Chapter 33 – The Forest of Gluttony
Beneath the moonlight, two pairs of beautiful eyes locked gazes, each detecting a trace of异样 in the other. Both were startled by the cold sweat that broke out from thoughts they had just entertained.
This forest is definitely strange.
Earlier, it was unclear what exactly was odd about the forest, but now Tillysha realized it— despite being lush, since entering they hadn’t sensed the presence of any living creatures—not even insects.
Normally, the ecosystem of such a forest should be teeming with life. Even without low-tier demons, the absence of insects was baffling. Since entering, not a single insect chirp had been heard, which was extremely abnormal.
Either there were absolutely no insects in this forest, or there were insects but so few that their scarcity was astonishing. Either scenario was beyond comprehension.
The thriving state of the forest seemed incongruous with the absence of insects. Even from the perspective of an elf, this was highly abnormal.
The gold hairpiece glowed with a flowing blue light as Tillysha, enduring her hunger, activated the Divine Analysis Technique. The scene before her caused her pupils to constrict immediately.
In normal vision, the forest was nothing more than a dark and desolate expanse. However, with the Divine Analysis Technique, the landscape was transformed dramatically.
The night sky, once peaceful and dark, had turned a bl**d red. The forest was filled with web-like crimson substances, and the tree trunks beneath them writhed grotesquely like the tentacles of some massive beast. It was as though they were inside the body of a monster, an unsettling picture indeed.
Looking at this scene was giving Tillysha a headache, so she deactivated the technique.
Could it be that this strange red substance, floating through the air, altered the perception of creatures such as demons and insects, making them ravenous and hungry to the point of attacking and consuming each other?
This alone was insufficient. Tillysha had earlier felt a powerful impulse—an unfamiliar sensation for someone usually so calm—suggesting that the effect of these red substances was not merely hunger but also heightened aggression, making creatures more irritable and violent.
The bones Wenfu had stepped on earlier in the forest likely belonged to demons that had been eaten by their own kind.
Whether insects or demons, none of them possessed high intelligence and thus, influenced by the forest, blindly followed their instincts and attacked each other.
Tillysha now understood why no demons dared to live in the forest, choosing instead to inhabit the wilderness around it. The forest itself was the most terrifying entity.
Suddenly, Aistride’s body beside her tipped, and she fell back, landing with a thud.
Aistride’s eyes were slightly open, seemingly not yet realizing she had fallen from the tree. With the reflexes of an elf, she should have had time to grab the tree trunk or flip before the landing.
However……
Aistride remained motionless, realizing something intangible was binding her body, preventing movement.
Even in her familiar forest, Aistride felt powerless, as if surrounded by countless invisible and undetectable enemies.
An invisible fear washed over her like a tidal wave.
Falling headfirst, she skidded to a stop mid-air, her silver hair cascading downward.
Relieved but shaken, she looked up to see the golden-haired girl above her, grabbing her ankle just in time.
Still shaken, she glanced down and remembered just how tall this tree was.
Aistride was hanging upside down, her hair and dress flowing downward.
In a crisis like this, no one had time to admire the scenery.
“Aistride, watch out on your right!” Tillysha’s hairpiece shimmered with flowing blue light, her eyes glowing with a faint golden hue as she shouted down to Aistride.
The right side? Aistride instinctively turned to look.
But there was nothing there.
Aistride was confused, yet she knew Tillysha wouldn’t deceive her. However, seeing nothing, she didn’t know how to react.
The next moment, she felt something wrapping around her neck, working against Tillysha’s pull, trying to drag her towards the ground.
Aistride was extremely uncomfortable. She clearly felt something pulling her, but she couldn’t perceive or see anything.
From Aistride’s perspective, everything was normal, but from Tillysha’s enhanced vision, the red forest was becoming even more bizarre.
First, the tree trunks turned into fleshy tentacles, then the ground transformed into moving corrupted bl**d-red tissues, from which a tentacle emerged, wrapping around Aistride’s neck and pulling her down.
Seeing this, Tillysha took the Frost-Kiss Elixir from her thigh and hurled it to the ground.
Shards of ice bloomed from the broken glass, forming a crystalline snow lotus. The frost encased the tentacle’s surface but did nothing to stop its extension, as if the ice had no effect on the tentacle.
Right…… These tentacles could only be seen with advanced Divine Analysis Technique, meaning they weren’t physically ‘material’. This is why the elves’ acute senses didn’t work here.
Regular attacks wouldn’t be effective. What should be done?
The Divine Analysis Technique could see these tentacles, proving that strong spiritual power could penetrate their essence.
If so……
Though she had never used it before, she might as well try.
Tillysha’s eyes fixed on the tentacle wrapped around Aistride’s neck, concentrating all her energy there.
This was one of the rare offensive skills available to the divine child – a mental shockwave.
The unchosen path of the divine child allowed Tillysha to utilize skills from different routes, but only at a superficial level. She couldn’t specialize.
The mental shockwave technique, a type of sorcery, would usually only be learnable after the second year when divine children chose a sorcery path.
However, foundational sorcery techniques like the mental shockwave might still be learned, though whether one could successfully master it largely depended on fate.
Since the tentacle and Tillysha were evenly matched, another tentacle grew from the decaying organ, this one aimed not at Aistride, but at Tillysha, still on the tree trunk.
Tillysha quickly ducked to narrowly avoid being struck, but she kept a keen eye on the tentacle around Aistride.
Like a magnifying glass focusing sunlight on a single point, Tillysha’s unwavering gaze sent her spiritual energy toward the tentacle. Though slow, the cumulative effect added up.
The tentacle trembled as if hit by a tiny hammer—a weak but unexpected strike. Seizing the opportunity, Tillysha successfully pulled Aistride back up onto the tree.
The pressure lifted, Aistride sighed in relief.
“Thank you, Princess Tillysha.”
Though Tillysha didn’t explain, Aistride sensed that she saw something invisible to her. Unaware of Tillysha’s specific abilities, she attributed it to the ‘elfin racial talent.’
Thereafter, she noticed Tillysha staring in bewilderment at the tree they were on.
Through Tillysha’s vision, as she pulled Aistride up, a grotesque face appeared on the tree trunk—its features blurred and distorted like a lump of paste.
“Let’s leave here!” In her urgency, Tillysha held nothing back, scooping Aistride in her arms, one hand around the waist and the other under the knees, jumping down from the branch.
The peril that seemed grave to Tillysha seemed routine to Aistride, which caused her to focus solely on Tillysha’s bold and sudden actions.
Under the moonlight, the two stunning elves with different hair colors clung closely to each other, rolled in mid-air, and landed softly on the ground.
Aistride could even smell the scent of vanilla and mint from Tillysha, unsure if it was from her hair or her body.
After landing, Tillysha felt a wave of dizziness.
Her first use of an offensive divine child skill, combined with overexertion of spiritual energy, made her feel light-headed.
“Watch out behind!” Aistride, her acute senses triggered as soon as they landed, blocked a giant sword with a crescent blade.
Being airborne, Aistride couldn’t exert much force, and the impact sent Tillysha and her flying backward.
Tillysha sensed something amiss and turned back to see an amber-haired knight trembling, wielding a giant sword and stepping towards them. Nearby, the pink-eared cat girl was similarly acting strangely, her gaze cold and soulless.
“Princess Filisia, Wenfu??” Aistride couldn’t believe her companions would attack her, calling out their names.
Tillysha remained calm. She saw countless tentacles wrapping around Filisia and Wenfu, manipulating their actions.
Their eyes were full of bloodshot, and their gaze toward Tillysha and Aistride was like that of wolves eyeing a lamb.
While they slept, it seemed the tentacles had taken advantage of their vulnerable state.
Aistride instinctively wanted to dodge but didn’t know how, her intuition telling her danger was imminent, yet her visual cues suggested she was safe, leaving her unsure what to trust.
Suddenly, a soft, warm hand pulled on her shoulder, pulling her forward, the sense of impending doom fading.
“Don’t stray too far.” Tillysha whispered this in Aistride’s ear before focusing on dealing with Filisia and Wenfu.
In Tillysha’s opinion, the hardest challenge wasn’t the tentacle-controlled Wenfu or Filisia but the unpredictable tentacles emerging from the ground, intending to wrap around them.
Meanwhile, an overwhelming hunger began to strip away their rationality little by little.
The situation was grim.
How could they rescue their friends?
With the amount of spiritual energy she possessed, it would likely be futile, and rescuing them would leave her drained.
As the only one in the group able to see the tentacles, attempting anything might only worsen the situation.
What should be done?
Clearly intended to control spirit, these tentacles were only a simple visual representation by the Divine Analysis Technique—a real attack more likely resembled the normal state perceived by Aistride, where their friends appeared only slightly irregular.
Fortunately, these tentacles could do no more than execute the most basic attacks, and they couldn’t access the divine powers of those they controlled.
This made things much simpler.
Tillysha readied her large bow, its wings of light extending, a light arrow forming on the string.
Instead of releasing it immediately, Tillysha activated her second divine authority, Verdant Sweetness, infusing the arrow with sprouting buds, and fired it towards Filisia.
The arrow was easily deflected by Filisia, but that was fine. The real purpose of this arrow extended far beyond that.
Upon touching Filisia’s sword, the arrow transformed into countless vines, sprouting and spreading like a seed’s growth, wrapping Filisia into a tight bundle.
This was a new divine technique combination Tillysha had developed: attaching Verdant Sweetness to the light arrow to produce amazing results.
No sooner had she fired the first arrow than a blur disappeared.
Tillysha wondered where Wenfu had gone, soon understanding as she realized the cat girl had silently pounced onto her shoulder, leaving a mouthful of saliva there.
Considering how to prevent needing a rabies vaccine upon return, Tillysha easily pulled down the combat-inefficient Wenfu, bound her with another Verdant Sweetness, and turned to observe the forest turned crimson.
Every tree appeared alive, branches reaching out toward them like clawed hands.
Tillysha noticed that these tentacles were actually the roots of these trees, emerging from the ground without damaging it.
It was obviously a psychic attack.
Unable to counter a spiritual body directly, why not simply destroy the forest?
Tillysha raised her bow and arrowed a massive energy arrow at a towering tree, leaving a large, crater-like hole in its trunk before it collapsed.
To her astonishment, instead of being intimidated, the grotesque faces only laughed more maniacally, floating off the trees to swirl in the air.
Aistride could only watch in confusion as Tillysha stood in thought. She didn’t understand Tillysha’s motives for piercing the tree but trusted her actions were justified.
Ah, the trees were only mediums. Even if the forest was burned, it would do little to address the root cause. As long as these ‘monsters’ persisted, the forest could regenerate anytime.
Tillysha gazed at her bow in hand.
Is there no other way?
Seeing Filisia nearly breaking free of the Verdant Sweetness bindings, Tillysha had to make a last-ditch attempt.
There was only one uncertain method left.
In a flash, a black mass materialized in Tillysha’s hands into a large black halberd, its length twice her own height. One end was wreathed in a flame that emitted the aura of destruction and despair, while the other burned with a pure and spotless white flame.
“The Blade of Annihilation and Creation – Holy Oblivion,” the transformation began.
