Split

The group only stared at Bai Yun. They could not believe that he had easily killed the plant demon that they could not kill even after such a long fight. So they simply stared at him waiting for an explanation.

"If you had such a powerful attack, then why did you wait until now to use it." Shadow one asked Bai Yun.

Bai Yun was gasping for breath, but his back was turned to the group so they did not see it. He had forgotten that these were not his old companions and rushed in thinking that they would be right beside him. The mistake nearly cost him his life. If he hadn't used his final trump card just now, he would certainly have died.

Bai Yun calmed himself down, took a deep breath and turned around to face the group. He did not want them to see just how tired he was in case they decided to turn on him in his weakness.

"As if I could fire attacks like that whenever I wanted." Bai Yun replied with a chuckle. "That was one of the talismans my father gave me. I wasn't sure if sword attacks were effective against plant demons, so I didn't use it until I was in great danger. Thankfully it worked. Or else I would be dead by now."

Shadow one nodded as he heard this. This explanation made sense to everyone. Bai Yun also saw a few of them give a soft sigh in relief. If he could throw such attacks with ease, then he was far too dangerous to be around.

Once they confirmed that the demonic plant was indeed dead, they decided to rest for a while. While swiftly getting to the bridge was important, getting there alive was even more important. In the present situation with most of the team severely drained of qi and tired and injured, it was dangerous to forge ahead. If another danger of the same caliber as the demonic plant that they had just fought were to come across them in their tired state, they would certainly lose a couple of people.

The group rested for six hours before they decided to resume their journey. Even though he had exhausted the most qi, Bai Yun had easily recovered by then. After all not only was his cultivation the weakest, his technique was also the strongest. So no one doubted his claim that he did not expend too much energy.

During the time that they had rested, Shadow One had climbed a nearby tree to ascertain their position. With a start, he realized that they had drifted slightly from the course they were on. Once they found the bridge closest to them, they started to walk in its direction after correcting the course.

The group walked through the forest carefully. Last time they got lucky. Plant demons weren't especially known for their stealth. If they were not careful, they could die if the next danger was better hidden.

Bai Yun's sight had turned for the better by now. Even though it still looked as if things were out of focus, things were much better than before. This filled Bai Yun with higher confidence.

As the group started to walk, a fog slowly covered their sights. It was already hard to see with just the darkness of the forest, but with the added fog, it became even harder. Soon it was difficult to even see each other. The group reduced the distance between them so as not to lose each other.

Even as the walked further the bad feeling that Bai Yun was getting only intensified. He knew that there was a problem with the forest, but he could not tell what it was.

As they proceeded further, Bai Yun's heart suddenly started to palpitate. "Stop." He shouted out to the group.

The group immediately came to a halt. In an instant, all of their senses tightened and they looked around vigilantly. But even after a moment, nothing appeared in front of them.

"What's wrong." Shadow one asked.

"I don't know." Bai Yun replied. "My subconscious is warning me. I think something is wrong. But I can't be sure what."

For a few moments the group looked around vigilantly. Suddenly shadow forty four exclaimed. "What's that sound?"

It was only now that the rest of the group realized that there was a soft murmur coming from all around them. The noise seemed to have appeared and raised itself so slowly that they did not realize it. Like a frog being slowly boiled alive, they only realized it too late.

"We can't see anything because of the damn fog." Shadow one replied.

"I may have something." Shadow forty four said.

He groped inside his robes for a while before he pulled out a small piece of paper. Members of blood moon were not like Bai Yun and did not receive a storage ring. Once he had the paper, shadow forty four threw the paper up into the air. Once it reached a good height, it slowly caught on fire and then exploded while releasing a huge burst of wind. Very quickly all the fog in a hundred meter radius of the group was dispersed. But the fog which was dispersed was quickly trying to get back.

But the group did not notice this. They were preoccupied with something else.

In front of their eyes, hundreds of red eyes dotted the darkness.

For a while the soft murmur stopped. With a start, the group realized that the murmur they were hearing was the sound of small footsteps. They gulped as the watched the scene outside with horror.

"Its a horde of black tread mice!" Shadow ten said softly, voicing what they were all thinking.

Black tread mouse was a species of demonic beasts. They were not very powerful individually, most of them only grew to first circle of the qi step. But they always acted in a group. And these groups could grow to absurdly huge sizes, even covering planets. And in a population of that size mutations were inevitable, creating variants which were much stronger than ordinary mice. Thus they could destroy and devour huge areas and leave them in ruin. After all, with enough numbers, anyone below the immortal step could be defeated. There were even legends of entire worlds completely run over by black tread mice.

So when the group saw the huge numbers of black tread mice in front of them, they were visibly terrified. It would be extremely difficult to escape from the horde. Especially since they had no idea how large the horde was.

For a short while, there was only silence. Then the entire horde of mice ran at them with a shrill cry.

The group immediately took out their weapons and started to attack them. But there were many problems. Not only were there far too many mice, but they were also not very big. So a huge number of them could surround the group at every second and attack every one easily. And since most of them barely went above their knees, it was difficult to properly defend too.

By now the fog that was dispersed had started to seep back in, impairing their vision. They could only see a few feet in front of them. Not that it mattered, the only thing around them was black tread mice anyway. So no matter where they turned, it was only to kill mice.

Bai Yun kept on slashing and slashing. Thanks to his great experience in battle, he was able to kill two or even more mice with each swing. Each and every one of his attacks attacked the weak points of the mice. But that did not mean that he was having it easy either. Soon the mice started to climb over the dead bodies of their brethren to get at them.

"This won't work." Bai Yun called out while continuing his assault. "There are too many mice. If we keep this up we will be overrun eventually."

"Any ideas?" Shadow one shouted back.

"The fact that the demonic plant was able to survive means that the mice have not completely overrun the forest." Bai Yun replied. "They must have their own regions. We only have to get out and they should stop attacking us."

"Should?" Shadow ninety asked.

"Well, these things are annoying." Bai Yun explained. "They just might decide to chase after us. In which case we might have to join hands with whoever has the other regions in their control to fight the mice."

The group agreed with Bai Yun's decision. It was not like they had a choice anyway.

As one, while fighting, they started to move towards the bridge. They figured that since they had no idea which direction was closest to the exit of the mice's territory, they might as well head there.

With each step that they took, they had to kill even more mice. To them, it felt as if they were wading through an ocean of mice to get to the other side.

Bai Yun soon lost sight of all the other sin his group. The fog was too thick to see through and they had all run off in different directions altogether. But he could still hear the sounds of weapons and the shrill cry of the mice.

"Don't get too far away from each other." Bai Yun reminded them. "If we lose each other, we would have to face much greater pressure."

When he said this the sounds of weapons slashing slowed down. Then the sounds seem to come closer towards him as if they were all converging on his position. Soon Bai Yun could even see some silhouettes through the fog.

But this only lasted for a short while. They all had to conserve strength as they did not know for how long the chase will last. Thus they tried to dodge as much as possible and only tried to attack when necessary. Thus they kept on getting farther and farther away from each other. Even though Bai Yun tried to keep them close to each other it was in vain. Soon even the sounds of weapons could no longer be heard, and he found himself all alone.

Bai Yun kept on running while attacking the mice. He then found that the number of mice seemed to decrease around him. Bai Yun was invigorated by the find and kept on running. He even used wind motion, not giving any thought to the amount of qi he had. His only thought was to escape from the mice for now.

The chase lasted for nearly an hour before it ended. Bai Yun was panting heavily while leaning on a tree. By the time Bai Yun found himself alone, he found himself in a completely unfamiliar part of the forest. The mice had retreated about five minutes ago, but he had kept on running just in case.

One he found his breath, he took a look around himself. Not finding any threats, he decided to rest for a while. He had expanded more than two thirds of his qi in the chase. Bai Yun laid down on the ground to sleep, as well as recover.

Six hours later, he finally woke up. Bai Yun had almost completely recovered by now. The training that he did in the gravity camber was finally showing its effects.

Once he did so, Bai Yun started to climb a nearby tree.

He had to find out where he was.

And get to the bridge at the earliest.