novelsite Chapter 83 Blood-Drinking Twin Blades
Chapter 83 Blood-Drinking Twin Blades
The mornings in the Starry Sky Forest are not as peaceful as people imagine.
Sunlight filtered through the dense, layered canopy of trees, dappling the moss-covered ground in fragmented patterns. The fallen leaves were piled high, almost ankle-deep, soft and yielding with each step, releasing the distinctive sour stench of decaying leaves. The air was thick with a damp, musty smell, a mixture of rotting vegetation and a faint trace of blood.
The three maintained a triangular formation and advanced deeper into the forest.
On the way, Hu Liena briefly mentioned the two Blood-Drinking Blades she had seized—weapons she had taken from a group of evil spirit masters. It was said that touching blood would excite them, and the more blood they drank, the sharper the blades would become. Li Fulan didn't ask any further questions, simply nodding to indicate that she should keep them safe.
The journey was far from peaceful. Several ignorant century-old wind baboons attempted to launch a sneak attack from the treetops. Li Fulan didn't even use his martial spirit; he simply pulled a pistol-shaped device from his storage belt with his right hand, aimed it at the treetops, and pulled the trigger.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
After three muffled thuds, the heads of the three baboons exploded, their corpses tumbling down the tree and crashing into the thick pile of fallen leaves with a dull thud. Blood splattered on the leaves of nearby bushes, slowly trickling down their veins.
Xiao Wu gasped in surprise, "Master, what is that? It's amazing!"
"A special kind of concealed weapon launching device." Li Fulan put the pistol back into his belt, his steps never faltering. "Let's go."
However, as they ventured deeper into the area known as the "Misty Swamp," the atmosphere around them began to feel strange.
At first, the fog just got a little thicker.
The milky white morning mist slowly rose from beneath my feet, initially just a thin layer, like a veil spread on the ground. As I walked, the mist rose above my knees. After a few dozen more steps, I could no longer see my toes when I looked down. The mist was cool and felt like a damp towel against my skin, making me feel uncomfortable all over.
"This fog came up really fast," Xiao Wu muttered, subconsciously moving closer to Li Fulan. She reached out and waved her hand through the fog, and the fog seemed to have a life of its own, slipping through her fingers and closing up again in the blink of an eye.
Hu Liena frowned: "The Misty Swamp is indeed foggy all year round, but it shouldn't be this thick. Last time I came, I could at least see things within twenty meters."
Li Fulan didn't speak, but simply slowed her pace.
He noticed a detail—the sound of the fallen leaves under his feet had changed. What was once a crisp "rustling" sound had become a muffled "gurgling" sound, like stepping on soft, soaked cotton. The ground also seemed to have softened; with each step, he sank a little deeper.
He stopped and looked down at his feet.
The fallen leaves around the boots seemed to be slowly...moving?
No, it was just an illusion. He blinked, and the fallen leaves returned to normal.
The fog continued to thicken.
The originally milky white morning mist had somehow taken on a faint pinkish-purple hue, as if someone had dripped a few drops of grape juice into milk. The color was so subtle that staring at it for too long made one think it was just their eyes playing tricks on them. Li Fulan rubbed her eyes, and when she looked again, the mist had returned to its white state.
But he was certain he hadn't misread it.
The damp, rotten smell in the air vanished, replaced by a cloyingly sweet aroma. The scent was strange, like overripe fruit rotting and fermenting on the ground, or like some cheap powder mixed with honey.
It didn't smell bad; in fact, it smelled rather pleasant. But it was precisely this "pleasant smell" that instantly put Li Fulan on alert—in this godforsaken place, the sudden appearance of a pleasant scent was definitely not a good thing.
"It smells so good..." Xiao Wu sniffed, her eyes lighting up. "Master, can you smell it? It smells like roasted chestnuts!"
"Don't take a deep breath," Li Fulan's voice turned somber, "cover your mouth and nose with your hand."
Xiao Wu obediently did as she was told, but she still couldn't resist sneaking a couple of small sips. The aroma was so tempting, it reminded her of the smell of roasted sweet potatoes she used to smell on the streets of Nottingham when she was a child—sweet, soft, and glutinous, making her mouth water.
Li Fulan pinched her thumb hard.
The pain brought him to his senses somewhat.
After walking for about fifteen minutes, Li Fulan suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?" Hu Liena immediately went on alert, the phantom of a fox tail behind her appearing and disappearing.
Li Fulan did not answer, but stared at an ancient tree with strange burls in front of her.
He recognized that tree.
There was a palm-sized burl on the tree trunk, shaped like a crooked human face with two deep cracks that looked like squinting eyes. He remembered it clearly because twenty minutes earlier, when he passed by this tree, he thought the burl was so ugly that he had taken a second look at it.
Moreover, there was a fresh scratch on the bark.
That was a mark he'd casually scribbled with his dagger twenty minutes earlier—an arrow pointing northeast. He'd made it so he wouldn't get lost. The mark was still fresh; the cut on the bark was raw and oozing sap.
They came back around.
"This tree..." Hu Liena recognized it too, her voice trembling slightly, "We've walked past it."
"Not only that," Li Fulan turned around and looked at the seemingly endless path behind her.
Through the mist, another tree could be vaguely seen. It was shorter, with a ring of dead vines wrapped around its trunk. He recognized it—it was the spot where he had left his second mark earlier.
They kept going around in circles.
"I've counted," Li Fulan's voice was calm, but her eyes were chillingly cold. "From the time I left the mark on the first tree until now, we've walked a total of two thousand three hundred steps. At a normal pace, we should have already traversed a third of this swamp. But actually..."
He paused, a sarcastic smile playing on his lips.
"We just circled around this area of 100 meters three times."
Xiao Wu rubbed her eyes, her body swaying as if she were about to lose her balance. Her face was pale, fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead, and her eyes were glazed over.
"How strange... Master, I feel so dizzy..." She leaned against a tree trunk, her voice sounding somewhat unsteady, "It seems... I seem to see a lot of carrots flying in the sky... red ones, orange ones, and purple ones... they're waving at me..."
Her feet began to move forward involuntarily, as if she were chasing after carrots that didn't exist.
"Xiao Wu!" Li Fulan called out.
Xiao Wu suddenly shuddered, and the carrots that had been flying everywhere vanished. She blinked blankly, realizing that she had somehow loosened her grip on the tree trunk and was walking deeper into the mist. After taking a few more steps, she came to a dark, muddy swamp, with foul-smelling bubbles rising to the surface.
"I just..." She broke out in a cold sweat, "What was I doing? I almost fell..."
Hu Liena shook her head, forcing herself to stay awake. She realized she had been spacing out, her mind completely blank, with no recollection of what had happened in the past few minutes. The Blood Drinker Blade in her hand had been sheathed at some point, replaced by a stone she'd picked up from somewhere.
"There's something strange about the fog here," she said, throwing away the stone and summoning her martial spirit again. Her voice was strained. "My mental detection is completely ineffective; I can't sense anything. It's like... like someone has blindfolded me."
"It's not a problem with the fog," Li Fulan said.
He pulled a palm-sized, square device from his storage belt. The device had a black casing with a small display screen and several buttons. He pressed a switch, and the display screen lit up, flashing a pale blue light.
"What is this?" Hu Liena asked curiously as she leaned closer.
"A thermal imager," Li Fulan held the instrument up to his eyes, observing his surroundings through the display screen, "It can observe the environment through temperature differences. No matter how thick the fog is, it's useless; anything that's alive and has body temperature can't escape its eyes."
In the thermal imager's view, the world appeared as a patchwork of red and blue. Blue represented cool areas—fog, trees, and the ground all took on a cool hue. Red and orange, on the other hand, represented warm areas—like himself, and like Xiao Wu and Hu Liena beside him.
Then he saw something wrong.
The trees, bushes, and mist were all moving at an extremely slow pace. Not the kind of movement driven by the wind, but rather a writhing motion like living things. Tree trunks were twisting, bushes were shifting, and even the fallen leaves on the ground were slowly changing position.
It's as if something is controlling the entire area, trapping them in a self-built maze.
"Found it," Li Fulan squinted.
At the edge of his thermal vision, about fifty meters away, on the canopy of a tree, he caught a blurry outline. It was a patch of orange-red light, much warmer than the surrounding environment, and its shape resembled a fat, wild beast.
The creature perched on a tree branch, its body bloated, resembling a fat pig. Its long, soft snout, easily half a meter long, swayed gently in their direction. Its eyes were closed, as if it were fast asleep, its breathing steady and long. Yet, something was constantly being exhaled from its snout—with each exhale, a faint stream of warm liquid escaped from its nostrils, merging into the surrounding mist.
The pinkish-purple mist and the cloyingly sweet fragrance that makes you drowsy all come from its body.
"We were caught in the trap from the moment we stepped into this area," Li Fulan said, putting away the thermal imaging device and letting out a cold laugh as she cracked her knuckles. "We've walked this path three times already. That dream-eating tapir is currently perched in a tree watching the show."
He twisted his neck, and his joints made a series of cracking sounds.
"It seems this beast is not only good at making people dream, but also at creating illusions. He lets us daydream while treating us like monkeys."
"We...we've been hypnotized?" Hu Liena's expression changed slightly, and she gripped the Blood Drinker Blade in her hand even tighter.