The Legend of the Demon Hunter

When the two men walked to within ten meters behind the kneeling man, they found that the man was already dead. A long sword was stuck in the back of his neck. The sword pierced from his neck from top to bottom and went into his chest and abdomen.

This way of dying is extremely cruel.

"He died not long ago." Lin Xuemiao said, looking at the blood on the ground that had not yet dried.

"Then he should also be a life-seeker who has explored this place in depth." Xiao Zhu guessed.

"Well, I don't feel any spiritual fluctuations around for the time being, but this place is too weird, so we should be careful." Lin Xuemiao replied.

The two men walked around the man's body and continued forward. There was a deathly silence in the woods, and the only sound they could hear was the "crunching" sound of Xiao Zhu and Lin Xuemiao stepping on the dead branches and leaves on the ground.

Xiao Zhu felt that the sound was a bit like the friction of dead people's bones.

The two men continued walking for a quarter of an hour. Because they walked very carefully, they had only walked less than a kilometer in this quarter of an hour. Right in front of them, a kneeling person in exactly the same posture appeared again.

The two men looked at each other, then approached the man side by side. His death was exactly the same as the previous one, with a sword piercing his neck. Judging from the bloodstains on the ground, this man had not been dead for long.

"Xue Miao, you still can't feel anything around you?" Xiao Zhu asked.

Lin Xuemiao shook her head.

With her perception, she couldn't sense anything around her. This was really weird.

The two men walked around the corpse again and continued to move forward. This time, Xiao Zhu deliberately calculated the distance by the number of steps. As he expected, after walking exactly one kilometer, the corpse appeared again. It looked exactly the same as the previous two. The only difference was that the deceased this time was a female.

Her hair hung down in front of her as she lowered her head, completely covering her face, making her look even more terrifying.

"I feel like this is a ritual, or a form of performance art." Xiao Zhu said after walking around the female corpse.

"As you said, there must be a mastermind behind this Ghost Fog Forest?" Lin Xuemiao asked.

"Well, the mastermind behind this is conveying some information to us through these dead people." Xiao Zhu answered affirmatively.

"So what does he want to express?" Lin Xuemiao asked.

"What he wants to express is that anyone who comes to this ghost fog forest will eventually end up like these people." Xiao Zhu said.

It seemed as if a cold wind was blowing past the two of them, making them feel creepy.

At this moment, Lin Xuemiao suddenly exclaimed, "There's danger!"

As soon as she finished speaking, a cold light flew over from a distance, aiming directly at Xiao Zhu. Xiao Zhu blocked the Greedy Wolf Sword in front of him, with golden light all over the sword, and slashed towards the cold light.

"Dang!" The crisp sound of metal colliding was heard, and a huge figure separated from Xiao Zhu at the touch, and immediately disappeared into the ghost fog forest.

"Xue Miao, be careful!" A figure appeared from another direction and rushed towards Lin Xue Miao. Lin Xue Miao was also a veteran, and she had already prepared herself. She swung the electric whip in her hand without hesitation and set up a defense in front of her. The figure rushed to the electric whip and was immediately paralyzed by it, and his body paused for a moment.

Xiao Zhu took the opportunity to rush forward and hit the opponent's body with the Tanlang Sword.

The figure was blown away by the huge impact force of the Greedy Wolf Sword, and it broke four or five trees before it stopped. Xiao Zhu and Lin Xuemiao finally saw each other's appearance clearly.

It was a giant mantis, and what had just attacked them were the two blade-like huge blades on the front of the mantis. When the two saw the full appearance of the mantis, they instantly felt a chill in their hearts.

There was actually a human head growing on the neck of this mantis, with sparse yellow hair and a hideous face.

"This is a human-headed mantis..." Xiao Zhu murmured. He had only heard of this terrifying monster in myths and legends, and this was the first time he saw it with his own eyes.

"There is another one behind us." Lin Xuemiao reminded.

Xiao Zhu nodded, pointed at the injured mantis in front and said, "Defeat them one by one! Let's eliminate this one first."

The two of them rushed forward tacitly. The lightning whip in Lin Xuemiao's hand turned into a chain and tied up the human-headed mantis. How could this monster just sit there and wait to die? Its tall body showed amazing flexibility. It used the two giant blades on its forelimbs to quickly cut off a tree and threw it towards the lightning chain.

The lightning chain's attack path was blocked and it instantly bound the oncoming giant tree. The human-headed mantis took advantage of this gap to spread the wings behind it and tried to fly into the air.

But before it flew less than a meter away, a golden vine suddenly grew out from the ground, wrapped around its body, and pulled it back to the ground.

Xiao Zhu was holding the Greedy Wolf Sword and was about to attack the trapped human-headed mantis when he suddenly felt a gust of wind coming from behind. Xiao Zhu knew that another human-headed mantis had attacked him, so he wanted to use offense as defense to help his companion rescue.

"Xue Miao, block it for me!" Xiao Zhu shouted.

"Okay!" Lin Xuemiao answered loudly, then turned into a ray of lightning and rushed behind Xiao Zhu, setting up a huge net made of lightning on the path of the human-headed mantis.

The lightning attribute has a strong inhibitory effect on ghost creatures like the human-headed mantis. As soon as the human-headed mantis touches the electric grid, the ugly and terrifying human head lets out a shrill scream, and it flaps its wings and bounces back the same way.

The threat behind him had been eliminated. Xiao Zhu no longer hesitated to slash the Greedy Wolf Sword in his hand at the mantis in front of him. The golden light instantly spread over dozens of meters away, cutting the mantis's body in two! Xiao Zhu cut a huge wound about one meter long on its chest and abdomen.

At this moment, a sticky mass suddenly fell out from the broken body of the mantis. Xiao Zhu looked closely and found that it was a person who had been swallowed alive. This person had been swallowed for some time and was corroded beyond recognition by the gastric juice of the mantis.

Seeing this scene, Xiao Zhu suddenly felt nauseous!

He didn't want to take any more looks and immediately shifted his gaze to the human-headed mantis that Lin Xue Miao was dealing with behind him.

The human-headed mantis also noticed that its companion had been killed. It did not rush up to retaliate, but quickly spread the wings behind it and flapped its wings into the yellow poisonous fog in the air. It seemed to be immune to the toxicity in the fog. The airflow from its wings stirred the fog and it rolled up. Soon its figure disappeared, and the stirred poisonous fog returned to stillness again.

"It flew away." But Lin Xuemiao sensed the other party's whereabouts.

"Xue Miao, do you think the mastermind behind the murder of those people in front of us are these two human-headed mantises?" Xiao Zhu asked.

Lin Xuemiao shook her head and said, "It's unlikely. Although these two monsters look scary, their true strength is not that strong. They are only equivalent to the level of third-level magic beasts. The life chasers who entered the mirage have at least reached the soul hunting level. There are even some old monsters at the soul hunting level who have entered this place and want to get a piece of the pie. With the strength of the man-headed mantis, even if two of them join forces, they can't easily kill them."

"So, there is someone else behind the scenes?" Xiao Zhu nodded, agreeing with Lin Xuemiao's speculation.

"Well, it may be not far ahead." Lin Xuemiao replied.

Xiao Zhu looked ahead and saw a deep and dense forest. There were only trees as far as the eye could see, and there was nothing unusual.