Sam didn't worry too much about the vines, though. His main worry is the lava lake itself. Even though he is using the fire elemental fusion and his golden flames are far stronger, this golden lava's heat far greater and it is trying to devour his body whole. He is trying his best to control and stay intact.
When the vines are moving and trying to catch him, he was able to move freely. As he looked at the vines, he could see the traces of the hydra's poison. He didn't expect too much from it and he is not counting on the poisoning, rather he wanted to test the limits of the physical corrosion and it seems like it has little effect.
He dove deeper into the pool and took out another energy cell. This one is cylindrical in shape and also water elemental in nature. But it is not too big. He destabilized it and rammed it straight into the bed of the lake.
After that, he came out directly and leaped up. He tried his best to move away from the vine place. The vine also noticed that there is something wrong because of the energy waves under the lake and felt distracted.
Sam took this situation to his advantage and directly came out and took out his harbinger before the explosion could happen and deactivated his fusion.
He is extremely exhausted and even his feather coat is damaged a lot, even though the feathers are unaffected the metal threads binding it are almost completely destroyed. It is nearly falling apart. Sam quickly put the feather coat in the storage and started riding the board almost butt naked.
Then the energy cell blasted and the water element explosion affected the roots of the wine and the Lava riled up.
The slimes and the vines are going berserk.
Everything happened in a flash and the cultivators on the rafts are all looking at the scene stunned.
Sam did everything in less than two minutes. There is no break. As he exited the zone of these Slime kings and the vines, Sam finally slowed down a bit and took some clothes out to cover himself.
Before the Pre-transcendent leaders and the rest of the cultivators could realize, he is already half-way towards the bank of the lake.
The cultivators soon reacted and started throwing attacks at Sam. But as soon as he covered himself with a cloak, Sam didn't even delay for a single second. He took out the wine gourd and drank the heavenly wine greedily as he zoomed past all of them at an extreme speed.
The Harbinger is moving at its top speed and the opponents could try all they can to catch him.
The two players Akhil and Agun who are standing on the bank looked at Sam with their mouths wide open. The battle on the lake has been going on for almost an hour, but Sam just went in and two minutes later he is already out and he is escaping.
Before leaving, Sam made eye-contact with Agun and smirked as he sped up.
The people started abandoning the lake and tried to come back to the bank. They wanted to chase Sam. But it is not that easy. The players also started running after him. The fastest of all is Akhil because he has a fire-type mount that could run in this heat.
This is a perk of him being an elite of the beast faction. They prepared mounts for the elites for different situations and a fire-type mount is a common thing.
He started chasing after Sam, but no matter how fast he went, he wasn't able to catch up.
The cultivators inside the lake are coming one after the other and trying their best to come out of the lake and started running.
But after chasing for half-a-day, there is no trace. Even the mounts are of no use. They couldn't do anything.
Without any results, they all regrouped and started discussing how to deal with this situation. Since the lotus is all their common target, they decided to work together.
"Does he have a map to go to the entrance directly?" The rubrum empire team's leader asked.
"How would we know that?" Someone replied.
"Of course, we don't know, but the Mov empire team should have known about that. After all, that guy is their soldier."
Everyone focused on them and the leader of the Mov empire felt a bit frustrated. He doesn't know how to react immediately and at this moment, he grit his teeth and said.
"He has nothing to do with Mov empire."
"What do you mean, he has nothing to do with the Mov empire? He is a war hero, he got his accolades directly from the Mov emperor. At this moment, he is an Instructor in the Mirage city Navy. You don't tell me that he is not one of yours. If you guys really don't treat him like one of yours with all his contributions, then who is going to be considered yours.
God, I thought that the Mov empire has some standards."
This one is another Pre-transcendent stage cultivator from the rubrum empire.
Everyone once again looked towards Mov empire.
"He is one of us, yes. But he came to this expedition independently and caught the lotus independently. As for the question you asked, no he didn't have any map on him. He explored his way all over to the lake and he went on his own way." This time no one tried to argue anymore, because the one who talked is Yodha.
Everyone knows, he has a temper and he doesn't care who the other person is. So, they just sucked it up with some cocky expressions as if they have won making them admit Sam is one of theirs.
"Then let us, use the map and go back to the entrance where we would be able to capture him." One of them suggested.
"But he is too fast. Whatever he used, it is not just there for a show and it is not a normal thing. We don't know anything about that board he used and he just zoomed past everyone. What if he reached the entrance before everyone else?"
Everyone went into deep thought at these words and at this moment, someone from the Flavos empire spoke.
"I have a suggestion." Everyone focused on him as he took out a map and laid it out on a table in this temporary camp.
"From the lake, he has three obvious routes that surely indicate that they can lead to the entrance and all three of them are long routes. But judging from his speed, he could definitely make it within the ten days.
But we can take a shortcut and try to intercept him in this route."
"What is so special about intercepting from this route you indicated? It is all the same."
"No, it is not." The person replied and started explaining the plan and soon the rest of the members realized that this plan might work.
After the plan was explained and few adjustments were made everyone spilt up and started moving in different directions. All the people combined and formed three teams and moved in three different directions.
They are taking all the shortcuts they can and reached their destined locations and used the herbs they collected to make some preparations.
While they are doing that, Sam is moving on the harbinger after he travelled till the night in a straight line, he stopped at a spot to get dressed. He can't wear his coat and his metal pants are also gone. He picked a new dress and wore his regular black vest. Had dinner with wine and recovered as much as he can before restarting his journey.
He traveled for four days straight, and his journey is smooth sailing. Except for the hot and searing breeze on his face.
He didn't bother about any other herbs or any other creatures that he encountered. Some people stopped him to get their hands on the Harbinger, but he finished the fights in an instant as long as it is Nascent stage cultivators who did that.
As for the Pre-transcendent stage cultivators, they could wish for better luck to catch up with his speed.
On the fifth day, while Sam is going through a canyon; all of a sudden something directly lunged at him from a small rock cliff from the side and he came to a halt as he tried to dodge.
He stopped there and saw a black and gold thing that is standing up clumsily with chaotic energy waves coming out of it.
The whole body is made of the Golden Lava except for some small portion that is visible which is made of black rock in random places.
This is a Lava Golem. He frowned at this appearance all of a sudden. He heard that there are these golems present, but he didn't encounter one all this while.
He was examining it as he hadn't seen a naturally formed golem before, but he clearly didn't have time because, a lot of golems are jumping down one after the other from either side of the cliffs.
