Badge in Azure

Chapter 133: The Dangerous Forest (Part 2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The sky within the hell of the god’s punishment was always overcast. There were no days, no nights, and no seasons. Whenever a volcano erupted, the glow from the lava would light up the sky, and the plants would absorb the energy aggressively as they tried to grow as fast as they could. There was a forest at the edge of the volcanic region. This forest was able to absorb the most energy, and thus thrived the most. This place was extremely similar to the demonic realm, only there was no crimson sun.

Nailisi stretched her body lazily. Her white leather top had grown greyish, and had soon overlapped with the colors in the interdimensional space. Her silhouette became unclear, and from afar, one could not even tell that there was a demon hiding on the roof of the barracks.

Producing war puppets was not a difficult task, and a Grade 4 mage could already do it very well. What was more, Lex was at the pinnacle of Grade 5, so it was not a problem for her to produce thirteen war puppets at once. However, the room was tiny. Being the commander’s room, it could fit up to ten men, and these thirteen war puppets had already nearly filled up the whole room.

Sika had been waiting by the door for a long time before Saleen and Lex came out.

“Saleen, how was it?” Sika asked. She had grown anxious after waiting for so long.

“They’re done.”

Saleen had not even finished speaking when a column of war puppets walked out of Lex’s room. These puppets were shorter than two meters, and the upper halves of their bodies had human features with heavy metal armor whereas their lower halves had features belonging to wolves. They had four legs and razor sharp claws. As these puppets were perishable and their claws were long, their claws would go through a massive amount of friction while gripping onto the ground for an extended period of time.

The lower halves of these puppets had armor as well. Their helmets were sealed and they had metal gloves on both of their hands to cover their fingers. The puppets only had four fingers so that each finger could be stronger and wield more power.

They held metal shields on their left hands while their right hands held curved knives with wide blades and serrated ends. Each puppet also carried one javelin on its abnormally strong back. The javelins were less than one and a half meters long, and had been made solely from metal. If the javelins had been given to humans, only warriors like Sika who possessed inborn strength would have been able to throw them.

All thirteen war puppets walked in an orderly manner out to the perimeter of the camp. They would take up the task of being the security guards for the camp.

“Everyone, let’s take a break tonight. We shall set off tomorrow,” Lex announced. Then, she took the alchemy binoculars from Holzer and flew up into the air. Lex flew up into the air for more than four hundred meters before she was no longer able to control the air flow. A Grade 5 mage was able to use magic props to fly, and Lex was using the colorful mage robes she wore in order to do that.

In order to cross the forest, a path that was relatively close to them needed to be found. Lex raised the binoculars and started looking around in midair. In the Myers Mainland, it was common for forests to span over one hundred miles. Lex was not trying to find the end of the forest. Instead, she was trying to find a road that all of them could take.

The growth of plants in this hell were highly regulated, and even the arrangement of their leaves seemed to follow the principles of magic formulae. Since there was no sunlight here, the leaves on the plants were accustomed to absorbing elemental energy. Lex silently noted the arrangement of the trees from every angle before landing back on the ground. She then began her analysis using the Figaro formula.

The thirteen war puppets loyally stood guard around the camp. The camp was covered in darkness, and everyone could have a good rest tonight. Once they entered the forest, it was possible that nobody would be able to sleep peacefully, even if the war puppets stood guard.

When everyone had rested for ten hours, Lex dispersed the space of darkness and put away the two metal discs in her god’s ring. Saleen had slept well, and it was only now that he received command over three war puppets. Then, he worked together with Lex to tear down the camp. As he tore down the structure, Saleen familiarized himself with the controls of the puppets at the same time. He realized that it was fortunate that he had modestly said that he could only control four puppets. Because of that, Lex had only given him three war puppets after taking the witcher spider into account.

It was much more difficult trying to control war puppets compared to the witcher spider. The spider was small and the magic array inside of it was simple, and achieving victory with it was completely reliant on the attributes of the materials used in its creation. Even though the war puppets had four legs, it was extremely difficult trying to maintain their balance.

Saleen felt ashamed. The task that he had thought would be very simple to accomplish had now become a burden to him. All of a sudden, Saleen lost control of one of the puppets, and he grew frightened. He immediately felt Nailisi take control of that puppet.

Soul ability?

This technique was brilliant. Saleen was extremely relieved, as it was far easier controlling just two war puppets.

The war puppets would not become tired as they relied on magic nuclei for power. Very soon, the camp was broken down into various sizable spare parts, and Lex stored all of them into her god’s ring. Thereafter, Lex took out five cloaks and gave them to everyone.

“If anyone gets lost, just pull the hood over your head. It will open a magic array that transmits sound. However, in the forest, I can only detect sounds up to a distance of roughly five hundred meters away. That means that when two magic arrays are opened at the same time, sound will travel for one mile.”

Saleen took the cloak and put it on. The texture of the cloak was pleasant, but strictly speaking, this was not a piece of magic equipment, so its only function was that it would not affect spell casting. Saleen’s magic robe had three permanent spells on it: the Invisible Shield, the Fire Ring of Resistance, and the Potency spell. These three were not Water Magic, so they needed to be activated by Saleen’s belt which was fused with magic nuclei. If Saleen wanted to cast the Fire Ring of Resistance, this normal cloak that Lex had given him would be destroyed by the fire.

Lex demonstrated the usage of the magic array once. Then, she pulled her hood up and said, “Let’s go.”

The six of them did not split up. The thirteen war puppets formed a security bubble around them. Lex walked in front while Saleen and Nailisi walked at the back, controlling the three war puppets.

Now that Saleen understood how precious his magic chords were, he only activated the Invisible Shield spell found on his magic robe to guard against any unexpected events. It was not really possible to travel quickly within the forest, so there was no point in casting the Windspeed spell. The person with the weakest physique in the group had to have been Saleen, but even so, he could still walk twice as fast as the average human.

The purple forest grew closer and closer to them as they advanced forward. The wind was weak, and there were no chirps from bird or insects. Only the rustling of the giant tree leaves could be heard. The six people and thirteen war puppets took around twenty minutes to get to the fringe of the forest.

The trees in this forest did not have vines unlike the ones they had seen before, and there were many more leaves in the tree canopy. Almost every tree was as thick as three to four people hugging, while the thickest one was as thick as ten people hugging one another.

Lex sent four war puppets into the forest first while she stopped next to a large tree. Then, she bent down and grabbed some soil, rubbing it in her palm. As the soil fell from her hand, her white magic glove remained as white as it had been before.

“How is it?” Saleen knew that Lex was investigating the special characteristics of the forest.

“The moisture is adequate. There must be frequent rain in here. There are also traces of feces from magic beasts and insects. Be careful, the insects in this forest must be larger than normal.”

Larger? Everyone thought of the giant mosquitoes. Even though the giant mosquitoes had been weak, their razor sharp mouths could pierce through metal.

“I just hope that there are no man-eating ants here,” Saleen joked, but Lex turned around and glared at him.

Saleen also felt that his words had been uncalled for, as Holzer and Baimeng now looked terrified. Man-eating ants were special creatures in the Myers Mainland, and they were found in the Purgatory Desert. These ants were considered Grade 1 magic beasts, but even a Grade 6 magic beast could be swallowed up by an army of man-eating ants.

Lex turned and entered the forest. The lighting in the forest was still dim. Lex did not use illumination magic, instead casting a Fluorescence spell. This was a Grade 0 spell that was Saleen’s forte as well. This spell would cause almost no elemental fluctuations at all, and the area of illumination was not large.

Apart from the four war puppets who were scouting in front, there were three war puppets to the left, right, and back who were on guard. The six of them did not slow down their speed of advance. Also, the growth of the plants at the edge of the forest could not have been considered flourishing at all.

The four war puppets had advanced for about two miles when a bobcat-sized magic beast sprang out in front of them. This beast had the face of a wolf and had bristles all over its body. Its metal-like tail was similar to that of the beasts that had appeared back at the camp. This beast then charged into a bush on the other side of the path and vanished in a flash.

“The magic beasts are beginning to appear,” Lex warned softly. Holzer and Baimeng immediately drew their swords and gripped them in their hands.

As the six of them went deeper into the forest, all kinds of bushes began to appear. Occasionally, they also saw those plants which could become tentacles. Lex controlled the puppets and carefully planned their paths of advance, making them go around the dangerous trees.

After advancing for about ten miles, they could only see shrubs, vines, and long grass around them. The war puppets began using their curved knives to create a path for Lex and her team.

The serrated edges on the curved knives could easily cut the tough vines and weeds. With the puppets opening a path, everyone felt more relaxed. However, Lex had to cast a black fog in order to conceal the forward scouts.

With a whoosh, a colorful tiny snake pounced from a treetop and sank its fangs into the neck of one of the war puppets. That war puppet had a helmet, and its neck had a layer of metal that was as thick as a finger. A single bite from that snake had destroyed half of that metal layer, and a hole had formed via corrosion.

The snake twisted its body, trying to slither into the hole. A war puppet to the side swung its curved knife and chopped the snake into two. The snake then fell onto the ground. If the snake had bitten into the neck of a human, that human might have been dead by now.

The war puppets traveling to the side had met trouble too. The three puppets had been facing difficulty trying to move forward between the groves, so the first puppet had tried to open a way by slashing apart a vine. In front of the vine had been an empty space, and in the middle of it was a puddle of water. The puppet had taken a step into the puddle and caused tens of thousands of minute bugs to fly up. These bugs had then charged towards the puppets.

These bugs had disgusting dark red bodies, and their bodies had a network of protruding structures which squirted sticky liquid. These bugs lived beside the puddle and survived on animals who came forward to quench their thirst. The first puppet was very soon engulfed by those bugs.

The other two puppets did not try to help. Instead, they turned around and ran away. Then, there was a flash on the surface of the first puppet, and a fire started burning.

This was a Grade 0 magic array, burning magic. Real magic arrays could not be added onto the bodies of low-level puppets. The attack power of the burning magic was very low, and if these bugs had high magic resistance, this magic would not even cause any harm to them.