Chapter 120: What an Extraordinary Old Vine!

“By the way, have you seen Yaoyao? She went that way to look for you.” Before Xiang Nan could say anything, Xu Jiya continued asking.

“No. Has Big Wildcat still not come back?” Xiang Nan set Xu Jiya down and asked with a frown.

“She’s been gone for half an hour. What if something happened to her?” Xu Jiya was so anxious that she stamped her feet.

“It’s the middle of the night, and all kinds of dangerous creatures exist in the Spirit Void. Su Yao is alone, and it’s far too dangerous. Why don’t we split up and search for her?” Li Xiang was worried as well.

“Big Wildcat is stubborn. If she hasn’t found me, she’ll keep looking.” A bad feeling had also begun to rise in Xiang Nan’s heart.

He hurriedly flicked his hand, and several signal flares appeared in his palm.

“So you were prepared all along? If you’d taken them out earlier, we wouldn’t have gotten separated,” Li Xiang complained faintly.

Xiang Nan felt somewhat guilty too. He had actually forgotten about the signal flares.

“There’s no point discussing that now. The most important thing is to find Su Yao as quickly as possible,” Meng Qingwan suggested from the side.

“We’ll split into two teams. Xiaoya and I will search east, while you take Qingwan west. Once you find her, launch a signal flare. If we still haven’t found her after an hour, we’ll regroup at the camp and think of another plan.”

“Good. Let’s do that.”

With that, the four of them set off in separate directions to search.

In the Spirit Void at dead of night, the moon shone brilliantly, and the air was cold as water.

Su Yao wandered alone through a sparse woodland, her heart beginning to pound with unease.

“I clearly saw someone who looked like Xiang Nan enter this forest just now. How did he disappear in the blink of an eye?”

Muttering under her breath, Su Yao nervously continued forward.

“Xiao Nan… Xiao Nan…”

Her calls rang out sharply in the dark and terrifying forest.

The only replies were a deathly silence and a fear that grew heavier by the moment.

“Xiao Nan, don’t scare me. If you can hear me, answer me quickly. This place is really creepy.”

Although Su Yao possessed a cat’s night vision, being alone here—with no way to distinguish direction and not even the cry of a bird or the chirp of an insect—was genuinely spine-chilling.

Suddenly—

“Scrape…”

A strange noise came from behind her, as if something were being dragged along the ground.

“Who’s there?”

Su Yao’s heart tightened. She spun around. The forest was bleak and desolate, the ancient trees gnarled and twisted. Aside from fallen leaves and withered vines, there was no one to be seen.

After cautiously surveying the surroundings for a moment, Su Yao finally relaxed.

She wanted to turn back, but it was impossible to tell direction in the forest. All the old trees looked alike, even their spacing and density. What was she supposed to do?

In an ordinary forest, one could determine direction by observing the thickness of the foliage.

But the crowns of the trees here had grown in bizarre shapes, with no discernible pattern at all.

She looked up. The bright moon still hung in the sky.

“Looks like I’ll have to use the moon to determine my direction.”

Steadying herself, Su Yao set off toward what she believed to be the forest’s exit.

Yet the moment she took a step—

“Scrape…”

Another strange sound rang out, just like before. It was still the sound of something being dragged.

This time, she accurately determined that it was coming from behind her, to the left.

She turned around again, focusing on the ground in that direction.

Among the piled-up leaves, she found nothing except an old vine.

What puzzled her was that the vine looked strangely familiar. It had clearly been directly behind her a moment ago, so how had it suddenly shifted to her left?

Could that strange dragging sound have come from the vine?

Su Yao’s heart began to pound. She cautiously approached it.

Suddenly—

“Scrape! Scrape! Scrape!”

Dragging sounds erupted from every direction.

Without hesitation, a steel cable shot from Su Yao’s hand straight into the sky, lifting her entire body into the air.

Looking down, she saw that the several stones beneath her feet had somehow already been wrapped in numerous old vines.

The vines tightened with tremendous force, crushing the stones in an instant.

“What terrifying vines!”

By then, Su Yao had climbed onto an ancient tree. Looking down from above at the vines rampaging across the ground, she felt a lingering fear.

The Spirit Void contained many plants that had mutated through ancestral reversion, and they were even more terrifying than demonic beasts.

Once she saw that the old vines were responsible, Su Yao swept out her hand. Dozens of thunder orbs shot toward the vines like a downpour.

Then—

Boom, boom, boom!

The thunder orbs exploded in a chaotic barrage, sending leaves and splinters flying in every direction.

The vines that had been struck contracted violently.

A smug smile curved across Su Yao’s lips, and she was just about to leap down when the feet standing on the branch suddenly tightened.

Vines that had climbed up there at some unknown point had already coiled around her ankles.

The tip of one vine suddenly burst open, and sharp thorns stabbed toward her ankle.

The shock was immense. In desperation, Su Yao drew her dagger and hacked fiercely at the vines binding her feet.

At last, she severed them before the thorns could pierce her flesh.

But before Su Yao could catch her breath, a fierce gust swept in from behind.

She turned and saw several thick vines spinning rapidly toward her.

The tips of every vine had split open, their sharp thorns looking especially sinister and horrifying beneath the moonlight.

“This is bad! These vines are never-ending!”

As she complained, Su Yao swiftly transformed into a half-cat woman. With a lash of her long tail, it became a whip and knocked back the vines that had already closed in.

She then sprang forward, moving with speed so great that she seemed to teleport as she darted through the forest.

All Su Yao wanted was to reach the exit and shake off these maddening plants as quickly as possible.

Yet the entire forest seemed to have awakened.

Vines surged toward her from every direction, spreading across the sky like a tidal wave.

They wove themselves into a vast hunting net, trapping Su Yao at its center.

Su Yao grew frantic. There was no path ahead, while pursuers pressed in from behind.

While still airborne, she flung out handful after handful of thunder orbs.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

Explosions reverberated through the forest in an unbroken succession.

After she broke through the first vine net, another, even denser one immediately followed.

Even with a cat’s supernatural abilities, Su Yao moved with such agility that she seemed to teleport from side to side—so swift that even fourth-tier experts would have been left sighing in admiration.

Otherwise, she would have been captured helplessly in this inescapable net long ago.

…

Elsewhere—

Xiang Nan had brought Xu Jiya all the way west in their search. After crossing the grassland, they reached the edge of a forest.

“Brother Xiang Nan, could Yaoyao have gone into the forest?” Xu Jiya anxiously speculated.

“She probably wouldn’t. Going into a forest alone in the middle of the night would be tantamount to suicide. Big Wildcat may not be very clever, but she isn’t that foolish,” Xiang Nan said with certainty.

Anyone could see that the white mist gathered over this forest without dispersing. It was clearly extremely dangerous. Who would recklessly go in and throw their life away?

“That’s true. Even I can tell that there’s something strange about this forest. Yaoyao probably wouldn’t…”

Before Xu Jiya could finish speaking—

Boom, boom, boom, boom… boom, boom, boom, boom…

A series of explosions suddenly erupted from deep within the forest before them.