Killing the demon plant

The group stared outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was attacking them. The dark shadows in the forest made it impossible for them to identify what was attacking them. At the same time, the slithering sounds that replaced the eerie silence brought extra pressure on to the group.

Demonic plants were variants of normal plants. They would get affected by evil qi and come to life. Such plants were often mindless beings that lived to only sate its hunger.

Bai Yun peered at the place where the vine came from, waiting for the next attack. There was no way a demonic plant was going to let them go after only a single attack.

Suddenly Bai Yun's ears twitched as he heard something coming at them from the right side. It was a very faint sound, that anyone else would have missed. Without breaking formation, Bai Yun shouted out "Shadow Forty watch out." The place where he heard the sound from was right in front of shadow forty so he decided to simply warn him.

But just as he said those words, Bai Yun heard a wooshing sound from behind him. From his peripheral vision, he saw Shadow One flash forward in front of shadow forty and wave his sword. The next second, another vine was cut, and the uncut piece immediately slithered back into the shadows.

Bai Yun nearly cursed Shadow One in his mind but held himself back. A moment later, Shadow One came back to his position. But considering the fierceness he had left out with, his shoulders were slouched. "Sorry" he whispered as he came back into position.

The instructors at blood moon had told them the importance of staying formation many times before. When you sense something, you should inform the person concerned and not break formation. But being young, immature and full of fighting spirit, Shadow One forgot about it and immediately rushed out, breaking their formation. What made it even worse for Shadow One was that Bai Yun had responded perfectly to the situation.

As he returned back to his position, he glanced at Bai Yun. There was a complicated look in his eyes. But since Bai Yun was turned away from him, he did not see it. If he had done so, he would have seen the slight resentment deep in shadow ones yes. But they were buried deep indeed. Maybe not even Shadow one might have been aware of it himself.

Bai Yun's eyes continued to stare and glance all around him. He was not going to make a mistake in the current situation and end up as plant fodder.

Soon after that, the plant demon tried to attack them from various sides. But with Bai Yun and Shadow One's senses, they were able to see all of these attacks coming. Thanks to his earlier mistake, Shadow One did not lose his composure and properly directed the people to react. Due to the cooperation of the two of them, time passed quickly without any injuries.

A few minutes later, the plant demon seemed to have given up on the hunt. Even after waiting for a few minutes, they did not sense any new attacks coming. But this did not quench the fears of the groups, and only caused them to focus more instead.

In the dark forest, their vision was severely impeded, so all of them had to focus on various other senses to survive. So they were all focussed on their hearing to predict the plant monster.

But even after waiting for a long while, the group did not see any action from the plant demon. Just as they thought that the demon had left and their vigilance was starting to drop, Bai Yun heard something coming from behind him, straight in front of shadow one.

"Damn." He heard shadow one scream. Using his peripheral vision, Bai Yun looked behind him. In front of shadow one, he saw a mess of large collection of vines leaping towards shadow one. It seemed as if the plant demon had given up on trying to pick them off one by one and was now attacking in mass.

"Watch out for sneak attacks." Bai Yun shouted as he turned around and headed to defend the group. Now that the plant demon had decided to attack in force, it was no longer necessary to maintain a circular formation. But they still needed to be careful as the plant demon might use their distraction to its advantage. After all, it had the advantage in numbers with all its vines.

In an instant, the group had regrouped into a line and started to slash at the plant demon. Each of them maintained a short distance from each other, so as not to get in each other's way, but close enough in case they need to help each other.

Bai Yun used his sword to slash at the plant demon, but other than cutting down some vines, they seem to be completely ineffective. The plant demon semed to have an incalculable amount of vines and seemed to be able to recover easily.

"This won't do." Shadow one shouted. "If we keep this up, we will only get tired and will end up dead. We need to change strategies."

There was no need for him to shoot it out. Everyone could tell that was the case even without his reminder. But there was nothing that they could do due to the current situation.

"We need to find a weak point of the demon." One of them shouted. "All demonic beasts usually have a weakness in their mouths. It should be the same for demonic plants too. We simply need to find a way to get its mouth open."

Everyone knew about this. But the only way to get the beast to open its mouth would be to get eaten. And there was no way any of them would be stupid enough to offer themselves up as bait.

Bai Yun kept on thinking about this problem even as he fought. Since he was well versed with fighting multiple enemies, and with the terrifying power of simple sword, he was able to easily keep the vines at bay even with his blurry vision. But he knew that he could not allow this to continue. After all, the rest of them came from blood moon. If the situation turned for the worse, he might be sacrificed as the outsider of the group.

Suddenly the noises of fighting were drowned out by a scream. From the edge of his sight, Bai Yun saw that shadow sixteen was falling to the ground. A vine had slipped through his defenses and he had been captured by the plant demon.

But not a single one reacted. Even though they could all probably save him from the plant demon, they decided to use him as the bait to draw out the demon instead. There was no time for chivalry in the face of death. Besides this was the best plan to save all of them.

"Does anyone have explosives or a single powerful attack." Bai Yun shouted.

"I have explosive talismans." Shadow one shouted back.

"Great." Bai Yun replied. After thinking for an instant, he laid out his plan. "When the demon appears, I will use an area attack and open up a path for you. Use that chance to throw the talisman at the demon."

"Shadow ten I need a moment free to use my attack. Make sure you cover me at that time. If I get distracted I would fail, and we will lose our one chance."

Shadow one and shadow ten nodded. They knew about the importance of the task. If they failed to kill or severely wound the enemy, they may die here.

The group watched as the plant demon slowly pulled shadow sixteen to it. With one less person in the defense, it was much harder than before.

Suddenly the middle of the group of vines started to spread out. In there, a small reb bulb appeared. As the group watched, the small red bulb became bigger and bigger in front of their eyes.

When the red bulb became the size of a person, it suddenly opened with a roar. The bulb opened up like a flower with five red petals. But instead of a beautiful, it was a terrifying picture. Sharp shark-like teeth lined the edge of each petal. In the middle of the flower was a big gaping hole from which a long tongue darted out. Along with the mouth, a foul smell of something decaying was spreading. By now shadow sixteen was near the monster's mouth and was desperately struggling to escape. Due to the danger he was in, he hadn't heard Bai Yun's plan.

"Shadow ten cover me." Bai Yun shouted. Right after that, he completely threw away his defense and focused all on nothing but his sword. Shadow ten was prepared for this and quickly stepped in. But he was finding it difficult and was barely holding the vines back. It was obvious that he could not do this for a long time.

As Bai Yun stood there a silvery glow slowly started to appear at the tip of his sword. In three seconds the tip lit up brightly.

Bai Yun ignored the vines that were coming at him at thrust his sword in front of him. "Rain in the moonlight!" He shouted as he thrust his sword forward.

In an instant, the region in front of the group was lit up by sword strikes. hundreds of sword images appeared and disappeared in an instant. As the group watched, the vines of the plant demon were split apart rapidly by the attack, along with a painful roar of the demon. In front of their eyes, a path seemed to appear that led directly to the demon's mouth.

Shadow one did not waste even a second. Even before the sword shadows disappeared, he ran at the mouth of the demon. He sharply turned and grabbed shadow sixteen, who had almost become plant food, with his left hand. At the same moment, while he was turning, he threw a paper into the mouth of the plant demon. He then leaped back toward the group with all his strength. Just as he passed, the place that he had been standing at was once again covered by vines.

Just as he landed among the group, there was an explosion behind them. A second later a powerful blast of wind hit them, knocking the air out of some who were not prepared for it. Since the plant demon hadn't closed its mouth, the shockwave also escaped through its mouth.

Once things had calmed down, the group looked back at the plant demon, only to find that it had not died yet. It was struggling but it was still alive.

Bai Yun frowned when he saw this. Plant demons were truly annoying to kill. They had great vitality and no particular weak point.

He took a deep breath and ran into the demon's close quarters ready to attack it before it recovers from the explosion. The rest of the team was not able to react quickly enough and only watched as he ran in.

Suddenly the demon roared once again and attacked again in rage. In an instant, Bai Yun was once again covered with vines attacking from everywhere. Just as the rest of the group were about to make a move, a sharp slashing noise reverberated throughout the place. The plant demon went still a second later.

As the group watched, the vines of the plant demon started to fall down one by one. Soon the field was clear. What they saw stunned them.

Bai Yun standing there, in the middle of the plant demons corpse. The mouth of the demon was only inches from him. His clothes were torn in multiple places. He had a few blood stains on his body, but none of his injuries seemed lethal. Most of the blood on his body was from the plant demon anyway.

But the demon was split in two. It was clearly dead. In fact, there was a deep gash on the ground that coincided with the wound on the plant demon that stretched out a few meters behind the demon.

The team just stared at Bai Yun, not knowing what to say, their silence indicating their shock.