Chapter 547 - 544: Matrix Tree Forest

Chapter 547: Chapter 544: Matrix Tree Forest

"Be careful. This is a grove of Matrix Trees. It’s very easy to get lost here," Xi said, pointing ahead.

"These trees only grow in patches, and all the Matrix Trees in a single patch will look identical—their height, girth, the direction their roots run... Even their leaves are completely the same, as if they were copied."

"The spacing between each tree is also perfectly uniform. Their leaves are so dense that once you’re inside a forest of Matrix Trees, you completely lose your bearings and can easily get disoriented."

Li Luo nodded, took an electronic tablet from her bag, and began recording their current route.

If the naked eye couldn’t tell the difference, technology would have to do the job.

The two of them soon walked into the forest before them. The trees here were just like the ones before, completely stitched together, all their parts replaced by the organs of other creatures.

However, although the trees here had all been altered, they still looked identical. Even the stitched-on organs were exactly the same.

If one leaf on a tree was transformed into a green seashell, the same leaf in the same position on every other tree would also become a green seashell.

When one leaf fell, the same leaf on every other tree would fall at the exact same moment.

Staring at the strange scene was genuinely dizzying, making everything feel somewhat unreal.

Wisps of ethereal mist would occasionally drift through the forest, enveloping the two of them. Li Luo and Xi had no choice but to stop and wait for the mist to dissipate.

The direction the mist came from was never fixed. The wind on Senluo Island was always strange, utterly without pattern. The mist didn’t even drift in a straight line; sometimes it would turn around and float back the way it came.

The mist, sometimes thick and sometimes thin, combined with the swaying leaves, created an extremely strong sense of déjà vu, as if they had just seen this exact scene only to see it repeated moments later.

The perfectly repeated trees were even more disorienting. The dense leaves and the clouds above the Sky Island blocked the sun, making it completely impossible to rely on natural cues to find their way.

The distance between each tree was identical. It seemed that as long as they walked in a straight line following the trees, they wouldn’t stray. But as they walked, they would find themselves strangely veering off, unknowingly drifting onto a different line of trees.

After heading deeper into the forest, the two became completely disoriented and lost their way. Fortunately, Li Luo had been holding the electronic tablet the whole time, and their route was displayed with perfect clarity.

"We’re almost there. I remember the administrator’s shelter is within this forest..."

"Really?" Li Luo looked at the electronic tablet in her hands, skeptical.

She had indeed been following the direction indicated on the tablet. Although their path was crooked, there were no major deviations. Yet they had been walking for so long without any change in their surroundings, as if they hadn’t moved at all.

"Look, the Matrix Trees up ahead are already different. That means we’ve reached another patch of them," Xi said, pointing to the trees in the distance.

Li Luo looked closely and saw that the trees there were indeed different from the ones around them, but only by a subtle margin.

"Those trees over there... they seem a little shorter."

"Yes."

Although it was only a subtle difference, it was enough to dispel Li Luo’s doubts.

’Finally, some change...’

The two picked up their pace and walked to the edge of the grove of shorter Matrix Trees. But just as they were about to take another step forward, the Block suddenly flew down and barred Li Luo’s path.

"What’s wrong?" Li Luo asked, curious.

What she didn’t know was that, inside the Block, Mo Ling was frantic with anxiety.

’We can’t go any further!’

In Mo Ling’s vision, what lay ahead wasn’t a grove of Matrix Trees, but—a graveyard...

Inside the trunk of every Matrix Tree was the corpse of a Healer!

As soon as they reached the edge of the shorter grove, Mo Ling had habitually extended his vision into one of the trees. The sight was staggering—inside the trunk, amidst the haphazardly assembled organs, was a withered, humanoid figure.

’Isn’t this a Healer? A Healer without its ball of light!’

Mo Ling hurriedly checked the other trunks and found that they all contained identical Healer bodies. Just like the trees’ exteriors, these bodies seemed to have been copied and pasted, down to the very last wrinkle on their skin.

’This isn’t a forest! These are just upright coffins!’

After seeing this, Mo Ling immediately had the Block stop Li Luo and Xi. Who knew what dangers awaited them if they walked into such a bizarre forest of coffins.

"What is it? Is there some danger up ahead?" Li Luo understood that the block stopping her so suddenly meant it must have discovered something.

Mo Ling controlled the Block, guiding Li Luo to the side of one of the coffin-trees.

Then, using teleportation, it peeled back the stitched bark of the coffin-tree, bit by bit, exposing the withered body inside to the two of them.

As the Healer’s body hidden within saw the light of day once more, both of them froze on the spot.

A headless body with its arms crossed over its chest lay silently within the coffin, like a mummy. It was surrounded by a disorderly mess of organs, and viscous pus oozed from the smooth-cut surface created by the teleportation, slowly dripping onto the ground.

Xi anxiously started to rush forward but was stopped by Li Luo.

"Don’t get any closer."

"That’s the administrator! That’s the administrator!" Xi said hurriedly.

"The administrator? How can you tell?" Li Luo asked, confused.

"The wrist! Look at his wrist! That’s a bracelet woven from Wind-Chasing Bamboo and Pot Bell Grass. Wearing that bracelet lets you tell directions in a Matrix Tree forest. I remember he always wore it. He was wearing it the last time I came to this island. I’m not mistaken!"

Xi said with great certainty, pointing at the withered body’s wrist.

’A bracelet?’

Only then did Mo Ling notice the inconspicuous bracelet on the withered body’s wrist. It had turned somewhat black, but he could still make out the material on closer inspection.

But that wasn’t the main point. Mo Ling expanded his vision again, peering into the other trunks. To his surprise, all the Healer bodies inside the trunks were wearing the exact same bracelet!

’How could this be?’

Mo Ling checked carefully several times. The style, the material—everything about the bracelets was completely identical. They were, without a doubt, the exact same bracelet.

’The Matrix Trees are identical, the Healers are identical, and even the bracelets on their wrists are identical?’

’This is the same Healer!’ A terrifying thought rose in Mo Ling’s mind.

’Could something be using the Matrix Trees to replicate the Healer? What do they want? Are they trying to steal the Healer’s healing abilities?’

But these Healers were incomplete; none of them had the ball of light for a head.

Mo Ling knew perfectly well that those balls of light were the source of a Healer’s power. The strange Healing Space was also hidden within them.

’Where did the balls of light go? Have they already been taken?’