Chapter 22: Twin Puppets of the Devil's Earth

  When the first ray of sunlight in the morning shines through the forest, the five people are already ready and prepared to set off.

  Step by step, they stepped into the forest of no return. The three boys carefully protected Zhan Liangcui and Yu Mei in the middle, always on guard. When a Blazing Bear burst out, unexpectedly, that silent wooden stick blocked an attack.

  "The Yellow Earth Shield."

  A small mountain-like earthen shield formed in front of everyone, and a palm from Explosive Flame Bear slammed down. The two forces clashed, sending sand and dust flying everywhere. The five people jumped back separately. Shang Qi performed a binding technique, tightly wrapping Explosive Flame Bear's limbs with vines. Explosive Flame Bear lost its balance, and with a loud "thud", the ground shook. Explosive Flame Bear fell to the ground, unable to get up, using all its strength to struggle against the binding vines. Hao Ren activated his wind-based spiritual power, causing Explosive Flame Bear's skin to split open, and its deafening roar scared away the birds in the forest, which flapped their wings and flew away in a flock.

  He couldn't bear to watch any longer, pulled out a dagger, jumped several times, and came to the front of the Blazing Bear, fiercely stabbing into its brain, digging out the crystal core. The Blazing Bear was in agony, letting out ear-piercing roars, eventually shrinking down to the size of an ordinary black bear, barely breathing, until it finally died.

  The bloody smell would easily attract other monsters, so the five of them quickly left the place. The further they walked, the stronger the strange feeling in Warlight's heart became. She had an extraordinary intuition for danger.

  "Something is off here."

  Hao Ren nodded, "I think so too, it's too quiet here."

  When they heard this, Shang Qi and the others also came to their senses, vigilantly looking around, but here, except for the faint sound of the wind, there was nothing else.

  After a stalemate of more than half an hour, Shang Qi was getting tired and couldn't hold on any longer.

  "Nothing's wrong, are you guys overreacting?" she said, rubbing his arm.

  Yu Mei Ren relaxed a bit, but Zhan Light Crazy and Hao Ren exchanged a glance, still vigilantly looking around. Mu Tou saw their expressions and secretly furrowed his brow.

  They persisted for another quarter of an hour, but Shang Qi couldn't take their "nervous" appearance anymore and consoled them, "It's okay, it's okay, there won't be any danger here. If there were any magical beasts, they would have rushed out already. Let's rest for a while and then go find the Red Cloud Fragrance Fruit."

  Soldiers come to block, water comes to cover with earth. The light and arrogant ones nod in agreement, but secretly take note.

  "Hey, look! There are two flowers here. They're so beautiful! How about we each take one?" Yu Mei said excitedly as she strolled to the back of the tree, reaching out to pick them.

  "Be careful! Don't touch!"

  Looking at the two bright flowers, Zhan Qing wanted to stop them, but it was too late. No wonder! There were no signs of any magical beasts here, and it turned out that this was the territory of a "magic land", a type of plant-based magical beast. Only one flower-like thing was exposed on the surface, with petals resembling peonies and roses, in a deep red color, thick and sturdy, with a faint fragrance. Whether it was the appearance or the fragrance, they would attract all kinds of people or beasts. Once someone stepped into its hunting range, the underground roots of the magic land would burst out of the ground, as thick as a hundred-year-old tree trunk, twisting and turning to attack, binding tightly, then absorbing life force and spiritual energy until human life was extinguished, and the magical beast's crystal core exploded. The magic land relied on absorbing these external energies to constantly grow stronger and upgrade itself. However, most magic lands were single plants, and she had never heard of a pair like this before. It must have been that they had "fed" before arriving here, which was why they hadn't attacked immediately. Now that the flowers were threatened, they would naturally counterattack.

  For a moment, the earth rolled, sand and stones fell, thick roots seemed to roll like giant snakes, twisting, piercing sounds pierced the brain, as painful as needle stabs. Indeed, the more beautiful things are, the more dangerous they are!

  The battle situation soon became stalemate, Hao Ren's Wind Blade was dodged by its agile movements, and the powerful roots flew towards him at high speed, forcing Hao Ren to dodge in a sorry state. On the other side, Yu Mei froze the whip that was about to hit her face, but just as she let out a sigh of relief, she heard a loud crash, the ice block shattered into pieces, the whip shuddered and accelerated its attack again. Yu Mei repeatedly cast her Ice Freeze technique, but it couldn't last for long; Mu Tong's side was also in a precarious situation, even if his Earth Escape could hold on for a while, it wasn't a long-term solution, his spiritual power would eventually run out. Shang Qi's body was already covered in wounds, and as a wood-type cultivator, he cast a small entwining technique, but the Double Stem Magic Earth didn't take him seriously and continued to "trample" him.

  Having dodged the attack, Zhan Liang jumped onto a nearby tree, looking at her companions in distress with an icy face. Although she didn't consider them as her own people, since they came together, they should leave together; missing one would be an insult to her strength, and after their shared hardships, she couldn't bear to abandon them.

  A fireball was thrown, the roots were scorched and twitched uncontrollably, then turned to ashes. Indeed, plants fear fire! Her pressure was greatly reduced, those roots didn't dare to move lightly, carefully peeking at her from a distance.

  A few leaps, burning off the obstructing roots along the way, arrived in front of Shang Qi, rescued the person wrapped around his arms, retreated from the demonic land, and Zhan Light Crazy helped up the heavily injured Shang Qi, taking him to Hao Ren's side, resolving his crisis.

  "A rain of fire from the sky." Countless fireballs fell from the heavens, taking advantage of the moment when Mo Di was dodging, one hand scooped up Yu Mei Ren, one hand grabbed a wooden plank, and threw the four people together, shouting loudly: "Hurry and leave!"

  "No way, we can't leave you behind!" The tears on Shang Qi's pale face were intertwined.

  "Hurry up, I'll cover you from behind. Otherwise, we'll all die here together." Zhan Qing's heart was filled with anger and frustration, a big man still being so timid and hesitant.

  "No, let's go together."

  "Hao Ren, you take them and leave first, I'll go find you guys."

  Hao Ren's face was complex as he watched her constantly jumping and dodging the dangers, feeling quite unbearable.

  "Lightly insane, lightly insane, I won't leave, I won't leave, I still want to protect you." Shang Qi struggled.

  Not so big and patient, Zhan Light Crazy swung out a few fireballs, blocking the attack of the Demon Land. Coming to their front, he picked up Xiang Qi who was crying miserably, spun him around a few times, kicked him hard, and kicked him out of this area. In the air, it seemed that his hoarse voice could still be heard.

  "Let's go quickly!" Turning back, he looked seriously at the remaining three people.

  Hao Ren and she locked eyes, seeing the determination in hers, pulled the silent Mu Tong and tearful Yu Mei Ren, turned around and left.

  "We'd better leave; staying here will only become a frivolous burden."

  Waiting for them to leave, Zhan Qinghu turned around and faced the 30-meter-high rolling giant wall, with a hint of "the wind is sad and the water is cold".

  In an instant, the two stems of the demonic tree let out a sharp howl, deciding to severely punish the culprit who had let its prey escape. All the roots shot out at once, and the tiny figure that was visible to the naked eye slowly disappeared. A huge root mass formed by the tree wrapped around her, with the outermost layer of roots still flowing.

  A glimmer of light disappeared before Warlight's eyes, and darkness descended. She relied on her bodily instincts to dodge the repeated attacks, determined not to let the roots above the stem touch her. Once touched by the roots, the spiritual energy within her would be absorbed endlessly. The Double Stemmed Demon Earth thought it could suck her dry, but little did it know that Warlight was also paying attention to it. During their earlier battle, she had seen that this Demon Earth's level was a Super Sacred Beast, so she might as well make a contract with it!

  Having made up her mind, the contract was just a matter of formality! She released a thread of spiritual power to probe, but there was no effect. Thinking back to the magic array she saw earlier on those two flowers, she quickly understood the key to the situation - the demon's attack on them was also because Yu Mei wanted to pick those two flowers.

  She unfolded the fire screen, and War Light Crazy gradually approached those two flowers along the direction of her memory. As she got closer, the roots around her became more restless and frantically attacked her, yet they were afraid of fire and tried to stop her. Later, as she drew even closer, those roots flew towards the fire like crazy. War Light Crazy accelerated her speed and finally arrived in front of the two flower pillars. The two flowers trembled pitifully, and upon closer inspection, she found them to be extremely beautiful, like blooming roses with dew drops on top that seemed like their tears, shaking slightly.

  Just as she was about to touch it, a tendril shot out towards her hand. War lightly cast Fire Bind, burning the tendril that had attacked her earlier to a crisp. When she touched it again, the flower shook even more violently. She felt around underneath the flower and found the crystal nucleus there. Her spiritual power wrapped around it, triggering the demon's intense resistance. The pain in her head grew even more severe. Indeed, demons weren't so easy to make contracts with. Ones as easily deceived as Gluttony were truly rare!

  "If you resist again, I'll burn you to ashes!" The pain was unbearable, and the war lightly shouted a warning. Seeing its strong resistance, it must have had spiritual awareness and could understand what it said.

  Finally, after hearing her warning, the flower seemed to think for a moment, and one of its petals scratched its head in confusion. Then she felt that the spiritual pressure was much lighter, and the two spiritual powers reached a consensus. The wall formed by their spiritual powers collapsed with a loud noise, revealing the laws of heaven and earth. A faint green color surrounded her, and another bond was added to her spiritual power. At this moment, the life space pulled her back in, and the life elements rushed into her body wildly, shining brightly. Gradually, the life elements swirled around the foundation of her soul, just like when the fire-elemental spiritual power awakened for the first time. Then, a light green bead formed, rotated for a while, and obediently lined up with the previous fire-elemental bead on the foundation of her soul. When everything settled down, Warlight opened her eyes, and it was great! She had become a dual-system cultivator now, and there might not be many like her on this continent!

  Suddenly emerged from the life space, all the roots around disappeared. If it weren't for the broken trees and the rugged land, I would have thought that what just happened was just a nightmare.

  Suddenly, a buzzing voice sounded in her mind, saying "Master, Master, where did you just go?"

  It was the two sprouts of magical land that she had just contracted, which were now blooming with bright flowers. They "looked up" at her, but perhaps they hadn't reached the level of a divine beast yet and couldn't speak, so they could only communicate through consciousness.

  "Look at how beautiful and charming you look, I'll call you Yao'er from now on! The master just went to a secret place." The two flowers blushed and lowered their heads, their leaves twisting around, but they had indeed felt something unusual earlier, so they didn't ask any more questions.

  Yao'er has already become a Super Sacred Beast, so it's been many years. I suppose you're clear about the situation with the other plants in the forest not being able to return?

  "Young girl, do you know about the Red Cloud Fragrant Fruit?"

  "I know! In the east, over there, where the master wants, the spirit will take you." A leaf pointed it out.

  "Okay, but can you leave the soil behind? Can't it be a bit smaller?" If she carried a pot of flowers wherever she went, wouldn't people think she was crazy?

  "Oh no! What to do? Now that the sprite has left the soil, it will die. If only Master were a wood-type, he could nourish the sprite!"

  Wooden? She can!

  "Master is a fire and wood dual cultivator, raising you isn't a problem, can you become smaller?" Zhan Qingkong smiled as he looked at Xiaohua who was hanging her head in shame.

  "Really? Okay, okay, the little demon is shrinking." The two flower-like objects, as big as a bowl, slowly shrank to the size of a fingernail, lying on the ground. They were small, delicate red flowers with two green leaves supporting them, and tiny, tender roots. They looked just like handicrafts.

  Picked up two small flowers, war lightly gazed at the size just right, one on each side inserted the roots into the ear holes, worn on the ears, the magic beast turned into earrings, not bad.

  "Yao'er points the way, let's go find Chi Yun Xiang Guo."