Withered leaves lay piled several feet deep. No wonder the beasts that appeared here were mainly underground creatures and birds. Ground-dwelling beasts whose intelligence had yet to awaken simply could not move through this place. One plunge and they would sink several yards deep into the dead leaves; the result would either be suffocation or never finding their way out of this forest sea again.
Their bodies were as light as nothing as they darted swiftly across the dead leaves. They had traveled only about a li when a different kind of forest appeared ahead. Thick, gnarled vines covered these trees, connecting with one another to form a dense net. Apart from a few finger-sized holes, every path forward had been completely sealed off.
As soon as Xiang Yanxiu arrived, he stopped. Rather than hacking through the thorns and pressing onward, he began forming hand seals toward the vines ahead. Runes flickering with purple light fell one after another onto a patch of vines, but aside from the spiritual fluctuations emanating from the runes, the vines showed no changes at all in Li Yan's senses. Not even a trace of spiritual energy arose from them.
"Do not damage these vines. Use your techniques to slip through them, or it may trigger the restrictions deeper inside!"
Xiang Yanxiu quickly stopped casting and turned to speak softly to Li Yan. Then his body instantly turned into a wisp of smoke and slipped into one of the tiny holes between the vines. Li Yan's expression remained unchanged, but inwardly, he found it strange. Though he had not fully spread out his divine sense, he had carefully examined the surroundings and sensed no fluctuations from any restrictions. What exactly had Xiang Yanxiu been casting at?
*This may be something like mechanism arts, combined with