The forest was freaky to pass through as a good deal of wildlife intervened across multiple spaces. On the ground or in the air, it can't be deterred unless going offensive while playing as the defense. It was enough to trigger Julius's flashback of dealing with the Adlers. Even now, he might be way above them; there are new creatures that are almost on par to give the return sense of the dread vibe.

The gathering of the forces headed down to the Lake of Towering Green was around in the hundreds. Many were hidden and blended with the civilian population during the recovery, only revealing themselves on the day of departure. Very reserved, to say the least, and hard to come across for new leadership, as most were from the former four houses in Longyue.

These bullets of air raids from these aerial creatures weren’t a joke. Julius wasn’t prepared for the continuous barrage when he ignored one senator, warning him about the route earlier. The other person who shared the same sentiment was Celeste. She knew he wouldn’t want a compromise to find a different path, as his reasoning was the lack of time to make up for it. Additionally, going fast, like when he carried Empress Cai and Daiyu back home, isn’t suitable. Nobody else can match his flying speed in constant air and there was no training time to reach that point.

From Skoltor’s map, the scale of the forest in relation was huge, with a two-to-one ratio. The barrage of aerial creatures was only halfway through the forest. According to locals and everyone else he seeks advice from, there was no official name of the region. Nobody can name it properly, as Feng and others mentioned again during the flight.

“I told you this was a dangerous course,” Feng said. Julius glared back at her, revealing the serious eyes in her like she wanted to punch him for also ignoring her suggestion.

“It was the only way. We don’t want to be late, especially when the historical records of the former four houses in Longyue had a poor reputation for the national families in the Dynasty. You know this. Everyone who reads the records in the archives knows this was all because of many rulers ago. It’s their fault we are doing this.”

“And nobody ever dared cross this space hovering over the Illusion Green Forest. Especially, you are breaking the tradition of lower altitude and longer routes.”

“It’s been a day since we debated about this. Can you give me a break?!” Julius grunted. He wasn’t having any conversation relating to the route planning. Subsequently, his body exerted an excess of dark qi to deter away the blockades the trees were generating from beneath. He wiped the sticky blood from the aerial creatures, tainting on his forehead. Hella disgusting motherfuckers. He silently chastised them in complete prejudice, using his qi like a hairdryer to blow them out of his fingers.

The rest of the trip was silent as the uncertainty was subdued by the dark qi, allowing the traveling over the last half of the forest quiet. When he saw the irregular border of the forest ahead, he boosted his flight speed until he made it over. He soared into the air to monitor all of them that were trailing behind him, making sure they were safe. The most he could do was manipulate the dark qi to keep a pool-like underneath them, traveling parallel. His forearms started to tighten from fatigue as he was controlling it with his palms. He rested his left while forcing all his telekinesis to his dominant side. It’s like the blood flow could be felt, surging and flowing in the direction where it needed to be.

Julius summoned a platform right underneath his tumbling feet. His knees collapsed on it. Not now. I can’t be lacking energy. He breathed like a tired athlete after going a heavy run. Keeping his right palm out, he noticed the distortion began to abrupt from behind the last row of cultivators, not aware something was wrong happening right behind them. He summoned Licht and performed a swirl, igniting the monstrous tree creatures behind them.

They were huge for only two. It took that long for everyone still flying through the path to notice the abnormality and begin speeding away. Licht recharged Julius’s stamina, allowing him to get back up.

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< Better than the last time you almost dropped. > Licht commented.

<< As long as I can get all the hundreds of them out of the forest. That’s the self-progress I’m looking for. >> Julius replied.

The two wrecked tree monsters reformed their upper bodies and grew larger than the prior. Emitting anger through their tiny pores through the stone shoulders, they noticed Julius in the air. He saw their blank stone faces as they refined themselves, showing the development of eyes resembling human features. Suddenly, more trees erupted from beneath the crowd, prompting Julius to yell.

Celeste, reaching to her left end, grabbed Sally’s arm and steered away, using Vesper. She used a vacuum ability from beneath the platform to push others who were near the edge of the border. They boosted out of the scene, steering back and simultaneously watching the ongoing event.

Julius descended from the air. While on the course, one of the two towering tree monsters blasted a barrage of stones, infested with green flames and transforming into projectile arrows. He cut them down like Swiss cheese, leaving the wide arrows appearing with multiple hollow openings as his qi burned through the stone. He then barged right underneath the crotch of one of the tree monsters. With no time to spare in a tight space, he landed right on a canopy of a redwood-like tree. Crazily sturdy, for one. Julius confidently shanked down through the concrete, solid canopy before bursting a load of qi downwards. The tree monster noticed him underneath its crotch, between its legs. It began to move right onto Julius, hopefully, to deter him away into vulnerability.

Skoltor's health bar indicator displayed the uncertainty of the monster’s health. This makes the thing useless. Useless invaded the entire system, glitching out like a buzzed TV screen. Julius mentally clicked the emergency office switch, shutting it all down. The interface went bye-bye, losing contact with Hu and the virtual inventory.

Back to the old ways from the look of it. Julius pulled Licht out from under the canopy, leaving an opening. He back-flipped away from underneath the monster's crotch with half a second to space as the legs’ wall-like structures smashed along each other. That was close. He thought until the moment triggered.

Boom!

A bright swish of a beam struck through the stones and wood of the towering creature. It grunted a noise causing the other monster, or ‘friend one’, to turn around, staring and expressing a human-like concern. It can't talk but can make noise as language when it roars like a lion while maintaining a face. The focus turned to its ‘friend two’, away from the cultivators. As friend-one ran with an earthquake-like shakiness using a form of tree manipulation to create a hard surface, friend-two fell victim to Julius's play.

Cracks appeared through its entire body like damaged glass dented inward at the last straw. Before Friend-one could save its friend, a towering beam of blue launched through the openings, putting the final touches as it exited through the head. Friend-two monster stopped and stood still in silence.

Taking the chances, Julius saw the group of cultivators dealing with the Friend-one now go on strike. Friend-one collapsed onto the hard canopies with its arm reaching out to Friend-two only to witness it crumble before collapsing into a pile of rubble. Julius did the final finish, one punching it down to the dust.

Slam!

Julius flinched away when Vesper cut through Friend-one’s head, following with an explosion to bits, sending a brutal farewell. He covered his eyes as the debris blew away into the distance. Incredible. He thought as he felt the strength coming from the blast. It quickly subsided, and once he lowered his arm, revealing a deforestation that not even the uncertainty nature can fix. It smelled of crispy, fire-like charcoal. Not great, as there was no food on the grill. He wanted to get out of here, so he turned to the cultivators hovering in the vicinity. “Let’s get out of here before shit goes awake again!”

They nodded at his command, and all took the leave. Julius grabbed the empty plank from the site before joining with the rest of the team, only for it to disintegrate, much to his disappointment. He flanked it off from his hand while flying away from the forest's reach. Reuniting with them as they were outside of the forest, Julius took a breather and hung Licht on his back this time. Finally, Skoltor rebooted as the menu screen returned, loading everything back up before Julius pulled the emergency switch.

“Shall we?” Celeste said, hovering right behind Julius.

“Let’s go. We are not that far anymore,” Julius muttered. He then pointed at the grand lake on the horizon.