Dodder

As noon arrived, the two suns hung high in the sky, much closer together than they had been during Du Ke's last crossing. This directly caused the temperature to keep rising, and the waters of South Lake were visibly evaporating into vapor.

A few birdcalls drew Du Ke's attention.

They were two enormous strange birds standing on rocks along the shore of South Lake, upright like two round pen holders. Their beaks were sharp and long like awls, with gray feathers on their heads, white feathers on their bodies, and black feathers on their wings. Even stranger, they had a pair of large blue webbed feet like ducks. When they turned their heads to look at Du Ke, they looked utterly ridiculous.

"These strange birds must be about a meter long, right? They might be magical beasts too." Du Ke made his judgment. Other than the Delicious Rabbit he had directly killed, practically every animal seemed to be a magical beast—the Delicious Rabbit might have been one too, but it had never gotten the chance to cast magic.

"Gua-yi!"

"Gua-yi!"

When the two strange birds with blue feet saw Du Ke approach, they lifted their feet and began running across the rocks. Their posture was especially bizarre, like roly-polies walking, so comical it was laughable. But once they reached the water's edge, they suddenly leaped two full meters into the air, spread their wings, and dove like fighter jets, plunging headfirst into the lake and disappearing.

It was a full three minutes before Du Ke saw two little black dots emerge on the distant lake surface. He activated his binoculars and saw that they were the strange birds with blue feet.

But before Du Ke could look away, the two strange birds suddenly flapped up from the water as if startled. At the same time, waves splashed across the surface as a long, serpentine monster burst from the water, opening its huge jaws to bite at the birds. After the serpent-like monster rose two meters above the lake, an even larger body followed it out. That first section had clearly been its head and neck.

"Th-this is a plesiosaur, isn't it?" The enormous torso had four fin-like limbs resembling wings, startling Du Ke badly.

Boom!

The plesiosaur-like monster failed to bite the blue-footed birds. It rolled across the lake surface and crashed back into the water, splashing up even larger waves that took quite a while to settle. Du Ke withdrew his gaze and instinctively stepped back from the shore. He had already been wary of monsters in the lake, but he had never expected the seemingly peaceful South Lake to hide such a colossal creature. It was at least ten meters long—enough to be considered one of the ocean's overlords on Earth.

"This makes no sense!"

"This makes no sense!"

"South Lake really isn't small, but it's only about the size of a city reservoir. How could it possibly support such a huge aquatic monster... Fantasy World makes no sense!" He shook his head and sighed.

But if anything made no sense, magic was at the top of the list. So a tiny reservoir producing a giant aquatic monster was hardly worth making a fuss over.

After a brief sigh, Du Ke named the two monsters the South Lake Plesiosaur and the Blue-footed Water Bird, then continued along the shore of South Lake. Every so often, he looked toward the lake, hoping to witness the spectacular sight of the South Lake Plesiosaur leaping from the water again. Unfortunately, he saw plenty of small animals in the bushes, but the South Lake Plesiosaur never surfaced again. He had already walked all the way from the northern shore to the southern shore.

There were no more bushes on the southern shore, only dense blue forests. The most common trees were the Blue Maple trees frequently seen around Earth Valley, where he had crossed over. Clearly, the forests in this area were dominated by Blue Maple trees.

He was observing an insect clinging to a tree trunk and chirping when he suddenly felt something tugging at his legs. It threw him off balance, sending him straight to the ground as the thing dragged him away.

Du Ke hurriedly twisted his body and looked at what was pulling him.

It was not a wild beast at all, but two vines, wrapped tightly around his feet like the killer vines from a movie. Du Ke narrowed his eyes and manifested a large axe, chopping the vines apart with several sharp strikes. After getting back to his feet, he chased the fleeing vines into the forest. Twenty meters later, he finally saw the vines' main body: a huge plant coiled around several dead Blue Maple trees.

It looked somewhat like the dodder he had often seen as a child. Its densely packed vines had already strangled the trees they wrapped around, reducing them to several bare dead trunks.

As if sensing Du Ke's arrival, the giant dodder monster tree extended several more vines toward him. Du Ke manifested a submachine gun and unleashed a burst of fire, shooting through the dodder monster tree's vines. In an instant, the entire dodder monster tree seemed to tremble. Its blue leaves rustled and shook, revealing tiny white flowers hidden beneath them.

Every white flower grew from a vine-woven "package," within which rotting animal carcasses could be seen.

"So this is a killer vine!" Du Ke raised his submachine gun and sprayed the dodder monster tree with bullets. Dissatisfied with the weapon's effectiveness, he manifested a chainsaw and swung it like a crazed murderer, sawing through the dodder monster tree's vines with a loud whir.

But the dodder monster tree was simply too large. It climbed between several dead trees, and there was no way to find where its roots were hidden.

After venting for a while, Du Ke simply gave up. He carefully recorded videos and took photographs, then turned and left. He named the plant the "Dodder Vine" and took a section of vine with him to study on the road.

"There are dense little thorns on the vine. Judging by how tightly it wrapped around me, it shouldn't be very strong. A large beast should be able to break free with a little struggle. But the animal carcasses in those packages were all large, so it can clearly capture large prey." Seeing dark green fluid flowing from the broken vine, he quickly came to a conclusion. "It might be poisonous, injecting venom into prey through the thorns on its vines."

Du Ke had the protection of the Nano Armor, so naturally he would not be poisoned. Other prey would not be so fortunate.

With that thought, he quickly drew a syringe full of dark green fluid and began looking for an experimental subject. There were many small beasts in the forest, and none had ever seen high-tech equipment like a bird-catching net. Before long, he caught a small creature that looked like a cross between a lizard and a bird. Or, to put it more grandly, it was a dinosaur covered in feathers with a pair of bird wings. It was quite bizarre.

"Scientists have speculated that dinosaurs on Earth may really have had feathers. Could this thing be a dinosaur from the Fantasy World?" No matter what, Du Ke did not want to give the title of dinosaur to this little beast.

After the small beast was caught and realized it could not escape, a burst of green light suddenly surged from its body, transforming into several tiny Wind Blades that sliced toward Du Ke.

This was undoubtedly magic, perhaps Wind Element Magic. Although the Wind Blades were tiny, they could cut openings in the Nano Armor. Unfortunately, that was all they could do; they could not harm Du Ke.

But it gave him an idea. "I'll call you a Windbird Lizard Beast."

He pinned it down, ignoring the tiny Wind Blades it released. He used a dagger to make a cut on its body, then squeezed out some of the dark green fluid from the syringe and smeared it over the wound.

He waited quietly for a moment.