Dai Youheng and Nana streaked across the sky like a meteor tearing through the curtain of night, racing toward the Sunset Forest at astonishing speed.
The wind howled past his ears, yet it could not drown out the ticking in his heart as he counted the passing moments.
He had to arrive before Huo Yuhao left, so he pushed his speed to the limit.
When the two reached the edge of the Sunset Forest, a suffocating silence washed over them. Unlike the vibrant Star Dou Great Forest, this place lay shrouded in an atmosphere of death.
Towering ancient trees still stood, but they resembled enormous tombstones. A faint, seven-colored mist drifted through the woods, its beauty eerie and deadly.
The deeper they ventured, the more concentrated the toxins in the air became. Dai Youheng felt a stinging sensation across his skin, as though countless tiny needles were trying to pierce his defenses.
Nana followed close behind, her brows slightly furrowed. She had clearly sensed the forest's malice as well.
"Young master, the poisonous air here is even more terrifying than the intelligence described," Nana said softly, her voice unusually clear in the silent forest.
Dai Youheng did not answer immediately. His gaze swept their surroundings like a hawk's. Stark white bones littered the ground, from the remains of small soul beasts to the skeletons of large ones. All bore an unnatural grayish-black tint, clearly the result of corrosion by potent poison.
Over the past ten thousand years, countless Jade-Scaled Seven-Extinction Flowers had suddenly sprung up throughout the Sunset Forest, turning this once-thriving woodland into a domain of death.
There was a reason Huo Yuhao needed an all-terrain self-propelled artillery platform to venture deeper in the original story, Dai Youheng thought. Even a Titled Douluo would probably struggle to endure this