Chapter Sixty-Nine: Treasure Theft! Second Update
2015-10-02
Author: Floating Tower
As one gets closer to the interior of the Jungle Gate, the surrounding trees become increasingly lush.
Even Soren saw some oak and maple trees with golden leaves among them. These ancient trees must have existed for an incredibly long time, each towering over a hundred meters, their branches and leaves densely shading the sky. Judging by the divine perception, these ancient gods possess a thick life force. This indicates that they are all activated treants, with several being ancient tree sages nearing legendary strength; they are the true guardians inside the Jungle Gate. Even a legendary adventurer team would find it difficult to breach their defensive line.
There is a special layer of security here.
Under normal circumstances, even Soren would find it challenging to get past, but he possesses equipment that is nearly a divine artifact for a wanderer.
That is the Anti-Detection Cloak!
There is a defensive barrier laid out by the Nature Guardians here; anything flying above or running below, or aiming to stealthily approach, would be detected by them.
The greatest function of the Anti-Detection Cloak is to prevent any detection of invisibility spells.
This is also the reason why Soren dares to come here; otherwise, even as a saint incarnate, he would not be able to escape unharmed under the assault of a multitude of legendary treants.
—“Shadow Domain!”
—“Shadow Leap!”
After getting closer to the vigilance circle of the ancient trees, Soren chose the safest way to enter.
His figure instantly vanished into the Shadow Plane, then using the power of space, he leapt past the spell’s security range, appearing directly in the shadow of a rock over a hundred meters away.
Legendary wanderers rely on this kind of power to move unseen!
A massive root appeared before him; Soren placed his hand on it and could feel the slowly flowing life essence. The rate of flow is not very fast, yet the life essence it possesses is enormous. Even after thousands of years, this flowing life essence has not only nurtured the semi-plane space of the Jungle Gate but continues to sustain the entire area.
It’s as if it were the corpse of the oldest Obsidian Demon from the Bottomless Abyss.
Some colossal corpses still exist in various places of the Bottomless Abyss; the exposed parts resemble towering mountains, comparable to the massive ancient god corpses drifting in the Astral Realm.
A golden oak tree appeared before him.
Soren sensed that this was a powerful Nature Guardian; he had at most one or two seconds to steal the Water of Life. If he exceeded this time, the Nature Guardian might close the space, and at that moment, even Soren would not be able to escape.
Grab and run.
And he must not return the same way. The only way Soren could safely leave this semi-plane space was to directly use the power of the ‘Shadow’ Domain to traverse to the Shadow Plane and then from there back to the Material Plane. Thus, even if the opponent was a high-level legendary Nature Guardian, Soren would not fear being discovered.
There is only one chance.
Soren took a deep breath and locked his gaze on a special pool in front of the root of the ancient tree.
It resembled the reincarnation pool of the Hell of Bartok, but was filled with even purer positive energy.
—“Shadow Leap!”
Soren dashed forward, instantly traversing space, appearing next to the pool. In an instant, he took a significant amount of the Water of Life, and the pool was suddenly reduced by about one third.
“Thief!”
An angry roar erupted!
The golden oak sage awakened in an instant; its massive body stood up, accompanied by a surge of powerful energy. The surrounding space showed immediate signs of being sealed off.
—“Dimensional Lock!”
An almost legendary spell that required no casting action. It was completed directly by the opponent.
However.
At this moment, Soren already sensed something was wrong; he did not greedily take even a single drop more of the Water of Life but instead activated the power of the Shadow Domain instantaneously, crossing the spatial barrier into the Shadow Plane.
In the moment before leaving.
He felt the powerful auras erupting throughout the Jungle Gate. Great trees stood up; at least more than ten legendary ancient tree guardians locked onto this location.
“Damn thief!”
The furious roar reverberated above the Jungle Gate, but by this time, Soren’s figure had long disappeared.
He had shown himself for less than a second; even these powerful legendary ancient trees had not detected any trace of him, not even clearly seeing his appearance.
Killing one person in ten steps, leaving no tracks for a thousand miles.
This was one of Soren’s favorite sayings from back then, but for a wanderer to achieve this level, one must reach the legendary domain.
………………
Everything before him was gray and misty.
Soren’s figure appeared in a certain area of the Shadow Plane; he was not exactly sure where, as the situation was so critical he had completely teleported randomly.
But it didn’t matter!
He could return to the Material Plane from the Shadow Plane, at which point it would be easy to determine the direction.
Of course.
He couldn’t return directly to the Material Plane yet because the Shadow Plane is connected to the Material Plane. If he returned from here directly, he would likely end up in the Misty Forest.
Now that he had stolen the treant’s Water of Life, returning to the Misty Forest would surely spell disaster!
Soren planned to head in a certain direction for dozens to hundreds of kilometers from here before teleporting back to the Material Plane. This way, he would basically be out of the Misty Forest’s range.
As long as he was not in the Misty Forest, those ancient trees would have no way to deal with him.
A swirling mist surrounded him.
Unable to determine the specific relationship between the Material Plane and the Shadow Plane, Soren saw before him an incredibly dense forest.
The trees growing in this forest appeared to be reflections, with twisted roots, and not a hint of green could be seen—only a grayish hue was visible.
The trees in the Shadow Plane are also gray.
Strange cries came from nearby; many creatures unknown to mortals inhabit the Shadow Plane. Soren glimpsed a twisted shadow, which, with almost no intellect, quickly targeted him.
—“Arcane Missile!”
An arcane missile took out the distorted shadow before him; they were souls accidentally reincarnated in the Shadow Plane, resembling the distorted Prayer Weavers of the Bottomless Abyss.
The twisted shadows began to retreat.
Soren observed his surroundings and quickly advanced southward.
He needed to leave this forest first; the expanse of the Material Plane was mirrored by the Shadow Plane; although this area appeared desolate, he could still see some forms of life.
Occasionally, enormous remains of ancient structures would come into view, remnants left over from ancient times.
Fallen deities, ruins of the Arcane Empire, wizards of the Shadow Plane.
Many deities left temples in the Shadow Plane, and the Arcane Empire also developed this realm, which is why many ruined buildings remained here.
This wandering continued for over a hundred kilometers.
Townships are very rare in the Shadow Plane; the native population is too scattered, with the overall population in the Shadow Plane being less than one-thousandth of that in the Material Plane.
This is the territory of the Lord of Shadows.
As a deity of medium divine power, He holds considerable influence in the Shadow Plane, and His divine kingdom rests somewhere in this realm.
It is a natural convenience.
Although He was also forced to abandon His divine kingdom due to the Saint’s Cataclysm, His distance from His divine kingdom is closer than that of other deities.
—“Shadow Domain!”
With the twisting of space, Soren returned to the Material Plane.
Before him was still a vast primitive forest. He activated a flight spell to observe the surroundings and unexpectedly found he was already quite near his destination.
This is the territory of the elves.
Namely, the area where he was previously hunted by the followers of the God of the Hunt, about a hundred kilometers away from Leaffall City. A towering mountain range blocked the route, making it difficult for half-orcs to reach this side, acting like a natural barrier that separated the elves from greater contact with other races. Traditionally, one has to traverse the forest on the other side to approach the Elf Kingdom, which adds another hundred kilometers to the journey.
“Safe!”
After confirming there was no danger, Soren finally took a brief rest and began to examine the properties of the Water of Life.
……………(To be continued ~^~)
