Chapter 2587

He Lingchuan chose a dense forest at the valley floor, where the trees were low and sparse, with extremely short spacing, making it impossible for ordinary people to set foot. A stream, Xihe, flowed through the valley bottom, its gentle current softening the ground year-round, so that every step sank into mud.

"This place is not bad, it only needs a little renovation." He Lingchuan said to the small stone figure perched on Zhu Xiuer's arm, "It's up to you."

The small stone figure rubbed its hands, leapt down silently from the spider queen's shoulder, and sank into the earth without a sound.

Soon, everyone noticed the ground around them undulating slightly, like the gentle ripples on a calm sea.

Not far away, several trees had silently tilted halfway.

"Alright." The voice of the Earth Mother came from beside everyone's ears, "I have transformed this place into a Weak Water Marsh, where even goose feathers sink. You all have my stone fragments on you, so you can see where the mire is and float up if you fall in, but others won't be so lucky."

As soon as the words fell, the abnormal ground ceased, and the valley looked exactly as it had before.

But to He Lingchuan and the others, some patches of ground emitted a striking red light, warning them not to step there.

The nearest glowing spot was just over three feet away, but its surface showed no sign, appearing as ordinary grassland, the soil damp, with fallen dandelions even bearing a shoe print.

Dong Rui happened to have a thrush perched nearby, which, while preening its feathers, plucked out a soft one and gave it to him. So he tossed the feather onto that patch of grass.

How heavy could a single feather be? Even falling from midair, it would take a long while to drift down.

Yet, right before everyone's eyes, the feather slowly sank into the ground.

Finally, the ground closed over it, returning to its former state, with no trace left that the feather had ever been there.

Zhu Xiuer also grew interested, throwing out a strand of spider silk onto the ground. This was something that could drift away in the wind, but once it landed on the mud, it seemed to be sucked by an invisible force and slowly sank down as well.

"The mire has strong suction; anything that falls in struggles to climb out. Interesting!" Zhu Xiuer had just said this when another patch of mire in the distance let out a splashing sound.

"There's actually something in the mud pit?"

"Of course." The Earth Mother laughed, "When hosting guests, we must be thorough!"

Its strength lies in being able to turn barren wildlands into He Lingchuan and others' home ground in an extremely short time.

……

Half an incense stick later, rainbow light flew close in the sky, but only circled above without descending.

Within half an hour, more than a hundred additional rainbow lights arrived in succession, all perching on the southern hilltops.

The pursuers had doubled in number compared to before.

Cultivators ought to have fiery eyes and golden pupils, able to see through tree shadows easily, but this forest was shrouded in thin mist, so no one could see clearly. Someone in midair made a wind-summoning gesture, but it did not disperse, so they knew there was something mysterious below.

"Is it here?"

"According to the Heavenly God's instruction, Master Duan should be somewhere in this forest."

"I thought the enemy had fled far away, but I didn't expect it to be only fifty li from Yanxia Bay, and even the ground troops have arrived."

"Be careful, the enemy is no pushover; first send in the tunneling beasts to scout the path."

"Also, they have earth-escape techniques, so they might flee at the first opportunity. The army is setting up battle formations around the valley, prohibiting earth-escape arts."

"Ah? Setting up an earth-escape prohibition barrier in the wilderness, the effect……" The effect is limited.

"Uncertainty factors in the wild are too many; large battlefields usually don't bother setting up earth-escape prohibition barriers unless it's a case of many bullying the few."

"This is the order from above. Once the earth-escape prohibition barrier takes effect, we will attack."

Duan He Yun's antenna on his body mysteriously disappeared and then reappeared—who could not guess there might be a trap here? But the Spirit Essence Palace had issued the order, so everyone had to come.

"We can't just ignore the clues, can we? Master Duan is still waiting to be rescued."

As a result, with a force of 1,700 troops, they still had to detach 400 men to guard the formation bases. This mountain forest is vast, requiring at least ninety-odd formation bases, and even with 400 men guarding them, they are stretched thin.

Afterwards, over two hundred tunneling beasts and earthen puppets charged in.

The Spirit Essence Palace doesn't have much else, but this type of stock is particularly abundant. The more than twenty puppet masters controlling them were protected by the army in the center, advancing toward the forest.

Cultivators also rode various rainbow lights, weaving through the forest to launch a carpet-like search.

The forest in the afternoon was unusually quiet, save for the rising and falling roars of the demonic beasts.

Two cultivators flew to the stream's edge, when suddenly they heard the sound of trees snapping nearby, and were about to investigate when, without warning, their bodies lurched downward, and a powerful suction came from below, violently dragging them down!

Caught off guard, they plunged with a splash, sinking halfway into the ground in an instant.

"What is this? A mud pit?"

They threw lasso ropes at the small trees beside them, hoping to pull themselves ashore, but little did they know the mud pit seemed to harbor dozens of water ghosts, desperately gripping their feet and dragging them down.

"This is a quicksand pit! Get up quickly!"

But no matter how they activated their magical devices, they remained firmly stuck to the ground, unable to rise.

On the Weak Water, even birds struggle to cross, let alone flying cultivators and avian demons, who will be dragged down.

Fortunately, a few more cultivators arrived in time, grabbed the lasso ropes, and tried to pull them ashore.

This became a tug-of-war, a tug-of-war against the quicksand pit.

Six or seven cultivators pulled on those two, barely managing to inch them out bit by bit.

At this point, everyone realized this quicksand pit was the enemy's divine-ability trap, yet its power was astonishingly great.

Just as they were about to reach the shore, the grass beside them rustled, and two shadows lunged out, violently pouncing on the tug-of-war participants on the bank.

These were two crocodile-like monsters, but with sharper snouts, longer teeth, longer legs, and bodies covered in gray rock spots and spines. Usually crouched in the grass, they blended perfectly with the ground, but when they charged out, their tails moved like pile drivers, providing powerful propulsion.

When Guan Biao controlled Jingdu City, he once created monsters called Wu Ao using earth and demon corpses. The Earth Mother thought his approach was sound, and since the plains also buried vast quantities of bones, she used them to create many marsh beasts, especially suited to this environment.

The cultivators were startled and dodged, causing their grips to loosen.

Among them, an unfortunate one dodged too slowly, was bitten in the waist by a gray crocodile, and with a splash, fell into the mud pit.

Others wanted to rescue him, but the gray crocodile went into a frenzy in the mud pit, rolling wildly, making it impossible for anyone to get close.

In the blink of an eye, both man and crocodile sank to the bottom.

This seemed to sound the drum of battle, as the Spirit Essence Palace members entering the forest began to suffer from the terrain's hindrance. After all, the quicksand pits—or Weak Water pits—show no trace on the surface unless one steps on them, but by then it's usually too late.

Besides being hard to climb out of once fallen in, the struggles of those trapped in the pits serve as the best dinner signal for the nearby marsh beasts! They will come from all directions to surround the trapped prey.

The Spirit Essence Palace troops entering the forest numbered about a thousand, but they felt the number of these marsh monsters was nearly endless!