The imperial envoy's legs and waist had completely softened, every bone was cooked into noodles by fear, not a bit of strength could be used, the stench coming from his crotch was even smelled by himself, unfortunately he couldn't smoke away the old man in front of him.

  The old man's head had a small half gone, from the top of his head to his forehead was cut off by a knife at an angle, and with every step he took, the dull grayish-white brain matter that was exposed outside swayed slightly. He stared with eyes that were already indistinguishable between black and white, taking slow but firm steps towards the imperial envoy. The imperial envoy trembled, using his hands to support himself on the ground as he backed away, making sounds in his mouth that even he didn't know what they meant.

  A short distance away, several cavalrymen were being pinned down by over a dozen corpses. As if they were several delicious feasts, the corpses, although moving slowly, were also struggling to pull and bite. The cavalrymen let out the most miserable cries that human throats could make, their hands and feet still flailing about, but their flesh and internal organs had already been passed from the corpses' hands to their mouths.

  The old man slowly approached the imperial envoy, stretched out his stiffened hands like a good friend expressing friendship and trust, put his shoulders on him, opened his mouth, and showed the few teeth inside.

  The imperial commissioner summoned all the courage and composure in his life, pulled out a glittering crucifix from his bosom, closed his eyes and loudly chanted: "In the name of God in heaven, you unclean thing, quickly leave the believer of God, otherwise with justice..." Then there was only one hysterical cry, he clearly felt the old man's teeth embedded in his scalp, reaching the skull, emitting pain.

  "Crack". Like the crisp sound of biting into a fresh apple. It was the last sound he heard in this world.

  Asa felt a wave of goosebumps on his back and scalp.

  The wife of hunter Leven, the woman who had once been so hospitable to him. Her face, which had originally had a hint of cleverness, was almost split in two by a knife, with white bone visible through the rolled-back flesh, and one eyeball had been burst by the same knife, hanging crookedly from her cheek by a thread of tendon. She was eating a cavalryman along with several other villagers' corpses, her other eye staring blankly at the cavalryman's abdominal cavity as she reached in and pulled out something still twitching, putting it in her mouth and biting down with a crunch, dark red fluid dripping down from her mouth.

  That fat guy called Bomb Brother on the other side tore off the cavalry's arm and took a big bite. His neck was almost cut in half, the blood had probably been drained long ago, his skin was a dead white color like plaster, contrasting with the bright red liquid still flowing from his mouth, making it shocking to behold.

  The wails were the most pleasant sound on this grassland, at least it was a sound that living things could make. The other sounds were just the rustling of hundreds of corpses swaying and walking around. Some of these corpses had holes in their chests, exposing their internal organs, while others held their own heads in their hands like they were holding weapons. Some had already rotted and swollen, dropping an arm as they walked, or having their rotten internal organs squeezed out of their mouths by the corpse gas, looking like they were vomiting. And yet, those completely cloudy eyes still stared straight ahead with a dead gaze.

  The corpse Asa was originally quite familiar with, at Sandru's place he even slept next to the corpses. It was one thing for it to be standing there, but for it to walk towards him on its own was another matter altogether. The red-robed figure was still watching him from dozens of steps away with great interest, as if looking at a long-awaited date. The gaze emitted by those eyes gave off waves of corpse energy, even thicker than the smell of the hundreds of corpses surrounding them.

  No matter whether he was being hunted down in the desolate and uninhabited lizard swamp or under any other circumstances, the greater the threat he faced, the stronger his desire to survive. The tenacity within him was comparable to that of the most ferocious beasts.

  But all of this in front of him was no longer a threat, but the stark smell of death. Any living thing would be chilled to the bone by it. The familiar smell of corpses now made him feel so nauseous, those smells pressing down on him from all sides and the gaze of the red-robed figure, like invisible fingers rotating and pinching his skin. His legs were already trembling slightly, strongly inducing an urge to turn around and run away.

  Can't escape, can't escape, can't escape. Asa wildly shouted to himself in his heart.

  He knew very well that when a person faced fear, as long as he turned around, he would thoroughly defeat the fear, and reason and fighting spirit would be consumed in an instant, leaving nothing behind. Then, he would only fall into a crazy escape.

  At his own speed and agility, the corpses were not a threat, but once he got lost in fear, once he exposed his back to that skeletal hand stitched together from skin, the result would likely be being blown to smithereens by a large fireball.

  "People need to eat their fill to have energy, but it's not just people, everything is the same, they all need to eat their fill to do things well, don't you think?" The red-robed man glanced around at the corpses' big appetites, looking at Asa with a playful tone like a cat teasing a mouse.

  The two canine teeth squeezed a small piece of flesh on the wall of the oral cavity, and with a bit of force, the bloody taste spread in his mouth. This flavor, which seemed to have been forgotten for a long time, immediately reignited the fighting spirit that was almost submerged by fear in his heart.

  Asa stuck out his tongue with blood threads and licked his lips. Once his fighting spirit was ignited, it would burn into a bright red spear.

  A Sa took a deep breath, gripped the knife in his hand and crouched down like a cat. The red-robed man stared at him, shook his head with an unnatural smile and said in a voice filled with corpse stench: "Don't be so tense, I just wanted to..."

  A Sa suddenly exerted himself and rushed towards him.

  "Young people are too impatient." The red-robed man's withered hand slightly lifted, as if it was just an unintentional small movement. A tiny green flame jumped out of that chicken claw-like hand and fell to the ground.

  Asa suddenly bent down and pushed off the ground with his hands and feet, rolling away to the side. The muscles in his hands and feet ached from this sudden movement. He had been carefully watching every move of the red-robed man, and the purpose of his dash was simply to dodge.

  That small green flame that fell to the ground suddenly exploded into a green fire pillar, over one person high, rapidly extending in a straight line towards the direction Asa was originally charging from, and brushing past Asa who had rolled onto the ground.

  A column of fire, like a wild horse, rushed towards the corpses in the back. As soon as it came into contact with one of the corpses, the flames grew wildly larger. The soaring column of fire lifted several corpses high into the air, and before they had risen halfway to the sky, the corpses were completely incinerated in a green glow, leaving no trace behind.

  A Sa didn't look back, he had already jumped up with all his might and flown towards the red-robed man.

  He himself would also use magic, he knew that casting magic required time to accumulate and prepare. The gap between the two magics was the only chance to attack.

  Unfortunately, he misjudged this time and made a big mistake.

  The figure in the red robe raised its other hand, which was also a skeletal hand wrapped in tattered leather gloves. However, this completely emaciated hand was ablaze, burning more fiercely than any torch, as if it were made of pure hellfire and sulfur from the depths of the underworld.

  A Sa knew he was wrong, he shouldn't have jumped up. In mid-air, he had no room to maneuver and could only stare at the flames in Hong Pao Ren's hand transforming into a large firebird shape, spreading its wings and pouncing on him.

  Asa concentrated all his magical power into a fireball and shot it at the Firebird. The fireball was almost silently engulfed in the dazzling light of the Firebird, and in an instant, everything before him was a sheet of golden yellow like the sun. The large bird made of fierce flames flew over with an embracing posture, wanting to melt him into that extremely hot embrace.

  He was completely helpless, and all that remained was an animal's instinct, hugging his head, tucking his legs in, and curling up into a ball as tightly as possible.

  The phoenix captured its prey and held it in its bosom, immediately beginning to wildly flip and tumble in the air, exerting all its might to display its powerful magical energy, vowing to pulverize the thing in its embrace into dust.

  A knife fell from the chaotic fireball. As soon as it landed on the grass, it made a hissing sound, and all the grass that came into contact with the knife was scorched.

  "If it weren't for you forcing me, I actually wanted to leave your corpse behind." The red-robed man let out a slightly labored sigh, as the two consecutive quick casts had made him somewhat unable to bear the burden. He raised his head to look towards the sky. The arc-shaped shadow was swallowing the sun's light at a speed that was almost imperceptible to the naked eye, and the sky had already darkened.

  The red-robed man waved his hand, and the firebird rolling in mid-air immediately flew towards the Whispering Woods, transforming into a fiery rainbow that plunged into the forest, producing a deafening crash and bursting forth with a blaze of red light. The red-robed man nodded, then turned to the corpses behind him and said, "The gate is now open; let us enter."

  A Sa had encountered many strange things, but none of them made him feel as incredulous as this one.

  I didn't die at all. Not only did I not die, but not a single hair was even singed. Instead, the palm of my hand that held the knife got burned.

  Just as he was caught in mid-air by the firebird, the knife in his hand suddenly became scorching hot, causing him to drop it immediately. He could feel the magical force and flames wildly swirling around him, and as a user of fire magic himself, he could sense the intensity of the surging magical force around him. Logically speaking, even if he were a lump of raw iron, he would have been melted into liquid by now. However, all he felt was heat, without even a hint of scorching pain, and not a single drop of flame splashed onto his body, no matter how wildly it danced.

  Then he felt himself soaring through the air with the firebird's flight, until a deafening roar sounded in his ears, and the swirling magical forces and flames dissipated, and his back slammed into something solid.

  After pushing open his hands and lifting up his head, he only discovered that he was in a charred tree hole, or rather, a carbonized hole. This was an extremely thick ancient tree, with a trunk so big that more than ten people could encircle it, and a large hole had been burned out by the firebird, with the surrounding wood completely carbonized.

  A Sa jumped down to the ground, surrounded by such ancient trees, thin fog swirling among the ancient trees, and it was quiet around without a single bird chirping or insect buzzing.

  This was indeed the Whispering Woods he had spied from outside. The ancient, majestic trees and the wafting mist were still there, but that awe-inspiring sense of intimidation that had once shaken him to his core was now gone, leaving only a quiet, mysterious atmosphere.

  Asa walked deep into the forest. He didn't understand why he was unscathed by that terrifying flame magic, maybe it was because the red-robed person had spared him, or maybe there was some other reason, but whatever it was, he didn't want to go back and face the red-robed person and those hordes of undead again. And from what the red-robed person said earlier, it seemed that this Whispering Woods was a place that could only be entered once in a great while, so he had to take advantage of the opportunity now to find that World Tree.

  The forest was so still that even the wind seemed to have stopped, as if in a vacuum where nothing existed. The only sound audible was the rustling of footsteps on the grass and fallen leaves, without any sign of life. The silence was eerie and frightening.

  Asa followed the tracks on the ground deep into the forest. These were left by several cavalrymen who had escaped from the zombies and fled into the woods earlier. By following their footsteps, even if there was something wrong ahead, they could find out early.

  But he had only gone a short distance when he really felt something was wrong.