Wolfpack

Everyone shared a similar reaction to Han Sen. As soon as they saw what lay ahead, they all wished to flee.

They ran into the invisible barrier behind them face first. Many of their faces even started to bleed, due to the speed at which they tried to escape.

When they pierced through the veil of white, they were met with the sight of a number of vicious wolves that stared back at them with dirty green eyes. It was as if the wolves had been awaiting their arrival.

Unable to go back, it was clear they had no choice but to engage the wolves and fight for their lives.

Han Sen remained silent amongst the rallying cries of his teammates, and he simply maintained his clutch on the Bulkwark Umbrella as he lifted it against the wolves that leaped towards him.

The wolves charged with a greater ferocity and a more intimidating presence than a mania-driven bull. Their fangs and their nails were like blades, itching to sink into the first victim they could.

Han Sen held the umbrella to block the initial strike of the first wolf that came for him. The strength and force of that wolf sent him stumbling back quite a bit before he regained his composure.

Fortunately, the umbrella was as hardy as it always had been. It held strong and did not break.

But it was clear to the crew that the wolfpack was in a league above them. As much as they all wished to stand their ground and battle the wolves, they knew it would be a futile fight.

Han Sen acknowledged this to be true, as well. As he held a defensive posture, he used his Dongxuan Aura to scan his immediate surroundings and identify any route or passage that might allow him to escape.

Then, he took off running into the wolfpack. With his Dongxuan Movements, he managed to sidestep and evade every attack that came for him, until he was clear of the pack and could duck into the clearing on the left.

He was racing towards a plaza that had held a number of statues. With everyone else engaging the wolves, drawing the majority of them away from Han Sen, he was easily able to make it there.

When Han Sen entered the forest of statues, he took cover and began munching on as much fruit as he could. Slowly, his sacred geno points increased, and he cramped the muscles of his torso to speed up digestion.

After eating a hearty sum of them, his sacred geno point tally increased by quite a lot. He would be a lot more comfortable battling the wolves in such a condition.

from what Han Sen could tell, there was one person missing from the group of humans that were behind him, still fighting the wolves. That person was Mister Li, and as much as he might have wished to seek him out, Han Sen had problems of his own. Like coyotes trailing blood, the wolves had sniffed him out, and unless he got moving to secure his own safety, he'd be doggie chow.

After fleeing their snapping maws, however, Han Sen noticed something strange about the method they were hounding him. It wasn't as if they were trying to hunt down and kill the intruder; it was like they were pushing him in a certain direction.

Han Sen kept on running, regardless, and eventually, he came to a place that was empty of anything remarkable.

This was, of course, bad. It was a plaza devoid of anything, removing the possibility of him taking cover. At least amongst the statues that decorated the previous plaza, he could duck and weave and provide his enemies a harder time giving chase. Here, he was at a disadvantage.

But after gobbling down a bevy of geno fruits, Han Sen had earned himself dozens of sacred geno points. If push came to shove, he'd be shoving a lot harder now.

He looked to his left and right and noticed that more wolves were appearing, seeking to close in on him. If he wanted to turn around and return to the cover of the statues, or the teammates he had left behind, he'd have no chance to do so now.

Bracing himself for a fight, Han Sen closed his eyes. When he opened them again, however, he noticed the wolves were gone. They had stopped chasing him and withdrawn, but as for the reason why, he could not guess.

He turned to take a look at his past pursuers, and he saw them standing there, growling at him with their bared fangs on full display. It was as if they had now been stopped by an invisible barrier.

"They really were chasing me here; but for what purpose, I wonder?" Han Sen thought, as he viewed his surroundings.

He had reached a garden populated with strange botanical marvels. The things which grew there were crazy, and Han Sen first noticed this when he saw bunches of carrots that were dangling from trees. Strangely, they looked to have been formed from human brain-matter, dressed with a bit of greenery on top. He didn't know if he should have looked at it in wonder or in disgust.

Han Sen continued on, wandering through this garden of sickly delights. Blood and ghastly violence seemed to be the primary theme of decoration, for there were many intestinal-shaped plants and flowers running with blood.

They were all so weird, and the sight of them made Han Sen's skin squirm. He was extremely uncomfortable in this place, as any right-minded individual would be.

Strangely, however, Han Sen could sense the lifeforces of everything that grew there, and he noted there was nothing remarkable. He was detecting them to be ordinary plants, though he had never seen such gross botany before.

The wolves were still watching Han Sen tread the garden, so there was no chance of him returning the way he had come. But, not sensing any danger ahead of him, he wasn't too wary of walking forward into the deeper recesses of the grotesque place.

The mist was getting thicker, however, and it obscured much in the distance.

There was enough visibility to see what was in his proximity, though, and he could watch the plants become more gruesome and sordid the further he went. Eventually, he came to a tree with a man hanging from its branches. His arm, as weird as it was, was growing a number of ears like a fallen log bearing mushrooms.

But that really was the shape of the tree. There was no actual human body dangling from its rotten eaves; the tree had simply been shaped like that. Han Sen's skin crawled, like it was hosting a corpse-feeding party of maggots. After all, he was sensing them to be ordinary plants. They were this strange, but they shouldn't have been.

"Strange. Why are they so creepy and wild, yet so... weak and supposedly unremarkable?" Han Sen thought to himself.

Then, Han Sen heard a noise come from behind. He saw Hezhi approaching him, from out of nowhere.

Hezhi looked to be in an okay condition. He looked a little winded, but that was the extent of it. He was free from injuries.

"Hezhi, where is everyone else?" Han Sen asked.

Hezhi answered, "I don't know. I ran by myself. You're the first of the team I've seen in a bit."

Han Sen thought he spoke a little strangely. There was a monosyllabic tone to his speech, and so he took a couple of steps back.

"Give me all your geno fruit and I'll keep you safe," Hezhi stepped forward to say.

"And how can you keep me safe?" Han Sen realized Hezhi was still himself, but he had come to Han Sen for the riches he carried.

"This." Hezhi summoned a black metal wolf, and the marks upon it showed it to be a gold geno core.