A thorny branch lashed at Aiden like an arrow aimed at his brain. Another thorny branch came from the right, aiming for his heart.

Fuck! He was in trouble.

A line of cold sweat trickled down Aiden's spine, soaking into the waistband of his pants as he twisted his body to the right. His muscles screamed in protest, barely allowing him to evade the lethal attack aimed at his heart. The thorns whistled past his ear, a grim reminder of how close death had come. Though he'd avoided a fatal blow, the branch still raked across his shoulder, tearing fabric and flesh alike.

A large damage number popped in his vision while the first branch collided with the Void Shield, prompting him to leap back and avoid the remnant of the thorny scales.

Thick smell of his own blood permeated the area as he charged forward and attacked the right tree from the duo and burned it with his Alchemy Fire.

The two thorny branches came at him again, but he leaped back, continuously avoiding them with the Void Shield. Yet, he couldn't avoid one scraping past his thigh and shooting a searing pain through his brain.

At least Void Shield saved his brain from the other branch.

Blood gushed from the wound as Aiden retreated. A mere probing attack, yet it had cost him 230 health points.

"Damn it. It hurts." Aiden pressed his palm on the thigh, sealing the wound with his palm while he activated the Healing Hand consecutively. If he didn't have Healing Hand, he would have been done for already. For the last thirty minutes he was walking in a straight direction, and he had burned dozens of trees, and collected the ingredient, but at the same time he had suffered multiple injuries that he had to fix with the Healing Hand. Without his rapid mana regeneration, he'd have been toast by now.

Sitting on the ground, Aiden took a deep breath. The air still had the stench of rot and it was getting on his nerves now. Glancing back, he saw the path of scorched trunks he'd carved through the woods. They made a clear line, cutting through the dark forest. His earlier excitement about finding valuable materials had faded, replaced by a growing sense of unease and fear.

The worst thing, the further he walked in, the gap between the trees reduced, and he would have to fight with two trees at a time going forward.

This wasn't going to work; he had to think of a way to attack from a distance. Although he had deconstructed the Sword Qi skill, he only received one usable skill - Sword Strike. It gave a 50% boost to his sword attacks, but he didn't have a sword. Even if he had a sword, this skill required him to be in a melee range, which wouldn't work for him.

While his injury healed, he tried to send the Alchemy Fire at a range, but when the lump of blue flame left his hand, it extinguished instantly. He had already tried it multiple times, but to no avail. Alchemy Fire was his only option, as it didn't spend mana. Mana Fire could be tossed around, but it would burn through his mana pool in minutes, so he couldn't use that skill.

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"Damn it. My options are limited." A frown covered his entire face.

Sitting there, Aiden munched on a dry ration, letting the chewy taste fuel his resolve to march forward. After thinking a lot for two days, he could only come to the quest and try searching for a cultivation art for the dark core while killing people and collecting Corpse Blooms. If he could cultivate the dark core along with his light core, he might have a chance to survive through the predicament.

After ten minutes, Aiden got up and walked to the previous trees he had fought with. One of them had no thorny branch left, so he could just ignore it and attack the other.

"Mana Fire." Aiden conjured the black flame in his palm and hit the incoming branch with it. After fighting dozens of black trees, he had got proficient in judging their attack patterns, and could avoid them easily as long as he fought with a single tree. Two trees were too much for poor him.

Mana Fire engulfed the spiky limb, and Aiden thought it would be reduced to ash. To his surprise, the branch jerked away, wrapping itself around the Mana Fire as it pulled close to the black trunk. A gash resembling a maw formed on the trunk, swallowing the Mana Fire whole. After a brief pause, it exhaled a dark plume. The pair of branches curled around the tree as it stiffened, becoming as rigid as a statue.

"What the heck just happened?" Aiden murmured as he retreated. Something had changed in the tree, and he didn't want to experiment while putting himself in danger.

Aiden folded his legs and waited, watching the tree for any hints of movement over the next ten minutes. But the tree remained still, frozen in place like a starry-eyed teenager clutching herself, lost in daydreams of her boyfriend's embrace.

Aiden conjured Alchemy Fire and headed forward. He couldn't just wait here. If he couldn't get out of the forest, he would have to spend seven days inside, and he didn't like that prospect. And who knew if he would get teleported out of this place or not? Old man Li had no memory of such a place, so he wasn't taking any risk.

Aiden moved very cautiously around the tree, expecting a surprise attack anytime, but none came and even after he walked past it, the tree remained in its strange statue position.

"What the fuck was that?" Aiden paused at a distance from the next two trees and then turned to face the self-hugging tree. There was something odd about it, and he couldn't move ahead before understanding it.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes. Aiden stood there watching the self-hugging tree, but nothing happened. It didn't move. He even went close and touched it, and yet it didn't react.

Aiden lingered for another thirty minutes before plunging his blade into the tree's bark. He drained its lifeforce, but still, the black tree showed no response. Its branches remained frozen in their eerie embrace, unmoved by his actions.

Shrugging it off, he spun around and pressed on. He was itching to put his idea to the test. With a grin, he summoned a ball of Mana Fire and hurled it at the next thorny branch that lashed out at him. Just as he'd guessed, the branch recoiled, and the tree gobbled up the flames before drifting into a deep sleep.

A huge weight lifted from his shoulders as the threat faded away.

With this method, he could stroll through the dark forest like moving through the garden.

Grinning, he flung a ball of Mana Fire at the last tree of the duo, sending it into a deep slumber. But just as he prepared to continue, a sharp, thorn-covered limb pierced his thigh, freezing him in place without warning.