Captured
Mu Yu entered a tree the instant he lowered his head. He seized control of the two trees next to him and stopped them. Unlike wood demons, he needed to be in direct contact with trees to control them, while wood demons didn’t need to be in contact with trees thanks to their innate link. He pulled them across himself to barricade himself from the approaching branches and launched a counterattack simultaneously.
“Don’t you find it boring just swinging tree branches around?”
As Mu Yu charged toward the wood demon, he drew Shadow Splitter Sword and thrust it at the demon’s chest. The wood demon jumped back to create distance whilst extending sharp tree branches from his arms to intercept the sword. The collision between two sources of spiritual qi blew both of them back.
The wood demon’s hand was so robust that Mu Yu couldn’t put a dent in it. Nevertheless, Mu Yu advanced once again.
The demon howled and unleashed green leaves from its body in a scattered pattern at Mu Yu from every direction. Mu Yu executed Dustfallen Swordplay’s eighth technique, Fallen Shadow Destruction, a technique capable of erasing all phantoms. He split his sword in two and began to slash the whistling leaves, going faster and faster. Normally, the sliced leaves would become a smokescreen of sorts. Mu Yu, however, could control trees. As a result, it didn’t inhibit his vision.
Mu Yu plunged his green sword up through the leaves and swung sword qi back down. The wood demon tried to slip the slash but was too late, losing an arm in the process. He certainly had qualms about killing humans, but he had no issues slaying elemental demons when they just killed a bunch of humans.
It wasn’t surprising the wood demon didn’t bleed. It grabbed a tree by the side and made it glow. It attached it to its left shoulder, replacing the severed arm without a hitch.
“You’re stronger than the other humans, but you’re still no match for me!”’
The wood demon performed shoulder circles before it enlarged itself using more branches out of thin air. Mu Yu was certain the tree branches didn’t come from the trees around them. Mu Yu intended to fly up to dodge the attack. Alas, a pile of wood rained down, forcing him to rotate. By the time he turned, he was already incarcerated in a wooden prison. He hurriedly gripped the wooden rails to take over, but something within the wood knocked his hands away. Forced to give up on that plan, he tried chopping it with Shadow Splitter Sword, only to discover he couldn’t put a dent in the wood.
The wood demon approached the cage and had the wood compress until Mu Yu’s arms were stuck in the tree branches. The wood demon lifted Mu Yu’s chin and sarcastically posed the question, “How do you expect to control my body?”
Mu Yu could see the patterns on the demon and smell its unique cedar scent. He kept trying to wriggle free and usher oxygen into his lungs. “What do you want?”
“How are you able to use our ability? Did humans raise you as a weapon to combat our race?”
It was outlandish to say Mu Yu was humanity’s secret weapon. After all, he wasn’t kept on a leash, ventured into the elemental demons’ territory and was caught without the demon breaking a sweat. So much for “secret”.
“Is there a rule saying only your race can control wood? You make it sound as if you’re the only ones who know anything about plants. We know how to grow crops!”
The wood demon flashed a corner of its human teeth. “You know how to grow crops, do you? Had it not been for us, what would you humans have known about planting crops? You don’t know our origins, do you? In fact, I bet you don’t know humanity’s origins, either. You imperious humans have forgotten how you came into existence, haven’t you?”
Mu Yu spent his time pondering philosophical topics, such as, “Where am I from? Where am I supposed to go?” Humanity and elemental demons’ origins weren’t part of the curriculum.
“I’m taking you back to let our tree elder scrutinise you. He possesses a parasitism ability that will allow him to examine your body.”
As the wood demon raised Mu Yu up single-handedly, Mu Yu implored, “Let’s talk this out. Let’s not use the parasite method, shall we?”
Wood demons were the easiest to defeat, Hao Yingjun claimed. If all of the elemental demons were there, all of the disciples might as well sit and wait to be executed.
***
“Why have the beasts suddenly retreated?” remarked Cheng Yan, stopping with the rest of the four-man team. Cheng Yan grabbed An Siming on the way out.
All four of them were mentally and physically in tatters. One of the bearded youths had a claw mark along his back and would’ve been dead if he hadn’t delayed its impact with his spiritual energy. He replied, “Not sure. The wild beasts and insects should be common habitats of forests. We never saw any wild beasts until we were here.”
“Thank you for rescuing us. This one is Mo Xiong from Glass Sect. May this one ask for your name?” expressed the bearded youth, with a palm and fist salute.
“Dustfallen Sect’s Cheng Yan.” Cheng Yan didn’t see Mu Yu anywhere, but he trusted Mu Yu could stay safe in the forest.
“You are Dustfallen Sect’s disciple? You are Mu Yu’s sibling?” Mo Xiong surprised since Cheng Yan was a Golden Core Realm cultivator.
“Why did the fiends attack you?”
Noticing there was no Golden Core Realm cultivator with the group, Cheng Yan guessed the elemental demons might’ve spared his team since he was a Golden Core Realm cultivator. The logic fell apart when he recalled Ju Wenxing was also a Golden Core Realm cultivator, yet they were attacked.
“We’re not sure. We hadn’t seen any living species over the last few days. The fiends jumped us out of nowhere and ripped apart one of our team members, who was also my junior, before we could fire the signal. Thank you again for coming to our rescue,” bitterly explained one of the cultivators, recalling his futile effort to avenge his junior.
“We need to hurry out of here. Let’s see if we can fly. The others are also in trouble,” informed Cheng Yan, taking out the compass. The plan was to get them out of the forest in case another wave attacked.
***
The wood demon and Mu Yu travelled for quite some time. A formation was set up around the elemental demons’ den to prevent trespassers from escaping. They would then send fiends out to catch trespassers off guard.
“Are you the ones manipulating the fiend race?”
The wood demon marginalised Mu Yu, refusing to let the latter learn too much.
“Or are they controlling you?”
Insulted, the wood demon rhetorically questioned, “Hmph, you think those lowly fiends can control us? You think they would dare to defy us?”
Mu Yu felt rejuvenated when a familiar scent brushed his nose; it was the same scent he picked up when searching for Hong Yan.
“We there yet?”
The wood demon didn’t spare Mu Yu a thought despite the trees scratching his face. Even though Mu Yu twisted his neck and shut his eyes, the leaf still nipped his eyelids. The trees were the same trees he was familiar with. Strangely, there were no animals in sight. There was no need to worry if they went after Cheng Yan.
Mu Yu wasn’t worried about being restrained. If he had any plans of fleeing, he could’ve entered the trees that grazed his face to escape. He wanted to gamble and try to escape after finding the elemental demons’ den.
“What happened to the other elemental demon races?”
“Did they order you to capture me because your race is the weakest?”
“We’re the weakest? They’re cowards who hide underground and beseeched us to protect their sorry selves!”
Well, Mu Yu figured out how to get answers henceforth. “It seems the wood elemental demon population is the smallest by a substantial degree.”
“That’s blatant tripe. We have been resting and nourishing ourselves for years; we have the biggest population. There aren’t even a thousand metal demons, while we almost number ten thousand!”
Although the wood demons’ population was smaller than humanity, they drastically outnumbered cultivators. There were less than a hundred Golden Core Realm cultivators, while Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators would struggle against elemental demons. Humans in Moyun Mountains were already at a disadvantage.
Mu Yu didn’t think too highly of the wood demon race’s intelligence and considered escaping right away. In the end, he focused on the intensifying scent because there were no more tree branches in the vacant space.
The wood demon threw Mu Yu onto the ground.
Mu Yu: Man, I should’ve legged it.
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