Chapter 97 - 95: Terrifying Ambush
"Doudou, stop daydreaming! Let’s get out of the car!"
After parking and turning off the engine, Qin Xiaoxia scrambled out of the car. Seeing Doudou still leaning against the window and staring out at the road, he yanked him out.
Then, with a surge of Magic Power, he gave the rear end of Gou Junbao’s beloved car a kick, sending it rolling five or six meters away.
Doudou stared at Qin Xiaoxia, completely baffled.
"Cousin, what are you doing?!"
"What am I doing? Getting to work!"
A quick glance revealed that, aside from the highway, the area was nothing but fields. There was barely any traffic, but they couldn’t rule out the possibility of someone passing by. They had to hurry.
He clenched his fist, Magic Power surging between his fingers. Squatting down, he pressed a small hole into the road’s surface.
It was an effect created using a combination of physical strength and the corrosive properties of his Magic Power.
Seeing Doudou still frozen in a daze, Qin Xiaoxia was both annoyed and amused. But then he realized that he was likely the only one who had experienced that premonition.
"Hurry up and help me engrave the Secret Realm’s Technique! Who the hell knows what’s coming!"
He then quickly told Doudou about the sudden premonition he’d just had.
Doudou’s face went pale. His first instinct was to urge Qin Xiaoxia to run.
"Cousin, let’s just get out of here! We don’t know what’s coming! What if we can’t handle it?"
Qin Xiaoxia actually wanted to run too, but the feedback from his surroundings kept feeding him an eerie sense of "approaching, approaching."
It felt like a direct collision was inevitable.
Between being caught off guard and being prepared, Qin Xiaoxia chose the latter.
"Enough nonsense! Am I the kind of person who runs away from a challenge? You underestimate your cousin!"
"Get to work! I’ve only got two hands! You ’mix’ the Shaping Material, then press it into the lines I draw!"
As he spoke, Qin Xiaoxia set both hands to work. His right-hand fingers, like a carving knife, began to continuously etch a Technique pattern onto the only relatively flat section of the concrete road nearby.
Meanwhile, his left hand seemed to become an opening, emitting streams of Magic Power that hovered above the Technique pattern being carved by his right.
Seeing Qin Xiaoxia already in motion, Doudou didn’t dare argue with his cousin anymore. He scrambled over to the adjacent field and began pulling up patches of rice seedlings and other crops as if he were weeding.
Shaping Material was essential for creating an Engraving Array; otherwise, the Magic Circuits wouldn’t be able to last. The simplest and most basic form of Shaping Material was the fresh remains of living things, which were readily available here.
Doudou prioritized speed over quality. After all, his cousin’s Magic Power was high-quality. After all, this Technique probably wouldn’t be needed for long. And after all, they only needed to draw over the Secret Realm Power of the "Fall of the Red Demoness," not weave a whole new Secret Realm.
As soon as the uprooted crops came into contact with the Magic Power, Doudou began to softly chant in the Magic Language. He used his own Magic Power as a mixer, forcing Qin Xiaoxia’s Magic Power to fuse with the crops, transforming them into a substance resembling a "transparent glob of mud."
"Modo~in~saluoming~"
As the Magic Language emerged, Doudou felt his own pitiful reserves of Magic Power burning away at an alarming rate. He quickly pulled the Shaping Material and began filling in the lines Qin Xiaoxia was carving.
It was about five meters in diameter, forming a relatively regular circle. Unlike their last work, which had been meticulously planned and drawn out beforehand with chalk, this one, from its pattern to its materials, was the worst of the worst.
Nervous and frantic, Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou stumbled through the process, eventually completing the Engraving Technique.
Because it was a "concentrated work," the dense cluster of Technique symbols packed into a five-meter radius made the Technique Array look exceptionally substantial, and also dazzling to the eye.
In ten minutes, Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou somehow hadn’t made a single mistake, prompting Qin Xiaoxia to exclaim.
"A person’s potential is truly forged under pressure!"
Now, he felt confident. This was what it meant to never fight an unprepared battle.
Under the effect of its concealment, the Secret Realm Technique gradually faded, turning the road illusory once more, as if it had never been damaged.
Qin Xiaoxia regulated his breathing, waiting for the moment of contact.
He found himself missing Su Su. If she were here, she might have been able to divine what exactly was coming.
His surroundings seemed to have entered a hazy state, similar to the moment he made the Wish, pulsating with a strange rhythm that prevented Qin Xiaoxia from relaxing or losing focus for even a second.
Qin Xiaoxia still didn’t know that the approaching thing was the very same plant-like mutant monster that had so unnerved Tao Xingzhi and Huang Jiutian before—the one that had even been hit by a missile. Right now, both he and Doudou felt a degree of fear toward the unknown.
...
The Tree Shepherd continuously drew on small amounts of Magic Power to recover. It finally, albeit intermittently, managed to temporarily staunch the loss of its bodily fluids, its consciousness clearing for a brief moment.
It didn’t know how long it had been traveling underground, or whether it had escaped that dangerous encirclement. However, its current surroundings seemed somewhat more barren than other places; at least there weren’t native creatures everywhere.
Light! Nutrients! These were what it desperately needed now. As for other energy or soul matter, it wouldn’t dare hope for such luxuries in its current state.
The underground of this world wasn’t as comfortable as the Dark Realm. It felt increasingly oppressive and suffocating. Unable to bear it any longer, it wanted to reach the surface.
The last few dozen meters passed in a flash.
With a faint "POP~", a peculiar thorned vine shot up from the farmland beside the concrete road.
The wind picked up. The surrounding air currents seemed to form a strange confluence, leaving the Tree Shepherd somewhat puzzled.
At that moment, Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou burst out of the hastily made Secret Realm Technique, and the air currents instantly whipped into a gale.
’It came from underground? And it’s a plant? This is fucking divine intervention!’
Qin Xiaoxia roared internally as he leaped into the farmland. He touched the ground with one hand and aimed the other at the stunned Tree Shepherd’s location.
"Hades~Karon!"
The words of the Weaving Technique rang out. A red, "mountain"-shaped symbol was instantly woven as a thread of Magic Power flashed down his arm, lighting up beside the Tree Shepherd.
Meanwhile, the soil beneath it rapidly lost its moisture, drying and hardening within seconds to a point where not even an iron skewer could pierce it.
In that instant, the Tree Shepherd’s branches seemed to dance in slow motion. If it had eyes, its pupils would have surely constricted violently.
A hoarse voice, its tone of utter astonishment unmistakable, spoke in the Magic Language just before the flames erupted.
"Doiman!!!???"
Qin Xiaoxia understood that it had mistaken him for an "Elf."
And then.
"BOOM~~" Like an explosion, flames shot dozens of meters into the air, forming a spectacular pillar of fire.
This time there was no swamp gas from a Swamp Monster to burn, but Qin Xiaoxia was no longer the same person he was back then. There were flammable substances in the air itself, and he had long since researched several simple, easy-to-control options for his Reaction Technique. This time, he used two of them.
BOOM~
The air in that spot vibrated intensely, dispersing the flames. The thorned creature, though charred black all over, was wildly flailing its vine-like branches.
Vast swathes of Magic Power manifested around it in an eerie and sinister dark green.
All its branches cracked open, splattering countless drops of green sap as if they had been sliced by innumerable tiny knives.
"Casaraido~~~"
The Tree Shepherd was about to go all out. An unknown "Elf" from an Otherworld, a terrifying trap!
If it didn’t risk it all for a chance at survival, it would likely lose its several-hundred-year-long life today!
Qin Xiaoxia thought, ’Holy shit!’
’It’s a being that has Magic Power!’ This made things tricky. Although he hadn’t expected the last attack to kill it outright, his outstanding success in ambushing the Swamp Monster had clearly made him set his expectations too high.
This bastard was clearly about to use its ultimate move!
"Doudou, don’t wait any longer! Now!"
As the Tree Shepherd prepared for a life-or-death struggle, it suddenly heard the language of this Otherworld, and its sense of foreboding instantly peaked.
’It definitely wasn’t speaking to me. Which means the ambusher has a partner!’
"Ding Yi~Salanoman~"
From an unseen spot on the road, another magical voice rang out.
In an instant, a graceful red figure materialized from the void.
Within a radius of several dozen meters, countless interweaving illusions of light and magic seemed to appear, enveloping everything in the space in a fraction of a second.
"Salanoman!!!!???"
This voice was practically a despairing shriek.
The appearance of the woven Secret Realm completely shattered the Tree Shepherd’s mental defenses. The moment it was dragged into the Secret Realm, Qin Xiaoxia keenly sensed its Magic Power fall into chaos and begin to dissipate.
’I’m dead! I’m so dead!’ Other than this, the Tree Shepherd had no other thoughts.
P.S. Thank you to reader "Bu Shi Xiao De Xiaoxiao" for the 500-coin reward, and thank you to readers Blood Race Night Blade and Dragon Witch for the 100-coin rewards~~
If anyone finds typos, please point them out in the Chapter comments. I’ll do my best to fix them. One step at a time, I’ll slowly get back into the habit of proofreading after I write! Haha!