Chapter 311 Why does this scenic spot look like a garbage dump?

After leaving the Ten Thousand Volcanoes in southern Xinjiang, the team traveled almost non-stop, rushing to their next target, the Eastern Forest Sea, overnight.

On the way, Chu Xuanyi almost collapsed in the carriage.

"Your Highness, can we try to balance work and rest?" he complained feebly. "Coming out of that volcanic cave full of flesh and blood, I can still hear the clang-clang-clang of iron hammering in my ears. They didn't even take a breath before they just moved on. My old bones can't handle that kind of torture."

Taoist Priest Tianyan was holding a small notebook and an abacus, and he was dialing the abacus and muttering to himself.

"My eight thousand-year-old lightning-struck wooden flags are worth three hundred taels of gold each at market price. My heirloom, the 'Spirit Gathering Eight Diagrams Plate,' has cracked. Repairing it... that's hard to calculate, but it'll cost at least one thousand taels. And my three hundred and sixty high-grade spirit stones are now all worth waste. At ten taels of gold each, that's three thousand six hundred taels..."

Chu Xuanyi's eyelids twitched when he heard this.

"I say, old Taoist, you're really good. We're going to save the world, but you've turned it into a business trip to count losses, right? You're not up to par with the team."

"Master Imperial Master, this is wrong," Taoist Tian Yan raised his head with a serious expression. "Saving the world is an ideal, a sentiment. Counting losses is life, a reality. We can't ignore the realities of life just because we have lofty ideals. Besides, didn't you promise my prince to reimburse you double?"

"That was me..." Chu Xuanyi was speechless for a moment.

"Amitabha," Master Jingxin closed his eyes and spoke slowly, "My two benefactors, a calm mind naturally brings peace of mind. The hustle and bustle of the outside world is but a crucible for tempering your mind."

"Master, you're talking without any pain in your back." Chu Xuanyi rolled his eyes. "You're a high monk in Buddhism, and you're free from all worries. I and the old Taoist are just ordinary people. We have families, jobs, and we have to eat."

Ajiu was already fast asleep leaning on Xiao Yu's shoulder. Xiao Yu carefully adjusted a more comfortable position for her and gently covered her with his cloak.

He ignored the bickering between Chu Xuanyi and Taoist Tian Yan, and quietly wiped the new magic weapon.

Three days later, when the carriage finally stopped, Chu Xuanyi was the first to lift the curtain and jump down, ready to breathe the refreshing fresh air of the legendary eastern forest.

The next second, he was overwhelmed by an indescribable stench and almost vomited out the food he had eaten the previous night.

"Ugh...what's that smell?"

He covered his nose and backed away repeatedly, his face full of horror and disgust.

Everyone got off the bus, and when they saw the scene in front of them, even though they were mentally prepared, they were still deeply shocked.

The legendary beautiful place where "the wind blows through the treetops, like the endless blue waves playing the music of nature" now looks like a huge scar on the earth.

There is no green anywhere in sight.

All the trees were twisted, with withered branches stretching towards the gray sky like ghost claws.

The ground was dark brown, and the air was filled with a nauseating mixed stench of rotting plants and the decomposition of some dead creatures.

There is no sound of wind, not even the chirping of birds or insects.

"I take back what I said before," Chu Xuanyi's expression turned extremely ugly. "Compared to this place, that volcano in southern Xinjiang is simply a paradise. Why does this place look like a giant landfill?"

"No," Taoist Tian Yan said solemnly as he picked up a bit of black dirt from the ground, put it to his nose and sniffed it, then dropped his hand as if he had been electrocuted. "This isn't ordinary decay. It's death energy, resentment, and... the most vicious plague-like curse."

He pointed to the forest of death.

"The signpost here is different from the one on the volcano. It has polluted the 'spirit' of the entire forest from the very source of life, turning it into a hotbed and nursery for evil."

"Amitabha," Master Jingxin said, looking at the lifeless land before him, his eyes filled with pity. "The aura of resentful spirits is so strong here. I wonder how many innocent lives have been killed by them."

Jiu, who had been sleeping soundly, slowly woke up. She rubbed her eyes, poked her head out of Xiao Yu's arms and looked at the black forest curiously.

After just one look, the little girl's face turned pale instantly.

"Brother Xiongxiong..." She clutched Xiao Yu's clothes tightly, "The trees are crying, the land is crying too, it hurts so much, they are in so much pain."

In her divine vision, the sky above the forest was shrouded in a thick, indissoluble black-gray aura of despair, with countless tiny, painful fragments of souls floating and wailing in it. The source of all the death energy pointed to the deepest part of the forest.

Xiao Yu patted her back gently to calm her down.

"Don't be afraid, we are here to treat them."

"It seems we are too late," he said slowly, looking at the dead forest. "There are no living things here anymore."

"No, Your Majesty, I'm afraid it's not that there are no living things," Akabane's figure appeared like a ghost at the top of a dead tree, "but that there are no 'normal' living things."

He had just finished speaking.

“Rustle…”

A teeth-grinding friction sound came from the dead forest ahead.

"Something's coming," Chu Xuanyi immediately took out his talisman and took a defensive stance. "There are quite a few of them. I was just wondering, how could a place like this not even have a welcoming ceremony?"

Soon, the first "monster" revealed its appearance from the shadow of the dead tree.

It should have been a nimble sika deer.

But at this moment, half of its body had completely rotted away, revealing only white bones. The other side was covered in tumor-like black flesh, with several asymmetrical, constantly rotating eyeballs on it. Its limbs had become as spindly and twisted as a spider's.

When it saw Xiao Yu and the others, bloodthirsty madness burst out from those strange eyeballs.

"hiss."

It uttered a sharp cry and pounced forward.

"court death."

Akabane's figure flashed from the treetops, and the dagger in his hand accurately slashed across its neck.

A horrifying scene happened.

Most of its neck was cut open, but it just paused for a moment, then turned its head even more frantically, and its tumor-covered head smashed towards Akabane.

"These things have no vital points." Akabane immediately stepped back and kept some distance.

More and more monsters emerged from all directions.

There are giant centipedes with human faces, strange birds with rotten wings, and countless wriggling lumps of rotten flesh formed by the fusion of various snakes, insects, rats and ants.

"I take it back. This welcome ceremony was a bit too enthusiastic." Chu Xuanyi's scalp tingled. "Master, let's get started."

"Vajra subdues the devil."

Master Jingxin took the first step, and a circle of gentle golden Buddha light suddenly spread out with him as the center.

The moment those monsters came into contact with the Buddha's light, black smoke immediately came out of their bodies and they let out painful roars.

"Sure enough, these evil demonic forces are most afraid of this kind of extremely strong and masculine power." Taoist Tian Yan breathed a sigh of relief and pointed the peach wood sword in his hand, "Three Pure Ones' Imperial Decree, Five Thunders' Righteous Law."

Several tiny electric snakes fell from the sky and accurately struck the monsters in the front, turning them into a ball of charcoal.

"There are too many of them, we can't kill them all." Akabane's figure kept shuttling among the group of monsters. He found that unless these monsters were completely blown into pieces, they would be able to stand up again soon.