Chapter 70: Cave

Chunks of flames descended from the sky as if it were raining fire.

Amidst the falling flames, a red streak of light flew back into Su Chen’s hand.

It was the Flame Crystal statue.

After only being used once, its body had visibly shrunk in exchange for the extremely powerful attack.

After such a frightening attack, nothing remained intact. All that remained were scattered pieces of flesh on the ground and the smell of charred flesh in the air.

That bow was perhaps the only remaining item.

Su Chen walked over and picked up the Tree Demon Bow from the ground.

The bow seemed to be alive. Perhaps realizing that its owner had changed, the Tree Demon on the bow twisted its head around and bit Su Chen.

“Foolhardy!” Su Chen harrumphed. He stretched his hand out and flicked the Tree Demon’s forehead. The Tree Demon let out a piercing, pained cry.

Suddenly, Su Chen felt his vision blur as countless demons charged in his direction.

Su Chen instinctively tossed the bow to the side. All of the illusions disappeared, and everything returned to how it was.

“It can generate illusions?” Su Chen was somewhat surprised.

After trying it out a few times, Su Chen finally determined that the bow truly did have some strange soul-influencing capabilities. The bow would cause the user to sink into a kind of illusion realm - no wonder it was called the Cursed Tree Demon Bow.

He didn’t know how Zhang Sheng’an was able to wield it.

Su Chen searched the corpse pile for quite a while, but he didn’t find anything that could suppress the bow. Either it had been destroyed in battle, or Zhang Sheng’an had cultivated an Origin Skill that allowed him to resist soul-type attacks; however, when taking into consideration that his Soul Eye and Soul-Fixation Technique had been effective against Zhang Sheng’an, Su Chen reckoned that it was the former.

However, that item probably no longer existed.

Apart from the bow, Su Chen found an Origin Ring in the pile with three thousand Origin Stones inside. For a student, that was already quite impressive. Unfortunately, all of Zhang Sheng’an’s protective treasures had either been completely used up or destroyed during the battle.

Even so, Su Chen was very satisfied with just the Tree Demon Bow.

He tossed the bow into his Origin Ring as he turned to leave. However, he suddenly sensed something and glanced at his surroundings before realizing that he was standing right in front of a massive cave.

What attracted his attention, however, was not the cave, but a small, fire-red flower within the cave.

Three Suns Flower.

Even though it was a low-tier Three Suns Flower, they were still very rare.

Because it was so hard to find, stumbling upon one was not an everyday occurrence.

Su Chen slowly eased towards it, constantly scanning his surroundings as he carefully picked the Three Suns Flower.

There was no ambush or trap. He had obtained an extremely rare medicinal herb just like that.

Even Su Chen was caught a bit off-guard by his sudden stroke of good luck.

It wasn’t until this moment that Su Chen began to realize his surroundings looked a bit strange.

The cave was a bit strange. It didn’t look like a natural formation but rather a man-made construct. But who would dig out such a large cave here? And they had completely ignored the Three Suns Flower growing inside the cave…...

A thought flashed through his mind. He suddenly realized where he was.

This was the Clay Giant’s cave!

His pursuit of Zhang Sheng’an had actually brought him to the Clay Giant’s lair.

At this moment, the Clay Giant was still out and about and could return at any time.

An idea appeared in Su Chen’s head that he could not suppress: he was going to look inside the cave.

This was a rare opportunity. No one knew what kinds of treasures the Clay Giant’s cave contained. If Su Chen didn’t take a look, he would probably regret it for his entire life.

After thinking for a moment, Su Chen decided to take the risk and enter the cave.

He walked along one of the cave’s tunnels, discovering as he walked that the cave was extremely large and that the tunnels within the cave were twisted and convoluted.

Su Chen knew that Clay Giants were good at excavation and had a natural talent for digging tunnels. Unexpectedly, the giant had basically turned the mountain into a maze. Su Chen couldn’t tell which direction he was facing for quite some time.

Dammit, why’d you have to make this place so big? Su Chen cursed in his heart.

Despite his cursing, Su Chen was unwilling to give up on his investigation. He had only walked for a little bit when he discovered a Deep Shadow Grass.

Deep Shadow Grass usually grew in damp, shady areas, so they were often found in caves. The Three Suns Grass, in comparison, wanted to be in the sun, so it could only be found at the cave’s entrance. If one Deep Shadow Grass grew here, there would definitely be many more, so Su Chen was unwilling to let go of this rare opportunity.

After walking for another brief period, Su Chen arrived at a junction.

There were three paths to take, and Su Chen didn’t know which one to go down.

At that moment, he happened to glance at the entrance to the right-most path.

A vine hung over the entrance to that path.

Su Chen recognized this vine. It was a Silverbell Fruit Vine.

Silverbell Fruits could be used to concoct physique-tempering medicines. Upon use, one’s physical strength would directly increase.

However, there was only a vine here, but no fruit.

The fruit had been harvested.

Su Chen walked closer and inspected the vine more closely. Based on the remaining traces, it had just been picked too.

Someone was just here!

Su Chen instantly understood.

“So that’s how it is……” Su Chen squinted his eyes.

He finally realized why Zhang Sheng’an and the others were being pursued by the Clay Giant.

Without question, someone had set them up.

When he had encountered Zhang Sheng’an, Su Chen had already smelled a unique fragrance. But because the situation was dire then, and the battle furious, he didn’t think too much on it.

Now, he was certain that the fragrance was the smell of Stone Soul Medicine.

Stone Soul Medicine’s main ingredient was the Stone Soul Beast, a Demonic Beast that only ate earth-type elements. It was an enemy of all earth-type elemental lifeforms.

The Clay Giant had undoubtedly smelled the Stone Soul Beast’s aura and must have thought that it was nearby, so it had gone crazy, chasing after Zhang Sheng’an and the others.

That was to say…… they had been set up by someone else.

As for that person’s goal, Su Chen didn’t think it was revenge. He believed that the other party had used Zhang Sheng’an and the others to distract the Clay Giant so that they could enter the tunnel and search for treasures.

What a brilliant ploy!

Su Chen had to admit that this plan really was quite beautifully executed. Using Zhang Sheng’an to attract the Clay Giant, they then took advantage of that distraction to gather all the treasures in the giant’s lair - quite an innovative idea.

If it weren’t for the fact that Zhang Sheng’an had brought him here, Su Chen naturally would not have discovered this place.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t have anything to do with them, and Su Chen probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to it.

The issue was that after Zhang Sheng’an had been harmed, he had then dragged Su Chen’s party into the mix. Now, it had everything to do with Su Chen.

If he just let the other party go without any consequences, that would be much too lenient.

As he inspected his surroundings, Su Chen very quickly deduced that the person who was inside had yet to emerge.

Perhaps it was because the Clay Giant’s tunnel was so large, delaying them significantly.

Upon realizing this point, Su Chen did not pick a path to go through. Rather, he found a nearby dark corner and concealed himself.

Not long afterwards, the clear sound of footsteps could be heard.

A person stepped out from the tunnel. It was a beautiful young maiden wearing a simple, spotless white dress. Her raven-black hair was split around her neck, and her pale white skin was accentuated by her rosy lips.