Seven days later.
Blue skies, white clouds, ancient and desolate mountains, pristine ethnic groups, and various mysterious legends.
Along the way, besides the Twilight Elves and Harpy, Reilo encountered many other races rarely seen in human territory and gradually adapted to the atmosphere and rhythm of the Hengduan Mountains.
but.
As Reilo and the Old Monster drew closer to their destination, the atmosphere around them seemed to gradually change.
With a serious expression, Reilo approached an ancient tree.
Reilo stared at the cancerous scab layer on the ancient wood, a mixture of pale blue and white.
As he drew closer to the mutated area, Reilo's plant Elves constitution rendered him unable to hear the voices of the plants. These polluted plants seemed to be enduring immense pain and harboring a deep malice towards him.
The scabs on the ancient wood change color constantly, resembling ripples on water, which is quite eerie.
Reilo scraped off some powder with a scalpel.
"Master, the surrounding forest is showing more and more mutations, but these are not abnormal mutations; rather, they are a tendency towards a different ecological environment."
Corleon held a red sour fruit in his hand.
This sour fruit has somehow grown a tiny mouth, which swallowed a small lizard whole, leaving only its hind legs and tail sticking out.
"It's definitely starting to resemble the Night's Veil Land more and more, hehehehe. This is just the outer radiation zone of the contamination."
Reilo took a deep breath.
" The Blood-Derived Evil God, does it really possess such power? How could it cause such a massive mutation in such a vast forest?"
The Old Monster threw the sour fruit in his hand to the ground.
The activity of microorganisms in the soil also seemed to become extremely astonishing; at a speed visible to the naked eye, the fruit, like a melting block of ice, gradually disappeared.
"Don't use human eyes to view the ecosystem outside the Starveil Land. The Starveil Land is just a suitable greenhouse developed by humans. This world is far more complex than you imagine. Scholars know very little about this world. Even their understanding of the Night's Veil Land is limited to superficial biological specimens. Its internal ecological laws are a self-contained system, completely different from those of humans."
"Knew."
These past few days, the Old Monster's teachings to Reilo have been incredibly beneficial to Reilo, especially in terms of understanding the nature of life, anatomy, and the ecological food chain.
"Ever since receiving the specimen and letter from that troll old witch doctor, I've been pretty sure this place has been invaded by Blood-Derived. Since we humans can launch Crusaders time and time again, it's only natural that those creatures and Witcher would collude to invade humanity in return."
Reilo took a deep breath.
Every Crusaders is a propaganda campaign of faith by the Church, an attack by all humanity in the Starveil Land the Great Empire of Light Aurora gathers its forces.
In order to gain the support of believers, the Church has been promoting the evil and horror of the Night's Veil Land in various ways, portraying it as the embodiment of the devil.
But with each expedition, the scholars of the Starveil Land gradually came to understand some of its true nature.
They are like the extinct Gulan Fairies.
Born after the cataclysmic event on this planet, they tenaciously adapted to the environment of this world and multiplied. Just as humans ruled over many alien races in the Starveil Land, the Night's Veil Land ruled by the Blood Demon also had countless different species.
However, this differs from how humans treat various other races.
The way the Blood Demon treat other races is like how the Gulan Fairies treat the ancient races, or how humans treat livestock—it's complete domestication and exploitation, a naked and blatant form of oppression and plunder within the food chain ecosystem.
Although scholars know very little about this world due to its isolation Night's Veil Land the vast ocean and the rule of the Church, they speculate, based on the Night's Veil Land and the Gulan Civilization, that the creatures of this world likely follow the most primitive and brutal rules of the food chain.
The law of the jungle prevails; natural selection dictates that only the fittest survive.
There are no so-called civilized or moral constraints, only the most primal cruelty and savagery of living beings.
Other people are hell!
Reilo followed the Old Monster and continued forward.
Along the way, the surrounding ecosystem is undergoing tremendous changes, and the creatures are gradually becoming more primitive, cruel, and bloody.
A faint red mist began to rise from the sky.
It was like the first level of the Sun and Moon Magic Eye Pyramid, filled with an ominous and oppressive atmosphere, making it hard to breathe.
Here, the forms of life are completely different from those in the Hengduan Mountains.
The sounds of battle could be heard ahead.
It was an old pine tree common in the Hengduan Mountains, but at this moment, the pine needles had turned blood red. Even more terrifying, its branches were covered with animal heads, and even the heads of several human mercenaries!
" The Fear Tree!?"
Reilo gasped in shock.
Legend has it that more than three thousand years ago, an ancient Death Tree deep in the Thorn Forest underwent a mutation.
In one night, it slaughtered a small tribe it was protecting, wiping them out completely and merging their heads into its own body.
This Fear Tree gained the ability to move, constantly preying on any intelligent creature it encountered, using their heads as its organs, and gradually evolving into an incredibly strange and powerful force, becoming the most widespread nightmare in the Thorn Forest.
but.
The Fear Tree in front of us is only about thirty meters tall, and it's not nearly as terrifying as the legends say.
"My mom loves me the most, and you will all become a part of my mom's love!"
On the branches of the Fear Tree, the words and expressions of the human head still seemed as natural as when it was alive, though its tone was somewhat strange. However, its consciousness had changed.
A group of mercenaries are fighting the Fear Tree.
"What kind of monster is this?!"
The archers, terrified, continued to fire arrows.
"Your Excellency, what should we do?"
The mercenary squad leader, a burly man, slashed at the incoming tree branches with his heavy sword while throwing a torch with his other hand.
But then they saw that the Fear Tree was secreting a layer of red liquid, which smelled like blood, or perhaps it was blood. In the chaos, no one paid attention to these details. The key point was that it was not afraid of fire at all.
It's less like a tree and more like a monster that looks like a tree!
This is a standard mercenary squad: two greatsword warriors, one archer, one scout assassin, and one mage.
The magician was a girl in her late twenties. Although she remained calm and rational, her face was also pale.
With a wave of his wand, a firebird flew out.
A faint, dark red mist surrounded them, seemingly suppressing the fire's energy. After the firebird landed on the giant tree, only a few sparks remained.
"Don't get entangled with it. Those heads are from humans it devoured. It can read the thoughts of its prey and become part of it. It's very likely a mutated tree monster corrupted by something."
"I don't want my head on this monster; I'd rather die!"
"Ah..."
The female archer was caught by a tree branch and hung in mid-air.
She screamed and struggled incessantly. Grabbing at the tree bark around her ankles, she saw red veins, as thin as hair, protruding and piercing into her body.
"Kill me! Kill me now! Waaaaah, I don't want to become this kind of monster!!"
The female archer screamed in despair.
Just then!
Everyone's bodies stiffened inexplicably.
It felt like falling into a bottomless ice cave.
The world in my eyes is now nothing more than the most monotonous black and white.
Time seemed to slow down. In mid-air, the dripping blood slowed down more and more, splitting into two, then four, then eight, becoming smaller and smaller, until it was completely swallowed up by the eerie light that filled the silent darkness.
Time seemed to stand still, and the frozen soul lost its ability to think.
A hunched figure slowly walked towards the strange tree.
The soil beneath the hunched old man's feet, and the dark red, tobacco-like tendrils, vanished with a "poof."
He slowly raised his palm.
A hand, glowing with a dark, eerie light, reached towards the trunk of the strange tree, its surface covered in a foul-smelling, viscous, dark red liquid.
Glug, glug, glug...
When the withered, aged hand withdrew, it pulled out a heart.
No.
To be precise, it's an insect nest, but it beats like a heart.
Hehehehe.
A sinister laugh rang out, and a withered, aged hand clenched tightly. With a loud "bang," the heart exploded, and countless tiny red worms, the size of grains of rice, swarmed down.
These insects seemed somewhat unaccustomed to the outside air; after wriggling slightly on the ground, they stiffened and turned into stone!
As a result.
The dark red, viscous, foul-smelling liquid on the surface of the Fear Tree, like melted ice cream, kept flowing.
The lifelike human faces on the branches, too, visibly aged and twisted, emitting faint, hoarse sounds as if they were about to die, their breaths coming in more gas than they could exhale.
Bang!
The female archer, who had been hanging in mid-air, landed on the ground.
"Hiss..."
Everyone stared at the Old Monster in disbelief, gasped, and looked on with confusion and bewilderment.
Reilo then approached the female archer and, amidst her panicked and terrified expression, placed his hand, shrouded in the black smoke of the Moon Shadow Wraith, on her ankle.
"You've been infected."
Reilo's voice was calm.
The rest of the mercenary group looked over, but the mercenary captain kept thanking the Old Monster Corleon.
The female archer was very young.
She looked even younger than Reilo, only eighteen or nineteen years old. She was very uncomfortable with Reilo grabbing her ankle like that, but fear overcame shyness. A blush appeared on her pale cheeks as she trembled, and her bright blue eyes under her flaxen wavy short hair looked at Reilo with expectation.
The female magician asked anxiously, "A parasitic infection, is it malignant? What should we do?"
Reilo thought for a moment, then used the insignificant Sun Power in his hand as the most precise scalpel. The pale golden claw light was only the size of a nail clipper, almost negligible compared to those Mochiu. He first severed the blood vessels that had penetrated into the female archer's body.
"Master, what are these parasites? What methods should we use to treat them?"
Reilo shouted.
Corleon glanced at the female archer with deadpan eyes.
"Just give her a bottle of natural life energy potion. Natural energy is deadly poisonous to these Blood-Derived, but you have to be careful about excretion. After coming into contact with natural energy, they will undergo some energy changes and harden."
"I have gold coins, please help me!"
The girl quickly took out a gold coin and a dozen silver coins, looked at Reilo pleadingly, and grabbed Reilo's hand.
"Cough cough."
With a flash of light, Reilo revealed Whitey and Lili.
Where is this?
Whitey noticed the strange environment around him and felt instinctively uncomfortable.
Reilo Luo chuckled and took out a copper coin and a reagent.
"Tell Lili to urinate a little into this Small Vial, and this copper coin is yours."
"Huh? You're telling the truth!"
Upon hearing the word "copper coins, "Whitey jumped up excitedly.
Before long, Reilo accepted the female archer's gold and silver coins, while Xiao Bai, holding the copper Whitey, excitedly returned to the Space Bracelet with Lili, constantly muttering about the nine pieces of cream candy.
Those who witnessed this scene were speechless, their mouths agape.
The female archer's expression turned somewhat unpleasant; she actually wanted to drink that little thing's urine?
However, upon seeing the Fear Tree, she dared not hesitate any longer and swallowed the potion in one gulp.