Chapter 271: A Suicidal Arcane Team?
"Stingham, remember that our goal is to be the first ones to enter the assigned area! There are definitely a lot of good things there!"
"Stingham, make sure you do not go and purposefully mess with those trees!"
"Understood, haha!"
Ayrin, Rinloran, and Stingham were now approaching several of the towering Devil Snake Trees.
They watched as the Devil Snake Trees madly twisted and crawled and their fruits crashed into the ground in succession, causing large booms to reverberate across the plain as they split open to reveal their bloody maws. It looked like a layer of hell.
"Stingham! You!"
Although they had agreed to stay as far away from the trees as possible to try and avoid them altogether, upon seeing the Devil Snake Trees right before him, Stingham excitedly charged forward towards one, leaving Ayrin and Rinloran speechless.
"We will need to travel at least another half a day to reach the mission area. So let me see if I can return to my most handsome self first! Haha!"
"Come at me! Come and bite this handsome brother! Hurry up! You pieces of trash!"
Stingham's strange cries wildly rang out across the plain as he excitedly charged towards the Devil Snake Trees.
At this moment, a nearby Corps team happened to see Stingham's crazy actions and were abruptly stunned.
"Isn't this brother a little too brave?"
"He must have been rejected. Why else would he be so intent on self-destruction?!"
"Hey brother, it's okay if you don't have a girlfriend. This brother will introduce you to another girl!"
"Really?"
Upon hearing the last couple of words, Stingham, who had just charged into the midst of the Devil Snake Trees, immediately paused and turned to look at the nearby arcane masters.
"Shit!"
The arcane masters simultaneously closed their eyes.
Whoosh!
Several giant 'snake head' fruit shot through the sky and opened their maws at they collided with the dazed Stingham.
"Bite that idiot to death!" Rinloran gnashed his teeth.
"So weak! So useless!"
Stingham's disappointed cry rang across the plain.
"So fierce?"
The arcane masters' eyes became unfocused.
As the 'snake head' fruits flew around and viciously bit Stingham, a layer of dim yellow light appeared around him. No matter where he was bit, he remained perfectly fine.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! …
Even more 'snake head' fruits shot over.
"This idiot. Let's just leave him here to play with these trees!"
By this point, Rinloran didn't want to care about Stingham any longer. He could see several Evil Dragon Followers and orcs perched atop several of the approaching Devil Snake Trees.
To fight against these Devil Snake Trees was simply a waste of time and arcane particles.
"Ayrin, Rinloran, hurry and save me!"
Stingham's panicked cries rang out, "Ah! I'm so dizzy! These things can't harm me but being tossed around by them is making me nauseous!"
"Hold on! I'm coming!" Ayrin shouted as he charged forth.
"Activate: Fist of the War God!"
There was a loud boom as Ayrin thunderously punched one of the 'snake head' fruits which had come rushing towards him.
"So hard!"
"No wonder the Plague Bishop was willing to pay such a price to stimulate them. These Devil Snake Trees are even harder to deal with than three gate arcane masters!"
Ayrin's body trembled. He felt as if he had collided with an iron wrecking ball.
A faint crack sounded from the stem of the fruit as a portion of the skin broke off.
"Phantom Dance!"
Rinloran's figure abruptly passed by Ayrin.
As he sharply invoked his skill, countless copies of himself emerged within the space before him.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! …
Countless 'snake head' fruits abruptly began to attack his copies, including several of the fruits which had surrounded Stingham.
"An opportunity!"
"Evil Flaming Eye!"
Ayrin took aim at Stingham and shot out an Evil Flaming Eye.
"Argh!"
Stingham let out a miserable cry as his blackened body flew backwards.
"This Blaze Bracelet is indeed powerful!"
Ayrin thought to himself as he dumbfoundedly looked at the fiery red bracelet atop his right wrist.
He had only just opened two arcane gates, but the power demonstrated by his Evil Flaming Eye had already reached a three gate level.
"Careful!" Rinloran abruptly cried out as a huge shadow suddenly appeared behind Ayrin and merged with the shadow of the Devil Snake Tree before Ayrin.
Boom!
A resounding crack rang out at this moment as another Devil Snake tree swept over and viciously slammed into the other tree.
The eyes of the blackened Stingham widened in shock.
He had never expected that these Devil Snake Trees would crash into each other as a method of attack.
As the two trees separated, countless fragmented branches and trees crashed to the ground, but Ayrin was nowhere to be seen. The image Stingham feared wasn't there.
"Was he directly smashed to pieces?" Stingham didn't believe his eyes.
Whoosh!
But right at this moment, a blue light flashed as a perfectly fine Ayrin emerged from within a Devil Snake Tree.
"Abel Academy's Wood Concealment Skill!" Rinloran whistled.
……
The sky gradually darkened.
As the thick dark purple clouds covered the skies once more, the visibility in Fallen Shadow Valley rapidly decreased.
After suffering once, Stingham didn't dare to deliberately provoke the Devil Snake Trees once more, even with his desire to get rid of the metal zombie.
"Shield of Invincibility!"
"Shark Impact!"
"Boundless Wave Strike!"
"Violent Erosion!"
In the distance, horrible explosions and wretched invocations sounded as violent arcane energy fluctuations gusted.
"So powerful… they must all be beyond four gates."
"Stingham, if you don't follow orders again, if you go over there, we will not be following you."
"Stingham?"
Ayrin and Rinloran turned their heads, only to discover that Stingham had fallen asleep on the ground.
This time, they couldn't even curse Stingham.
Ever since their encounter with Hanson and the others, the three of them had traveled several nights and fought several high-intensity battles without rest.
At this moment, it wasn't only Stingham who felt the exhaustion. Ayrin and Rinloran felt it as well.
Ayrin gazed at the buildings which seemed to have grown farther away in the darkness and then turned to Rinloran as he asked, "What do you say? Let's take a break?"
"There are less and less battles occurring out here. The powerful squads are moving too fast. If we stop here, then we might truly end up just cleaning up the battlefield and burying the corpses of the dead."
A strange light flashed through Rinloran's eyes, "The more difficult and extreme one's training is, the faster an arcane master can progress. Why don't we rest after we reach the mission area if we must rest?"
"Alright. As long as you can endure, then I can as well! How can I lose to you!"
Ayrin exhaustedly smiled as he looked at Stingham, who had already fallen asleep, "Then what about Stingham? Even if we wake him up, he will likely be unable to continue onwards."
Rinloran paused for a moment, then reluctantly said, "Let us take turns carrying him. We are one team after all."
"Right! We are one team! If we go, then we go together!"
……
Juan breathed slowly as he stood atop a messy cobblestone path and stared at the figure walking on the path towards him.
The uneven shadows cast by the magus hat like structures on both sides of the path caused the figure to seem extremely strange.
Juan tensed his body. He currently had less than a quarter of his arcane particles remaining. If he failed to come up with a plan of escape before the other person attacked, then he would be out of options.
Crack!
At this moment, the sound of footsteps and glass shattering abruptly rang out from behind him.
"Eh?"
The figure walking on the path towards him abruptly stopped moving.
Juan quickly turned his head and saw two staggering figures in the darkness.
At this tense moment between life and death, his senses and reactions had long since exceeded his normal ability. He immediately recognized the robes of the two staggering arcane masters and the youth contained atop their faces. He also realized one of them was carrying another on their back.
"That's the uniform of Holy Dawn Academy? …is that one of the student teams?!"
If it had been a team of mature arcane masters, then it might have been useful. But the appearance of a team of students, and exhausted ones at that, was a complete disaster. These two students who seemed to be barely standing were going to be killed off with him!
Juan didn't hesitate at all as he loudly shouted. "Hurry and run! The opponent…"
But at this moment, a loud cackle interrupted him as the figure before him said, "It seems like yet another arcane team has come over to die…"
As the figure cackled, their body became less visible, except for their eyes which began to grow green.
"Ah!"
The two students who had staggered into the area behind Juan seemed to have not noticed the figure facing Juan until this moment. They seemed to jump in shock as the oily green light emerged in the figure's pupils while they continued cackling.
Whoosh!
A black sphere abruptly crashed into the cackling figure at an astonishing speed.
"Ah!" A miserable cry rang out.
A loud explosion followed as the figure flew backwards with blood wildly spewing from their mouth. The green glow in their eyes completely disappeared.
Juan's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets as his mouth dropped open in surprise.
What arcane skill was that?
How could this black sphere be so powerful?
Weren't those two students barely able to walk?!
"What the hell was that? It scared me."
Juan felt even more speechless when he realized that the person who had used the black sphere seemed to not even know what they had sent flying!
