After advancing some distance into the forest, Jorah, who had been carried on Zephyr's shoulder the whole time, finally couldn't take it anymore.
"Phew..." He let out a long breath and, during a pause when Zephyr stopped to observe the situation ahead, "jumped" down from his shoulder, his feet landing back on solid ground.
He pretended to casually straighten his wrinkled collar, though his face was a mask of embarrassment. In truth, he had tried to subtly squirm and struggle free several times along the way, but Zephyr, this seemingly cold and ruthless man, also had a mischievous streak. He had pretended not to notice, carrying him steadily and giving him a taste of "high-altitude sightseeing."
It was just that, as the group grew larger, especially with the new researchers and soldiers, the mixed looks of pity and amusement they gave him had become torture for Jorah's meager self-esteem. He had no choice but to humble himself and quietly beg Zephyr to put him down.
Zephyr glanced at him, his face impassive. Seeing his pitiful expression, as if he truly knew he was wrong, he finally showed mercy and nodded.
With his feet back on the ground, Jorah felt like the whole world was beautiful again.
However, this beautiful feeling didn't last long.
As they got closer to the forest's core, the surroundings became increasingly bizarre.
This forest was both absurdly noisy and absurdly quiet.
It was noisy because the branches and leaves around them were now shaking violently and frantically, making a huge "rustling" sound, as if countless invisible hands were tearing at them, or as if they were locked in a life-or-death struggle with some unseen enemy.
It was quiet because, apart from the sound of the shaking leaves, not a single other living creature could be heard in the entire forest. No birdsong, no insect chirps, not even the sound of the wind.
Elara had noticed this situation halfway through. But what alarmed her even more was that in this seemingly vibrant forest, there were almost no living creatures to be seen. Occasionally, in the crevices of some tree roots, she could spot traces of mutated rats that had managed to escape earlier, but without exception, they had all been tightly bound by small vines extending from all directions and sucked dry into shriveled carcasses.
The further they went, the more animal carcasses appeared on the ground, in large swaths. They were of various species: birds, wild rabbits, even some larger mutated wild boars and dogs. They were all frozen in their death throes, their bodies shriveled, their deaths gruesome.
This vast expanse of animal corpses formed a horrifying tapestry of death.
Elara's brow furrowed tightly. She stopped, looking at the terrifying scene before her, and said grimly, "This is not a good sign. It looks like the 'mother tree' here is probably fighting with something else."
For this mutated plant, already powerful enough to be a "forest unto itself," to be on such high alert, even going so far as to expend a massive amount of energy to strangle all potential threats in the forest, how powerful must its opponent be?
"No matter what its opponent is, this means that Aurelia and her team are at the center of a clash between two powerful entities," Cassian's gaze also became incredibly grave. "We have to speed up!" he stated with certainty.
Zephyr, standing nearby, said nothing, but his actions spoke volumes. He simply nodded and then immediately took the lead, breaking into a run towards the direction where the leaves were shaking most violently.
Seeing this, the others immediately followed, and the entire team's speed instantly accelerated to its maximum.
When they finally burst through the layers of obstacles at top speed and reached the deepest part of the strange forest, the scene before them was not entirely what they had expected—a fierce clash between two powerful monsters.
In the very center of the forest was a relatively open clearing. At the heart of the clearing was not the "mother tree" itself, as they had imagined, but a massive cocoon, woven from countless ink-green vines as thick as pythons, layered so densely that it was completely airtight!
The cocoon was as large as a small house, its surface covered with menacing barbs and sticky green sap. And through the gaps in the vines, a golden, gentle glow, filled with a sacred and life-giving aura, was stubbornly seeping out.
However, the golden glow was now somewhat dim and flickering, like a candle in the wind, in danger of being extinguished at any moment.
The ink-green vines enveloping it were clearly not having an easy time either. Although they held the golden cocoon firmly trapped, they seemed unable, for some reason, to get a bite of what was inside, locked in a stalemate.
The real battle was in the air!
Countless frantically dancing vines, like a horde of demonic tentacles, whipped and pierced through the sky, their target a man moving at high speed in the air!
The man's figure was as light as a swallow. He twisted and turned in the air, his movements so fast that he was almost just a blur. His feet seemed to be pulled by something invisible, allowing him to move with dazzling agility between mid-air and the high treetops.
From his hands, he continuously shot out invisible, extremely sharp blades, precisely severing the vines that relentlessly attacked him like a persistent plague. Every slash of his blade cleanly cut through several vines, sending green sap splashing everywhere like raindrops.
However, the regenerative ability of the vines was far too strong. The severed vines regrew almost instantly and continued their attack with even greater ferocity. They seized every opportunity, lashing the man's body with their steel-whip-like tendrils, leaving deep, bone-exposing wounds. At the same time, more vines, like predatory pythons, tried to entangle his ankles from all angles, attempting to drag him down from the sky.
While Elara was observing the intense aerial battle, she also keenly noticed that another, unseen battle was taking place on the ground.
She noted that in certain areas, the soil in the clearing would surge upwards without warning, as if something were moving at high speed underground. And whenever some vines tried to burst up from the ground to attack the man in the air, sharp earth spikes or keen earthen blades, also made of soil, would immediately shoot out from beneath the churning ground, severing those vines at the root!
The cross-sections of the churned soil were very fresh, clearly having been disturbed just moments ago.
An earth-ability user?
Elara's mind raced. It seemed there was someone else hidden below, engaged in a subterranean struggle with the "mother tree," providing support for the man in the air!
She didn't know how long these people had been holding out here. But seeing that the man in the air, though still agile, was already covered in wounds and his breathing was slightly labored, it seemed he had also arrived here not long ago but had clearly already endured an extremely brutal fight.
And the one trapped in the vine cocoon, emitting the golden light, was undoubtedly their final objective—Aurelia!
The situation at hand was exceptionally complex. The man in the air, the supporter underground, and the "mother tree" that seemed to have focused all its offensive power on them…
This might just be the perfect moment for them to intervene!
Elara did not immediately order an attack. She calmly made a decision—to hold back for now and use this opportunity to carefully observe the vines' attack patterns, their regeneration speed, and the fighting styles of the man in the air and the supporter underground.
Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated.
She hid behind a massive tree trunk, held her breath, and pushed her space-time perception to its absolute limit, carefully analyzing the chaotic and fierce battle before her like a calm, detached observer.