With their position known, Jie and her friends picked up the pace despite the waist-high water. Jie felt more auras with her spirit sense. Countless numbers of them of a variety of strengths ranging from low Disciple to high Expert ranks.
Grove guardians rushed to meet them, but they couldn't take even a single hit from Jie.
A snake-like plant with huge jaws and a thick, thorny vine for a body exploded out of the swamp water at Ithilix. Ithilix wedged her spear between the plant snake's massive jaws as it hissed and snarled and drove her down into the stagnant water with a splash.
Jie rushed to aid her friend, feeling through her spirit sense as the dark water obscured the monster. Jie's eyes widened as the creature radiated the aura of an Expert ranked cultivator of the peak ninth star. It had to be close to breaking through into the Elementalist rank! Ithilix couldn't hope to last against it!
It burst out of the water again, shooting upward with Ithilix clinging to her spear for dear life and desperately trying to keep the massive jaws from closing around her. The plant snake roared as it bit down harder and harder, puncturing the top and bottom of its jaws with Ithilix's spear as it did so.
"Princess! Help!" Ithilix cried.
Jie used lightning step and the water around her blew away as she formed a dragonfist around her left hand and slammed it into the plant snake's body, between two thorns. The boom rang out like thunder and sent arcs of lightning over the monster's hide. The force of Jie's strike knocked Ithilix out of its jaws as Jie followed up with another four dragonfists, each at full power and blasting chunks of green mucus and fleshy vegetation away.
The plant snake slid sideways through the water and crashed through a tree in a spray of water and shattered bark before coming to a stop. It lay still. Its horrid eyes lifeless as sap leaked from its massive wounds. And the fetid swamp water half-swallowed it once more.
"Thank you, Princess. That was scary," Ithilix said as she wiped swamp water off her face.
"I told you, I'm not a princess. Where's this thing's heart? It sure was weak for a peak ninth star Expert," Jie said.
"I didn't see one. Not all of them have hearts. At least not easily harvest-able ones. Stick it in your storage ring and worry about it later," Pan Tian said.
Jie waved her hand over it, activating her storage ring, but it didn't go in.
"Weird. Leave it and let's keep going. The grove isn't far now and don't forget we still have trials to get to," Pan Tian said.
They rushed through the water, cutting down any grove guardians that got in their way. There were a lot of them, but they arrived in small groups and even several groups together were hardly a match for Jie alone. With Jie's friends assisting her, the plant creatures stood no chance. Though there were a lot more of them rushing for the grove. Jie expected they'd have to fight at least twenty of them at once, which could get a little tricky. So far, the plant monsters had all died before they'd had a chance to do anything troublesome.
As Jie and her friends wove through the trees, they caught sight of more glimmering lights ahead until they waded out into what had to be the heart of the grove. Lily pads with beautiful glowing flowers and shining lotuses floated on the still, glistening water. Each lotus radiated power and there were hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands.
And, in the center of the grove, was a massive, luminous bulb that pulsed with turquoise light, illuminating the grove and giving everything an otherworldly appearance. It radiated the aura of an Expert ranked spiritual medicine of the peak ninth star.
"It's beautiful," Jie said.
"Wow..." Pan Tian said, "grove lotuses and lilies... and so many of them. The weakest of them is at the sixth star of the Disciple rank and some of them reach the third star Expert rank... this is an incredible find and on day one before we've even opened the dungeon. This is the best Crimson Valley Treasure Hunt ever! My brother is going to be so jealous."
Jie reached for one of the glowing lilies and the lily pad rose up, exposing rows of needle-sharp teeth and a mouth like a Venus flytrap. Jie punched it in the mouth and its head exploded into green goo and bits of plant matter. She stored the lily in her storage ring as countless other lily pads and lotuses lifted up out of the water, exposing an army of monsters with that terrifying mouth and long, thorny tentacles extending from their bodies.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
"This one thinks you spoke too soon," Ithilix said.
Pan Tian raised her claws and eyed the horde of spiritual medicine. "It's still not that bad. They're weaker than us. Jie can take out the stronger ones and I'll use my moon claws to deal with the smaller masses. It'll be fine," Pan Tian said.
The bulb in the center of the grove shifted and rose up as the water around it bubbled and churned and hundreds of long tentacles emerged. Each of which ended in the huge jaws and beady eyes that Jie had thought was some kind of plant snake only moments ago. The tentacles growled as venom and swamp water drooled from their fangs.
"I'll shut up now," Pan Tian said.
"This one thinks that would be best," Ithilix said.
"That explains why it was so weak and why it had nothing I could harvest at least," Jie said, "I'll focus on it while you guys focus on the rest. Xue, I know the water is gross, but we need you for this."
Xue gave a hissing yowl and leaped out of the canopy. His fur crackled with dragon lightning qi as he destroyed one of the closest grove lily monsters.
The forest of snake vines streaked through the air, heading for them with snarling jaws open wide.
Jie used finger of light from each hand, blasting the heads of the tentacles, knocking them away, and exploding huge chunks of them into smoking ruins. She was grateful for Elder Shi's constant, brutal training sessions as she didn't hold herself back at all against the monster. Every lightning bolt was delivered with enormous power and though the massive plant monster outranked her, her dragon lightning qi gave her power far beyond ordinary cultivators.
Ithilix, Xue, and Pan Tian worked together to fight off the horde of plant monsters around them as martial skills flew through the air. Auras and Essence fluctuated wildly as energies clashed and swamp water sloshed in a chaotic maelstrom all around them.
Jie gritted her teeth as she unleashed an endless staccato of finger of light attacks that lit the grove like a strobe light. Yet, even with lightning step to help her attack faster, she struggled to keep up with the sheer number of snake vines lashing out toward them. Jie couldn't even finish off any of the vines as the instant she struck one, two more were already heading toward her and her friends with jaws yawning wide.
One small slip up and she and her friends would die.
Jie wracked her brain for a way to deal with it better as a pulse of energy came from the enormous bulb and thirty burning balls of turquoise light filled the air around it. Then, it launched them all toward her and her friends. Jie could evade them if she moved now. But her friends would be too slow and an attack like this from an Expert ranked creature at the peak of the ninth star was something they could never survive.
A feral growl like the rumble of thunder filled the grove, and for a moment Jie thought that Ming had come... only to realize the growl was coming from her.
The countless wisps of energy raced toward them and out of desperation, Jie twisted her finger of light technique and pushed far more power into it. Dragon lightning qi crackled around her, spiraling around her arms and fingers like the coils of a dragon, and then exploded out from her fingertips. Each bolt was far thicker than before as she channeled so much qi into the attacks that her meridians screamed from the strain.
The bolts of dragon lightning qi slammed into two snake vines that'd been just about to reach them and blasted them away. But Jie continued channeling her qi into the attack and maintained her link and her control over her qi for longer than she normally did as she forced it to jump.
The lightning arced from the snake vines and into the turquoise wisps, jumping from one to the next like one of the chain lightning spells she'd seen people use in the games they played back on Earth. The wisps and the lightning wrestled for the smallest of moments and then ripped the air apart in a massive series of explosions that engulfed the smaller plant monsters, ripping them to pieces even as bright blue fire consumed them.
A mixture of steam and smoke filled the air as plant flesh and sap rained down all over the grove. A huge wave of swamp water crashed into Jie, her friends, and the countless plant monsters surrounding them. The wave of fetid water washed over Jie, sweeping her legs out from under her and sloshing her back twenty steps as her friends and writhing plant monsters swirled in the dark water around her.
Jie held her breath as murky water carried her backward. Her long hair flowed in her wake, the countless strands crackling with the blue light of her qi armor which lit the dark water around her. Though the glow didn't penetrate far into the green liquid.
She created a lightning step platform inside the water and boosted off it. Jie rocketed up out of the churning water in a geyser spray of swamp water as the discharge of her lightning step platform blasted water away in every direction. She grabbed hold of a gnarled branch in the canopy above and took in the grove as water, mud, and plant matter dripped from her, leaving her wishing her qi armor would protect her against it.
"Pan Tian? Ithilix? Xue?" Jie called frantically as she scanned the roiling water but didn't see them. The biggest plant monster screeched and writhed sluggishly as though badly hurt and stunned. Its snake vines were blackened and bleeding sap from thousands of wounds, but there were still enough of them left to be more than dangerous.