The Great Ruler (Web Novel)

A ring of black poisonous smoke lingered in their surroundings, completely sealing off their paths in all directions. This poisonous smoke was exceedingly overbearing, and even possessed the additional mysterious effect of being able to corrode Spiritual Energy. Therefore, once one came into contact with it, one might have to pay quite a huge price.

Solemn expressions appeared on the faces of Xu Huang and the rest as they tightly clenched their Spiritual Weapons, their palms dripping with sweat.

As their hearts raced and pounded, Mu Chen continued staring at the poisonous smoke, while a smile brimming with surprise and elation surfaced at the corner of his mouth. In the next instant, waving his hand gently, he spoke out, “Don’t move from your current positions.”

After saying those words, Mu Chen proceeded to take two steps forward, walking straight towards the black poisonous smoke.

Seeing Mu Chen’s action, Luo Li couldn’t help biting her lips. Although worry and anxiousness filled her heart, she did not go forward and restrain Mu Chen. At this moment, the only thing she could clearly do was to believe that Mu Chen wasn’t about to do some nonsensical or idiotic action.

Xu Huang and the rest were similarly staring towards Mu Chen in shock, unable to comprehend what he was planning on doing.

Within their doubtful gazes, Mu Chen slowly extended a finger of his, which subsequently turned into a jet-black colour rapidly. At this moment, a faint, strange smile started to waft out from the fingertip. This finger of his was previously sealed by the Northern Sea Dragon, before being transformed by the Black Divine Lightning Poison that had flooded his body time after time again during his training. Now, this finger of his undoubtedly possessed an extremely strong poison resistance.

This poison finger of his was considered one of Mu Chen’s concealed killing moves. During his intense battle with Mo Xingtian, after being struck by his poison finger, the latter’s body had disintegrated, with his Spirit landing in Mu Chen’s hands, which was shattered with a single clench.

However, although his poison finger was formidable, it had a downside, which was that Mu Chen wasn’t able to produce the poisonous strength that was required for it. To replenish its poisonous strength, he could only absorb the strength from external sources. This sounded simple enough, as there was a gigantic quantity of poisons from various sources present in the world. It’s just that wanting to find a poison source that has a poisonous strength that exceeded that of the Black Divine Lightning Poison was clearly something that wasn’t easy to accomplish with Mu Chen’s current level of cultivation. Therefore, after completely using the might of his poison finger to kill Mo Xingtian, its poisonous strength was completely depleted. This caused him to feel extremely regretfully; after all, he had lost an extremely powerful and lethal trump card. To him, this was quite a big loss.

However, from the looks of it… he seemed to be able to make up for this regret of his.

Although the black poisonous smoke before him wasn’t as overbearing as the Black Divine Lightning Poison, it was clearly an exceedingly vicious poison. This poisonous smoke was able to corrode Spiritual Energy. In the future, if he was to engage in a life-or-death fight with people, this was sufficient to be a vicious card to catch his enemy off-guard. Maybe, it might be able to dictate his control of that life-or-death situation then.

Hu.

Mu Chen deeply exhaled on the finger, causing its jet-black colour to turn even more abstruse. At this moment, this finger of his appeared exceedingly different from the other nine slender fingers of his. However, at this moment, a suction force abruptly swept out from the tip of the finger.

Humm! Humm!

As the suction force swept out, fluctuations instantly rippled within the surrounding poisonous smoke, with humming noises unexpected ringing out from within. In the next moment, Xu Huang and the rest turned completely dumbfounded as they saw the poisonous smoke starting to rapidly rush towards Mu Chen, before streaming endlessly into the jet-black finger of his.

Xu Huang and everyone else were completely dumbfounded.

Sparkling with black light, Mu Chen’s finger appeared akin to a bottomless pit, greedily devouring the poisonous smoke akin to having a feast. As more and more poisonous smoke drilled into it, the black colour of the finger grew increasingly abstruse. From the looks of it, it appeared as if it was condensed from a clump of black liquid.

Such feasting continued for nearly ten minutes, with the originally dense black poisonous smoke in their surroundings gradually thinning out.

As the final strand of black poisonous smoke drilled into his finger, Mu Chen could not help letting a smile surface on his face. He never imagined that not only would the thorny poisonous smoke not cause much loss for their team, it had even allowed him to replenish his poison finger.

With a flick, the jet-black shade on his finger rapidly turned faint, before regaining its pale and slender look. Clearly, that poisonous strength had been suppressed by the seal left by the Northern Sea Dragon.

Turning around, Mu Chen looked towards the dumbfounded Xu Huang and the rest. Noticing their expression, he could not help giving a laugh and said, “Let’s go. Looks like the poisonous smoke can no longer obstruct us.”

“How… How did you do it?” asked Lin Zhou as he opened his mouth wide and stared at Mu Chen. The person before him was someone whose complete strength could never be judged by his common sense. Time and time after again, he had assumed that he had felt the bottom of the latter’s strength. Yet, very quickly, such assumptions were broken by the latter once again…

“Just a small move of mine.”

Giving a smile, Mu chen didn’t give much of an explanation. Although they had some friendly relations with Lin Zhou as of now, it clearly wasn’t to the point that Mu Chen would disclose his cards.

“Let’s go. Let’s continue moving forward,” said Mu Chen as he waved his hand as he looked at his surroundings. After he absorbed the poisonous smoke, the demonic trees in their surroundings had actually turned silent once again, quietly towering within the forest and not moving a single inch. However, Mu Chen knew that when they unleashed their fangs once again, this entire region might be covered with a lot of bones.

Shaking his head, Mu Chen started to recompose his thoughts. He didn’t possess the strength or capability to clear out all of the demonic trees present here. As of now, the demonic trees had given up do to them being unable to do anything towards Mu Chen, despite bringing out their strongest card. If he was too vicious in forcing them out, it would result in those demonic trees going all-out. At that time, he didn’t believe that he would be able to escape from this dangerous Dark Origin Forest. Therefore, it was for the best for the others to fend for themselves. If one wanted to search for treasure, one would need to be prepared to pay the heavy price for the risks involved.

With a tap of his feet, he shot forward like a wisp of green smoke, rapidly rushing towards the depths of the forest, with Luo Li, Xu Huang, Lin Zhou and the rest rapidly following suit behind him.

As Mu Chen and his team travelled rapidly into the depths of the Dark Origin Forest, all of the other teams in the forest were now suffering the attacks of the demonic trees, with many instantly dying or suffering severe injuries. Some unfortunate teams were completely destroyed, turning into piles of bones, forever to stay in this forest.

Only those strong and powerful groups would be fortunate enough to be able to break through those attacks from the demonic trees, though they had also paid quite a big price.

In fact, even groups as strong as the Saint Spiritual Academy, Myriad Phoenix Spiritual Academy and the Martial Spiritual Academy appeared exceedingly miserable, with them pulling out quite a few of their cards. Although they weren’t able to break through in an overbearing manner like how Mu Chen had absorbed that poisonous smoke, they had some Spiritual Weapons that were able to resist against the poisonous smoke. Only with them were they able to escape in a miserable state and yet not pay too high a price.

After breaking through the death pit of demonic trees, all of the groups rapidly increased their speed as they shot towards the depths of the forest. With such formidable defenses already present here, the ancient ruins in front of them should not be an easy task to conquer. That also meant that if they were able to obtain a harvest from it, paying what price they had to pay would still be worth it.

While all of the groups were going all-out to break through the bloody death pit created by the demonic trees, a few black figures passed through within the shadows of the forest akin to spectres.

Swish! Swish!

Just as those black figures shot over a stretch of land, the earth below them shivered, as countless vines shot out from below. Extremely sharp luster sparkled from the sharp pointed ends of the tree spikes and vines, with black liquid even dripping from them. Clearly, they were coated with an extremely toxic poison, requiring only slight contact to cause definite death.

Whistling across the air, those tree spikes shot over, completely cutting off all the escape routes of those black figures.

However, despite being faced with such an impending danger, not a single bit of fear or fluster appeared within those black figures. At this moment, a faint smile appeared on the leading black figure as he raised his head, revealing a somewhat pale youthful face. Extending a withered and twig-like hand, green-coloured Spiritual Energy swept out from his fingertips, before transforming into green-coloured runes.

Whoosh!

As those green-coloured runes explosively shot out, they smashed head-on against those incoming vines.

As collisions occurred, not a single sound of explosions rang out, while those green runes appeared to have drilled straight into those vines. In the next instant, furious shivers shook through the vines as they shot away, with all of them drilling through the other vines present. Those vines appeared to be like guards, protecting those black figures. From the looks of it, those demonic trees we're unexpectedly being controlled by them!

Compared to Mu Chen, such a method was clearly even more mysterious and formidable.

Swish! Swish!

Within this region, demonic trees were crazily attacking one another, with vines piercing through giant trees, causing black-coloured blood to ooze out, making an exceedingly weird and strange spectacle.

Those black figures grinned as they observed this spectacle. After quite a while, only when all of the surrounding demonic trees were pierced and killed by those under his control did the youth wave his sleeve, causing green rays of brilliance to gush out from the remaining demonic trees. With a bang, they exploded apart, sending black blood-like liquid to shoot everywhere.

Clearly dreading those black poisonous liquids, the black figures helter-skeltered and evade them, not daring to let any come into contact with their bodies.

“These poisonous demonic trees have truly flourished. Nevertheless, it’s a pity that we don’t have time. If not, we would be able to get quite a good price for the Spirit Corroding Poison.” A black figure looked towards the black poisonous liquid, before speaking with some regret.

“Leave it be. Our goal is the Divine Wood Plaque within the gateway of the Divine Wood Palace. Once we obtain that Divine Wood Plaque, we’ll be able to find the genuine ruins of the Divine Wood Palace. To our Wood Spirit Clan, that’s the real great success,” said the leading black figure with a faint smile.

“However, of the groups that have arrived here, there are some that are very strong, especially those from four of the Great Academies. They aren’t good to deal with,” said a black figure.

With an indifferent smile, the leading black figure replied, “Within a place like this, we are King. Regardless of anyone that obstructs us from obtaining the Divine Wood Plaque, there will only be one outcome…”

With a furious clench of his twig-like arm, a malevolent and sinister killing intent erupted from his pale-white face.

“They will become the fertilizer that nourishes the great land!”

Hearing that, the black figures around him gave low and sinister-sounding laughter, their voices brimming with chilling intent.

“Let’s go.”

Waving his hand, the leading black figure shot off like a spectre, with the other black figures following close behind. In a blink of an eye, they disappeared into the shadows, leaving behind a mysterious scene of demonic trees pierced full of holes…