This spectacular sight, however, didn’t bring Mu Chen any joy. Instead, it made him worry. In previous years, the Mist Forest had always been calm and deserted, so no one would have paid any mind to such a magnificent scene.
But today, there were far more than a hundred people inside the Mist Forest. If they were to see this, not only would his goal of finding Bing’Er and the others be impossible, but it would also plunge them into a desperate situation.
He hesitated for a moment and subconsciously glanced at the green passage beside him. He was instantly astonished. As it turned out, these tunnels formed from tree branches were not as simple as they looked. If one were to look at the passage from the side, all they would see were branches arranged in a slightly orderly pattern. There was no tunnel to be seen. This meant that as long as the Basic Level members of the Outer Mountain couldn’t find the entrance, they would never witness this spectacular scene.
Phew...
Breathing a sigh of relief, Mu Chen stepped into the passage before him. Just as he was about to ask the King Jingjin Tongmu to retract the other two paths, he was surprised to find he didn’t need to say a thing. The trees making up the other paths spontaneously retracted their branches, returning to their original appearance.
With a slight smile, Mu Chen began to race through the woods. As he did, he realized his earlier worries had been completely unfounded. With every step he took, the forest behind him returned to normal...
"Xiaobai!" Mu Chen shouted. The Extreme Spirit Pearl in his mind flashed, and a massive white Giant Beast materialized before him!
"Father," the Giant Beast said, its voice human and its eyes filled with reverence.
"Xiaobai, follow the green path—Spatial Transmission!" Mu Chen ordered swiftly.
Every minute wasted in the Mist Forest meant they were in that much more danger!
’Bing’Er, Little Tiger, wait for me!’
...
"Where is this...?"
In another corner of the Mist Forest, a young woman stared around in confusion. Her figure was slender, her features perfect to the extreme. In particular, her unique, icy aura was so captivating that a single glance was enough to hold one’s gaze. Shrouded in the thick mist, she resembled a celestial Fairy, beautiful but untouchable.
"Sister Bingling! So you were teleported here too."
Just then, the sound of hurried footsteps approached from behind. Mu Bingling turned, the corners of her lips curving into a devastatingly beautiful smile. "Shuangshuang," she said softly.
The approaching girl froze, her eyes wide with shock.
"Sis... Sister Bingling, you’re so beautiful..." Ye Shuangshuang blurted out, her mouth agape as she stared blankly at Mu Bingling, who seemed to be veiled in a layer of soft light.
"Shuangshuang, what’s wrong?" Mu Bingling asked, a puzzled expression on her face. At that same moment, a golden mark between her eyebrows flickered, leaving no trace.
The dazed Ye Shuangshuang finally snapped out of her stupor. "N-nothing..." she said quickly. "Sister Bingling, I wonder where Brother Mu Chen and Mo Qing were teleported. What do we do now?"
"What to do..."
The thick mist around them was impenetrable. Mu Bingling tried to extend her Spiritual Power, only to find it couldn’t penetrate farther than twenty meters.
Shaking her head, Mu Bingling said, "With no visibility, we can’t determine our position. If we move around, we’ll probably just get more lost."
"Then all we can do is wait here," Ye Shuangshuang said.
"I suppose so," Mu Bingling said with a helpless sigh. "We’ll stay put and react to whatever happens."
What Mu Bingling and Ye Shuangshuang didn’t know, however, was that not far from them, two men in identical white outfits were stealthily approaching.
The two were a contrasting pair: one tall and thin, the other short and fat. While not exactly ugly, they were definitely not handsome. Most peculiar of all, each man had a fist-sized black mark around one eye, making it look as if they had just been punched.
"Second Brother, are you sure there’s a strange Spiritual Power fluctuation here? Why can’t I sense anything?" the short, fat man asked.
"Of course," the tall, thin man retorted. "Your Martial Artist Realm is a full ring lower than mine. Besides, my Cultivation Technique is extremely sensitive to Spiritual Power, so it’s only natural that I can sense it and you can’t."
The tall, thin man sneered. With a flip of his wrist, a white Jade Token appeared in his hand. He focused his mind, and a trace of an Emperor’s Primordial Power fluctuation flowed from his palm into the token. As if stimulated by the power, the Jade Token began to emit a faint white light, which flickered at a rapid, urgent pace.
"Haha... They’re definitely nearby. I wonder which lucky newcomers are about to run into us." Seeing the Jade Token’s reaction, the eyes of both the tall, thin man and the short, fat man filled with delight and greed, and they couldn’t help but quicken their pace.
RUSTLE... RUSTLE...
The sudden sound of two sets of heavy footsteps echoed through the mist. Mu Bingling and Ye Shuangshuang, who had been trying to figure out which way to go, both jumped in alarm. They whipped their heads toward the sound, but all they could see was mist upon mist. They couldn’t even make out the silhouettes of the trees! ’Friend or foe?!’
RUSTLE... RUSTLE...
As the footsteps grew heavier and drew closer, Mu Bingling and Ye Shuangshuang finally made out two starkly contrasting figures through the dense fog. Their expressions hardened instantly, and in a flash, they circulated the Primordial Power in their bodies to its absolute limit.
"Foes, not friends!"