The next day, at the edge of the Parasitic Forest Sea.
Riiip!
The instant [Vanguard Across the Realm]'s boot touched the dry, weathered black road, the seemingly solid ground beneath him convulsed and contracted without warning!
A blade flashed!
A biochemical black vine as thick as a python, lurking against the ground, was severed in one stroke! Pressurized, dark green slime geysered from the cut. The two severed halves thrashed and rolled madly in the pool of blood, whipping several jagged, weathered bone spikes beside the road into the air and shattering them.
"Everyone, halt! Don't step on the black skin! Get every lighting crystal down at your feet!!"
[Vanguard Across the Realm]'s roar exploded through the vanguard formation.
The troops instantly drew back into recesses on either side.
The heavily armored shield bearers knelt on one knee and planted their shields, their alloy tower shields firmly shutting out the attacking Epiphytic Blind Insects; Tier Two warriors thrust their spears steadily along the exposed, dry dead shell, while Tier Three Berserkers stepped onto the shield rims and lunged, slicing apart and shredding several tendrils climbing along the rock walls.
Everyone sucked in a cold breath as they examined their surroundings under the light.
As far as they could see, the "black soil" they had taken for flat ground... was alive!
Countless dark vines as thick as barrels crisscrossed one another, strangling and binding the earth's veins together. Above their heads, colossal pillars several kilometers thick, like upside-down mountain ranges, hung vertically from the dome of the Void.
Weathered, dead old vines covered the pillars. Beneath that cracked, withered bark, tens of millions of faintly glowing living parasitic tendrils writhed in dense masses, desperately burrowing into the ground!
The entire magnificent forest sea that blotted out the sky...
Was nothing but