Mutation

The river was located to the east of East Stream Village, with nothing but the woods separating the two.

These woods were dense, but the area they covered was still considered relatively small.

If one knew their way around, it would only take less than ten minutes to traverse the woods and reach the river from the village entrance.

As for the forest past the river, that was a different story altogether.

None of the villagers had ever explored all the way to the end, but what they knew for sure was that past the river, the forest extended far and wide.

That's right.

Not just far, but also wide.

This was not exactly good news for the Mystic Cavalry.

After all, it only meant that their search radius would have to be that much larger.

Just as dawn arrived upon East Stream Village, the party similarly arrived at the river while concealing their presence.

The first thing they did was to check the opposite bank.

What they saw just about confirmed the assumption that they had in mind.

There, resting on the same tree, was a group of monkeys that were paying close attention to their side of the river.

To sit on the same tree and watch the same direction all day, every day...

Neither Zhao Yunxiao nor the members of the Mystic Cavalry could be considered experts when it came to monkeys, but it definitely did not take an expert to know that this was not normal behaviour.

Chu Han stepped forward without having to be told. With a flick of his wrists, several flags appeared in his hand.

Zhao Yunxiao was not surprised to see this.

As inner disciples, it was definitely not surprising for Mo Mian and Chu Han to possess spatial items of their own.

In fact, having gone on and completed numerous demon subduing missions along with the inner disciples, even the outer disciple members of the Mystic Cavalry had managed to save up enough to get their own spatial items as well!

Chu Han threw out the flags all at once, each of them flying towards a different spot in the woods and planting themselves firmly in the ground.

It was a well-practised technique to quickly create a simple array with array flags.

Even though these flags were physically apart, they were all connected to each other in the form of an array, with each flag representing a separate array node.

Chu Han channelled his essence energy into the one flag that had been planted in front of him, and every other flag immediately started fluttering in response.

A strong wind came about almost instantly, blowing hard and fast towards the other bank of the river.

Be it the fallen leaves, twigs, dirt, and even small stones that were on the ground, all of them were easily picked up by the wind, carrying them along as it blew across the river.

It was almost like a mini sandstorm had formed within the woods.

The monkeys that had been comfortably seated on the trees over on the other bank of the river stood up immediately, alarmed by the unexpected scene that was playing out before their very eyes.

They did not know the reason behind this sudden gale.

What they did know was that if they continued staying here, they would surely be subjected to the assault of the elements.

The leaves and dirt would just be irritating at worst, but the twigs and stones could seriously hurt them!

The monkeys did not hesitate to turn tail and escape, making loud squeals while jumping from tree to tree as they headed deeper into the woods to seek shelter.

"Now!" Chu Han said.

On his cue, the party rushed forward without hesitation.

It was not too difficult for them to hide from these monkeys while in the woods, but the wide space across the river was a completely different matter altogether.

That was why they had to get rid of the monkeys watching over the river before attempting to cross. Otherwise, they would have to risk potentially exposing their intentions.

There were no bridges across the river apart from the thick vines hanging overhead, but that was not an issue.

Imbuing their feet with essence energy, Zhao Yunxiao and the rest of the party ran right across the surface of the water.

It was as though the water had turned into solid ground, allowing them to reach the other bank without getting as much as a single drop of water on themselves.

Upon reaching the other bank, Chu Han waved his hand, and the numerous flags that he had planted before immediately flew over to enter his grasp once more.

Not wanting to stay around and wait for the monkey watchers to return, the party quickly headed deeper into the woods while continuing to conceal their presence.

Everything was done in a perfect manner – all according to plan.

However, this was only the first hurdle.

Next came the difficult part of actually locating the monkey demon in the vast forest.

Mo Mian led the way, and Pu Feixiang guarded the rear.

Chu Han watched everything from the middle while Gui Longcan and Zhao Yunxiao stayed on his left and right respectively.

Just like that, the party moved through the forest while remaining in formation.

Along the way, they constantly kept their eyes out for other beasts and animals, deliberately avoiding all of them as much as possible.

It was not difficult for them to deal with most of these beasts and animals, but the last thing they wanted was to expose their presence in the process.

"Look at this," Gui Longcan brought the party's attention to a thick rope that had been camouflaged behind leaves. "Does it look familiar?"

"It does look similar to the traps that the villagers have set up along the river," Pu Feixiang recalled. "It appears to have been freshly set up too. Did someone from the village venture all the way here?"

"Do you think that is possible?" Gui Longcan rolled his eyes.

"Well, nothing is impossible," Pu Feixiang answered with a shrug.

"We will find out soon enough," Mo Mian said.

With that, he broke a nearby tree branch and used it to deliberately activate the trap.

Snap-!

A loop immediately tightened around the branch as the rope turned taut, snatching the broken branch from Mo Mian's hands and pulling it straight up into the air.

Understanding his intention, the party immediately retreated a good distance to watch while remaining in hiding.

Monkey chatter could be heard soon after as a pair of monkeys arrived in the trees near the trap.

The monkey chatter initially sounded excited, but the tone died down rapidly as the pair of monkeys noticed the broken branch in the traps.

They were clearly disappointed by what they saw.

The two monkeys then climbed down from the trees to release the rope around the branch and, to the party's amazement, even proceeded to reset the rope trap.

It was clear by now who the rope trap belonged to.

As they had suspected, the monkeys were the true owners of these traps.

Not just that, but judging from the similarities in style, the monkeys had probably learnt how to make these traps by mimicking the villagers.

Thinking back about how the villagers had set up the traps in order to handle the monkey demon, the party could not help but smile wryly.

How ironic that these traps ended up helping the monkeys instead.

"Go."

On Mo Mian's cue, the party shot out from their hiding spot and rushed towards the two monkeys.

By the time the monkeys noticed their presence, the party was already upon them.

Squeal-!

Perhaps it was because they realised that there was no longer any way to escape, the monkeys turned aggressive instead and snarled towards the cultivators.

Mo Mian, who had been leading the charge, was the first to make contact.

Since he was only dealing with regular monkeys, Mo Mian naturally did not retrieve any of his weapons, choosing to simply reach out and subdue the monkeys with his bare hands.

Not just that, but he had to consciously control his strength so that he would not end up accidentally crushing the monkeys.

Unfortunately, that consideration of his ended up being a mistake.

The monkeys' muscles bulged in an instant as they swiped out towards Mo Mian with their sharp claws fully extended.

Bang-!

"Wha-?" Mo Mian exclaimed in shock as the two monkeys actually managed to smack his hands away.

He might have controlled his strength, but it should still have been more than enough to handle a bunch of wild monkeys.

Unexpectedly, the monkeys not only managed to overpower him, but they even managed to draw blood as their sharp claws grazed his skin!

Such a result was completely inconceivable!

That was not the end of it, either.

After successfully defending against Mo Mian's initial attempt to subdue them, the two monkeys did not take the opportunity to retreat.

Instead, they actually went on the offensive, leaping straight towards Mo Mian with their fangs baring in menace.

"As if I would let you!" Gui Longcan sneered from behind Mo Mian.

He held a fan in his hand and waved it towards the two monkeys.

Two small streaks of lightning shot out from his fan and struck the two monkeys, sending them straight back to the ground.

But even getting struck by that did not fully incapacitate the monkeys.

They let out squeals of pain as they struggled back to their feet, the aggression never fading from their expressions.

[Unyielding Stone Bind]

Zhao Yunxiao chanted the mantra in his heart, and the ground underneath the two monkeys trembled.

The next moment, two chains made of earth and rocks shot out from the ground and wrapped around the two monkeys, holding them down together.

It was a rather crude form of the technique since Zhao Yunxiao had yet to fully master it, but it proved to be sufficient to hold them down.

Chu Han pulled out an eight-trigram mirror and chanted.

An immense pressure descended upon the monkeys, forcing them to fall flat to the ground.

Despite their expressions that were full of both indignance and aggression, there was no longer any way for the monkeys to resist.

It was only then that the party finally calmed down and gathered closer.

"What was that?" Pu Feixiang was the first to break the silence, asking the question that had been on everyone's minds.

It was not just Mo Mian – all of them had been caught by surprise by the strength of the monkeys, which had resulted in them perhaps slightly overreacting earlier.

"These are not regular monkeys," Mo Mian looked at the small wounds on his hands as he recalled the strength of the monkeys. "At this stage, we have to consider them as monkey monsters."

The earlier display of strength and endurance was already way beyond the limits of any regular monkey.

"Please tell me this is a coincidence..." Gui Longcan rubbed his temples as he felt a headache coming.

"It would be best if this is just a coincidence, but that seems unlikely at this point," Chu Han said with a frown. "I'm afraid that the situation is more serious than we thought."

"Wait, so let me make this clear," Pu Feixiang said. "Is it just the two of them here, or does our target actually have its own troop of monkey monsters?"

"It would appear that its demon aura has started mutating the monkeys in the region, so we definitely have to prepare for the worst," Mo Mian answered. "Now, the question is no longer whether there are any more of these monkey monsters, but how many more of them there are."

"Damn," Pu Feixiang cursed in response.

"At the very least, these monkey monsters don't appear to be too strong," Zhao Yunxiao said. "It doesn't seem like they are capable of kidnapping the villagers in the same way that the monkey demon can."

"That's a silver lining," Chu Han agreed. "Still, we have to be careful moving forward. It is difficult to differentiate these monkey monsters from regular monkeys at first glance, so we would just have to assume that all monkeys we encounter are the same as these two."

The rest of the party nodded in agreement.

"There is one more silver lining," Zhao Yunxiao added while looking at the two monkeys. "We now have a trail that might just be able to lead us to our target."

His words caused everyone to look towards the two struggling monkey monsters as well.

Indeed, after half a day of moving through the woods in blind hopes of finding something, they had finally found some clues to follow.