Chapter Fourteen: The Dark Forest

  "Dis, at this rate, how much longer until we reach the Dark Forest?" Francis stopped to catch his breath.

  The surrounding environment was a bit like the redwood forests on Earth, with towering trees everywhere, and sunlight could only shine down from the gaps! They chose to walk, after all, in this place, walking was the fastest way, and they were not weaklings, their speed of progress was very fast.

  "In about seven days, our current location is roughly here, and our destination is over there!" Dais stopped and pulled out a map, pointing to a place on the outskirts of the dark forest where he had drawn a mark. "According to the map on that stone monument, I found this place, it's the only one that matches the map!"

  Francis took the map and glanced at it, "The treasure is in a deep valley on the map, and there's also a swamp in front of the valley. Hmm! It seems that getting the treasure won't be easy this time!" Francis raised an eyebrow and said with a bit of a headache, "But so what! If it were easy to get the treasure, I'm afraid we wouldn't have a chance either! On the back of the stone tablet, it's carved: 'If one day the empire is destroyed, the descendants of the royal family can find the wealth left by their ancestors with this stone tablet and use it to restore the country!' No holy stage cultivation, strictly forbidden to enter the forbidden land to get treasure! This place is listed as a forbidden land, non-national destruction, later generations are prohibited from entering! The treasure still exists, that is to say, since the fall of the Zhaibei Empire, his descendants have not appeared with a holy stage existence! But how strong is the holy stage? Dis, Lila, you two compared to the holy stage, what's it like?" Francis was very curious about their strength.

  "I don't have the experience of this world's sacred ranks, so I shouldn't be making judgments! However, that wizard from last time, the one I sent to the underworld, his strength was at the 8th rank. So I think my own strength should be around the same as a Sacred Rank!" Dis thought for a moment before responding. Last time, Francis had asked him to take care of that wizard, and afterwards, he had used the Underworld Wave to make a trip to the entrance of the underworld, from which he had obtained some information about this continent from that wizard's mouth.

  "Really? How's Nariya's strength?" Francis looked at Saber.

  "It's unclear, I've never fought against a Saint!" Saber shook her head.

  "What about you and Deece?" Francis's eyes lit up, eager to know how the two of them compared in strength.

  "Unless it's a fight to the death, I don't know who's stronger!" Saber closed her eyes and recalled her last battle with Dis. Dis didn't object from the side.

  "Really!" Francis thought back to the previous battle between the two, Dis's special move was indeed troublesome, and Lila could absorb magic power from him to increase her own strength. Her destructive power was also very strong! These two people fighting each other were indeed a bit of trouble.

  "Last time we fought, your strength should be about the same! In that case, we are two Saints, and this action should be easy! First earn some money, then go to the Monster Country to train, Dis's idea is not bad! So let's set off now!"

  "Is this a branch of the Forgotten Mountains?!" Francis pulled out his map and took a look, the towering red tree forest that had been there yesterday was gone, replaced by a vast mountain range. He sat on a protruding rock "This long journey is indeed exhausting!" he said while eating roasted meat from his hand "Dis's craftsmanship has gotten better over these few days!"

  "Just past here is the Dark Forest! In the Dark Forest, there's probably still two days of journey!" Dais said, roasting the bear meat in his hand. With Francis' appetite, ordinary beasts couldn't satisfy him, so along the way, these large animals became the first choice.

  "Are there still two days of journey? Will we meet the elves?" Francis asked.

  "It shouldn't be, we're not going deep into the dark forest, just to the outskirts! Young master wants to see the elves, right?" Dis hands over the roasted meat to Saber.

  "No, it's better if we don't see them at all. Elves love peace, but they dislike humans even more. If they were to attack us, it would cause unnecessary trouble!" Francis said. Although elves are skilled in forest battles, Francis still had confidence in his own group. What he feared was the high-ranking experts above the Holy rank among the elven tribe. If they were to injure the attacking elves, they might provoke an old monster-level being and suffer the consequences.

  "This is the northernmost part of the Forgotten Mountains, and beyond that lies the Empire of Caesar. To the south, along the mountain range, you can delve deep into the heart of the Ten Thousand Great Mountains... It's as if it separates the Dark Forest from the Empire of Caesar. And the Dark Forest..." Dais said, holding up the map! "It's possible to encounter human mercenaries, after all, it's not far from the Chaos Kingdom, and the Dark Forest has vast resources, with many magical beasts, so there should be plenty of mercenary missions there!"

  Looking around at the large trees and various strange plants, "Dark Forest, it's really not a name in vain!" Francis touched the big tree beside him, which had plate-like roots, with yellow flowers blooming on their old trunks. Many small plants were epiphytic on their branches, some of which climbed high by entwining other plants. Some trees hung down many columnar roots from the air, eventually becoming isolated trees, and some plants grew huge leaves. In the forest, vines were extremely rich, with some stretching hundreds of meters, shuttling and hanging between trees. Francis saw a fat old mouse climbing up along a long vine, suddenly bitten by a poisonous snake disguised as a tree vine. The mouse fell from the tree, ran a few steps, and fell to the ground convulsing, poisoned to death in no time. Just as the snake was about to chase the mouse, a fluffy tentacle stretched out of a nearby tree hole, which was a large spider. It bit the snake's head and dragged it into the hole.

  "What a perilous place this is! This is insecticidal powder, Dis and Liria, apply some to your bodies!" Francis took out the prepared insecticidal powder from his spatial ring and handed it to the two. "Be careful, if you're bitten by those insects, some of their venom is so potent that even my purification magic as a Light Magician can't do anything about it."

  Dys and Saber took over the deworming powder and sprinkled some on themselves.

  "From now on, we need to be more careful, there are monsters here too, and the further forward we go, the stronger they get!"

  "It's not safe to walk on the ground, what if we step on some venomous snakes or insects? Let's move forward by stepping on tree trunks! Saber, use your sword to clear a path!" Dice said, looking around at Saber and Francis.

  "No problem!" He nodded slightly.

  "Then let's set off! Try to make as much progress as possible before nightfall, and find a more open place, otherwise we'll have to sleep in the trees tonight!" Francis nodded at Des. The three of them moved forward by treading on tree trunks, which was thanks to their physical strength and coordination being far superior to ordinary people, otherwise others who hadn't trained would probably find it very difficult to do.

  "Hmm!" Dais suddenly stopped, "What's wrong, Dais?" Francis and Saber stopped and looked at Dais.

  "There's someone ahead to the right, one, two, three, four... ah! Five of them! Not bad reconnaissance skills! If we keep going forward, we'll run into them, young master. Shall we proceed?" Dais asked.

  "Let's wait a bit and talk after they pass by, one less thing is better than one more thing!" Francis frowned, appearing in such a place, probably not a good kind of person...

  "Master, he's gone! Let's go!" said Dais.

  "Hmm! Lila, trouble is yours! Dis, scouting's up to you, sense anyone approaching and let me know! We'll retreat!" Francis calmly made the judgment.

  "Yes!"

  One afternoon Francis and three others were surrounded by five unidentified men.

  "This is a dark forest, even on the outskirts, there are quite a few people!" Francis said in puzzlement.

  "Master, we may be being followed!" Dais said with a bad news.

  "Huh!? Following us? Our speed isn't slow, yet they can keep up. How many people do they have? They're quite formidable, Dis!" Francis was somewhat astonished!

  "There are eight people in total, none of them are particularly powerful, only three have reached the eighth rank, and they can keep up with us only because they are riding on magical beasts." Diess closed his eyes to sense it.

  "Are they sure their target is us?!"

  "Yes! Young master, shall we clean up the traces left along the way?"

  "No need, since the target has a demon beast, we can find it by smell! What a hassle, and now we've been discovered!" Francis said helplessly. "But what's with that group?! Why are they following us?!"

  "Seriously, we can't just let them follow us, are we going to take care of them here?" Dais suggested.

  Francis furrowed his brow, "Let's see what kind of person this is first!" Francis had killed people before, but at that time he had lost control. Now that he was sober, he couldn't bring himself to kill someone at the drop of a hat.

  After a while, the people behind finally caught up. Francis observed them carefully. There were eight of them in total, all with dusty faces and some injuries, riding on seven tall wind wolves. One of the magic wolves had two people sitting on it. The three middle-aged men at the front exuded an aura of high skill: a red-robed mage, a swordsman with a gloomy face, and another man wearing a mage robe but looking very rough, with a big beard, not like a weak mage, but they all looked somewhat disheveled at the moment. The two girls riding on one wind wolf were both young; one was wearing leather armor over warrior clothes, had delicate features, short brown hair, and an air of elegance about her, probably around seventeen or eighteen years old, but she looked anxious at the moment. The other girl wore a mage robe and lay in the first girl's arms, with long blue hair and an unseen face. The remaining three boys all looked young; two were wearing mage robes, one was wearing black warrior clothes. Everyone in the group was staring nervously at Francis' trio.

  As Francis sized up the group, they too were observing Francis and his two companions. However, to conceal their identities, all three of them wore black cloaks with hoods that covered their faces, making it impossible to discern their features. The leader of the group exchanged a cautious glance with Dis and Saber, and upon realizing they couldn't read the intentions of the trio in black, mentally cursed their bad luck. Their own party had been ambushed by monsters, some members were poisoned, and their only light mage had exhausted his magic during the previous attack and was killed by an eighth-tier dark shadow leopard, with his body dragged off to who-knew-where. The antidotes they carried were ineffective, and they couldn't find their light mage anywhere. It was then that their summoner, aka Big Beard, sensed someone approaching through his monster's keen senses. With no other choice, the group followed, despite the risk of being misunderstood, as the poisoned girl held a special status that couldn't be ignored. Thus, with a glimmer of hope, they trailed Francis' party, following the tracks he left behind. However... upon seeing the three figures shrouded in cloaks across from them, the trio of eighth-tier dark mages mentally lamented their bad luck, as it seemed their opponents weren't easy to deal with and their abilities were unknown!