462: Three hundred and nineteen.
462: Three hundred and nineteen.
“Mother of the Marsh, are the Banyan Trees your servants?”
Recalling the last experience, those eerie banyan trees with their hollows, and the help from the banyan trees when he finally escaped the swamp, Lu Li asked.
No response came to Lu Li’s words.
The statue of the Mother of the Marsh remained silent, indistinguishable from an ordinary clay sculpture as if the consciousness of the Evil God had departed from it.
Lu Li brought the statue of the Mother of the Marsh close to the counter.
The counter, which had been ticking slowly because of Anna’s presence, did not pick up the pace—
The Mother of the Marsh had left.
Packing away the statue, Lu Li turned around and related what had just happened to Anna and Jojo, who were looking his way.
“Could it really be a trap?!” Knowing that the Mother of the Marsh had disappeared, Jojo couldn’t think of a second possibility.
His black eyes fell on what lay ahead.
Shadow Figures hid behind the withered trees, waiting for them to approach.
If it were a trap, the Mother of the Marsh would have led them to their destination, not abandoned them en route.
Perhaps something they didn’t know had happened.
“We need to leave,” Anna, who had been silent for a long time, said, for the first time opposing Lu Li, “I won’t let you take any more risks.”
There was a dimness in Jojo’s eyes, but also a sense of relief.
She noticed Anna’s hostility towards herself and pursed her pale lips, “…
Anna is right, you shouldn’t take any more risks.”
Lu Li lifted his eyes to look at the reluctant Anna, “The Mother of the Marsh won’t let us leave.”
His once clear eyes, like a group of stars, were now occupied by a blood-red hue, permeating a coldness that sent shivers down the spine, “Then we fight our way out.”
“We know that’s not possible,” Lu Li said softly, shaking his head.
To some extent, they who had entered deep into this place were already on the same rope as the Mother of the Marsh.
Unless either the Mother of the Marsh or the unknown Evil God failed, Lu Li no longer had a way out.
“Avoid these banyan trees, follow the Shadow Figures, the steamboat should be not far ahead,” Lu Li spoke, stepping forward.
Anna’s gaze fell coldly on Jojo, her figure gradually fading away.
Jojo hesitated and then followed behind Lu Li.
The withered trees of the Swamp Jungle were gradually being replaced by ominous banyan trees.
They were already dead, the remains of their roots hanging down like fabric.
The wind couldn’t penetrate the Banyan Tree Forest; the air was still, everything came to a standstill, silent and similar to twilight.
The Shadow Figures, that had always hidden behind the trees on the outskirts of the swamp, no longer approached the nearby banyan trees.
They too were avoiding them.
Perhaps they didn’t want to touch the hanging roots, or maybe it was for some other reason.
Regardless, having witnessed the attack of the eerie banyan trees before, Lu Li wouldn’t carelessly approach them.
The distances between each tree were close, with roots extending into the mud nearly intertwining together, and the massive canopies almost blocking out the sky, whispering sounds surging through the darkness.
Entering the Banyan Jungle was only a matter of distance; the progressively darkening environment and the tangled roots on the ground necessitated that both Lu Li and Jojo light their oil lamps.
The dim yellow light of the oil lamp came on, spreading around them.
To their surprise, the still, silent air was filled with dust and indescribable fluff, floating like spirits in the air, moving slowly.
As Lu Li and Jojo approached, the fluff seemed to be disturbed, surging and then disappearing.
Lu Li and Jojo both maintained silence, not wanting to disturb the stillness of the forest.
Although lighting the oil lamps inevitably made them more visible, there was good news—no strange creature dared to venture into the dark, twilight forest.
Aside from the Banyan Tree itself.
Lu Li and his group ducked beneath the dangling roots and navigated the crisscrossing roots at their feet, but things would never go smoothly.
At a certain moment, Lu Li observed the silent roots hanging around them seemed to be lifted by the passing air currents, gently swaying, extending towards where they passed.
It certainly wasn’t due to the breeze—the roots didn’t coincidentally all point towards Lu Li and the others.
It seemed that the roots sensed not Lu Li and Jojo…
Lu Li stopped, looked towards the air where the roots extended, sensing that Anna was right there.
He brought his hands together slowly, and finally clasped them together.
Anna understood his gesture, gradually retracting the resentful spirit energy she exuded.
The roots drawn by it began to droop slightly, but didn’t return to complete calm.
Anna had been incapable of completely concealing her own aura even before this, and after her previous outburst, the extent of her contamination by the Inner World had irreversibly increased somewhat.
Anna controlled her own aura, distancing herself from Lu Li, floating at a distance where she could assist Lu Li at any moment without affecting him.
Perhaps because Lu Li and the others were avoiding the hanging roots and the tree roots beneath the mud, or perhaps because the Banyan Tree Forest had no interest in them, Lu Li and Jojo safely traversed a long distance.
When the surrounding forest began to thin, Lu Li stopped and looked ahead.
Shadow Figures were ahead, and the sound of flowing water was also coming from ahead.
The sound of the river flowing diluted the calm of the Swamp Jungle, inexplicably providing a sense of comfort.
Lu Li approached the Shadow Figures, standing beside one that was pitch black as if charred, and looked forward.
A few meters away, a stream about ten meters wide was gurgling through the Banyan Jungle, splashing and flowing downstream.
Jojo couldn’t bear to look directly at the Shadow Figures and averted her gaze after stopping behind Lu Li.
With no one watching, the Shadow Figures suddenly disappeared, appearing neither on the opposite bank nor downstream.
Upstream, in the stream, the Shadow Figures stood in the water, calf-deep.
Lu Li looked further upstream, and a hundred meters away, the outline of something man-made surfaced in the stream.
Lu Li and Jojo walked along the bank for a while until the nearby Banyan Trees forced them to enter the stream, the stirred waters churning downwards as they waded upstream.
The surrounding Banyan Tree Forest remained unchanged, and the outline in the stream ahead gradually became clearer.
A strange rock stood about a dozen meters away.
Lu Li approached it and lifted the oil lamp.
A huge, rust-covered anchor was half embedded in the riverbed, with an arm-thick chain lying under the surface, obscured by mud, its outline extending towards a shadow in front.
Following the direction of the chain, a minute later, Lu Li and Jojo arrived in front of the giant shadow.
A rust-covered mast-wheel ship spanned the stream, fifty meters or perhaps even longer, extending from bow to stern into the Banyan Tree Forest, surrounded by a large number of collapsed Banyan Trees.
The cut-off stream bypassed both sides of the ship and reconverged behind it.
They approached the underside of the ship, which was deeply immersed in the riverbed’s mud, although the deck remained 4 to 5 meters above.
The surface rust reflected the light of the oil lamp.
With the sound of the stream providing cover, Lu Li didn’t need to worry about startling the Banyan Trees on the bank, “Anna, see if we can board from there.”
Anna emerged, floated up to the deck, and began searching for a suitable entry point.
Jojo nervously bowed her head, and on the water’s surface, their reflections broke and reformed continuously.
Her brother might just be inside.