Translator: CKtalon
Zhou Wen and Li Mobai looked at each other. If they wanted to go to the Valley of No Return, they had to traverse the Flower River. However, before figuring out the Flower River’s situation, the chances of dying if they entered rashly were too high.
“Master Gu, can you take us to the Flower River’s banks to take a look?” Li Mobai asked.
“No problem, but please forgive me. I can’t take you into the Flower River.” Gu Shanshui made himself clear. Even if they reached the Flower River, he definitely wouldn’t enter.
Li Mobai agreed to only get him to take them to the Flower River’s banks. He wanted to have a look at the Flower River first.
Zhou Wen also wanted to take a look at the Flower River’s situation. It hadn’t been easy for him to make this trip, so he wasn’t willing to return empty-handed.
Gu Shanshui led them to the Flower River. Along the way, they walked through forest trails. There were no roads at all. Gu Shanshui led two young adults from the Gu family ahead to open up a path while Zhou Wen and Li Mobai followed behind.
Zhou Wen had been using Truth Listener’s ability to monitor everything nearby. Furthermore, he made Tai Sui use its mimicking ability to transform into the chick.
After Tai Sui transformed, it looked identical to the chick, but it was white. It stood on Zhou Wen’s shoulder just like the chick.
Zhou Wen was afraid that the antelope would cause trouble again if it came out. Therefore, he didn’t bring it out this time. He had already contacted An Sheng to get someone to deliver food to it to prevent it from causing trouble in school.
According to Worm Dugu, the chick should have the phoenix bloodline. It had a very good restraining effect on Gu worms. Tai Sui also had a strong restraining effect on microscopic dimensional creatures. This was why Zhou Wen had dared to come to the South District.
“Put on your gas masks.” Gu Shanshui stopped and handed them gas masks.
Zhou Wen and company put on the gas masks. Gu Shanshui looked at the two birds on Zhou Wen’s shoulder and said, “Put away your Companion Beasts.”
Zhou Wen placed them in his backpack instead of unsummoning them. Firstly, the chick wasn’t a Companion Beast which he could unsummon. Secondly, Tai Sui needed to be outside to ensure that Zhou Wen wouldn’t be attacked by microscopic Companion Beasts, so it naturally couldn’t be unsummoned.
Gu Shanshui naturally saw this scene, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, the two youths from the Gu family curled their lips as though they viewed Zhou Wen’s actions in contempt, but they didn’t say a word either.
Everyone continued walking forward. Zhou Wen soon realized why Gu Shanshui wanted them to wear gas masks. There were many fungi here, and there were so many floating spores everywhere that it appeared like fog.
These bacteria were originally creatures from Earth. They had mutated due to the dimensional storms. Although they hadn’t reached the level of dimensional creatures, the spores they emitted would cause great damage to the human body if they entered the respiratory tract. The main problem was that it was difficult to treat them when they were inside the body.
Tai Sui naturally wasn’t afraid of these spores. It didn’t have much appetite for them either. Perhaps the energy of these spores was so low that they didn’t catch Tai Sui’s eye.
The chick wasn’t afraid of these spores either. Any foreign microscopic organism that entered its body would be refined by the phoenix flames in its body. Otherwise, the phoenix wouldn’t be the nemesis of Gu.
Zhou Wen got the two of them to stay in his backpack and not come out. As the group walked through the forest, their bodies were quickly covered in a layer of dust. They were actually a large number of spores.
Various fungi could be seen everywhere on the ground and withered trees. Many of the trees here had already withered and turned into a paradise for fungi growth.
Thankfully, the spores here were somewhat different from the parasitic spores in Dragon Gate Grotto. The parasitic spores were independent dimensional creatures, and these spores were only a part of a parent body.
Even so, if an unprepared person entered this area and inhaled large amounts of spores, their lungs and respiratory system would be doomed.
Suddenly, Zhou Wen realized that there was a corpse on the ground in front of him. From the looks of it, it wasn’t a local. His corpse had already rotted and there was a strange fungi creature growing on it.
Growing on the corpse was something that looked like an egg-sized jellyfish. It was translucent and colorless. Although the mushroom looked beautiful, it made one’s hair stand on end.
“Don’t move. Gu Lou, go take a look,” Gu Shanshui said to one of the young men.
The young man responded and summoned a palm-sized black scorpion Companion Beast. He made it slowly approach the corpse and crawl to the jellyfish-like mushroom.
Gu Lou got Gu Shanshui’s affirmative node before ordering the black scorpion to stab the jellyfish-like mushroom with its tail.
Bam!
After the mushroom was pricked, it exploded like a ball filled with water. However, what exploded wasn’t water, but countless transparent spores.
“Retreat!” Gu Shanshui grabbed Gu Lou and another young man named Gu He and threw them behind him. He took a step forward and spat out flames at the spores.
When the flames encountered the spores, they expanded as though they had encountered gasoline. Most of the spores were immediately destroyed, but a few spores still spread out.
Gu Lou and Gu He also used fire-elemental Companion Beasts to burn the spores that escaped their net.
However, the black scorpion Companion Beast had already been invaded by spores. It ignored Gu Lou’s orders and crawled crazily towards the other jellyfish mushrooms, hoping to prick them.
Gu Shanshui spewed out flames, incinerating the corpse along with the scorpion Companion Beast. The jellyfish mushrooms exploded in the flames, along with the spores.
After confirming that none had escaped, Gu Shanshui said to Li Mobai with a heavy expression, “Li, there’s something amiss. That person clearly died from being infected with the spores of fungi dimensional creatures. There must be a parent of the fungi dimensional creatures nearby. Furthermore, its level isn’t low. It’s at least at the Epic stage. This has never been discovered in the past. Are you still going to the Flower River?”
Li Mobai looked at Zhou Wen and asked, “What do you think?”
“Let’s continue.” Zhou Wen had been observing the jellyfish mushrooms and spores on the corpse. These things weren’t much of a threat to him.
Even if Tai Sui didn’t take action, he could deal with them himself. There was naturally no need for him to retreat.
“Master Gu, please continue leading the way. If you feel that you can’t continue, please tell me ahead of time,” Li Mobai said to Gu Shanshui.
“Alright.” Master Gu didn’t say anything else and continued leading Gu Lou and Gu He.
Their most commonly used means available to them was a fire-elemental Companion Beast, but this fire-elemental Companion Beast was very strange. The flames it spewed out were a bluish-white color that had a strong restraining effect on fungi and poisonous insects.
After walking for a distance, Zhou Wen suddenly said, “Wait!” This was because he had already discovered with Truth Listener that there were many corpses ahead. Each corpse was covered in jellyfish mushrooms.