. There were small bones and decomposed biomatter around the tree.
He backed away confused on why such thing would be there.
I picked up a small pebble from the ground and said, "Pay attention," as I threw the pebble right into the crystal.
The contact was all it needed before two ma.s.sive jaws clutched against the tree bark, leaving just enough s.p.a.ce to not damage the tree bark, but if anyone was standing in there they'd be food for these two jaws.
The jaws were like metallic bear traps and once they locked on each other, they had the external texture of a rock that closed seamlessly around the tree.
Now everyone just started taking note of the trees around us, all the trees that seemed to be sprouting out of a rock were simply trees that were eating.
The soldier's face turned pale, "Trees have teeth…" he said
"I think we'll have better odds navigating this forest if you were to take the front," said old Fu.
"But sir, we're here to guard and protect you," the captain of the soldiers said.
"Believe me when I tell you, you guys are the ones needing protection, just walk behind me," I said as I took the lead. Scanning everything and anything I can with sight and my Divine Sense.
Although my divine sense is not even a dozen meters large as the disturbance is affecting it, it is still better than nothing and walking blindly. Many plants grew all over the place and many of them were plants I've never seen before.
So, I began picking some of them up and placing them in my holding bag. I needed to find out what these plants could do and if I could ever use them to create more poisons later.
Although this might slow us down we had nothing else to do really.
The entire forest is strange to us, and we had little to no objective or goal here but to keep on moving ahead.
Soon, the sound of beasts could be heard in the distance. There must be a fight going on or something is hunting.
"Keep low, and pay attention to your surroundings," Old Fu told the soldiers.
Everyone crouched down as we
Suddenly I heard an extremely familiar screech. Something that I only heard once, and it was inside the Poison G.o.d's Trial.
It was the Nargacougar.
"Danger!" the sudden screech echoed around us and soon a creature came cras.h.i.+ng down right in front of us, slamming into the man-eating? Trees.
It screeched harder and harder as it was battling what seemed to be a winged tiger that caught up to it.
The winged tiger was on the prowl, it had only one eye as the other one had suffered a lacerating wound that healed up strangely in a clean way.
The tiger growled once then zigzagged its way toward the Nargacougar that blew several sound waves at it. The tiger easily dodged the exploding echoes and pounced on the half-bat grabbing it tightly with paw and jaw.
The Nargacougar tried its best to push the black-winged tiger away but the tiger had it locked between its jaws. Desperately the half-bat screeched to try and stun the tiger away, but a single swing of the tiger's ma.s.sive paw was enough to permanently silence the half-bat.
The Nargacougar, bloodied and terrified kicked away at the tiger to make distance. As it backed away to try and turn invisible, camouflaging itself within the foliage, the tiger simply sniffed at the air and pounced in a random direction, immediately catching the half-bat once again, forcing him out of stealth and into its final struggle.
The fight ended in less than a couple of breaths of time, leaving the tiger with its prey. The tiger howled proclaiming its superiority and then noticed us, it growled lowly at us, threatening anyone that might dare and come after its hard-earned prey.
"Back off, everyone, slowly, back off…"
Soon everyone followed my advice and we all left the area to head to a different direction.
"This d.a.m.n place is dangerous…" the captain said.
"If only I had my cultivation base…" another said.
"I'm pretty surprised," said Old Fu as he followed next to me.
"Of what?" I asked.
"How come a Nargacougar is here? They should only be able to exist in the territory of that person…."
'He must be thinking of the Darkest Sun's territory.'
"What would make you say that? I mean they're a creature of dark, this place is like heaven for them," I said.
"No, it's the distance that will take one of them to come here… it's not small. His territory is the farthest one from here, and for that creature to come all the way here…"
"Perhaps this forest isn't simple," I said. "It may not only be under the Sea of Demons, but it might extend all the way to the lands of the dark one…" I said.
"Things have changed since I was gone. I can't rely on my past knowledge now. Anyway, let's just be more careful. Also, did you see the wound on the winged Tiger's face?" asked old Fu.
"Yes, that wasn't a natural wound," I said.
"What do you mean?" asked the captain who was interested in our conversation.
"That was a wound from a sword, or a sharp metallic object. That means, that there are people here, or at least sentient beings able to use metal," I said.
This was news, maybe good, maybe terrible, but it was new. Something we needed to consider.
The existence of another group might not be the best thing to discover. But at the same time, if we were to encounter them we'd have a better understanding of this whole region.
We continued moving forward, trying out best to keep a low profile. Without a direction or any map of sorts, we were probably moving in circles, but it was better than stagnating and staying in the same place.
I kept marking the area around us with poison that I can detect and used it to navigate the place.
Soon however, a small person moved right in front of us, they were humming a tune and was wearing a robe made of leaves.
"A person?!" exclaimed one of the soldiers surprised to see other signs of life.
But his words were loud enough for the small person to turn.
She was a girl with two horns protruding out of her forehead. She reminded me of the Demon Race back in the Poison Planet.
The girl was small, perhaps not even ten years old, her eyes were golden of color and had the iris of a cat. And the moment she noticed us, she dropped the straw basket in her hands and legged it.
"Wait!" I called but she didn't even bother waiting as she jumped up and down and in between trees.
"Stay here!" I said as I followed after the girl. She was too fast for any of them to catch up to her, strangely fast since all of the people behind me were extremely powerful cultivators.
How is she able to run that fast when she clearly has not a single ounce of Qi in her body.
However, thanks to my unnatural Poison Qi I was easily able to catch up to her, and I was thankful I did so in time.
Because she had tripped and fell right in front of another Nargacougar… this one was far bigger than the one we just saw dying…
Its mother maybe, and it stared viciously at the little panic-
stricken girl.
"CLOSE YOUR EARS!" I shouted as I threw a cannister in front of the Nargacougar.
These cannisters were my best weapon against a creature that relied on sound, their explosion was enough to stun this half bat creature for us to escape and I used them a lot back in the Poison G.o.d's heritage trial.
The small girl did as I had told and closed her ears.
The cannister fell right in front of the Nargacougar.
However, … I forgot something. Qi is heavily restricted here so that thing…is not going to blow.
s.h.i.+t…