An hour and a half later, they had found nothing.
The forest before them was no longer lush. A web of ravines crisscrossed the land, as if the earth had been repeatedly split by a giant axe.
Some of the fissures were bottomless, gray chasms of absolute silence where not even the wind echoed.
Others appeared to be mere canyons, yet were surprisingly full of life. Clear streams meandered along their floors, and one could faintly see a few mountain goats climbing the steep cliffs.
The phenomenon was intriguing. It was as if some immense Divine Power had violently ripped this part of the forest apart, leaving behind terrible scars, yet some of these wounds were still undergoing ecological Recovery.
"There aren’t any cursed cave dwellers down there, are there?"
Before long, they came upon another fissure. This one was narrower, less than three meters at its widest point. Peering over the edge, it was impossible to see what lurked in the dark depths, from which only a dense, deathly aura emanated.
The intermittent odors wafting from the numerous fissures had, to some extent, interfered with Xiaoye’s sense of smell.
It wasn’t a sulfurous smell, which would have been immediately pungent and foul. But for a Dark Element Soul-devouring Dog, its hyper-sensitive olfactory organs picked up something different.
A stagnant resentment and a decaying will, transmitted from deep within the earth, made it instinctively restless. Its very soul trembled.
"Maybe I should recall it."
After Xiaolin had flown for half an hour, surveying from high above without success, Su Chen had simply recalled it. The high sun was a small torment for a magical beast ill-suited to the climate.
After crossing the narrow fissure, Su Chen saw the Soul-devouring Dog wanted to persist, but he was already thinking of recalling it.
"Awooo..."
Just then, as if sensing its master’s thoughts, Xiaoye let out an impatient growl.
From their time together, he understood its proud nature; it rarely growled. Now, it gently bit his pant leg and desperately pulled him eastward.
Hmm!
In that instant, Su Chen understood completely.
"You’ve caught the scent of the Bloodthirsty Fungus, haven’t you?"
Xiaoye immediately let go and nodded its head eagerly.
Very good.
Su Chen’s eyes lit up. After giving it a few more instructions, he had it activate its Stealth Skill and run upwind toward the scent.
With a flicker, Xiaoye vanished silently and darted off in the direction of the wind.
Ten minutes later, a canyon appeared ahead.
On the surface, it looked perfectly normal. The rock walls were naturally weathered, vines hung down, and it seemed to be just another ordinary small canyon among the forest’s countless fissures and ravines that had managed to recover its vitality.
But before they drew close, Su Chen raised a hand, signaling for Xiaoye to stop.
"It’s concealed by an optical refraction field."
Su Chen’s brow twitched. He instantly identified it as an environment-shaping Rune of the Light Element.
He didn’t know the Rune’s composition, and he hadn’t relied on Resonance to see through it. He had done so purely because of the extremely high affinity for All Elements granted by his Authority as a Grand Elemental Master.
In truth, if one got close enough and carefully observed the flow of the Wind Fluff, or used keen Spiritual Perception, it was possible to get a glimpse of the shadowy veil hidden in the darkness.
As for this disguised optical field, Su Chen’s long-range observation had allowed him to spot a subtle environmental inconsistency.
This was also highly dependent on his 20-point Perception Attribute.
Due to the distance, Yan Ruoruo’s Insight vision couldn’t see that far. And even up close, she hadn’t seen any mycelium in the underground network. Still, she had unconditional faith in the decisions of the man beside her and had already begun to adjust the string of her bow.
"In thirty seconds, we attack directly."
Having confirmed this was a hatching lair, Su Chen drew on his previous experience. He wasn’t going to give them a chance to move the Runes or Heavenly and Earthly Treasures.
Everything had to be fast, precise, and ruthless.
Once preparations were complete, Yan Ruoruo made the first move.
She turned slightly, twisting at the waist with a tall, elegant motion. After a soft thrum of her bowstring, two Echo Arrows, one after the other, flew through the air in a high-arcing, long-range shot.
The instant the Arrows left the string, Su Chen activated Shadow Leap without hesitation.
On his second jump to the very limit of his range, the pervasive spatial fluctuations immediately drew the wary attention of the outer guards.
But it was too late. Su Chen paid them no mind, and his third leap took him straight through the optical Illusion barrier, appearing out of thin air inside the canyon, which was shrouded in a vast, scarlet mist.
The thick fog rushed his face, and his vision was instantly consumed by the color of blood.
But at almost the same time, the two Echo Arrows pierced through the optical field, leaving two tiny holes, and then landed and exploded at two different locations inside the canyon.
BZZZZ!!
Invisible Spiritual Fluctuations spread out from the points of impact. Through Yan Ruoruo’s Mind Transmission, the canyon’s internal structure, the distribution of life forms, the Elemental Energy nodes... all of it was synchronized with Su Chen’s Sea of Consciousness.
’A mountain of flesh and corpses to the left...’
’Three hatching chambers, situated beside piles of dismembered limbs, squirming like living wombs. New things are gestating inside...’
’The outer guards are alerted and rushing back. Inside, three more modified humans are roaring as they charge me.’
But Su Chen was already poised to strike.
His target: one of the hatching chambers on the left.
The Torrential Flow Skill from the Pure White Short Staff in his hand erupted. A high-speed vortex of water wrapped around him, propelling him forward like a tornado.
But there was more.
Under the effect of his Weaving trait, the powers of Flame Burst and Holy Radiance were smoothly layered and injected in an instant, without the slightest resistance.
When the water met the dark flames, it surged and vaporized into waves of superheated steam.
With the Holy Light fused in as well, it transformed into a blazing shockwave, like a platinum sun.
BOOM!
He crossed a hundred meters in a flash.
A terrifying trail of smoke stretched out behind him. Wherever the high-temperature steam passed, mycelium and mushrooms were instantly scorched to dust. Spores vaporized before they could scatter, and a whole section of the scarlet mist was obliterated.
A twisting vacuum tunnel appeared in its wake, completely cutting off the left from the right.
One of the modified humans, sensing his intent, lunged from the flank to intercept him. A shield of high-frequency, oscillating lightning enveloped its body. But this move was no different from a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
After all, the Torrential Flow Skill wasn’t just a simple movement technique; it was also a deadly offensive art.
BOOM!!
The creature crashed head-on into Su Chen. The innate momentum of the Torrential Flow Skill slammed into it like a monstrous wave crashing against a reef.
There wasn’t even a moment of struggle. The modified human’s shield lasted for half an instant before shattering into fragments under the dual assault of Flame Burst and Holy Radiance.
Its entire body was thrown back like a puppet with its strings cut. Its chest had already caved in from the impact, and its internal organs, mixed with a mass of squirming parasitic mycelium, suddenly exploded. Before its mangled corpse could even hit the ground, it was completely enveloped by the rapidly spreading, superheated steam.
Flesh carbonized, bones turned white. The mycelium evaporated in the terrifying heat wave, not even leaving behind a single speck of ash.
Hindered by the interception, Su Chen’s charge slowed considerably.
Seeing the intense subterranean tremors transmitted through the earth’s veins after the Resonance activated, he instantly used Shadow Leap again. He left behind an afterimage that was torn to shreds by a swarm of terrifying roots bursting from the ground, while his real body appeared before the nearest hatching chamber.
At that moment, several Screaming Skills shot out from crevices in the rock walls like psychic needles, aimed straight for his Sea of Consciousness.
But Su Chen was unmoved. His left hand, enveloped in Strong Will, shot forward. It pierced through the egg membrane, shattered layers of the hatching sac, and before the Parasite Body could even open its eyes, his five fingers had penetrated its cranial cavity, brutally and savagely seizing a large chunk of its brain tissue.

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