I told you to plant peas, and you summon Mordekaiser?

Huangfu Qinghe tried pressing the communication button on the bracelet. The indicator light on the screen flashed a few times before finally falling silent.

"The signal has been cut off."

His brow furrowed slightly as he looked up at his surroundings.

"This fog is like some kind of shielding device, completely isolating us from the outside world."

Upon hearing this, Chen Yang's gaze darkened slightly, and he said nothing more, only glancing around.

Only then did they begin to truly examine the forest.

The pinkish-purple mist, like some kind of viscous liquid, permeated the air, firmly compressing visibility to within twenty meters.

The ground beneath my feet was damp and soft, with clusters of small pink mushrooms sprouting from the ground everywhere.

Occasionally, a few giant mushrooms can be seen in the distance, their caps, towering above the treetops, resembling dark pink domes that further obscure the light.

Those mushroom colonies emitted a faint phosphorescence, like lurking eyes.

"Let's go through."

Chen Yang broke the silence first, "The fog is so thick, even if that thing chases us in, it will be difficult for it to find us."

Huangfu Qinghe nodded and glanced around: "If we're lucky, we can leave this forest from the other side."

Chizi Gao hesitated for a moment, glancing around. "Perhaps the things in this forest are even more difficult to deal with than Gargantuar."

"Then we have no choice but to take a gamble. Have you forgotten about the horde of zombies behind us?"

Without hesitation, Chen Yang strode forward.

As the three ventured deeper, the surrounding trees began to thin out, replaced by denser clusters of mushrooms.

Those mushrooms were incredibly tall, with thick stems like stone pillars and open caps that could even block out the sun.

The three stopped in front of a pond. The water was eerily calm, and they could vaguely see some kind of huge mushroom floating on the surface.

These mushrooms seem to be quietly resting at the bottom of the water.

"What a huge sailor mushroom..."

Huangfu Qinghe's voice was deep, "Be careful, this is at least a third-tier plant."

They continued onward around the pond, but suddenly heard a sticky, rubbing sound.

A giant mushroom growing on the ground slowly twisted, and a crack appeared on its top, shooting out purple spores towards them!

"Back off!"

Huangfu Qinghe reacted quickly, raising his hand to summon a sunflower.

A golden-red solar flame swept across like a knife, engulfing the gaping maw in flames.

The mushroom twisted and struggled in the flames, eventually turning into a charred mess.

"Hiss..." Chi Zigao gasped, looking at the scorched earth, and couldn't help but say, "That's a giant mushroom, isn't it? Why is it attacking humans?"

"Remember our first ascension qualifying round? Wild plants would indiscriminately attack any creatures around them."

Chen Yang scanned his surroundings warily.

The sunflowers made quite a commotion.

Sure enough, that attack seemed to awaken some dormant creatures deep in the forest.

A low, guttural roar echoed in the air, as if something enormous was slowly awakening in the mist.

"Oh no, we've alerted something again..."

Chi Zigao's face turned pale.

"Come on."

The three quickly moved away from the spot, leaving the growls behind.

Having traveled this far, Gargantuar's movements have completely disappeared.

The tranquility of the forest felt like a silent hunting ground, and an invisible pressure weighed heavily on the three of them, refusing to dissipate.

"Let's speed things up."

At Chen Yang's direction, the three of them carefully moved among the giant mushroom trees. Low growls occasionally rang out, but they were always obscured by the mist and became barely audible.

They were like hunters stalking a vast, unknown hunting ground, with danger lurking in the fog, watching their every step.

Continuing along the path deep into the mist, the purple-pink fog seemed to still envelop them, but Chen Yang soon noticed something amiss.

"Why are there fewer and fewer trees?" Huangfu Qinghe spoke first, looking around.

Sure enough, the towering mushroom trees around them gradually thinned out, and the ground began to reveal dry, cracked soil.

Ahead, an open space gradually came into their view.

Surprisingly, the fog here was unusually thin.

The air seemed to become clear all of a sudden, but this clarity brought with it an even heavier sense of oppression.

The three people standing at the edge of the open space stopped in their tracks at the same time.

"...What is that?" Chi Zigao's voice trembled slightly.

In the center of the open space, a strange tree stood out.

The tree was about ten meters tall, with a trunk as black as charcoal. It had no leaves or fruit, and its bare branches stretched out in all directions like twisted arms.

What's even more chilling is that countless bizarre things were "hanging" on those branches.

Tombstone Devourer.

These are monsters formed by the fusion of living beings and tombstones, with sharp fangs protruding from their pointed stone shells, hanging motionless from the tree trunks.

In the deathly silence, the scene was so eerie that it sent chills down one's spine.

"What the hell is this?"

Chi Zigao's Adam's apple bobbed up and down, his voice almost trembling.

Huangfu Qinghe's expression turned slightly serious: "The Tombstone Devourer hanging on the tree... this is a danger we cannot afford to encounter."

Chen Yang took a deep breath and said in a low voice, "We have to go around it."

The three of them took a half step back in unison, standing under the cover of mist and trees, keeping their bodies low, and planned to pass through from the outside.

However, at this moment——

The ground suddenly began to tremble slightly.

The tremors came from afar, and the soil shook slightly, as if some enormous creature was approaching.

"Hide!" Chen Yang shouted in a low voice, and the three of them immediately darted behind the nearest mushroom tree and held their breath.

The air was frozen solid, like a cold block of iron.

The next moment, they saw a colossal creature burst forth from the mist on the opposite side.

It was a huge, two-headed, beak-like flower with a forked stem that revealed two ferocious mouths covered in fangs.

Wet saliva dripped onto the ground, corroding and leaving charred marks.

It moves incredibly fast, its footsteps making a dull thud as it hits the ground, like a mobile carnivorous fortress.

However, to the three's alarm, this plant, which was at least at the fourth level, seemed to be fleeing in panic all the way!

One of the heads of this double-headed cauliflower was only half left, and thick purple sap was oozing out.

It charged into the center of the clearing, and before its scarlet mouth could even catch its breath, black vines lashed out from the tombstone-devouring tree like giant snakes hunting their prey.

"Snapped!"

The vines coiled around the body of the two-headed giant mouth flower, and the tombstone devourer at the top of the vines opened its stone teeth and bit down hard.

Purple juice spurted out instantly, staining the ground red.

The once ferocious two-headed beaked flower suddenly went limp, its massive body trembling as if paralyzed by some unknown force, unable to even struggle.

The three people, hiding behind a tree, watched this scene, their faces suddenly turning pale.

That's a fourth-tier plant!

But in front of this tree, it was completely powerless!