Monarch of Evernight - Chapter 1075

Chapter 1075

Chapter 1075: A Forest Free of Secular Desires

One side of the forest connected to the Pond of Life . Even inside the forest, Qianye could still sense that invisible boundary . There was no animal within a thousand meters of him, only a variety of plants that he could not name, weaving together to form a dense, near-impassable curtain .

The large aquatic beast in the Pond of Life had shown itself, but there was no telling if it was the most powerful being . The six-armed giant had sealed off the exit on the other side of the forest, and although Qianye had no idea what it was planning, it couldn’t be anything good .

However, the forest wasn’t a place he could remain in for prolonged periods . In addition to the tens of thousands of insects, the creatures living there weren’t easy to deal with, either . For instance, there were small snakes as thin as chopsticks that completely blended into the environment . They moved as quick as lightning, and even Qianye was bitten a couple of times .

These serpents possessed a powerful toxin that numbed Qianye’s entire body after just ten seconds or so . Even his blood core started beating slower, and his blood turned stagnant . Fortunately, the dark golden blood energy was the bane of all poisons . Auric flame blood surged out of his blood core and incinerated the venom in his system . The congealed blood was then expelled in the form of a mouthful of black blood .

Only after being poisoned did Qianye view these little snakes seriously . And this was Qianye—any other vampire, even one from the twelve old clans, would not last long under the effects of this poison .

In addition, these snakes were extremely resilient . Qianye actually failed to crush them on the first attempt after being bitten and had to exert a bit more strength before he was able to shatter the target .

These snakes were just one of the thousands of creatures in the forest, and they weren’t the most dangerous, either . Qianye had seen a small, glowing snake coiled up on one of the tree branches . Not only did the serpent not hide itself, but it had even made itself more eye-catching and visible from a good distance . Qianye naturally took the long way around this creature and avoided stepping into its territory .

In addition to snakes, there were lizards, rats, weasels, and all kinds of strange animals . The one thing they had in common was that they would be quite a bit of trouble when provoked, and most of them carried various types of poison . There was an unassuming weasel that wasn’t poisonous, but it could gnaw through anything as though biting through apricots, even leaving two deep fang-marks on East Peak . Thereafter, Qianye would always avoid this animal and try his best not to provoke it .

Qianye wondered whether the vampire Holy Son would be able to leave this place alive if he were to arrive here accidentally . Perhaps only an arachne like Basil would be suited to survive in this place . But then Qianye shook his head after recalling how big the spider was . Such a big target would be easily devoured by the insect swarms .

Qianye wasn’t having an easy time here, either . He finally found an empty space under a large tree, cleared away the shrubbery with his sword and sanguine flames, and finally sat down to rest . He had to maintain a thin layer of flames around his body to keep the insects away .

Qianye heaved a sigh of relief after finding a hiding spot; he would finally have time to observe his surroundings . Some insects started to gather around him before long, but they didn’t dare approach due to the flames . Soon, they had woven together to form a thick, furry layer on the ground .

Now, Qianye didn’t dare retract his sanguine flames . Fortunately, he had an abundance of essence blood at the moment, enough to last him half a month or so . Even if he didn’t have enough, the creatures in the Great Maelstrom were just full of essence blood if nothing else . A random Life Plunder would fill him up to the point of exploding .

Qianye noticed, after running through the forest for a good while, that the creatures he had encountered were different . Every small area would have its own characteristics—even the seemingly identical trees were actually different in structure and bark veins . After careful observation, one would find that there were actually two types of trees .

When Qianye’s eyes ran over a rock, he noticed that it was covered by a layer of purplish-green moss . He walked over and studied it carefully for a good while, finally confirming that this was Dragon Scale Moss, a key component of special military-grade stimulants . It was used in very small amounts but a key component nonetheless . This big patch of Dragon Scale Moss was enough to produce hundreds of special stimulants . Such drugs were only available to high-ranking officers from special forces like Red Scorpion . Other squads had never even seen them before .

This patch of moss was valuable, but not to the point of being priceless . Despite that, a patch this size would definitely fetch an extraordinary price .

The Dragon Scale Moss wouldn’t take much space, so Qianye carefully scraped it off and packaged it . He had used up some of his supplies while running from the six-armed giant, so there was now some extra space inside Andruil’s Mysterious Realm . After checking his spatial gear, Qianye placed the Dragon Scale Moss inside . This harvest would allow several hundred high-ranking officers of the empire to survive .

After stowing the moss away, a patch of berry trees with razor-sharp thorns caught Qianye’s eyes . He fished out his dagger and shaved off some of the bark, revealing a tender golden yellow underneath . The stalk of the plant was dotted with silver speckles, which confirmed that this was a famed medicine known as the Starry Sky . The soft branches of the Starry Sky could be refined into an extremely powerful anesthetic, and the plant itself was also a poison . Its main use was to extend one’s life . As long as the victim wasn’t dead, the medicine could keep his life hanging from three to five days . Starry Sky could be applied in a variety of situations and was definitely an herb on the same level as Dragon Scale Moss .

After these two discoveries, Qianye began checking his surroundings in greater detail . In the end, he found a dozen or so medicinal ingredients of differing effects .

One could easily tell how valuable the poison from those fist-sized mosquitoes from before was . It would surely be made into several medicines with powerful effects . As for the small snake that had bitten Qianye, its flesh, blood, poison, and gall were all invaluable . Even its spine was so sharp and hard that it could be made into spearheads . One could slap a metal barrel onto it and make it into a grade-seven gun .

In short, this forest was full of treasures at every step . Qianye would’ve discovered even more if only his experience and knowledge wasn’t limited to his training at Yellow Springs . He had never learned about medicines and minerals in-depth . He was quite good in biology, though, but that was for finding the most efficient way to kill .

Even so, Qianye had managed to recognize several medicines and resources . There was still a whole lot of them that he couldn’t recognize . Any random segment of this forest was home to thousands of different species . Who knew how many of them there were as a whole?

Here, small creatures like ants and bugs lived in clusters that were dozens if not hundreds of times denser than the outside world . It wasn’t just the bugs and animals; this applied to the plants as well . According to common knowledge, such distribution would make acquiring nutrition a challenge . The food chain dictated that everything would return to the soil in the end .

No matter how fertile the soil, it wouldn’t be able to sustain such a cluster of absorption . The land should’ve turned barren in just a few years . No one knew how long the Pond of Life had existed, but the Empire had found it fairly soon after arriving in the Great Maelstrom . Several hundred years had passed since then, but there was no change at all .

The only problem was that the Pond of Life was too dangerous, and it treated both the weak and the strong equally . After some initial attempts, the Empire would only come for the Marine Lotus and a handful of other rare medicines, leaving quickly afterward . No one had set foot before in this forest, and Qianye felt that it was a land of no return for both humans and dark races .

Qianye was the first to dive into this thicket . He really had no other choice with the six-armed giant hot on his trail .

This phenomenon was definitely abnormal, but then again, things in the Great Maelstrom could hardly be explained by common sense . Now that he had nothing to do, Qianye began to ponder: was this forest, and even the entire Pond of Life, naturally formed? If not, then what was the creator’s intention?

Qianye continued his search while thinking and found a fair number of strange things, things he did not know the usage of . He didn’t dare venture too far out because he would have to scorch every area he visited with sanguine flames . Even though this process would unintentionally destroy some of the treasures, he would rather risk it than get bitten by something hiding in the soil .

Every once in a while, Qianye would climb to the top of the tree and look around . He could still see the six-armed giant’s figure far off in the distance . It simply stood there, glancing over at the woods from time to time, and then back in a certain direction . It had to be a tough job for this violent monster to stand quietly for an entire day .

The giant’s state made Qianye rather uneasy .

Coming down from the tree, Qianye began moving toward the Pond of Life . The closer he moved to the water, the stronger his urges became . However, there were only snakes, rats, and insects here, and none of them were species Qianye could mate with . So, it became even easier to resist the temptation and pressure .

The Pond of Life was a dangerous place, but for humans, the forest was a holy land free from secular desires . The only issue was that only a handful of people would survive after entering the forest .

The aquatic beasts in the Pond of Life were rather gentle in nature, compared to the violent six-armed giant . The only reason they had started fighting was because the giant was being a nuisance with his hitting and smashing . Qianye wasn’t naive enough to think there was no danger in the water . Disregarding everything else, what was that enormous creature eating?

The Marine Lotus, reportedly, grew close to the shores of the lake . Otherwise, the specially-trained experts of the Empire would never be able to reach them . Since he had already arrived at the Pond of Life, Qianye decided to try his luck as well .

He had never seen the Marine Lotus . Qianye glanced at the scattered islands in the Pond of Life and felt a scorching urge in his heart, which he quickly suppressed . He hadn’t lived enough just yet, and had no intention to test whether he would make a sufficient meal for those giant creatures .

The six-armed giant didn’t have to remain in place for very long before countless two-arms appeared over the horizon . There were also hundreds of four-armed natives scattered among them .

As the tide of natives moved toward the forest, Qianye finally understood what the six-armed giant was waiting for . Its plan was to drown the entire forest with two-armed soldiers and have the four-arms hunt Qianye down .

This was doubtlessly a good move because Qianye had never seen so many two-armed people . They arrived like a black tidal wave, rushing resolutely forward and devouring everything in its wake .