Chapter 705: Black Smoke Trail (1/2)

”Ah shit, here we go again...” Vendrick mumbled as he prepared for the incoming wave. ”How many times would it take for you to stop? Ugh.”

Aa he turned his back and ran towards his temporary camp, he kept paying attention to the things happening behind him. Even though he had no eyes on the back of his head, could see what's going on.

A trail of black smoke was coming from the deeper parts of the wilderness. The smoke behave strangely, it was as if it was looking for someone or something which shouldn't be possible but it is indeed doing just that.

Vendrick had encountered this black smoke before and its bad news. He couldn't allow it to catch or else he have no short of troubles on the remaining of his journey.

Vendrick was swift at his retreat but the black smoke was just as fast if not, faster than him. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to catch any of his trails so it was taking a different route.

After a brief period of retreating, Vendrick reached his temporary camp and stabbed his spear at the dead center of the camp. A small blue dome erupted from the impact which covered him, going about fifteen meters in radius around the camp. The moment the blue dome appeared, Vendrick sighed in relief and inspected his surroundings.

He saw the black smoke arriving near his camp shortly after his arrival. It hit the blue dome but instead of clashing against it, the black smoke phased through the other side of its entry and continued on its way without noticing anything different.

This was the effect of the formation of course. He was really thankful for himself being alert and prepared for numerous situation, if not he'd found himself in a lot of trouble right now.

It's been approximately a year and a few months since he left the tribe. After leaving it sealed within the formation he left for them, Vendrick didn't waste time and began his journey to wipe out the Hags one by one.

It has been a hectic and action filled year for him. He stayed at the wilderness, hardly taking anytime to rest since he didn't allow himself to stay at one place for too long. One by one, he hunted and slain the Hags, much to the ire of the others and maybe the Forest Witch herself.

He had seen the variations amongst their ranks. Every single one of them has a unique specialty. Some gave Vendrick troubles but others, not so much.

Vendrick knew that he's being hunted. The evidence was that Black Smoke trail just now. That black smoke might look unimpressive but it's incredibly dangerous.

That Black Smoke Trail is a chain of hex and curses. Touching even the smallest wisp of the smoke will reduce the victim into a decaying corpse in no time. Even though Vendrick is strong, he very much prefer to keep his body intact.

This thing is not something that the other Hags can produce. It takes enormous time, effort and rituals for them to condense something like this and those hags just don't have the necessary skill to pull it off. More importantly, all but one Hag remains right now and it shouldn't be hard to figure out who amongst them could produce something like this...

That's right. It's that Eldest Sister. She's the only left amongst the Hag Daughters of the Forest Witch.

It's hard to imagine just what the Eldest Sister felt about him. As far as he knows, she shouldn't have known his identity just yet since if that's the case, he'd be dead by now. He was careful enough to not leave any traces of him whenever he hunted her sisters but again, he can never be too sure.

As for confronting that Eldest Sister, Vendrick still falls a little too short unfortunately, however it won't take long before he's able to do it. He has the resources and foundation needed to proceed, he's just lacking the necessary accumulation to approach his next breakthrough but he will in due time.

For now, he have to avoid her and her tricks at all cost. He also had to gain some distance away from her or else she might sense him using one of her tricks. It would be most unfortunate if she disturbs him during his breakthrough.