Chapter 476: The Sudden and Unexpected

　　Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

　　Deep within Mang Gu Jungle, in a maze-like cave.

　　The deepest part of the cave was a large open hall, illuminated by walls of starry turquoise sparks. In the center of the hall was a deep, bottomless lake, where two mammoth-like beasts — as large as a house — lay on their back at both the left and right side of the banks. The distance between them was only about ten-odd yards.

　　The two beasts had the same features — they both had a pate similar to a male lion with a full body of crimson-red fur, but their face resembled a human’s. Their tails were stingers, like scorpions’, about two to three yards long which were now set on the ground meekly.

　　A closer inspection would reveal that these beasts were marred by grave gashes all over their body—the wounds were only harder to spot because they were camouflaged by their own crimson-red fur. Indeed, the blood flowed from their wounds had long dried, while a large incision could be found on their gigantic heads… A sign that their Demon Nucleuses had been taken away.

　　Standing around these two beasts were three young adults. Their robes were dirtied with blood as well, but no one could tell if it was their own or the blood of their prey.

　　“Well, that’s all for spring-cleaning. Now, as long as nothing out of the blue happened for the rest of this period, the three of us are bound to join Qing Lan Holy Sect by the end of this test,” A man among the three, with pale-green skin donning a white robe, said while crouching close to the earth.

　　“I beg to differ, Sect Fellow Qiu. From what I’ve heard, there are far more candidates looking to join Qing Lan Holy Sect than ever before, with many of them being geniuses from prominent, powerful families,” A buff demon said, his hands crossed behind his back as he stood, “We may very well lose our spot among the first one hundred and eight if we don’t race against time.”

　　“Yo, the two of you should stop your chit-chat and help yourselves with these Scorpio-sphinxes, man. Every part of them is a rare material just begging to be appreciated, guys! Seriously, if you’re not gonna take them, don’t sulk if I have them all!” The last to cut into their conversation was a stout, chubby man with four arms. He was now rummaging through the beast on the left.

　　“Please. These materials will be seen as nothing once you’ve joined Qing Lan,” The green-skinned man replied flatly, but he stood up and walked towards the right beast anyway.

　　He was just getting close to the enormous beast when its body suddenly shuddered.

　　“The hell was that? Is this King Scorpion-sphinx still alive?” The green-skinned man, alarmed, instantly pulled out two kris-like weapons with wavy blades.

　　“I think it’s just your eyes playing tricks on you!” The buff demon replied with an unimpressed pout. With a blue, he appeared next to the beast on the right and started to crouch to inspect it as well.

　　It was then something strange happened. The beast’s body let out an explosive “Phhhrrr!” before a large cavity was suddenly torn out of its body. There, a large brown root with engravings of magical glyphs and green moss snaked out of its body like a bolt of lightning aiming right at the buff demon.

　　“What the frack?!”

　　The buff demon was very quick in his response. His arms blurred and somehow transformed into two gigantic chelae. With a brief shudder, concentrated beams of silver light, accompanied by sounds of thunders, erupted out from the pair and shot straight at the gigantic brown root.

　　At the same time, his body was now shrouded by a coat of crimson red lights which took the form of a crimson, tough armor with lightning sparks visible on its surface,

　　The hall was filled with the rumbling of thunder as the silver light beams clashed with the brown roots, eliciting balls after balls of exploding lights consuming every part of the root and forcing it to suspend in midair instead of slamming downwards onto the earth.

　　The buff demon did not even get a breather when another loud clasp erupted behind him, where a large crack broke open and another one of those enormous brown roots snaked out and wrapped around the buff demon at lightning speed.

　　The buff demon’s crimson armor, despite looking sturdy, did not even offer any sort of defensive resistance towards the root’s squeeze. It popped into shambles almost the instant the root wrapped itself around him.

　　Then, with a tight squeeze, the glyphs on the roots shimmering wildly, the buff demon’s skin suddenly sank into its skeleton. The root had sucked his blood completely dried, and that was all done before he even had a chance to scream.

　　Worse of all, the entire process starting from the appearance of the first root took only about one or two seconds—whereby the green-skinned man could only watch in dumbfounded horror.

　　It was then when he heard a bloodcurdling shriek behind him. He turned instantly, and his eyes caught the full sight of a harrowing scene—the four-armed chubby who had been happily severing the limbs of the King Scorpio-sphinx was now raised high into the air by two enormous roots; He was wrapped completely by them with only a single head in the open.

　　“Twop!”, the roots freed a small figure, as dehydrated as a set of skeletons wrapped in skin, from their clutches. The four-armed man, too, had his blood sucked dry all in a millisecond, sending him straight to death’s door.

　　“Whoosh! Whoosh!” The two brown roots that had been drinking the Demon race dry lashed toward the last man of the ill-fortunate trio.

　　Panicked, the green-skinned man’s bizarre weapons shimmered erratically and projected arcs after arcs of sword beams towards the two incoming roots. At the same time, his body took off into the air, leaping over great distances in a backward bolt to the exit of the cave,

　　Sounds similar to rain falling on leaves echoed—that was the most these sword beams could do to the enormous roots. The beams shimmered and flickered threateningly, but a few shallow cuts were all they could leave on the roots, albeit it did stun the roots for a while.

　　The green-skinned man nabbed the time he bought. He raced to the exit of the cave until there were only several yards away from him, his own Watery Vault Heaven Jade already firmly within his grasp.

　　Just a bit more. A bit more… and he will be free from this.

　　It was then when the exit of the cave suddenly rumbled, with two enormous roots burrowing out of the walls like pythons waiting for their prey.

　　Behind the green-skinned man, the air was filled with the terrifying sounds of five roots rushing towards him at the same time.

　　The green-skinned man bit his lips and crushed the jade in his hand.

　　Water spouted out from the jade and out of his fingers—but it didn’t wrap around him at all. Instead, the roots close to the exit of the cave somehow managed to suck the water into themselves!

　　The man’s face was a silent scream of his only hope for survival being dashed.

　　…

　　Deep in another part of Mang Gu jungle, hovering on top of towering trees, was a group of seven or eight Demon race youths with different appearances and body builds. Each of them were busy unleashing their own technique of staying in the air as they raced towards the very same direction.

　　All of them wore an expression of panicked frenzy, with all sorts of colorful lights radiating from their bodies as they tried to hurry to their destination.

　　Tailed behind their feet, the air was filled with ten enormous, sinister brown roots chasing them relentlessly in a hope-crushing speed. Whenever one of them slowed down a little, they would be punished by being caught into the deadly embrace of either one or several roots, before being released after their blood and essence had been sucked dry in a second.

　　Anyone who had the resolve to crush their Watery Vault Heaven Jade and forfeited themselves was quick to realize that the watery light would be mysteriously sucked dry by the very same pursuing roots—and worse of all, as the action of crushing the jade would probably slow them down by a smidge, other roots would quickly caught up to them too…

　　…..

　　A few thousand miles away from the center of the secret territory was a lowland.

　　Thump! Came the sound of a seven to eight yards large object being slammed down onto the earth, causing dirt and dust to dance in the air. When the dust cleared, the object was revealed.

　　It was a large mammoth-like beast with skin as coarse as granite, completely tangled by several large brown roots. Close by, a humanoid creature was struggling against the clutches of the same few roots tangling around half of its body.

　　The two were being steadily buried by the roots, but neither of them had stopped struggling.

　　However, their fates were sealed. With a shimmer of glyphs on the surface of the roots, both the large beast and the humanoid creature shrank and shriveled in seconds. In a blink of an eye, their lives were completely gone.

　　Having their fills, the roots tossed them aside. The glyphs on their surface blinked as their aura climbed dangerously, and then like earthworms, they suddenly burrowed back into the earth and were gone.

　　…

　　The same thing kept occurring everywhere within a few miles from the center of the secret territory. It took these roots just a few minutes to mangle thousands of aspiring disciples at the same time, before toasting themselves with their victims’ blood and essence.

　　…

　　Deep in Mang Gu Jungle, a human youth with a soft and gentle face, his hair neatly tied into a bun, was crossing the jungle at a steady pace.

　　Quite abruptly, he tapped his foot lightly and leaped into the air for over three yards away from the earth.

　　Where it cracked and tore open suddenly, and a brown root burst out of the gash and struck at the air where the human youth was milliseconds ago.

　　The gentle-faced youth hovered in midair and shot a quick glance at the bottom. It was a large, thick brown root slithering out from deep within the earth like an anaconda.

　　The gentle-faced youth’s hand cupped the air around him and suddenly, a long sword with a deep-blue blade manifested in his hand, its blade shining in dazzling blue light.

　　Then, the youth dove, swinging his sword towards the root as blue light stretched out from his blade, about several yards long.

　　“Pppwwwhh!” With a single dash of blue light, the root was severed into two. Yet, as if they gained their own lives by being split into halves, the roots continued to wriggle before shooting towards the gentle-faced youth, who had just landed on the ground softly.

　　At the same time, then earth behind the youth cracked and broke open, revealing two brown roots slithering out of the gaps before each took a side next to the youth and struck—they were attempting to cage the youth together with the previous two roots.

　　The youth’s face remained gentle and neutral as he sprung into the air like an arrow, soaring into the sky and escaping the roots’ clutches.

　　Missing their target yet again, the four roots shot into the air in a snake-like motion. They crisscrossed, weaving themselves into a web-like structure before trapping the youth in it.

　　The gentle-faced youth’s lips quivered into an amused smirk before, very quietly, he muttered, “Freeze.”

　　Blue lights flashed brightly and out of his eyes, coursing through the space in a ripple.

　　The entire jungle seemed to have gone still. Leaves that were floating downwards suddenly hung in midair motionlessly.

　　The gigantic net fashioned from the four roots, too, stopped in mid-action. It was as if time around the area of several miles away from this youth had stopped.

　　The gentle-faced youth’s sword left his grip and sliced through the net on its own, the trail of lights left by its attacks making out an image of a blue lotus blossom. Then, it returned to his hand in a backward fling.

　　The entire process was brief and graceful, like a creek coursing through the mountains.

　　When the sword returned to his hand, the net made by the interweaving roots finally wriggled again, but this time—the more they wriggled, the more undone the net became, until each and every piece of them fell from the sky like normal, motionless plant roots.

　　Quite unsettlingly, neither of these root-like monsters had a Demon Nucleus.

　　The gentle-faced youth gave a faint smile before disappearing into the distance, leaving only his humor-filled voice saying, “Well, well, well. I’ve been waiting for your true awakening for ten years, Sylvan King… You did not disappoint. Hahaha…”