*BOOOOM*
As Hao Xuan was walking away, a loud screech and a roar sounded from above followed by an explosion that sent him flying straight up into the air for a few seconds and then right back down.
"Oh shit Oh shit!" Hao Xuan screamed when his body starting falling down like a rock in a bucket of water.
"This is gonna hurt like hell," he said with gritted teeth when he saw the canopy getting larger and larger by the second.
*Crack*
He fell right on top of a huge branch which broke in two and continued falling, hitting several other branches and finally connecting with the ground, face first.
"Goddammit, gonna feel this tomorrow," he mumbled rubbing his dislocated shoulder. The clothes were mostly rags now with gashes and small to medium-sized wounds all over his body.
"What the fuck was that roar, why does shit like this always happen to me damnit?"
He stood up and looked around and was surrounded by trees, god knows how far from everyone else.
"The ID badge!" he suddenly shouted in happiness and took out his badge and channeled some Qi into it to turn it on and contact the others, but to his dismay, there was no reply.
"Am I too far from them?" he said to himself while looking around. And he was. The explosion sent him flying several kilometers away, and because of the interference from the spiritual energy, unless he was closer than a km from them, there was no way for the badge to pick them up.
*Sigh*
"Might as well change then," his current appearance wasn't much worse off than a beggar's. He looked more like a runaway-slave than a captain of the Red Legion.
He took out a new set of clothes, cleaned himself up, and applied some first-aid before putting them on, finally looking like a normal human being.
He looked around once again to see if there were some clues, some footprints perhaps to follow or any other tracks, anything to point him in the right direction, but alas there was just greenery all around him.
*Creak*
There was a sound from his left which woke him from his daze and he looked around to see a small frog jumping away.
All of a sudden it hit him. He was completely alone, separated from his party with no knowledge of where to go or what even to do in this jungle. The sounds of insects, 'movement' of trees, the sound of his footsteps, all these became extraordinarily loud for no reason. He could hear a bird chirp somewhere high above him, something slithered pass a tree to his left, his own breathing getting extremely loud.
All these sounds jumbled together and became louder and louder until all of a sudden, everything stopped.
"Huh….?" the sudden quiet reminded him of the time when he first came upon the Ice Flood dragon.
"Oh god, not again!" he screamed inwardly and slowly turned around to see what was behind him but found nothing.
"It's 100% in front of me now, I can feel it!" big droplets of sweat starting pouring down his forehead.
"W-What if I just don't turn around…will it go away…?" he tried to calm himself down by telling himself these irrational things but it didn't work.
"Fuck it, if it's my time then let's get it over with!" screaming, he took out his sword and swung with everything he had.
*Woooosh*
The sword hit nothing and flew out of his hand stabbing into a tree five meters away. There was nothing there. It was all his imagination.
*Ribbit*
The little frog sat on a tree root not far from him and turned its little head sideways while looking at him as if asking "The hell are you shouting and swinging your sword around at…?".
Hao Xuan's face went red, "Shut up, I thought there was someone there!" he embarrassingly shouted at the frog as if talking to an actual person and then walked up to his sword and pulled it out.
*Ribbit*
Hao Xuan looked at the frog again and felt like it said "Sure buddy, whatever you say," and then jumped into a bush and vanished.
"Hey, fuck you, you don't know me!" Hao Xuan shouted at the bush the frog had jumped into while making a fist at it until he realized what he was actually doing.
"Oh my god, I think I hit my head a bit too hard. Why I am having an argument with a frog…." he mumbled while rubbing the little bump on his head.
Burying this matter deep inside his memories he took out the token but it was still going haywire, so he randomly choose a direction and started walking.
Meanwhile with the Mad Saints…
*Cough*Cough*
"Hash, Cav, Maddy come help me with this," Kuo said to the three Spirit Realm experts. After the first boulder fell a few others came down right after as well, burring them in several dozen meters of rubble.
They all created a shield using their Qi and surrounded the other saints and then blew open a way out for themselves.
"Damn monsters, keep an eye on the sky," he ordered as they all got out.
"Captain! Captain where are you?" shouted Aria when she didn't see Hao Xuan.
"The Captain! Oh shit!" suddenly remembered Kuo and he looked around but there was no sign of him. He checked his ID badge but there was nothing.
He started sweating as he thought about what First would do to him, their new captain who was out on his first mission just got lost in one of the most dangerous areas in the entire kingdom.
