Chapter 1124: Rushing into the heart of the mutant forest
"We should move too."
Xia Ya's voice sounded from behind, pulling Bai Zemin and Shangguan Bing Xue out of the mini world the two had inadvertently fallen into.
Bai Zemin's expression changed and became serious, "Right. Feng Tian Wu will start soon so we have to do our part as well."
Watching as he turned and began to approach the mounts, Shangguan Bing Xue's eyes flashed with a hint of coldness and anger as she glared at Xia Ya.
"How scary." Xia Ya shrugged her shoulders and turned away without giving it too much thought.
In the entire faction she was probably the soul evolver least liked by the rest. This was due to her quiet and aloof personality, as well as her trait of refusing to make friends or get too close to others.
All she cared about was Bai Zemin and nothing else. If he appreciated her and valued her highly, Xia Ya was happy and had enough with that.
As for the rest? People like Shangguan Bing Xue, Shangguan Xinyue, Wu Yijun, or Feng Tian Wu barely had the qualifications to get into her eyes.
Shangguan Bing Xue also knew that for Bai Zemin, Xia Ya's existence was as important as his life since he had told her that she would probably become one of the most key points for him to become a Higher Existence. If not for this there was no way she would tolerate Xia Ya's attitude.
Soon, Xia Ya climbed onto Little Snow's back and stroked her soft fur, "Let's go belle, time to help our Leader."
Oddly enough, she was not disagreeable towards Little Snow but was very friendly.
Bai Zemin and Shangguan Bing Xue rode on the back of Shangguan Xinyue's large Jiaolong. The hundreds of meters long beast let out a loud roar as it soared into the sky, shattering the surrounding trees with the shockwave generated by the air that exploded with its great speed.
The great flood dragon and the giant white dog soared 800 meters before charging straight towards the center of the forest. The speed at which both mutant beasts were moving was so fast that the world around them had become a blur, but despite going so fast they managed to zigzag and avoid crashing into the thousands of trees that made up the great mutant forest.
With the ghostly speed of both mounts, the group covered more than 50 kilometers in a short time and it was also just at that moment that they heard an explosion in the distance.
Shangguan Xinyue was standing on the dragon's head, and upon hearing the explosion she didn't have to look back to know what was happening, "Little King, looks like the little fire lady started her move."
Standing to Shangguan Xinyue's right, Bai Zemin looked back the moment the explosion occurred. His face capable of charming practically any human female glowed with a faint blue glare as he gazed into the distance.
"Let's hurry. We need to get to the center of the forest as soon as possible."
The forest slowly began to burn in blue flames, which although far, far away, would probably not take more than a couple of hours to cover the entire area. At the end of the day, the flame that was being used was not just any flame; it was one of the most powerful divine flames that had existed since the formation of the universe!
"Human King, I hope you know what you're doing!" The old voice of the flood dragon resounded with a hint of worry.
Bai Zemin watched as the plants in his surroundings began to grow larger and larger. The trees grew thicker and their trunks slowly seemed to become huge steel plates in formation.
'All or nothing.' He whispered in his heart before looking ahead with cold eyes.
"New enemy in front!" Shangguan Xinyue raised her hand towards the heavens and lightning thundered in the sky even though there were no gray clouds.
Right in front of them, what seemed to be a dozen gargoyles flew towards them with fierce expressions. Their four large wings were dark green and their golden eyes shone like little suns in the almost completely dark forest. This was the first time the group led by Bai Zemin had encountered this type of monster, and the most terrifying thing of all was that each and every one of these gargoyles seemed to have the strength of mutant Third Order beasts.
"Lightning Chain!"
Shangguan Xinyue's voice echoed everywhere at the same time as a flash of purple light fell from the sky, blinding most of the gargoyles for an instant before powerful explosions one after another resounded consecutively.
Rumble...!
The whole area rumbled and the ground split. A part of the forest was immediately shattered as hundreds of lightning bolts rained down from the sky, coloring the area a crackling purple in a matter of seconds.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Little Snow and the old silver flood dragon flew past where the enemies were, continuing their way towards the heart of the forest.
"Good job!" The wind and pressure was so great that Bai Zemin had to shout to make sure his voice could be heard.
"You can pay me back with a massage later!" Shangguan Xinyue whose right hand was still crackling with lightning was still in a joking mood regardless of the place and circumstances or the enemies that appeared.
However, something that surprised them all soon occurred.
Shangguan Bing Xue who had looked back purely by accident opened her eyes and exclaimed in astonishment, "Impossible!"
The two mutant beasts continued flying without looking back, but Bai Zemin and the other two ladies turned their heads back after hearing the disbelief in Shangguan Bing Xue's voice since she always remained calm in every situation.
The gargoyles that had been incinerated into charred corpses and those that had directly exploded into dozens of pieces of different sizes after being hit by the Lightning Chain launched by Shangguan Xinyue were suddenly enveloped by a kind of purple mist. The purple mist made their dead bodies and broken parts float, and under the incredulous eyes of the entire human group, they began to join together.
It took no more than a few seconds for them to become stone gargoyles, and although their eyes were nothing more than two large black sockets with white stones in them, their movement speed was even faster than when they were alive as they quickly chased after them.
Shangguan Bing Xue pointed her finger backwards and activated Ice Maker with the intention of freezing her enemies, "Frozen Confinement!"
From the tip of her tiny finger, terrifying gusts of frost shot backwards and with the wind at their backs moved swiftly towards the pursuing stone gargoyles at speeds no slower than they were moving. The frost covered the sky and spread out in a fan shape, coating everything in less than 5 seconds.
Shangguan Bing Xue and the others had no time to sigh in relief after seeing all the stone gargoyles freezing into ice statues and falling to the ground as something equally or even more unbelievable than what they had just seen happened.
Looking at that strange purple-pink aura covering the shattered ice and stone fragments, Bai Zemin gritted his teeth.
"It has to be a freaking Lich!"
Looking at the stone gargoyles chasing as if nothing had happened, Shangguan Xinyue frowned and remarked, "All the Liches we've faced so far didn't have this kind of skill. I think it's a new type of enemy."
Although the Liches they had faced before could summon undead skeletons to fight for them and those of higher level could even reform broken skeletons again as long as their bones were on the ground, this ability to turn dead into stone and empower them was far beyond that of a Shadow Lich.
"Bing Xue, Shangguan Xinyue, ignore the stone gargoyles for now and reserve as much Mana as you can!" Bai Zemin reminded them that in this mutant forest their Mana could not regenerate urgently. He activated Overlap Regeneration when he saw over a hundred green gargoyles flying towards them from the front, and without hesitation, he slammed a normal punch forward.
Although it was just a normal punch, Bai Zemin's Strength was simply too high.
Among the just over 100 green gargoyles with four wings, a bloody explosion occurred in the front line and a large patch opened up as over 60 of them were directly turned into tomato pulp.
Seeing that physical attacks were also viable, Shangguan Bing Xue unsheathed her sword and with a lightning-fast yet elegant fairy-like movement slashed horizontally towards the green gargoyles.
Perhaps it was because Bai Zemin had managed to glimpse and touch with his fingertips the spatial power, but when Shangguan Bing Xue slashed with her sword he could sense that the slash was not as simple as it seemed at first glance.
Staring at the silver half-moon that easily cut the bodies of the remaining 40 or so green gargoyles in half, Bai Zemin's eyes glittered slightly as he felt a flash of inspiration suddenly appear in his head after realizing that Shangguan Bing Xue had not used Mana at all. Unfortunately, the situation was urgent and with everything against him he couldn't concentrate on things other than the battlefield, which was why that inspiration disappeared, frustrating him immensely.
"We can do it this way!" Shangguan Bing Xue sighed in relief in her heart as she saw that she didn't need to consume Mana. She naturally did not know of Bai Zemin's thoughts, and with the same elegance that was so characteristic of her she raised her sword and slashed this time backwards.
Although her Strength was only at approximately 8900 points, being one of her lowest stats, it was still higher than Bai Zemin's +7200 Strength points under normal conditions and without the activation of Overlap Regeneration. Furthermore, her natural sword ability did not particularly use the Strength stat.
Watching as more than half of the 150 stone gargoyles chasing them were cut into two pieces and fell to the ground shattering into pieces but getting back up afterwards, Bai Zemin decided to leave the back to Shangguan Bing Xue.
"Little King, in front of us!"
Bai Zemin knew that Shangguan Xinyue was a pure mage whose physical abilities were probably barely comparable to a level 100 soul evolver at best. Hearing her urgent voice, he quickly glanced forward and his eyes immediately grew cold.
There, approximately 500 green gargoyles covered a portion of the sky as they flew speedily towards them. In addition, just in front of them all was a bright yellow gargoyle with golden eyes.
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