Chapter 157 Entering the Lake, Engev stared blankly at his hand...

Oenev stared blankly at the food in his hand until Ivanov grabbed his wrist, at which point he looked up at him in bewilderment: "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong with you!" Ivanov stared intently at him. "What if there's something wrong with this food?! You touched it!"

"Carola, come here!" Ivanov shouted at a blue-haired man before Onev could say anything more.

The man squinted, looking somewhat listless. He lazily raised his hand in greeting before slowly walking over.

Seeing him moving slowly, Ivanov couldn't help but frown and pull him forward a few steps: "Hurry up!"

Carola sighed silently, "Alright, alright."

He cast a healing spell on Engelev before saying to Ivanov, "It's alright, there's no problem."

Ivanov breathed a sigh of relief: "Alright then."

He then looked at Engelev and scolded him with dissatisfaction: "I told you not to touch it, just throw it away."

Engelev shook his head slightly: "No, it's edible."

"No!" Ivanov frowned and retorted immediately.

Engev's fingers, gripping the food tightly, were turning slightly white, but he still shook his head firmly.

Ivanov tried to snatch the food from his hands, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get it. He could only look at Engelev with a puzzled expression.

Lisa and Alexei, who had walked some distance, hurried over and looked at Ivanov with questioning eyes.

Ivanov glared at Engev before briefly explaining the situation.

Lisa glanced at the food in Engev's hand, then looked at Engev again. After a moment of contemplation, she glanced at Alexei beside her. After the two exchanged a look, she said to Ivanov, "Never mind, let him be."

Ivanov and Engelev had always had a good relationship, so Ivanov was naturally very dissatisfied and simply stood aside without responding to Lisa's words.

Lisa naturally understood his thoughts. After a silent sigh, she said to Ivanov, "If we don't go along with him, what do you suggest?"

Ivanov tried again to take the food from Engev's hand, but still failed.

Seeing this, what else could he do but sigh and say to Engelev, "Take it, take it, but don't eat it."

After giving a few more careful instructions out of concern, seeing that Eunev still looked so wooden, he could only sigh and continue walking forward with Lisa and the others.

Of course, he still looked back at Engev a few times, and seeing Engev obediently following behind, he felt relieved.

“Onev is definitely not in good condition. Keep a close eye on him.” Lisa quickened her pace and whispered instructions to Alexei.

Alexei nodded silently in agreement.

Ivanov glanced at the two whispering figures, then turned to look at Eunev behind him. His brows were furrowed deeply, but he didn't say anything. He just walked forward with a stern face and heavy steps.

Meanwhile, the Japanese following behind them had tacitly changed to another route, traveling day and night towards the center of the Ghost Moon Forest.

The design of the Moonlit Forest was based on a primeval forest, so the trees are not only dense, but also have an astonishing number of tiny, fragmented branches.

The group was covered in wounds from their hurried march, and Xia Liang's pretty face had even more bloody marks.

No one bothered to wipe or treat themselves; their eyes were numb as they quickly moved through the trees, occasionally slipping onto branches and the tangled roots beneath their feet doing nothing to slow them down.

Sang Zhitao and her group were discussing how to get down to Moon Lake, and they had placed Sang Zhitao's bird's nest under a big tree.

At that moment, Sang Zhitao was sitting in her nest gnawing on a gemstone when she suddenly felt a warm sensation in her chest.

She immediately turned to look at Zhen, but saw that she didn't make any move.

Sang Zhitao flapped her wings and, taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention to her, flew directly from the nest to the tree branch above her head.

DouDou looked behind the person who had come, and she could sense that pollution was approaching her from there.

Sang Zhitao looked at Zhen not far away, somewhat puzzled as to what she was going to do. After thinking for a moment, she directly passed the message to Douzi: "Someone is coming. Tell Anya to be on alert."

After thinking for a moment, she looked at Zhen again, hesitated for a moment, and then said to Douzi again, "Try not to run into them. If you see black rocks or liquid after you go down into the lake, stay far away."

Douzi was startled when she turned around and didn't see her in the bird's nest. She only breathed a sigh of relief after Sang Zhitao told her that she was in the tree. She obediently nodded and sent the message to the team channel.

Anya was completely bewildered by the news, but she didn't ask any questions. After all, in her opinion, it was normal for the two divine beasts on the Dragon-Phoenix Continent to have some special sources of information.

Zhen sat under another big tree, her eyes lowered, somewhat puzzled as to what was wrong with her. Why was everyone suddenly avoiding her, and even less enthusiastic about doing tasks?

She glanced up at the crowd, then looked at the mulberry tree in the big tree. After thinking for a moment, she tapped her fingertips lightly in the air a few times before silently tugging at the corners of her mouth: "Let you have a little more fun, until they come..."

Before the others could really sense it, Sang Zhitao was the first to feel the real malice. After thinking for a moment, she simply flew to the lakeside and took a few steps on Anya's shoulders.

"Little Phoenix?!" Anya had just noticed a weight on her shoulder when she turned around and saw the phoenix, who never left Dou Ge and his sister's side, perched on her shoulder. A chill ran down her spine, and a sense of foreboding washed over her. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Sang Zhitao shook her head, looked back at the beans that were being fed by Tangtang, and thought for a moment. She decided not to let her know, so she simply stretched out her little wings, pointed at Anya, and then pointed at Moon Lake.

Because of the angle, Anya didn't see her tiny wing, which was no bigger than a thumb: "What's wrong?"

Sang Zhitao glanced down at the wings, then looked at Anya, sighed heavily, shifted her body slightly, and pointed again.

Anya finally noticed a small bulge on one side of her chubby body.

She raised an eyebrow, lifted Sang Zhitao off her shoulder, and carefully held her up to her eyes: "Would you... like to do it again?"

Sang Zhitao's eyes were filled with obvious disdain. Helplessly, she tried her best to raise her little wings to their maximum height and repeated the action. To prevent Anya from missing it again, she even used her beak to demonstrate the wing movements.

This time Anya finally saw her actions clearly, but she still frowned as she looked at Sang Zhitao: "Are you going into the water with me?"

Sang Zhitao nodded repeatedly.

Anya looked puzzled: "You...can go into the water?"

Seeing that she was worried about her, Sang Zhitao shook her head repeatedly and jumped a few times in the other person's hand.

Anya cautiously guessed, "You mean, you're a divine beast, and you're not afraid of water?"

Sang Zhitao nodded heavily.

Hearing her say this, Anya thought of that strange giant beast, and her heart began to waver.

Fearing that Anya might disagree, Sang Zhitao called out a few times, made a flying motion, and looked at Anya expectantly.

Anya watched as a yellow fluffy ball made movements that were impossible to discern, quickly pursed her lips to suppress a smile, and nodded: "That's fine, it might be safer with you here."

She then called over Yingjun, gave him a few instructions, and took out two beads from her backpack, handing them to the two of them: "I just found some water-repelling beads in my backpack that I used for previous missions. You can put the beads in your mouths before going into the water."

Sang Zhitao kicked the bead away and proudly barked twice at Anya, raising her small head.

Seeing this, Anya stuffed all the water-repelling beads into Yingjun's arms: "Since the phoenix can't use them, you can keep them all, and keep one as a spare."

Yingjun nodded in agreement, put a bead in his mouth, took the mulberry peach, and jumped directly into the lake.

"Huh? Where's the phoenix?" They had just entered the water, and the beans over there had already eaten and drunk their fill. They were planning to go find the phoenix to play with, but they found that Sang Zhitao was nowhere to be seen in the nest or on the tree.

Hearing her question, Anya turned around and looked at her in surprise: "She went into the water, didn't she tell you?"

Douzi shook his head blankly: "What water?"

Anya pointed into the lake: "We're in the lake."

Douzi stared blankly at Moon Lake, then looked at Anya: "Huh? Phoenix went into the water? Isn't she a bird?"

“Phoenix herself said it’s okay.” Anya briefly explained what had just happened.

Douzi opened her mouth, about to say something, when her older brother, who had walked over, patted her on the shoulder and interrupted her: "What's wrong?"

Anya recounted the story again.

Dou Ge nodded indifferently: "Since it's her own choice, there's definitely no problem. After all, it's a divine beast."

Douzi heard what her brother said and didn't say anything more. She turned around, went back to the tree, hugged the bird's nest, and stared blankly at the calm lake.

The two men in the lake were trying their best to go down to the bottom.

The bottom of Moon Lake is very strange; it has no aquatic plants and not even any animals.

It's worth noting that the species design of the Ghost Moon Forest is extremely comprehensive, so how could the designers possibly have overlooked this empty space at the bottom of the lake?

After all, players from Xia Kingdom always do things that are unexpected.

For example, there was once a building game with a very high degree of freedom. A bored player wanted to see if the moon in the game was a texture or real, so he built a ladder in the game. It has been three years since then and is still being climbed. It has become a popular tourist attraction in the game.

There is another single-player game that is also known for its high degree of freedom. A player with a sudden idea started making explosives from the first day of the game. When he felt he had enough, he detonated the explosives, and the game was blown to a blank.

There's also a game where you can plant trees, and players planted so many trees in the game that the server crashed.

With so many examples, games open to the Xia people will desperately add more rules, for fear that these people will ruin the game.

Dragon and Phoenix Continent is an official game designed by the Xia Kingdom, and it would never have such a big oversight in this matter.

Just as she was thinking, Yingjun suddenly nudged her.

Sang Zhitao looked up and saw Ying Jun staring ahead in surprise, so she turned her head to look as well, and saw a huge thing in front of her...

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Author's Note: Is the pacing of this story too slow? Should we speed it up? To be honest, I originally planned to finish it around 600,000 words, but I just checked and there are still ten worlds left to write _(:з」∠)_