Chapter 19 Test (10) The Swamp Forest Entangled in Battle with the Earthly Divine Bamboo.
"Hiss..." Gudako felt a chill run down her spine instantly, frowned, flew to Qingxing's side, and hugged her arm tightly. "Don't scare me! I'm terrified of ghost stories!"
Especially in such a dark and very quiet place like Jade Tiger Peak.
"I wasn't trying to scare you." They had reached the depths of the peak forest, where the sunlight was almost completely blocked by the trees, leaving only a few fireflies emitting a faint light. The Endless Tree gradually slowed down and moved closer to the ground. Qingxing found an open space, leaped up, and placed her feet firmly on the soft, damp black soil, sinking slightly into it. She continued, "We're still keeping an eye on things."
Guda looked around, but apart from a few red-eyed dwarf rabbits, it didn't see anything. "Could it be that you've been performing too well in the recent martial arts competitions, and too many of your fellow disciples are casting admiring glances at you?"
"It shouldn't be." Qingxing put away the Endless Wood, glanced at the buzzing Taihua Token, and slowly spun it around, trying to find the direction with the heaviest demonic energy. "It's never happened like this before."
After speaking, she felt warmth in her palm. Qingxing looked up and saw a bamboo forest. From this angle, the forest was pitch black, like a monster's gaping maw that could devour everything around it.
She hung the token back on her waist and walked towards the bamboo forest.
“It wasn’t like this before, because you never went out at all!” Guda muttered as she followed.
Perhaps because of the towering trees blocking the view, Qingxing couldn't see anything outside. But now that she's stepped into the bamboo forest, she realizes that it's not completely dark inside. There seems to be something on the bamboo leaves that's faintly glowing, illuminating the entire area.
"Huh?" Guda approached the bamboo leaf, its face reflected in the green light, its eyes almost crossed. After getting a better look, it exclaimed in surprise, "Isn't this white peony powder? There's actually something like this in Mount Taihua?"
White lily pollen is not plant pollen, but a tiny green insect that lives in close proximity to the ground bamboo. It is extremely rare and usually inhabits black mud swamps.
Qingxing, with her hands supporting her thighs, watched with Guda and indeed found countless tiny insects crawling all over it.
She reached out and gently touched the edge of the bamboo leaf. The insects scattered instantly, as if threatened, and flew around in a panic.
"This is a bit troublesome."
Qingxing stood up straight, summoned the Endless Wood with her right hand, twirled the sword, and then stood quietly in place, staring at the ground without blinking, as if waiting for something.
White peony powder has little offensive power and is even regarded as a medicine for treating wounds. Cultivators can use it to accelerate the healing of skin and flesh. Therefore, it is often captured by some medical cultivators to make medicine. In order to save its life, it chooses to attach itself to the earth god bamboo.
The name "Earth God Bamboo" sounds nice, but it has absolutely nothing to do with "god". This name can be said to be a complete rip-off. Qingxing even thinks that "Strangling Bamboo" would be more appropriate.
The reason is simple: this bamboo looks no different from ordinary plants on the surface, but it actually hides a secret. Its root system can extend for hundreds of miles, and it is covered with sharp thorns that are highly poisonous. If you are accidentally cut by a small cut, even a Nascent Soul cultivator will be unconscious for two or three days.
But the "trouble" Qingxing mentioned wasn't just about that. The Earth God Bamboo dwells in swamps, and when no one ventures there, the swamp disguises itself as ordinary mud. However, once the Earth God Bamboo's roots entangle something, the swamp instantly begins to flow, forming a whirlpool that, along with the roots, pulls the object directly into the mud pool until it is completely swallowed by the black mud, leaving not even a skeleton behind.
The bubbling black mud in front of it was clearly gathering strength, waiting for the roots of the earth bamboo to feed it the green apricot as "food".
"Could this token be a trap? Is it designed to lure people to this kind of place to test their strength?" Guda gasped, looking at the gradually rising marks on the black mud, resembling countless venomous snakes crawling underground. "Insidious, so insidious!"
“The sect leader shouldn’t use this method,” Qingxing said, placing Guda in her arms and leaping up. “Monsters love these gloomy places, and the swamp forest is very dangerous, which means we’ve found the right direction.”
The moment she leaped off the ground, several bamboo roots as thick as thighs burst forth from the soil, flying towards Qingxing with a strong wind, like venomous snakes spitting their tongues.
"Hehe, you're quite optimistic." Guda spat out a ball of lifeless water, and a bamboo root instantly softened and shrank back into the ground.
Qingxing stepped on the bamboo leaves for leverage, startling Bai Lianfen into scattering everywhere. Specks of green light illuminated her cheeks and sash, and the light gauze around her waist fluttered with her movements. From a distance, it looked like a beautiful scene, if one omitted the dozen or so thick bamboo roots behind her.
"It's not a good sign. How can I help you find a villain?"
The token at her waist lit up and then went out, and Qingxing jumped onto the bamboo leaves in all directions, almost getting pricked by the bamboo roots several times.
A chill ran down her back. Qingxing instinctively used her staff as a sword, waving her hand to unleash several streaks of blue light, slicing the bamboo root that was about to touch her calf.
The wood chips fell with a "clatter," and Qingxing glanced back and saw that new bamboo roots had broken through the ground and were quickly chasing after her, following her through the bamboo forest.
Guda was being led around in circles by her, and her head was spinning a little, but she still said in a high-pitched voice, "Master Qingxing, I didn't mean to criticize you. Optimism is a good quality, you must always stay optimistic!"
"OK."
Qingxing found an opportunity to create distance, stepped on the bamboo stalks behind her, used the momentum to flip over, and drew a magic circle with her left hand, flying straight towards the bamboo root.
"Breaking through the thunder and lightning!"
Boom—
A lightning-like blue light exploded, and before the Earth God Bamboo could retract its roots, a large area was destroyed. The black mud stopped bubbling and seemed to be stunned, but the next moment, it made a low "humming" sound, similar to the grunt of a tiger. Even standing on the bamboo leaves, Qingxing could feel the ground trembling—the swamp seemed to be angry.
"Hurry up."
This swamp is too troublesome. To completely destroy it would probably take a lot of spiritual energy. Qingxing used the Thunderclap Array just to catch it off guard and buy some time to escape.
Taking advantage of the brief moment while entangled with the bamboo root, she had already determined the direction in which the Taihua Token was shining the brightest. So, before the Earth God Bamboo could fully react, Qingxing quickly jumped onto the Endless Tree and flew southeast.
Bamboo roots followed her relentlessly.
Gudako peeked through the gap between Qingxing's arms and saw dozens of bamboo roots baring their fangs and claws, seemingly even more dangerous than before. The sound of air being torn apart grew closer and closer. Gudako turned around and shouted, "They're catching up—"
The second half of the sentence was drawn out and dissipated in the wind, because the green apricot suddenly sped up, and the strong wind made Guda's face melt.
After flying at high speed for a distance, the bamboo roots seemed to have reached their limit. The previously intertwined roots straightened instantly, wanting to move forward but lacking the strength, and could only lash the ground in impotent rage.
"Could you let me know next time you speed up?!" Gudako protested, then added, "But it was so exciting!"
"I'll definitely do it next time." Qingxing gradually slowed down, eventually walking slowly through the woods.
She took off the token from her waist and found that it had been flashing continuously since the beginning.
"There's something here." Qingxing tidied her messy hair and said calmly, "And there's more than one."
“I can tell,” Gudako replied.
It stared at the dense forest ahead, and saw a pair of eyes glowing with purple fire appear, followed by a second pair, a third pair, a fourth pair... until there were so many that it couldn't count them all.
“The second problem is coming,” Qingxing said, her left hand forming a hand seal, ready to strike at any moment. “However, there are many demons here, and the Mirror of Past Lives should be nearby.”
All we need to do is lure them out of their lair.
As soon as she finished speaking, the owners of those eyes gradually flew out from the shadows. Qingxing looked closely and saw that they had wings as hard as stone on their backs and protruding spines with several purple scales embedded on them—they were demonized dwarf rabbits.
The atmosphere was tense. Qingxing stood still, not making a move, while the group of demons stared with terrifying eyes and approached step by step.
Seeing that they had crossed the safe distance, Qingxing raised her hand, about to throw out the magic circle—
Swipe—
A sword aura flew from the side and behind, grazing the hair on Qingxing's face, and directly knocking down a large group of demons nearby.
Qingxing:?
She hasn't made a move yet, has she?
As if sensing impending danger, the dwarf rabbits scattered and fled at incredible speed.
"Junior Sister Qingxing, what a small world!"
Su Lin ran past with his sword, not forgetting to offer his "daily greeting" as he passed Qingxing.
"What do you mean 'enemies on a narrow road'? I think it's you who's shameless!" Guda rolled her eyes. "Pah!"
Now, the monster horde has been disturbed and scattered, and Qingxing's plan to use the rabbits to "make a nest" and find the Mirror of Past Lives has also failed.
She remained expressionless, waving her hand to shove away two dwarf rabbits that were oblivious to her presence.
Before the cyan light wave could even touch the rabbit's nose, another azure sword aura rushed in, slicing the demon in two on the spot, its purple blood turning into smoke and dissipating.
"Senior sister, let's see who hunts more monsters!"
Ring ring—
A clear, silvery bell rang out, and Qingxing turned her head to see Shen Wan running towards her with a smile... and Xie Yuzhou following closely behind her.
Qingxing:......
Alright, that will save her the trouble of looking for those two again.
"Senior Brother Su, you're here too?" Shen Wan, having fought her way up to Su Lin, greeted him with a smile. "What a coincidence!"
Upon hearing that familiar voice, Su Lin's shoulders trembled three times, but he ignored Shen Wan's words and swung his sword so fast that it became a blur, as if he was competing with Shen Wan to see who could use the sword more accurately.
Seeing him like this, Shen Wan got excited too. Xie Yuzhou behind her was not to be outdone. Several streams of spiritual energy shot into the sky and exploded. The demons were killed and screamed, completely losing the arrogance they had shown when facing Qingxing.
“I remember…” Gudako and Aoko stood in the open space, staring at the scene before them, feeling a little strange. “This doesn’t seem to be a demon-slaying competition, does it? The mission is to find the Mirror of Past Lives.”
As if unsure, it turned to Qingxing and asked, "Right?"
Qingxing replied calmly, "Yes."
She glanced down at the token and found that it had cooled down and returned to the texture of an ordinary jade pendant.
With the demon horde nearly wiped out, Qingxing felt there was no need to waste her spiritual power. So she quietly led Guda away, deciding not to disturb the three of them in their demon-slaying, and planned to find another opportunity to leave and search for the Mirror of Past Lives.
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