Wood Puppet Grotesque

This sound, to Shi Qing and the others who were fleeing frantically, sounded like music to their ears.

At the very same time that sound entered their ears, a breathtaking sword light also came into view.

Though that sword light was dozens of meters away, it arrived in the blink of an eye, demonstrating its speed.

The sword light sliced through the air, emitting a sharp hiss, demonstrating its sharpness.

Hearing and seeing both happened in just an instant.

The sword light arrived abruptly like a silver ribbon, and likewise, it took only an instant.

That sword was truly too fast, so fast that before Shi Qing and the others could even clearly see, two of the thirteen people who had just been chasing them had their heads sheared off by the sword light.

Although it was pitch black, this was the outskirts of Redwood Ridge, where the trees were not as dense as in the inner layer, coupled with the white light emitted by the snow on the ground, so the vision of Shi Qing and the others was not overly affected.

The sword light stopped, and naturally Shi Qing and the others also saw the person behind the sword light.

At this sight, including Shi Qing the leader.

Everyone's first reaction was a sense of inferiority.

That was a young man who looked to be only in his early twenties, wearing a brown-furred animal-skin coat; around his neck was a supple white-furred neck guard, evidently made from the tail of a Frost Beast; on his feet, he wore bright black animal-skin boots.

The inferiority of Shi Qing and the others was not without reason.

The five of them wore nothing more than animal-skin skirts, and furthermore, those were tattered animal-skin skirts full of holes everywhere.

Yet even such animal-skin skirts were worn by fewer than fifty people out of the three hundred or so in Big Stone Camp.

The vast majority of others wore dried-leaf clothes.

So-called dried-leaf clothes were clothes made by drying larger leaves collected from outside and then piecing them together.

Of course, it was not just Big Stone Camp.

Around Redwood Ridge, apart from Rogue Camp being slightly better off, all the other camps were in this exact situation.

There was no help for it; a complete animal skin was in itself proof of strength.

Even Rogue Camp could not guarantee that they would not damage the fur of their prey during hunting, let alone small camps like theirs.

Therefore, at this moment, the young man's complete set of clothing was enough to make these people feel ashamed of their own inferiority.

Not to mention that longsword radiating silver light in his hand, which had instantly eliminated two grotesque monsters.

While Shi Qing and the others were startled and suspicious, that young man moved again.

He brandished his sword like a dance, and amidst sparks and lightning, the cold blade sliced through the dark, drawing seven or eight slashes of sword light in the air, dispatching the remaining ten grotesque monsters behind that "Xia Ding" at a speed akin to cutting melons and vegetables.

Recalling the scene of themselves fleeing in disarray at the hands of the grotesque monsters, and then looking at the young man's effortless ease in slaying the grotesques at this moment, such a stark contrast made the inferiority in the hearts of the five people grow ever more intense.

After beheading the ten, the young man did not rush to make a move against Xia Ding, but merely looked at him with a calm expression and spoke slowly, "These things you made..."

Whoosh...

Before the young man could finish speaking, that familiar sound rang out abruptly.

Shi Qing's expression changed drastically, and he hurriedly cried out in warning.

"My lord, watch out!"

Yet his warning was clearly somewhat redundant.

Before he even made a sound, the young man had already turned to look behind him. His ears twitched slightly, and he rapidly shifted his gaze, locking onto the top of a large tree on the left side of the dense forest.

"In the tree, Li Hu, Luo Ming, together!"

He shouted loudly, and from the right side two more figures came speeding over, rapidly charging toward the tree his gaze had locked onto.

At the same time, the young man ignored that "Xia Ding", stomped his feet hard on the ground, and fiercely rushed toward that tree.

The three moved with extreme speed, and before Shi Qing could even see clearly, that tree had already been cut in half at the waist by the young man.

The entire upper half of the tree crashed heavily to the ground.

This scene caused the expressions on the faces of Shi Qing and the five others to instantly freeze.

Especially when they discovered that after the tree snapped at the waist, what was exposed on the inside was a golden color.

The pupils of the five contracted violently, and they swallowed in unison.

"The hardest Golden Scale Tree, cut in two with a single sword?"

When they logged timber, they would only ever choose the Crimson Frost Tree.

It was not that the Golden Scale Tree couldn't be chopped down—they could chop it too.

The problem was that a single Golden Scale Tree would take them at least ten hours of continuous chopping to bring down.

Yet what had they just witnessed? It was cut in two with a single sword?

The gazes the five directed at the young man instantly filled with reverence.

And after that Golden Scale Tree was cut down and collapsed, a black figure leapt up from the top like a phantom, fleeing toward the inner layer of Redwood Ridge.

Yet the reaction of the young man and the other two was also extremely fast.

The three quickly split into three directions, firmly trapping that black figure right in the middle.

"Want to run? It's not easy to bump into a primary Artisan Grotesque, so I can't let you just slip away like that."

"Don't be careless, this is a Wood Puppet Grotesque. The ones I just killed should all have been made by him using wood and corpses, who knows what trump cards he might still be holding, everyone be careful."

Shi Qing's reaction was swift. Upon hearing the conversation between the two and taking another glance over at "Xia Ding", who had remained stiff and motionless ever since the black figure appeared, he already roughly understood.

Artisan Grotesque, Wood Puppet Grotesque—these terms should both refer to that black figure.

Xia Ding and those members of the Lumber Team were clearly all being manipulated by it.

Moreover, among the two names the young man had just called out, there was one that Shi Qing knew and recognized.

Luo Ming, the current leader of Rogue Camp, and also the son of the former leader Luo Feng.

Sure enough, upon closer inspection by Shi Qing.

Among the three, the middle-aged man on the far right with a slender build, slightly narrowed eyes, and holding a long spear was indeed Luo Ming, whom he had met a few times before.

The one on the left named Li Hu was exceptionally burly in build, wearing clothing not much different from the young man's, holding a goose-feather saber that emanated a chilling gleam, and staring with predatory vigilance at the black figure in the center.

That thing the two referred to as the Wood Puppet Grotesque was also clearly seen by Shi Qing.

On the surface, that Wood Puppet Grotesque looked like a withered-faced, slightly hunchbacked old man in black.

He held a three-inch-long small knife in his left hand, while his right hand dangled a coil of white thread. A pair of crimson pupils were brimming with murderous intent, and as he looked at the three who had surrounded him, his face was full of bloodthirsty desire.

"Ah..."

The Wood Puppet Grotesque suddenly let out a roar, and the thread in his right hand instantly projected dozens of transparent threads that seemed to completely merge into the pitch-black night, vanishing in a flash.

Yet the three who surrounded him began a frantic left-and-right evasion.

Seeing this, Shi Qing also understood that what had previously killed their companions should have been these transparent threads, but their strength was simply too low to even see them.

As for the three who could see them, they were naturally dodging continuously in mid-air.

Of course, they weren't just dodging.

In just a few breaths, that sword-wielding young man seemed to have caught an opening, twisting his waist in a leap as he flew toward the Wood Puppet Grotesque, his longsword colliding with the threads one after another in mid-air and sparking several bursts of fire.

The longsword could sever those transparent threads.

Upon seeing this, the Wood Puppet Grotesque's expression instantly darkened, his gaze locked fixedly onto the silver longsword in the young man's hand as if realizing something.

The weapons in the hands of Luo Ming and Li Hu were clearly not as formidable as the young man's sword. The two continued to dodge, and although they were also closing in on the Wood Puppet Grotesque, their speed was too slow.

The young man had already swung his sword at the Wood Puppet Grotesque, yet the two of them were still several meters away.

Even so, neither of them had arrived yet.

Yet the young man's strength seemed frighteningly, abnormally formidable.

The longsword slashed horizontally across the void, dragging out a biting sword light that practically brushed right against the Wood Puppet Grotesque. Even though it had retreated with extreme speed, the storm-like sword momentum followed hot on its heels.

The young man's sword momentum was like roaring waves rolling one after another, forcing the Wood Puppet Grotesque back beneath a large tree in an instant.

At the same time, Li Hu and Luo Ming both finally broke through the heavy blockade of threads and arrived behind the young man.

Seizing the opportunity, the three of them sealed off all the Wood Puppet Grotesque's routes of retreat from the upper, middle, and lower paths.

A horizontal slash of the longsword up top, a fierce thrust of the sharp spear in the middle, and a ferocious chop of the great saber down below.

Under this three-pronged assault, the Wood Puppet Grotesque had nowhere left to hide.