Chapter 422: Devil Flower (II)
In comparison, the Rippling Light was more efficient for these circumstances than the Aria of the Goddess of Light. The latter was admittedly more powerful, but its use also came with an immense consumption of spiritual energy. Using it to cut through vines to open up a path would be simply like swinging a greatsword to kill chickens.
After advancing for another quarter of an hour, the vegetation suddenly became sparse, and the swamps seemed deeper.
Long Haochen stopped his advance, wrinkling his brows. The situation before his eyes wasn’t normal. Having gone to the Illusory Paradise before, he understood that plants are also living beings, despite not knowing much regarding the nature. The plants that could exist here were visibly adapted to this environment since long ago. But the swamps under his feet weren’t any different, yet the vegetation suddenly reduced in number. This could only mean one thing, that there existed something that threatened the growth of these plants in this place.
Seeing Long Haochen stopping his advance, the others immediately gathered in a close formation, concentrating their attention on the surroundings.
With some curiosity, Cai’er asked the nearby Long Haochen, “Why aren’t we advancing?”
Long Haochen gave her a curious look. Over these past few days, when he wouldn’t take the initiative to speak to her, she would normally not be the one to start a conversation. And compared to before, he discovered to his shock that the current gaze of Cai’er was actually a lot gentler.
Knowing her very well, Long Haochen could sense every little change in her. Deep inside, he came to the conclusion that perhaps it could be that after the launch of her previous attack, she recovered some traces of memories? But he didn’t expect that Cai’er’s change was actually not coming from her memories but because of his concern when protecting her.
“The situation is a bit odd. The environment here changed too greatly. There should be some existence that threatened the vegetation in the swamps.”
When discussing with Cai’er, Long Haochen spread his perception as far away as possible, to sense places hidden from his eyes.
“There seems to be more vegetation ahead. Stay careful everyone, and be on high alert.” Declaring this, Long Haochen immediately recovered the Glorious Holy Shield, and took the Rippling Light in his left hand. With a flash of brilliant light, the Aria of the Goddess of Light appeared.
Because it was damaged seriously in the previous battle against the Forest Boa, the Glorious Holy Shield was severely battered, and was naturally nowhere as good as opting for the dual sword Discipline Knight style.
Proceeding forward for about a hundred meters, Long Haochen’s perception was certainly verified, and some vegetation started to appear again. However, it was completely different from all the vegetation they encountered before. There were no vines, only trees and very huge flowers.
The ground looked really odd. Every tree trunk was separated from one another by a distance of at least five meters, making them very thinly spread. Wide expanses of leaves sprouted from these, and it reached up to five meters length from the root, with a diameter of at least a third of a meter.
The most unusual thing was their summit, consisting on an immense flower bud, thick enough to wrap two people around. The flower buds were tightly packed, and as far as the eye could see, not even one flower was blooming.
Their massive build slightly swayed due to the poisonous marsh gas.
When arriving here, everyone had a similar feeling. That was a feeling of calm: this place was indeed too calm. There was no sound, and the only kind of vegetation present were these flower buds. Even the wind swaying by their bodies didn’t let out the slightest sound. In their way here, they also encountered no attack from any magical beast.
When a place is too quiet, it would give a feeling of deathly stillness. That was exactly what Long Haochen’s group was feeling.
“All of you, stay here for now. Han Yu, you will take over my place; I will be scouting ahead.” Long Haochen declared in deep voice.
In this strange situation, he decided to rather scout by himself. These large flowers were certainly strange, it was just that they had still yet to show the reason why.
Waving the four spiritual wings at his back, he let out a soft holy fire. At this time, he couldn’t help but reminisce Bai Xiaomo from the time of the Demon Hunt Squad Selection. Plants were not necessarily all peaceful! At that time, didn’t Bai Xiaomo inflict Yang Wenzhao quite a loss through the use of plants?
Stepping forward, Long Haochen only a few dozens meters away, his vision sharpening in a split second. Currently, he was twenty meters away from the large flowers, as he suddenly felt an instinctive sense of danger.
However, he didn’t stop his advance, instead accelerating, until arriving in front of the large flower standing in the last position of the row. Then, when he was five meters from that flower, a change suddenly occurred.
The closest flower to Long Haochen suddenly swayed, and immediately, its thick stolon abruptly descended. That large flower smashing straight at Long Haochen.
Along with an odd yell, that massive flower bud abruptly opened up, just like an immense hare lip, aiming its bite right at Long Haochen.
After opening up, this flower bud was just too huge. It was without a doubt sufficient to engulf Long Haochen in a gulp. And right when opening up, that flower revealed its sinister true form.
It had three huge blood colored petals, and had sharp teeth all over them. These sharp teeth had a sharp front end, were slightly curved behind, and appeared very thick. Just like a sharp hook, in case one was bitten by such a set of teeth, struggling free wouldn’t be an easy thing.
The aspect that was enough to make one feel drenched all over, was that after opening its mouth, its central area revealed a malevolent sly face, from where that abrupt yell echoed.
Long Haochen made his preparations to act since long ago, and the instant that large flower smashed at him, he was already moving up.
With the roar of a dragon, his two swords fluttering in the wind, he spiralled and soared up astonishingly. That was Ascending Dragon Strike.
A gaudy brilliant light reflected the center of Long Haochen’s body, and with the appearance of a soaring golden dragon, he struck the large flower.
Puff.
A dark red liquid dispersed in all directions, and Long Haochen took the shape of a brilliant light in the sky, retreating towards his comrades.
Right at the same time he came across this large flower, the few surrounding flowers also tried to bite at him, their rhizome swelling up suddenly. Immediately, the air was filled with mournful shouts.
These large flowers were considerably powerful, and one could clearly see that they had basically no fear of the holy fire emitted by Long Haochen. Right when that bigger one clashed against Long Haochen’s Ascending Dragon Cry, it only lost a large petal, and didn’t smash to pieces at all. Long Haochen’s Ascending Dragon Strike collided directly against those sharp teeth, and actually produced intense ringing sounds, along with sparks. And the only destroyed petal was the one that sustained the powerful offensive power from the Aria of the Goddess of Light.
With a flap of spiritual wings, the flying Long Haochen had a steep increase in speed, avoiding the attacks of several flowers, before returning among the ranks of his comrades.
The rhizome of each of these large flowers was after all limited in size. Unable to grab Long Haochen, they incessantly let out yells of furor. And all the large flowers swayed more violently, spreading out pink vapor, aiming at the direction of Long Haochen’s group.
“Be careful!” Long Haochen shouted.
Without need for instructions, a Holy Mantle appeared in view. Meanwhile, the Eleventh Holy Guard once again released the cold air that aimed in reducing the surroundings to ice.
However, to one’s shock, the pink vapor wasn’t affected in the slightest. Still progressing towards them, it rapidly adhered to the surface of the Holy Mantle.
With repeated Puff sounds, the Holy Mantle lasted for less than three seconds before melting right away.
All of this happened just too fast. Although Long Haochen immediately followed up with another Holy Mantle, some of the pink vapor still entered.
Long Haochen’s Holy Mantle was in the end different from Han Yu’s, due to the difference in purity of their spiritual energy, thus its resistance was a lot greater.
From Lin Xin’s hands, some blue flames were rapidly shot, sweeping the pink vapor.
But strangely, that pink vapor didn’t even react in front of the highly tempered flames of Heart of Fire, and was only routed slightly under its attack, changing a little in direction.
“Hold your breath!” Long Haochen shouted to Chen Ying’er’s direction, because that fog was drifting towards her.
Chen Ying’er’s reaction was already very fast, but she still inhaled a little of that pink fog. The sweet fragrance made her feel blank, and she immediately became pale.
Long Haochen just released another Holy Mantle against the corrosion from this terrible pink vapor. He gave an anxious look towards Chen Ying’er.
Chen Ying’er still looked blank, aiming her gaze in front of herself before slowly moving forward, facing the direction of those terrifying large flowers. Her consciousness seemed completely lost.
Wang Yuanyuan rapidly pulled her back, and Lin Xin’s reaction was very fast. Quickly taking out rapidly a blue liquid, he put it in his own mouth before suddenly puffing it on Chen Ying’er’s face. From the cold shiver, Chen Ying’er was immediately awakened.
“Wh… What just happened to me?”
Seeing Chen Ying’er at a loss, everyone couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with shock. Although Chen Ying’er’s battle strength was not much, she was still a powerhouse of the sixth step! Being a summoner of the sixth step, she actually turned out to lose control from such a little quantity of poisonous vapor. Seeing how powerful this pink poisonous vapor was, it was no wonder that this area would be devoid of anything else than these.
“We are going back!” Long Haochen made prompt a decision, as they had no way to handle that pink poisonous fog currently.