When the first gray light of dawn pierced through the canopy, the mist in the forest still hadn't dispersed.
It had merely thinned from a dense white into a faint, ethereal veil.
The group quickly ate some rations and rearranged their gear.
Han Jin's death made the party's atmosphere even heavier than yesterday's.
Xu Zhiheng took the initiative to propose adjusting the positions of his group of three.
“Zhou Yi, Xiaoman, and I will walk in the middle. Han Jin died under mysterious circumstances; the three of us can't split up again.”
Damon buckled the iron shield onto his left arm.
“Suit yourself. But if anyone leaves the group and something happens, you're on your own.”
Xu Zhiheng smiled. “Of course.”
He agreed readily, but whether he would still follow the rules if they actually encountered something valuable was something only he knew.
Rena couldn't be bothered to watch their act.
She walked to the front of the group, drew her short blade, and carved a mark into a nearby tree trunk.
“We head southeast from here. Once we enter the treant's territory, don't touch anything recklessly, and don't leave the group without permission.”
Ryan slung his longbow over his back and couldn't help but jeer:
“You kept saying not to touch anything yesterday, but in the end, the first to die was that Descender who ran off on his own.”
Zhou Yi's face instantly darkened. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Ryan sneered. “As long as you understand.”
Xu Zhiheng pressed down on Zhou Yi's shoulder, stopping him from arguing further.
Rena ignored them and stepped into the thin mist.
Damon followed close behind her, Severn and Ryan walked in the middle, with Xu Zhiheng's trio following right after.
Milo wanted to stick close to Rena, but Kolo grabbed the back collar of his cloak and dragged him right next to her.
Reece remained at the rear of the group, keeping guard behind them.
As they went deeper, the surrounding trees began to change.
At first, it was just fewer branches and leaves.
Further ahead, large grayish-brown patches appeared on the trunks, looking as if they had been sucked dry from the inside, leaving only a layer of bark barely holding its shape.
The birdsong in the forest gradually faded away, and even the insects that had chirped incessantly last night went silent.
Ryan looked up, sensing something was off. “It's too quiet.”
Severn used his staff to push aside the decaying leaves.
Beneath them was no soil, but rather a dense, interlocking network of dark red rootlets.
He reached out to touch them, but Rena immediately spoke up:
“Don't touch them.”
Severn stopped. “Are these traps too?”
“I'm not sure.” Rena stared at the web of roots. “But starting from here, we are no longer stepping on solid ground.”
Damon lightly tapped a stone with the edge of his shield, and a hollow thud echoed from below.
The space beneath this web of roots seemed to be completely hollow.
Rena stood up and continued forward.
Her expression seemed calm, but she was not as confident as she appeared.
In her past life, she had indeed been here.
But she had only reached the outskirts.
Back then, Xu Zhiheng had made her walk at the very front to scout the way.
Just as she stepped into a patch of black mud, her ankles were wrapped by thin roots, dragging her into the pile of decaying leaves.
If there hadn't been a protruding rock nearby that she desperately clung to, and if she hadn't cut her boots open with her herb-gathering knife to escape, she probably would have died there that day.
From beginning to end, Yu Lingye had never seen the treant's true form.
Nor did she know how many skills it possessed, or what kind of domain rules it governed.
On the publicly circulated maps of her past life, there was only a blurry red marker here.
【High-risk area, bypass recommended.】
Other than that, there was nothing else.
Kolo, walking behind them, suddenly stopped.
She raised her head, the tip of her nose twitching slightly behind her mask.
“I smell iron.”
Damon looked back. “Ore?”
“Doesn't smell like it.” Kolo sniffed again. “Rusty iron, and rotten wood.”
She paused, then crouched down to examine the tree roots closely. “A lot of people have died here.”
Everyone's expressions changed instantly.
Rena parted the hanging vines in the direction Kolo was looking.
A stone road, mostly buried by tree roots, appeared beneath their feet.
The stone slabs were long shattered, but they could still see collapsed road markers on both sides, as well as several caravan signs covered in moss.
An old wagon with broken wheels was suspended in mid-air, supported by tree roots. Its carriage had already rotted away, leaving only a few blackened wooden beams.
A few copper coins were embedded in the bark, and a rusted merchant's bell hung beside them.
When the wind blew, the bell remained completely still, as if frozen in time.
Reece stepped forward and wiped away the dirt on the surface of a road marker, revealing a faded family crest underneath.
At the center of the crest was a fully bloomed rose.
Layers of petals unfurled outward, but instead of a pistil at the center, it faintly enclosed a gold coin engraved with fine patterns along its edge.
Even though the crest had been worn down by wind and rain, the trace of gold hidden within the heart of the flower had not entirely faded.
At first glance, it was ornate and delicate, but the fine, sharp thorns gave the entire crest a rather hostile vibe.
A line of small, nearly worn-away text was also engraved along the edge of the crest.
“Money flows, but it is never without a master.”
Reece stared at the crest, trying to decipher it for a moment.
“A rose wrapping gold... it's the crest of the Rosalind family.”
Zhou Yi quickly hurried over. “Is it valuable?”
Reece pushed him away, looking displeased.
“I only said it's a crest, I didn't say you can pry it off and sell it.”
Xu Zhiheng, standing nearby, asked, “So what happened to the Rosalind family?”
Reece thought for a moment and said, “They once controlled the main trade route from the Red Kite City-States to the north, and several outposts in the northwest were in their hands as well. But later, some crucial cargo went missing, and the family gradually declined.”
Rena stood at the edge of the stone road, falling into deep thought.
In her past life, she hadn't made it this far, and she certainly hadn't known that an abandoned trade route was buried deep within the forest.
Looking closely now, those roots weren't growing randomly either.
They stretched forward along the shattered road, connecting the road markers, the wagon, and the trees on both sides.
It was as if they were guarding something.
She was about to speak, when a very slight tremor suddenly came from the ground, as if some massive creature was slowly turning over beneath the earth.
Tiny pebbles began to bounce. Reece immediately turned to look back the way they came.
The roots on both sides of the road silently rose from the soil, interlocking to block their retreat.
“Our retreat is blocked,” Reece warned in a low voice.
Severn raised his staff. A ball of fire ignited at its tip and shot toward the tightening roots.
The fire slammed into the roots, igniting the trunks on both sides, but they were quickly covered by more, thicker, and wetter branches, extinguishing the weak flames.
Milo's face turned pale as he pointed his hand crossbow forward:
“A treant... there really is a treant!”
Almost at the same instant, a crimson light screen emerged before the eyes of Isolde and the three Descenders.
【Warning!】
【You have entered a special area: Broken-Contract Trade Route】
【Confirming number of travelers...】
【Current travelers: 10】
【Generating temporary caravan slots...】
【Temporary caravan has been established.】
Isolde's eyes darkened slightly, and the footsteps of Xu Zhiheng's trio ground to a halt.
Zhou Yi blurted out subconsciously, “A special area?”
Damon looked back. “What special area?”
Zhou Yi immediately shut his mouth, but Xu Zhiheng explained in a low voice:
“We received a notification from the Descender system. This should be the treant's territory.”
Severn gripped his staff tightly and asked nervously, “What else do you see?”
Xu Zhiheng didn't answer immediately; the prompts in front of him were still continuing.
New content also appeared on the light screen in front of Isolde.
【Regional BOSS detected: Contract-Devouring Treant】
【Identity: Contract-Keeper of the Old Trade Route (Aberrant)】
【Attributes: Nature (Wood, Earth)】
【Aberrant Attribute: Malice】
【Health: 5,800/5,800】
【Strength: 420】
【Defense: 280】
【Special Status: Root Domain Symbiosis】
【Domain Rules: Unknown】
【Corruption Source: Unknown】
【Warning: Target is obscured by a high-tier incomplete authority; unable to read complete information.】
Isolde stared at the 'Strength: 420' for a moment.
If she took a direct hit from that, she would probably be swatted into ash on the spot.
What was even more troublesome was 【Root Domain Symbiosis】.
This meant that all the tree roots laid out before them might be part of its body.
Zhou Yi's mouth fell open in shock. “This thing has five thousand eight hundred health?”
Ryan, who couldn't see the numbers, couldn't help but curse, “Just how much can you Descenders actually see?”
Xu Zhiheng didn't answer. His gaze had already bypassed everyone, landing at the end of the stone road.
The thick fog there was slowly dispersing, gradually revealing a massive circular clearing.
At the center of the clearing grew an ancient tree so tall that its canopy was almost invisible.
Its trunk was so thick it would take at least a dozen people to hug it. There wasn't a single patch of normal bark on its surface, only massive, twisted, protruding burls.
Countless crates, broken wheels, and human bones were embedded within the trunk.
One relatively intact carriage had even been swallowed down the middle, with only half of its tilted cabin exposed.
Across the roots of the ancient tree lay a collapsed stone checkpoint.
Several words, already obscured by roots, were faintly carved upon it.
【Northern Trade Route... Cargo Registration...】
Dozens of rusted copper bells hung among the branches, and one of them suddenly swayed gently.
Ding—
The sound carried far into the distance.
In the next instant, the tightly closed burls on the surface of the ancient tree split open with a slit all at once.
A massive, turbid brown eyeball rolled out from beneath the bark.
The eyeball stared down at the people standing on the old road.
The stone slabs beneath their feet vibrated gently.
Beneath the decaying leaves, a dense mass of roots began to awaken.
The final two lines of prompts gradually dyed into a glaring dark red.
【Warning: The Trade Route Contract-Keeper has awakened.】
【Cargo inventory check has begun.】
Rate on N.U.
