Chapter 255

  Darkness (VI)

  Alright, so our resident Alchemist and the second most experienced and knowledgeable person here has absolutely no clue what it is.

  Long Tao, even if he knows, doesn't seem likely to spill it.

  And me? Well, I just think it's one of the creepiest things I've ever seen in my life.

  Yet.

  Because, not twenty feet further in, I crouched down with the lantern and pulled apart the moss yet again, finding yet another body with that strange, half-glazed appearance of mummification.

  It was a young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties or so, with a rather gnarly gash across his chest that was open but wasn't actively bleeding. Just like with the woman, his clothes had long since decayed while his body remained eerily preserved, eyes opened just as widely.

  Lao Shun crouched next to me as we pulled apart the rest of the moss, and as he examined the body, he'd concluded that the woman had likely died from some internal wound, as he couldn't locate any on her body, unlike the young man 'buried' here.

  "It's different," Lao Shun said as he frowned.

  "What's different?" I asked.

  "There's Qi in this body."

  "Oh? So, he died recently?"

  "No. I'd put his time of death at around Zou Min's," he said. "There are only traces, very faint ones, but there's undoubtedly Qi in him."

  As odd as it was, since he couldn't make any sense of it, neither could I.

  We buried the body once again and moved on, stopping every twenty feet or so and moving moss apart.

  We didn't find bodies in every 'hole', as it were; in about an hour, we found an additional four, all relatively young people just entering their twenties or inching toward their thirties, with the exact same states of their bodies.

  Lao Shun supposed that they all died around the same time. They, just like the first young man we'd found, had varying amounts of Qi in them, too.

  "... huh?" It was whilst we were looking for another patch of moss that I noticed something.

  For some reason beyond my conscious thought, I looked east and started moving over while holding the lantern at the front and passing by several patches of moss, as that wasn't what was 'calling' me.

  I stopped in front of a random tree--nothing about it standing out of place from any other, save for one thing. It was hanging loosely from one of its branches, entangled and gently pulsating.

  It was a vine.

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  "What the fu--"

  It was instantaneous; I'd dropped the lantern and drew out the sword in my scabbard in one motion, stabbing backward from my hips as though I'd done it a thousand times before. I immediately felt the blade tear through the flesh as warm liquid sprayed over my hands.

  I pulled the sword out and spun in place, facing the distantly familiar and cloaked figure. Not that I knew the exact individual, but more so that the entire attire reminded me of those ghouls that attacked the Silvercrest City.

  The eyes stared at me for a moment before they rolled back and the body toppled sideways.

  "Master!!" Xi Zhao and Dai Xiu sped over like bolts of lightning, stopping at either of my sides and bracing for more, but there was nobody else.

  "... another vine?" glancing back, I saw that Long Tao was already by the tree, examining the vine.

  No, it's better to say that he was probably always somewhere here and would have likely stepped in if I hadn't just done something insanely cool! Holy shit, why is nobody acknowledging just how cool I was just now?! No, wait... is it maybe normal? Have I finally hit the normal of this world?

  I put away the sword before my hand started to shake with excitement as Lao Shun joined us, crouching down and unhooding the figure.

  It looked to be a middle-aged man, and from our brief encounter I'd estimate him to be in the early stages of the Spirit Manifestation Realm, actually.

  "Just how far do their tendrils actually reach?" Lao Shun mumbled, and I very much agreed.

  Honestly, if somebody told me that the Sages orchestrated the entire fall of the Spirit Sword Sect--okay, I wouldn't believe it, as there was another monstrous moron who did that, but it wouldn't seem entirely out of pocket, either. Whatever their plans are, they must be all-corrosive, as they've had their hands in practically all of the issues we've faced for months now.

  "This one's a bit different," Long Tao said as he yanked the vine from the tree; the little thing actually screeched, so loudly that my heart skipped a beat.

  Holy hell! Are you advertising to this entire damn place our precise location? But seeing as none of the kids panicked, and Lao Shun didn't either, prompted me to take a closer look and realize that the bastard had already set up some sort of a barrier.

  ... just when, though?!

  "It's not part of this place," he added. "And was planted only recently."

  "How recently?" Lao Shun asked, standing up and walking over.

  "You're an alchemist," Long Tao shrugged and handed him the limp vine. I could see the brows of the old alchemist dance for a bit, but he stayed his lips as he took the vine and examined it.

  "The vine itself is only about a month old? No... how is that possible? Do they have the means of producing them?" I mean... duh? We've found them everywhere. If they didn't have the means of producing them, they wouldn't have the ability to spread them. "But it's also... lifeless. Oh."

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "They are competing with the forest for Life Qi," he said. "And the vines are losing. Or, well, at least this one was. There are only miniscule traces of Life Qi in it."

  Okay, the more I learn about this place, the more I'm starting to regret us ever coming here. Based on the map, while the Sunless Forest did occupy the central bout north of the city and it spanned a massive area, there were routes around it. I mean, of course there were; nobody was traversing the forest if they wanted to go north or south of it.

  "If there was one," Wan Lan said. "It probably means there are many more. I'm still a bit angry over them dying so fast in the city. I barely had any fun."

  "Ho ho," Dai Xiu joined. "You too, Sister?" Hm? What happened with Junior and Senior? I mean, I did notice them switching it up here and there, with both calling each other either, but... did I miss something? I mean, probably. Though we are always together, I make it a point not to listen to their conversations since, well, why would I? "My fists are already itching."

  "You two can't go berserk again!" Xi Zhao cried out. "Do you know just how much damage you did to the city?! At least one tenth of all the ruined buildings were that way because of you!"

  "That's how real women fight, Junior Brother!" Dai Xiu puffed her chest and scoffed. "We charge forward and destroy everything that's trying to stop us! Those buildings were simply standing in our way!"

  I have a feeling that Xi Zhao will go gray by the time he's twenty trying to 'control' that little gremlin over there.

  And I will either make him a hair-dyeing art or I'll have Lao Shun do it, because he's doing the God's work, honestly.