Chapter 153: Stone Forest (1)

Pu!

Su Chen spat out a mouthful of blood as he dragged his beaten body out of the forest. His clean white robe was now stained red with blood, and he was unable to maintain his previously even stride on top of the marsh’s surface. These injuries spoke to the difficulty of the battle he had just fought.

“Damn, I still looked down on that guy too much,” Su Chen said to himself as he walked out.

That old tree demon had absorbed flame energy for thousands of years, and its strength was shocking. Even though it had no way of moving, that didn’t mean there was nothing it could do against ranged targets. In the end, even though Su Chen had been victorious, it had come at a price.

Even so, Su Chen had still managed to claim the tree’s heart for himself.

He had no idea what this thing was. There were too many strange beings and items all throughout the Primordial Continent. If one found something that no one had ever seen before, they could only make up an impromptu name for it on the spot. Since the fruit-heart was still beating, Su Chen called it the Tree Demon’s Heart as it seemed appropriate. As for whether or not it was actually the old tree’s heart, or if there was already something that went by that name, he didn’t care.

Its properties and usage were still unknown, but given that the old tree’s strength was roughly equivalent to that of a level four Light Shaking Realm cultivator, it was obvious that they would all be uncommon.

Most importantly, the item itself was rare and difficult to find.

Even a piece of dog poop could be worth a lot of money as long as it was unrivalled across the continent.

Su Chen put away the Tree Demon’s Heart and rested for a short moment before getting back on the Silver Moon Shuttle and starting to search for his next target.

His next stop was a nearby field, as there was a stone forest here.

The reason why Su Chen believed that this stone forest might also house some unique treasures was because this stone forest had developed in a strange pattern, and it also emanated Origin Energy fluctuations.

Searching for these fluctuations was the easiest way to search for treasures. Not every treasure released these Origin Energy ripples, but anything that did so at a high concentration was definitely uncommon.

The world was so vast that Su Chen didn’t need to get hung up on trying to uncover all the extremely well-hidden treasures that existed.

He already had his hands full gathering the ones that he could easily see.

Soon enough, he arrived at the field and found himself floating above the stone forest.

The stone forest had developed on an uneven terrain, and the trees were all of different heights and sizes. However, each treebranch emanated powerful Origin Energy fluctuations. As Su Chen got closer, massive chunks of stone began to fly into the air, turning into stone beasts like wolves, monkeys, pigs, crabs, etc. The largest ones were taller than a hundred feet, while the smallest was only around the size of Su Chen’s palm — it was a crystalline, transparent stone scorpion.

The one thing these stone creatures had in common was that as soon as they formed, they all charged at Su Chen, yelling angrily,“These annoying guys are here again.”

“Kill them! Kill them all!”

A chant rang out through the air.

Su Chen retreated. To determine his opponents’ fighting style, the most reliable tactic was to unleash a large group of Firehawks into the air.

He was just probing their strength with these attacks, but the Firehawks slammed into these stone creatures and unexpectedly instantly killed them. Even Su Chen was stunned; these creatures were too easy to deal with, weren’t they?

“He killed our comrade!”

“You demon!”

“We must kill it and uphold justice.”

As they continued to yell nonsensically, the stone creatures charged at Su Chen with renewed vigor. They swung their stone arms and stone blades through the air, their battle style simplistic and primal.

When he saw this, Su Chen came to a quick decision and unleashed two more waves of Firehawks, easily wiping out all the stone creatures.

However, just as the stone creatures died, another group of stone creatures arose from the stone forest and charged forwards as they howled.

Su Chen attacked again, easily destroying this batch of stone creatures without much effort.

However, then a third wave of stone creatures charged forward unrelentingly.

Su Chen realized that something wasn’t quite right.

He destroyed one of the stone creatures and as he observed its remains, they actually autonomously rolled back to the stone forest, where it quickly repaired itself back to its original form, got back on its feet, and rejoined the battle.

So that’s how it was going to be? Unlimited lives?

Their combat strength was very mediocre, but this ability of theirs to constantly revive was a pain to deal with.

If they could resurrect an unlimited number of times, didn’t that mean that it was impossible to defeat them?

Su Chen thought a bit more carefully about what the stone creatures had said as well. It was obvious that they had experienced many such battles; in other words, they had already died countless times, but never been truly killed. This meant that their revival ability was truly unlimited.

Damn, why did I have to find an opponent like this?

Most importantly, Su Chen wasn’t getting anything valuable or important from his opponents.

Su Chen didn’t want to take this kind of battle, so he began to pull back.

However, the creatures weren’t going to let him go that easily.

“It’s trying to get away. Stop it, stop it from running!”

A few stone creatures leapt forwards, suddenly transforming as they drew closer and closer to him.

They combined into a massive stone net that blocked off Su Chen’s path of retreat and the sky above him.

Su Chen was so angry that he laughed. You guys aren’t willing to overlook anything, are you? But do you really think that I’m scared of you?

Fiery rain began to descend from the sky, melting away all of the stone creatures.

However, the creatures respawned at the same rate that Su Chen was killing them, and they constantly got in his way. It almost seemed like they were evil spirits that had latched onto him and just wouldn’t let go.

“So you can resurrect if you just roll home? Then what if I stop you from rolling back home?” Su Chen said coolly.

Another powerful attack was unleashed, and the stone creatures in front of him crumbled yet again.

But before these stone fragments were able to return to the stone forest, Su Chen waved his sleeves and threw the stone creatures behind him.

An instant later, however, a streak of brilliant light shot forth from the stone forest, and the remains of the stone creatures that had been thrown into the air disappeared. A large pile of stones appeared in the Stone Forest area, turning into all kinds of strange stone creatures that continued jibber jabbering as they charged forward yet again.

So it isn’t that easy? Su Chen thought to himself.

Next, he tried to freeze the shattered stone fragments, but unfortunately no matter how he tried to destroy these stone fragments, they would always reappear in the stone forest, as if Su Chen had only been destroying illusions this whole time.

They were also unaffected by Fata Morgana, as the stone creatures were totally immune to any and all consciousness attacks.

The Primordial Blood Incarnation also wasn’t much help because all it did was increase the power of Su Chen’s physical body. If Su Chen’s original attack was equivalent to ten units of power, then the Primordial Blood Incarnation could boost him to fifty units. However, these stone creatures died when struck with just five points of strength, so there was no point to using the Primordial Blood Incarnation.

The same went for the Soul Armaments and the Flaming Phoenix Theurgy Art. When the simplest methods could deal with an opponent, any higher-level tactic lost all meaning, as they would only increase the user’s rate of energy consumption when used.

For a while, Su Chen felt totally helpless against this unending army of stone creatures.

Suddenly, he noticed the small crystal scorpion. This crystal scorpion was the only beast that had stayed within the stone forest and had not come back out to do battle.

A flash of inspiration hit Su Chen. Could that be the weak spot of these creatures?

However, the crystalline scorpion had squirreled itself away within the stone forest, and there was still a large group of stone creatures in his way. It was going to be difficult to destroy the scorpion.

However difficult, this problem was not anything significant for Su Chen. An instant later, his figure flashed as he teleported past the line of stone creatures and reappeared right in front of the crystalline scorpion. Highly concentrated flame energy had gathered in his hand furiously, and a massive phoenix soared into the skies.

“Die!” Su Chen struck the crystalline scorpion with the phoenix.

Crack!

With a crisp clatter, the crystal scorpion shattered.

Whew.

Su Chen let out a long sigh. It should be over with this attack, he thought to himself.

However, an instant later, the scene that unfolded before his eyes rendered him speechless.