Blood Pool Beyond Sight

"Pfft!"

With a sound, a neat circular crack appeared in the ground.

With a raised hand, Heluo sliced a cylinder from the soil as though cutting a cake. It was two meters in diameter and roughly one and a half meters deep. She then gently set the cylinder aside without damaging its structure.

After doing this, Heluo pointed at the soil and said, "Look. Not only are there no animals around us, there aren't any in the soil either. Even the most common earthworms and insects are gone. They've all disappeared for no apparent reason."

"So, this is an empty forest?" Bobobo Wei Qi asked.

"An empty forest wouldn't kill people one after another." Heluo disagreed. She turned to the silent Richard and asked, "Wizard Richard, what do you think?"

Richard stroked his chin, pondering for a moment before voicing the feeling he had had ever since entering the forest. "I don't think this forest is empty, and I don't think all the animals have fled. I think they're deliberately avoiding us. In other words, wherever we appear, the animals leave that place and move somewhere else."

"Why would they do that?" Heluo asked, puzzled.

"Because they don't want us to discover them. On the other hand, they want to learn everything about us so they can attack our weak points." Richard's expression grew slightly solemn. "I have a guess. Perhaps they... have been watching us from the shadows all along."

"Watching us?!" Heluo and Bobobo Wei Qi spoke at the same time, their expressions darkening afterward. Clearly, their senses had noticed something to some extent.

Just then, there was a rustle in the distant grass. A dark shadow, seemingly realizing it had been exposed, suddenly shot out of the grass and skimmed across the ground as it fled deeper