Chapter 563: Deterioration

Chapter 563: Deterioration

What Oro realized so far was just a guess. It was something he deduced by calculating backwards from the time the news might have leaked after the real death of the Death Witch. The specifics of how would only be fully confirmed after consulting more detailed materials…

“So, the exploration ends just like that?” Moser asked, seeing Oro speak this way. Oro glanced at him.

“What are you thinking? We’ve only just begun. How could it end so quickly? We still need to investigate more… Huh? You two?”

Noticing something was off with Moser and the bodyguard’s expressions, Oro immediately put on the glasses he had taken off earlier. His expression froze. “Looks like we’ve run into big trouble, huh?”

“More than just trouble.” Moser stared in a certain direction within the Stone Forest. The speed at which the surrounding stone pillars were melting had suddenly increased. They were even turning into a liquid similar to blood, slowly approaching them. His short sword stabbed into the ground. The melted liquid from the pillars was temporarily blocked outside his Dark Power, but his face was grim. Oro could naturally see how passive Moser was now. “Stay or go? I can’t hold this for long!”

Moser was under great pressure. The blood-like liquid produced by the melting stone pillars possessed an extremely troublesome and unique power. This power contained an intense Death Aura, which made him extremely uncomfortable. Even through the power he released, he could feel a thick sensation of death. This feeling… after prolonged contact, Moser even began to doubt if he would genuinely feel like he was about to die.

“Leaving won’t be that easy either.” The bodyguard shook his head slightly and lightly stamped on the ground. The ground directly cracked apart. This force bypassed Moser’s Dark Power, creating a large sunken area. The flowing bloody liquid all seeped into the cracked ground. “This makes it a bit easier.”

“…” Moser felt his intelligence was being suppressed. Tch, alright, liquids are fluids…

Forget about the liquid from the melting pillars for now. The bigger problem was the figure detected by the satellite. It was a very eerie and bizarre woman. Moser recognized her identity at a glance. She was clearly that strange existence left behind after he and Zheng Yichen had taken down an Evil God last time.

Moser had tried several times to eliminate her back then, but failed every time. And now, this bizarre woman had appeared here, and in a completely new form—she was wearing clothes!!

“I have a very bad feeling about this.” Moser said. Not only had this woman appeared, but the key issue was that those stone pillars seemed unaffected by the melting. They had been melting for a while, yet their volume hadn’t shrunk at all.

“I don’t feel good either.” Oro took off his glasses, put away the satellite that had fallen from the sky into his Expansion Pouch, and equipped himself with the Embrace of Extreme Cold, that commoner’s Divine Artifact. Moser and the bodyguard were strong enough, so they didn’t feel much now, but he couldn’t last. After moving around in the liquid from the melting pillars for a while, he was struggling to hold on. His body began to decay…

His Soul was fine, but his body was directly decaying. In a little more time, he might become a young-looking old man.

Activating the Embrace of Extreme Cold, Oro’s eyes, eyebrows, beard, and even hair all turned frost-white. A wave of cool chill spread out. Under the protection of the Embrace of Extreme Cold’s power, he felt much better, far better than the half-dead state from before. But this was only a temporary relief.

Although the Embrace of Extreme Cold had stored power, when maintaining the Ice Demon Transformation, the consumption was shared. Initially, the consumption mainly drew from Oro’s own power. Anyway, the Embrace of Extreme Cold had already given him new Mana, so his original Mana was naturally unnecessary and could just be used as fuel.

After consuming part of his original power, the ratio of power consumption would begin to shift, gradually balancing with the Embrace of Extreme Cold, and then the Embrace of Extreme Cold’s consumption would take the lead. This was mainly to maintain the user’s condition and maximize its duration.

“Can we negotiate?” Oro said, looking at that eerie woman. He had seen her information provided by Moser. From Moser’s initial description to the current situation, it was clear this eerie and bizarre Derivative Witch was also evolving, at least to the point of knowing to wear clothes…

Well, he and Moser thought alike on that point.

The woman did not speak. The blood that had surged into the ground cracks and even begun to overflow condensed into a Blood Humanoid shape. This humanoid quickly developed new features. By the time Oro and the others could see clearly, this humanoid shape was ripped apart with a tearing sound.

The three men’s eyes twitched involuntarily. In that instant, though the eerie woman said nothing, the killing intent she displayed was unmistakable. She intended to take that person’s life… That Dragon’s life.

“Well, we probably can’t fight…”

Before Oro could finish his sentence, the silent bodyguard and Moser suddenly sprang into action. The bodyguard slammed both fists into the ground. The impact made the surrounding underground area seem as if high-yield explosives had been buried. Large amounts of soil were blasted into the air, and along with them were the humanoid forms condensed from the bloody liquid produced by the melting stone pillars underground. These humanoids struggled in mid-air, trying to move, but were hindered by the force from the bodyguard’s strike, only able to put up a futile struggle before dispersing.

The dispersing humanoids, along with the increasingly crimson shockwaves erupting from underground, evaporated completely, forcibly creating a new purified zone. However, the bloody liquid continuing to be produced by the melting pillars quickly flooded back. But Moser was already prepared. He slashed his short sword backward twice rapidly.

Two blade-like walls of darkness isolated the incoming blood. The bodyguard lifted Oro onto his shoulder. “Go!!”

Crack crack crack crack—

The surrounding melting stone pillars closed in rapidly like itchy fingers, squeezing against the dark walls. Being carried, Oro quite simply expended all the power of the Embrace of Extreme Cold. The Embrace of Extreme Cold could keep the user in Ice Demon Transformation and could also be used as an attack-type Magic Artifact capable of self-recovery.

After being completely drained, the Embrace of Extreme Cold could release an extremely powerful Ice Magic spell. The pure Ice Magic that erupted completely froze this entire area in ice. Simultaneously, the ice-blue entwined pattern on the Ring on Oro’s finger turned transparent. Its power was completely exhausted.

With this deep level of consumption, it would take at least a week to recover power. But it was worth it for a safe environment.

Relying on the freezing effect of this Magic, which completely suppressed the activity of the stone pillars, they successfully escaped this High-Risk Zone. After that, things were simple…

Returning to the entrance of the Stone Forest, the entrance was now in chaos. Many Adventurers and Mercenaries were scrambling out in a sorry state. They carried serious injuries and wore expressions of intense despair on their faces, desperately buying Immunity Potions and forcing them down.

The entire Stone Forest had undergone a drastic change. Even the areas outside the High-Risk Zone saw the melting speed of the stone pillars accelerate significantly. Small droplets of blood seeped from them, dripping to the ground and transforming into Blood Humanoids. These Blood Humanoids had no fixed form. The surface of their bodies constantly churned with countless faces. Those faces twisted in agony, like disgusting liquid bubbles. New faces would continuously emerge and expand from the eyes, ears, nostrils, even mouths of the existing faces, bursting the old ones, and the cycle repeated…

The humanoids that appeared before would only carry one Soul Spirit. But these derivatives, dripping directly from the stone pillars and transforming into humanoid forms, carried multiple Soul Spirits within their bodies. Even if their strength didn’t increase a hundredfold at once, an increase of several times, even tenfold, was certainly possible. For those in the Stone Forest, this was pure bloodshed!

“Ugh, cough cough…!!” A Mercenary covered his mouth, coughing violently. His body rapidly withered. All his vitality seemed to gather at one point. The next moment, a bloody hand burst from the top of his head, forming a new Blood Humanoid.

Before it could rampage, Moser had already struck first. His short sword, infused with Dark Power, pierced the Blood Humanoid’s body. Under the erosion of the Dark Power, the Blood Humanoid quickly turned black and crumbled into a pile of black powder on the ground.

The chaos at this entrance was gradually spiraling out of control…

“Boss, you don’t look so good.” Green said, looking at Oss who was bleeding all over.

“Cough…” Oss coughed violently once, spitting out another large mouthful of blood. Then he shook his head. A surge of Blood Essence rose from his body, gathering all the blood staining him, condensing it into a blood ball. “It’s nothing. This is just the part of it inside my body that I couldn’t control. Once it’s all expelled, it’s fine.”

This blood was what had infected and rapidly infiltrated his body’s interior. Oss had reacted quickly in an emergency, but still didn’t gain much from it. He forcibly expelled a large amount of blood.

This was all the part he couldn’t control after discerning it through his Bloodline Power. As for his body, he had made the fastest response: directly cutting off the infected parts. So the infection source could only spread through the blood, which gave Oss a big buffer. He successfully freed himself from the infection’s grip.

“That’s good. Let’s head back first.” Green said. He, Garcia, and Fred were not injured. The reason they weren’t injured was because Oss’s cover had been good enough. Otherwise, they would have all been marked, which would have been a deadly matter. After all, Oss’s current miserable state was only due to some light injuries. One could imagine how serious the consequences would have been if they had been injured without Oss’s cover…