The sky is a brilliant blue, with not a cloud in sight to block the sun's radiant beams that have been shining since morning. For the followers of the Nature God, it seems as if even the air is filled with a sacred scent. The followers are flocking from all directions to gather around the forest and seize their long-awaited chance to become one with the Nature God.

  However, under such a grand and sacred scene, the local officials of Aili were extremely unrecognizable. They gathered all the people who could be mobilized in the city, including sweepers, watchmen, tax collectors, and all the personnel who could be dispatched, plus 3,000 regular troops from the capital to set up checkpoints on the main road leading to the forest to stop the followers from advancing. At first, the local officials' troops were able to cope with the followers in groups of three or five, blocking them from advancing, but as noon approached and the followers called out to each other, more and more people gathered, and the conflict became increasingly intense, with both sides starting to fight. The entire Aili region was chaotic like a pot of boiling porridge.

  On the other hand, two thousand soldiers had already rushed to the front lawn of the Low Language Forest. Many followers from nearby villages had already arrived here. The soldiers drove away the followers and prepared to destroy the stone statues, but when the soldiers finally pulled down a statue and were about to smash it, all the followers became furious and began to attack the soldiers with stones, branches and other objects. At the same time, many followers who came from other paths continued to arrive, and as the number of followers increased, the soldiers were even surrounded in the middle.

  "Everyone stop!" Asa saw that things were going badly and jumped out of the crowd of soldiers onto a stone statue, shouting "Listen to me, everyone!"

  "Get down quickly." The thousands of devotees who filled the lawn shouted.

  Although he knew that saying anything was probably useless, Asa shouted loudly: "Everyone is a local villager, everyone thinks carefully, this forest has been here for a long time, why did it become the natural god's forest now? This is simply a scam..."

  "Bring down that lying scoundrel of an official and kill him." The disciples began to pelt him with stones and mud, some also climbed onto the stone statue.

  A deafening boom, and the upper half of a stone statue exploded under Asa's fireball, sending shards of rock and explosive shockwaves that injured many followers. The noisy followers were shocked into silence, those close to Asa hastily retreated. Everyone could see what would have happened if the explosion had occurred on their own heads. Even Asa himself was somewhat unexpected, acting impulsively in an emergency, but violent intimidation seemed to be more effective than persuasion.

  But then something even more unexpected happened. A black liquid oozed out of the broken stone statue's upper body. The nearby devotees hastily covered their noses and fled in disarray, as the smell emitted by the liquid was not only foul but also felt like needles piercing into their nostrils and rushing into their brains, causing some people to even tear up.

  "Look at yourselves, is this filthy thing what you call the great god of nature?" Asa shouted loudly with a hint of excitement. "Let me tell you, this is a trap, and this so-called god of nature is actually a lie spread by the necromancers of the Necromancer's Guild..."

  "Shameless!" A loud shout suddenly rang out, with an air of majesty and dignity that surpassed Asa's voice. "Do you think I don't know that you used despicable means to defile our guardian deity, and now you're trying to deceive everyone?" The white-robed prophet appeared suddenly at the edge of the forest, his face stern and righteous, as if he were the embodiment of justice itself, rebuking the one who stood on the stone statue, speaking deceitful words. "This person came here secretly last night and tampered with our guardian stone statue. Look, these nobles and officials have resorted to such despicable means to slander our deity and destroy our faith. Do you think we can't see through your schemes?"

  "Ah, perfect timing. I was just looking for you." Asa jumped down from the stone statue, and before the followers could react, he rushed over to the prophet's side, grabbed the puppet, and turned around to run back to the statue before the followers could respond.

  "Ah, Lord Prophet." "Release the Prophet!" It was already nearing noon, and the followers had packed the grassy area, their tsunami-like shouts making Asa's ears ache. But he wasn't worried; since last night, he'd been thinking it would be best to expose this puppet created by the necromancer in front of everyone, assuming the necromancer wouldn't let this exposed secret puppet show itself again. Unexpectedly, now it had come out on its own.

  The feeling of grasping the prophet's body was like pinching a lump of mud. Only when looking closely did one discover that there was still corpse water flowing down from those majestic and solemn facial features, and as soon as his skin was touched, it began to rot like decayed cloth. The silver-white hair fell out in clumps. It seemed that the lifespan of this puppet had indeed come to an end.

  Asati grasped the prophet's clothes and pushed him forward, half-dragging and half-lifting him in his hands, shouting: "Look at you all, this is your revered prophet. He was actually a puppet created by the necromancer."

  But unexpectedly, this crumbling corpse could still speak, not only could it speak, but it was still so loud and majestic, the words were absolutely wonderful, one by one pushing Asa to the end of the road: "He has used evil magic on me like he polluted our statue, I will die immediately. But everyone must not be shaken by my death, the divine signs of the natural gods will still be presented at noon, and will lead everyone into a state of unity with heaven and man, please everyone must hold on to their beliefs..." The rest of the words had become like the humming of a goose, it finally completely rotted its throat. With a thud, the prophet's arm fell off from his shoulder. Asa lost his grip, the prophet's almost rotten body fell to the ground and shattered into pieces, the insects hidden in his body crawled out in all directions.

  The strange death only increased the effect of the prophet's last words. The believers on the entire lawn began to boil, and countless stones and mud blocks flew towards Asa. Soon, the whole scene fell into a state of extreme chaos. A chaotic battle began. The followers desperately tried to grab weapons, and as soon as they did, they immediately attacked the soldiers. Even those who didn't get any weapons used their fists, feet, and teeth with all their might. The soldiers, facing multiple times more believers who had gone mad, quickly threw Asa's orders aside. At first, they just waved their weapons in self-defense, but soon they were frantically slashing and killing any believer who approached them.

  Ah Sa was anxiously watching the scene at her feet, under the bright sunlight that made the whole world seem crazy. The cries and shouts of killing filled the grassland, and as far as the eye could see, dense crowds of people were biting and fighting each other like ants.

  The followers gathered more and more, facing the tens of thousands of followers, the local officials were obviously powerless. Asa knew that outside this grassland, there were even more followers gathering under these stone statues, sitting quietly waiting to be eaten away. He looked around in a daze, a stone flew over and hit the back of his head, a wave of dizziness almost made him fall down.

  Suddenly a strange noise came from the forest, at first it was not clear, but soon everyone on the grassland heard it.

  It was a dull, muffled sound, as if many heavy objects were colliding with each other, slowly moving from the depths of the forest towards the grassland. Even the ground began to tremble slightly. The usually silent Forest of Nature's God had transmitted such an unusual movement, and many followers stopped their slaughter, looking in this direction.

  The sound grew louder and closer, until the source of the noise appeared at the edge of the forest. Even every soldier stopped what they were doing. Everyone stared in amazement as a giant, tree-like creature emerged from the trees, its massive feet thundering against the ground with each step.

  "This is a miracle of the God of Nature!" One of the believers shouted out, thinking he was right, and all the believers sat down on the spot, some even knelt down. The remaining soldiers stood there in confusion, looking on.

  But these tree giants did not show any concern for the worship and respect of these humans, they walked step by step towards those stone statues as if it was very difficult.

  The followers began to kneel and sit in reverence, but it wasn't until some of the followers let out mournful cries under the trampling feet of Kogarashi that they came to their senses, seeing how their comrades were being turned into a mess at the feet of their idol. The followers who remained on Kogarashi's path hastily retreated.

  The farther they left the Whispering Woods, the more stiff and clumsy the movements of the withered wooden guardians became. Every move was extremely laborious. They moved step by step to the side of the stone statue, swinging their wooden arms to strike these silent sculptures. Amidst the dull thuds, everyone stared blankly, as this had completely exceeded their expectations and understanding.

  "Alright." Only Asa was shouting with excitement. Unexpectedly, just when he was about to give up hope, such a turn of events occurred, and if possible, he really wanted to hug Rua and kiss her little face several times. A dry wood guardian was walking towards the stone statue where Asa was, and Asa feared being implicated, so he hastily jumped down from the stone statue.

  Although the withered wooden guardian's movements seemed very strenuous, the force of its blows was still unimaginable to humans. Several stone statues had already begun to crack, and similarly, black polluted water seeped out, emitting a pungent odor.

  Despite such attacks, the stone statues still didn't move at all. Asa looked up at the sky and immediately it was almost noon.

  "Crack", a stone statue finally shattered completely under the blows of the withered wooden guards. The attacks of the withered wooden guards continued, and it seemed that these things would be destroyed immediately, which would ruin the plans of those two undead mages.

  A strange sound rose from a corner of the crowd, like someone with unclear articulation was singing but off-key. This weird sound stood out in the midst of the stunned and speechless congregation.

  As the sound wave passed, those stone statues finally moved. However, unlike the swift movements last night, the movement and demeanor of the stone statues seemed more labored and slower than the withered wooden guards, as if they were all old people who had suffered a stroke, stiffly moving their stiff hands and feet to retreat to the back, trying to avoid the attack of the withered wooden guards.

  "Get out of my sight, all of you!" Asa bellowed, shoving and pushing the stunned cultists aside as they milled about in confusion, searching for the source of the strange noise. He knew that this was the same necromancer from last night, hiding in the crowd and manipulating the stone golems, and now their slow and labored movements were a sign of insufficient magical power; if he could just catch the manipulator, everything would be easy to handle.

  The withered wooden guardians dragged their slow footsteps, chasing after the even slower stone statue ghosts. When they caught up, they continued to strike them with thick branches, making dull sounds. Several more stone statue ghosts had black liquid seeping out of their bodies. However, as the distance from the Whispering Woods grew farther, the wooden guardians' movements became even slower, and the distance between them and the stone statue ghosts gradually widened.

  Asa finally found it. In the crowd, an ordinary-looking old man wearing ordinary clothes was kneeling on the ground with his hands open and chanting that strange spell. He shouted loudly: "Get out of the way around." Rushed towards this old man.

  The old man suddenly opened his eyes, and a pair of turbid pupils were full of piercing light. He jumped up from the ground with an agility that was not commensurate with his age, and with a casual stretch, he grabbed one of his followers next to him and threw it at Asa. The follower had just flown out and cried out half a sound, and his hands and feet were still twitching in the air, but then there was no movement.

  Asa hastily dodged to the side, rolled on the ground and jumped up, using all his strength to awkwardly avoid the incoming cultist. He didn't dare to heroically kick or knock away whatever was coming for him; he had seen such moves from Sandru before.

  The cultists being used as weapons crashed into the ones behind them, their bodies splitting open and black liquid splashing out. The cultists who had been splattered with it screamed in agony as they rolled around on the ground.

  He knew he was no match for the necromancer in a magical duel, so he had to get close and engage in hand-to-hand combat. Asa took several swift steps forward and swung his fist at the old man.

  The old man took a step back, his body floated up, and he suddenly rose into the air, then hovered in mid-air more than ten meters high, staring at Asa.

  Flight magic is one of the highest-level air magics, and those who use it are not extremely rare. Almost every magician who has mastered this transcendent human behavior standard will add a "great" character to their name. However, if they could see how this old man uses this highest-level magic as naturally and casually as the lowest-grade goods on the market without making any gestures or reciting incantations, probably the vast majority of them would automatically hide their names and start over from being a magical apprentice.

  Asa didn't care about these things, he stretched out his hand and launched a full-force fireball that roared towards the undead mage in the sky.

  The old man just fluttered like a feather, and the huge fireball that was enough to turn him into minced meat just flew past his body one meter away. The judgment of the fireball and the grasp of his own movement were both wonderful, as if it was just a small child lightly throwing a ball.

  However, the old man didn't feel triumphant at all from this light and agile dodge, his face was full of anger and anxiety. Because he had to divert his attention to use flight magic to dodge, the stone statue's movement had completely stopped, and the withered wooden guardian caught up again, continuing to attack the already heavily injured stone statue.

  Asa was not in a hurry, staring intently at the Death Spirit Mage in the air, moving so many giant stone statues was by no means an easy task, as long as he maintained his flight technique, he would never be able to manipulate the Stone Golem again.

  The sound of the withered tree guardian's strikes continued, and the stench of the liquid emitted from the stone statue devil's body grew thicker in the air. 'Kara' sounded twice more, and two more stone statue devils crumbled to dust. The annihilation of these stone statue devils was only a matter of time now.

  But just as victory was in sight, all the wooden guardians suddenly stopped moving. These giant wooden lumps seemed to have received a silent command, and they turned around and slowly walked back into the Whispering Woods with slow steps. Asa looked at the departure of these allies in dismay, unable to understand what was going on. Seeing this inexplicable change, even the Death Spirit Master in mid-air showed a look of surprise, but more of it was delight.

  The sun was shining brightly overhead, it's noon.

  The Death Spirit Mage was still floating in mid-air, but all of the Golems had started moving.

  In the Whispering Woods, two sprites forcibly pulled Luya out of the Sunwell, and Elder Cran reached his hand into the well water to summon back the Withered Guardian.

  "Just a little more and we can destroy those evil things that could threaten us and the entire Low Speech Forest." Luya struggled, but the two sprites held her tight.

  "No need to say more. Do you know how serious a crime you have committed? In the history of our kind, no spirit has ever dared to command the withered wood guardians to leave the Whispering Woods and expose themselves to thousands of humans." Elder Cran's head shook slowly, revealing a strong expression on his face for the first time. "No need for further judgment by the Council of Elders. Such a heavy crime can only be punished with the heaviest penalty - banishing you from the Whispering Woods forever. Execute it immediately, you are no longer one of us. Leave."