Chapter 276: The Forest of Ants

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee TranslationsQin Xi was familiar with the terrain, so in half a day, they reached their destination.“This is the Rosy Clouds Ridge. Let’s wait here for some time.”Mo Tiange glanced over the scene before her eyes. It was surrounded by rocks large and small, and not even a blade of grass grew there. But in the west, there grew a dense forest of red-leafed trees. Looking from a distance, it looked like the glow of sunset; no wonder it was called Rosy Clouds Ridge.Qin Xi found a place and sat down. He stared at the Three Yang Real Fire Sword laid on his knees silently, deep in his unknown thoughts.Mo Tiange found a flat stone not far from him and also sat down. She looked over at the red forest and asked, “Senior Martial Brother Shoujing, is that forest dangerous?”Qin Xi raised his head and gave the forest a look. He answered, “They’re a type of flying insect called red leaf ants. They’re incomparably poisonous and clumped together like leaves, so for those who don’t know, they’ll be easily tricked.”“…So that’s the case.” In such case, Madam Feng in their group was probably best-suited to handle these red leaf ants.Seeing that Qin Xi put away his Three Yang Real Fire Sword and sat in meditation with his eyes closed, apparently not wanting to talk, Mo Tiange also crossed her legs and began to stabilize her breaths. She felt tired after killing the wind beasts, and her spiritual aura also hadn’t recovered when they marched on for half a day after collecting the beast bodies. More than half her spiritual aura was empty, so she had some time to regain her aura now.As they waited, another half day passed.As soon as Mo Tiange finished recovering her spiritual aura, Qin Xi suddenly opened his eyes silently. He looked in the direction where they came and said, “They’re coming.”Mo Tiange also opened her eyes and followed his line of sight. No one appeared within her field of view yet, but at the edge of her spreading divine sense, she could already feel other cultivators’ breaths.Sure enough, a short time later, a group of dark spots appeared in the distance, running towards them.Mo Tiange frowned a bit and looked at Qin Xi, a little surprised. She indeed looked down on him. He had already reached the peak of the Core Formation realm, so of course he’d be much stronger than her. Even though she practiced the Soul-Refining Art, she was no match for him.She turned her head again but was stunned for a moment. The people approaching seemed to be wounded and were flying unsteadily in the air. Not long later, after they drew closer, she saw they were definitively covered with blood.“Fellow Daoist Shoujing, Fellow Daoist Qingwei.” Daoist Kumu breathed a sigh of relief as they finally arrived at the spot where Qin Xi and Mo Tiange had been waiting.Qin Xi knitted his brows. “Fellow Daoists, what’s going on?”“Alas!” The one who answered was Tong Tianyun, who looked normal and probably was only a little injured. “We were trying to break the restrictions to get the magic weapon, but not long after, another group of cultivators arrived and we had a fight. That wouldn’t have been a big problem because we were much stronger than them. But just when we were fighting like Kilkenny cats, two Nascent Soul cultivators arrived, so…”Since the Nascent Soul cultivators cut in, the Core Formation cultivators could only retreat obediently.Mo Tiange couldn’t help but give Qin Xi a look. She wondered if he had noticed something ahead of time or if it was just a coincidence.In addition to Tong Tianyun, the least injured one was Jing Xingzhi. He was a sword cultivator, after all, and his strength was in fights of magical power. He said, “Those two Nascent Soul cultivators didn’t have it easy either. There was a strange swarm of flying insects hiding in the ship. As soon as we left, they triggered the restriction and made the flying insects attack. Even if they got the magic weapon, they’d be hurt.”Upon hearing this, Mo Tiange and Qin Xi gave each other a look and they both felt somewhat surprised. The many currents of spiritual aura Mo Tiange felt turned out to be a bunch of flying insects.Madam Feng was sitting in meditation while recovering with her legs crossed and eyes closed. She sneered, “The flying insects were from the Distant Past era and were extraordinarily poisonous. In my opinion, those two people wouldn’t have just been injured, but they must’ve been injured very severely.”Most poisonous creatures were poisonous insects. Madam Feng specialized in poisons, so she naturally knew all about insects.Upon hearing this, Daoist Kumu revealed a smile. “In that way, it was a blessing in disguise for us.”“Right, with our strength, we can’t stand up to that many flying insects, and we might not have been able to escape unscathed.”Hearing what she said, the others, who originally held much anger in their hearts, felt a little relieved. They sat down one after another and began to heal.Mo Tiange had a bad feeling. When they entered Demonic Mountain one day ago, they all had a lot of spiritual aura. But one day later, five of them had gotten injured. Tong Tianyun and Jing Xingzhi only looked slightly wounded, but the others were worse off.Their strength had been reduced by a lot.She looked at Qin Xi and discovered he looked quite calm. As she wondered what he might be thinking, she heard his secret voice transmission: “Prepare yourself; we’ll be separated from them early.”Mo Tiange was stunned and glanced at him again. She also replied secretly: “Senior Brother, even though some of them got injured, won’t they still be helpful to us?”However, Qin Xi said, “It’s not because they got hurt; these people are obviously anxious. With this mentality, something bad will happen sooner or later.”“…” Mo Tiange didn’t say anything then. She knew Qin Xi was right. Those five people each came to Demonic Mountain with their own goals, but none of them could control themselves when presented with that magic weapon.Half a day passed again. The first one to finish recovering was Daoist Kumu, who had entered the late stage of the Core Formation realm, after all, and was more powerful than ordinary cultivators. After another moment, Lei Dongqing and Madam Feng both stopped stabilizing their breaths and recovered a little, and they continued on.Their target was the red leaf ant colony that looked like a forest.“Protect yourselves with your spiritual aura.” Stopped before the red leaf forest, Qin Xi spoke to them with a low voice.Mo Tiange nodded. Ever since her core formation, she had obtained some initial successes with her Art of Temporary Origin. Moreover, the White Silk Handkerchief’s defense function was much stronger than before, and she was confident that she could protect herself.“Madam Feng,” Daoist Kumu asked, “How are your injuries?”Madam Feng’s face was still a little pale, but she insisted, “It’s okay. I can handle them; they’re just some red leaf ants.”Mo Tiange could see that Madam Feng’s wounds weren’t okay at all. She was only at an average cultivation level and had normal magic arts, and they hadn’t seen her use any top-rank magic weapons yet. The reason for her inclusion in this group was probably because she cultivated a lot of alien magic arts. Now it was her time to shine, and if she couldn’t play her role, she’d definitely lose her place. Without help from her teammates, it would be difficult for her to survive on Demonic Mountain. So, she could only pretend that she was fine.Didn’t the others know all this? However, they didn’t say anything more. They all understood the situation clearly and that it’d be better if Madam Feng knew what to do.Daoist Kumu nodded and said to the others. “Seeing as that’s the case, let’s go.”This was the first time the seven of them would fight together. Mo Tiange acted calmly, and she wanted to see what these people could do.They entered the red leaf forest. If Mo Tiange hadn’t known these trees were all red leaf ants in advance, she never would’ve been wary of them. These red leaf ants disguised themselves so well! From the trunks to the branches to the leaves, they were all the spitting image of what they pretended to be. It was only when you examined them carefully with your divine sense that you could see there were many, many tiny waves of spiritual aura fluctuating on these trees.The red leaves seemed to have sensed their spiritual aura and suddenly fell down on their heads. The leaves fell apart in midair, turning into red flying ants and flying towards them.The others surrounded Madam Feng with spiritual aura covering their bodies and released their magic weapons.Mo Tiange took out her jade bottle. It was called a Royal Water Bottle which had water attributes and contained roaring waves inside. It was perfect for fighting these red leaf ants which had fire attributes. Besides, Xiaohuo was also released to help. When the owner’s strength wasn’t enough, their spiritual beast would be the best partner.Upon seeing Xiaohuo, Daoist Kumu paused and was quite surprised. Fifth rank spiritual beasts weren’t common, especially when their owner was only a cultivator in the early stage of the Core Formation realm. Spiritual Beasts didn’t have many medicinal pills to help them advance and it was usually more difficult for them to have breakthroughs than cultivators. Often, only cultivators who had been in the Core Formation realm for a while would have spiritual beasts above the fifth rank.Soon, the red leaf ants flew over. They had no time to worry about anything else and they concentrated on the enemy.The White Silk Handkerchief was waved off and turned into mist, covering Mo Tiange’s whole body. Mo Tiange then raised her hand and the Royal Water Bottle rose in midair with a water column pouring down.Insects weren’t spiritual beasts. They didn’t have classifications of different ranks, and they had very weak spiritual aura on their own. Their strength came from their physical body strength and toxicity. These red leaf ants, for instance, were good at camouflaging and had hard shells and high toxicity. A single one of them wasn’t scary, but in the face of so many of them, if you made a mistake, it’d cause a lot of trouble!The red leaf ants had weak spiritual aura but were extremely poisonous and had hard shells, so they didn’t dare to relax at all.Qin Xi’s Three Yang Real Fire Sword rose in midair, spreading a red light all over, and the red leaf ants fell down one after another once they touched the light, burnt black.Jing Xingzhi wasn’t weak either. He used a sword as his weapon, like Qin Xi, but with a different technique. The body of the sword was as white as snow, and sharp sword aura blew out, forming a silver curtain of light in front of him.Lei Dongqing still used his wine jar, which Mo Tiange had seen release magic arts of all five elements surprisingly, but she didn’t know what kind of element this magic weapon belonged to. Theoretically, a cultivator could only use the magic art of a certain element when he had the spiritual root of that element. Lei Dongqing naturally didn’t have five spiritual roots, so the magic weapon must have special features.Next were Daoist Kumu and Tong Tianyun, creating a different scene. Tong Tianyun fought with his bare hands, using some kind of unknown magic art, and as soon as the red leaf ants approached him, they would fall down. Meanwhile, Daoist Kumu was just mumbling some words and released his mount, the Red-Crowned Crane, to do the fighting for him.The red leaf ants were small but there were a large number of them. The six Core Formation cultivators couldn’t kill off the ants in a short time, and they had to use spiritual aura to protect themselves very carefully, in case of accidentally getting bitten. As more and more red leaf ants flew all over the sky, their stress also increased.At this time, Madam Feng, who was in the middle, sat down with her legs crossed. She carefully took out a small stove, burned a piece of incense, gathered some spiritual aura in her palms, and pressed it into the incense burner.A fragrance slowly dispersed, neither orchid nor musk. Mo Tiange frowned a little. The fragrance…was really a little strange. At first, it smelled wonderful, but there seemed to be a very uncomfortable strange smell mixed in it.She held her breath immediately then saw the surrounding flying ants slowing down as if they were drunk, swaying and falling almost in one beat.Seeing this, everyone gathered their spirits and took out all their magic weapons, quickly killing these flying ants.With the help of Madam Feng’s unique burning incense, they finally ended the battle an hour later. Most of the red leaf forest had disappeared, and the remaining red leaf ants were scattered and were no longer a threat. Madam Feng put away her incense burner. The seven of them retreated and passed through the red leaf ant forest.