81 Killing the demon plan (1/2)

The group stared outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was attacking them. The dark shadows in the forest made it impossible for them to identify what was attacking them. At the same time, the slithering sounds that replaced the eerie silence brought extra pressure on to the group.

Demonic plants were variants of normal plants. They would get affected by evil qi and come to life. Such plants were often mindless beings that lived to only sate its hunger.

Bai Yun peered at the place where the vine came from, waiting for the next attack. There was no way a demonic plant was going to let them go after only a single attack.

Suddenly Bai Yun's ears twitched as he heard something coming at them from the right side. It was a very faint sound, that anyone else would have missed. Without breaking formation, Bai Yun shouted out ”Shadow Forty watch out.” The place where he heard the sound from was right in front of shadow forty so he decided to simply warn him.

But just as he said those words, Bai Yun heard a wooshing sound from behind him. From his peripheral vision, he saw Shadow One flash forward in front of shadow forty and wave his sword. The next second, another vine was cut, and the uncut piece immediately slithered back into the shadows.

Bai Yun nearly cursed Shadow One in his mind but held himself back. A moment later, Shadow One came back to his position. But considering the fierceness he had left out with, his shoulders were slouched. ”Sorry” he whispered as he came back into position.

The instructors at blood moon had told them the importance of staying formation many times before. When you sense something, you should inform the person concerned and not break formation. But being young, immature and full of fighting spirit, Shadow One forgot about it and immediately rushed out, breaking their formation. What made it even worse for Shadow One was that Bai Yun had responded perfectly to the situation.

As he returned back to his position, he glanced at Bai Yun. There was a complicated look in his eyes. But since Bai Yun was turned away from him, he did not see it. If he had done so, he would have seen the slight resentment deep in shadow ones yes. But they were buried deep indeed. Maybe not even Shadow one might have been aware of it himself.

Bai Yun's eyes continued to stare and glance all around him. He was not going to make a mistake in the current situation and end up as plant fodder.

Soon after that, the plant demon tried to attack them from various sides. But with Bai Yun and Shadow One's senses, they were able to see all of these attacks coming. Thanks to his earlier mistake, Shadow One did not lose his composure and properly directed the people to react. Due to the cooperation of the two of them, time passed quickly without any injuries.

A few minutes later, the plant demon seemed to have given up on the hunt. Even after waiting for a few minutes, they did not sense any new attacks coming. But this did not quench the fears of the groups, and only caused them to focus more instead.

In the dark forest, their vision was severely impeded, so all of them had to focus on various other senses to survive. So they were all focussed on their hearing to predict the plant monster.

But even after waiting for a long while, the group did not see any action from the plant demon. Just as they thought that the demon had left and their vigilance was starting to drop, Bai Yun heard something coming from behind him, straight in front of shadow one.

”Damn.” He heard shadow one scream. Using his peripheral vision, Bai Yun looked behind him. In front of shadow one, he saw a mess of large collection of vines leaping towards shadow one. It seemed as if the plant demon had given up on trying to pick them off one by one and was now attacking in mass.

”Watch out for sneak attacks.” Bai Yun shouted as he turned around and headed to defend the group. Now that the plant demon had decided to attack in force, it was no longer necessary to maintain a circular formation. But they still needed to be careful as the plant demon might use their distraction to its advantage. After all, it had the advantage in numbers with all its vines.

In an instant, the group had regrouped into a line and started to slash at the plant demon. Each of them maintained a short distance from each other, so as not to get in each other's way, but close enough in case they need to help each other.

Bai Yun used his sword to slash at the plant demon, but other than cutting down some vines, they seem to be completely ineffective. The plant demon semed to have an incalculable amount of vines and seemed to be able to recover easily.

”This won't do.” Shadow one shouted. ”If we keep this up, we will only get tired and will end up dead. We need to change strategies.”

There was no need for him to shoot it out. Everyone could tell that was the case even without his reminder. But there was nothing that they could do due to the current situation.

”We need to find a weak point of the demon.” One of them shouted. ”All demonic beasts usually have a weakness in their mouths. It should be the same for demonic plants too. We simply need to find a way to get its mouth open.”

Everyone knew about this. But the only way to get the beast to open its mouth would be to get eaten. And there was no way any of them would be stupid enough to offer themselves up as bait.

Bai Yun kept on thinking about this problem even as he fought. Since he was well versed with fighting multiple enemies, and with the terrifying power of simple sword, he was able to easily keep the vines at bay even with his blurry vision. But he knew that he could not allow this to continue. After all, the rest of them came from blood moon. If the situation turned for the worse, he might be sacrificed as the outsider of the group.

Suddenly the noises of fighting were drowned out by a scream. From the edge of his sight, Bai Yun saw that shadow sixteen was falling to the ground. A vine had slipped through his defenses and he had been captured by the plant demon.

But not a single one reacted. Even though they could all probably save him from the plant demon, they decided to use him as the bait to draw out the demon instead. There was no time for chivalry in the face of death. Besides this was the best plan to save all of them.