The dense, pitch-black mist wasn’t a poisonous gas.
The mont Lin Ye held his breath, he realized sothing was wrong.
The black mist was, in essence, composed of billions of minuscule particles, almost impossible to distinguish with the naked eye.
It was as if they had lives of their own!
The instant the particles touched the Shadow Scale on Lin Ye’s body, they were like sharks that had slled blood, frantically burrowing into the gaps of his Scale Armor!
A scalp-numbing sensation, as if he were being continuously pricked by countless tiny needles, spread across his entire body.
Lin Ye imdiately pulled back, creating distance.
The battle entered a strange cycle.
Lin Ye couldn’t kill these monsters.
Their bodies, even when hacked into several pieces, would be stitched back together in the span of a breath by countless black threads pouring out, allowing them to charge forward again, fearless of death.
But they couldn’t harm Lin Ye, either.
Their claws and fangs were nowhere near as swift or sharp as they had been in life.
The black threads and countless dark particles were also unable to penetrate his body, covered as it was by the Shadow Scale.
The battle had reached a stalemate.
But Lin Ye continued to carefully observe this legion of Zombie Beasts.
The coordination of these monsters was too perfect.
’It’s so perfect they don’t seem like beasts fighting individually. It’s more like they’re a single entity, directed by a single mind.’
Lin Ye launched a deadly surprise attack from the blind spot of a wolf-like mutant beast—directly behind it.
However, just as the tip of his spear was about to pierce the back of its head...
...the wolf narrowly dodged it, as if it had eyes in the back of its head!
At the sa ti, three other monsters from different directions attacked from three inconceivable angles, cutting off all of Lin Ye’s escape routes!
’This is no coincidence!’
Lin Ye’s gaze swept swiftly across the entire battlefield.
Soon, he noticed sothing unusual.
At the four diagonal corners of the battlefield, four smaller mutant beasts stood motionless.
They weren’t participating in the siege.
They just stood there, their hollow eye sockets watching every corner of the battlefield.
’They’re... lookouts!’
Lin Ye understood instantly.
’Through those four lookouts, these monsters have achieved a shared, 360-degree panoramic view with no blind spots!’
The thought of retreat surfaced in Lin Ye’s mind.
’There’s no need to keep fighting.’
’It’s pointless to get tangled up with these unkillable puppets.’
’I have to find the puppeteer hiding in the shadows!’
Lin Ye’s eyes suddenly turned icy cold.
The next mont, his figure blurred and turned illusory where he stood.
Phase transition!
At the sa ti!
Instant Body!
In the center of the encirclent ford by dozens of undead corpses, Lin Ye’s figure popped like a bubble and vanished into thin air!
He had completely disappeared!
For a brief mont, the movents of all the monsters froze.
They had lost their target.
Countless hollow eye sockets began to turn wildly, searching for any trace of the human, but their field of vision was empty.
Dozens of ters away from the horde of corpses, in the shadow of a massive, gnarled tree...
...Lin Ye’s figure quietly reappeared. He held his breath, concealing his aura to the absolute limit.
He had used Instant Body three tis to cover the distance of over ten ters.
He holstered the Star-Piercing Spear behind him.
The dim light was the best camouflage.
And now, his Shadow Scale’s Mimicry Skill had surpassed the environnt itself, allowing him to completely beco a part of the darkness.
The horde of corpses stirred for a mont.
After confirming that their target was completely gone, a bizarre scene unfolded.
The mutated beast corpses, which had been so ferocious just monts before, began to lt like wax figures scorched by high heat.
They all dissolved into pools of pitch-black sli.
Countless writhing black threads erged from the sli and, like a receding tide, quickly burrowed into the ground and vanished.
「A few monts later.」
The entire forest clearing returned to its original state.
Except for a few foul-slling black puddles on the ground, it was as if the brutal battle had never happened.
The forest once again fell into a suffocating, deathly silence.
Lin Ye stood in the shadows, lost in thought.
’A parasitic organism... absorbs Source Crystals... controls corpses...’
’These abilities aren’t like an animal’s. They’re more like so kind of plant.’
’No.’
The black mist that had ford after the porcupine corpse self-destructed flashed through Lin Ye’s mind.
’That black mist...’
’It was a lot like the spores of so kind of fungus!’
A more precise term surfaced in his mind.
’Fungus!’
’The mastermind behind this forest is very likely a never-before-seen Celestial Abyss Race with a vast mycelial network!’
’If that’s the case, killing it is an almost impossible task.’
’Its mycelium has probably already spread through every inch of soil in the Black Silk Forest.’
’As long as the mycelial network isn’t destroyed, it’s immortal.’
’How can I, all alone, fight an entire forest?’
’But... as long as it’s a mber of the Celestial Abyss Race, it has a common fatal flaw.’
’A deadly weakness they can’t possibly circumvent.’
’Source Crystals!’
’Without the energy provided by Source Crystals, no matter how powerful the creature, a mber of the Celestial Abyss Race cannot survive for long in Earth’s completely different environnt.’
’In that case...’
’I’ll just have to cut off your food supply!’
A bold and crazy plan quickly took shape and was refined in his mind.
...
The moon reached its zenith.
It was nearly midnight.
At this mont, less than eight hours remained until the end of the selection trial.
In the heart of the Black Silk Forest.
A pile of Source Crystals glowed with a brilliant, ethereal blue light, illuminating the area for several ters around.
Lin Ye sat cross-legged beside this pile of Source Crystals.
For the past ten-plus hours, he had worked almost without rest, like the most efficient prospecting Hunter, scouring every inch of the Black Silk Forest’s soil.
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