Disregarding the horrifying imagery behind them, the suffocating tightening feeling in their chests, Darcel and Aniela focused squarely on escaping.
Their faces were severe and small beads of cold sweat dribbled down.
Yet….yet their lips couldn't stop twitching upwards. Slowly on, Darcel and Aniela's face a feral elevated smile etched upon them.
Fleeing for their lives, skirting on the edge of surviving was igniting something hot inside them.
This perilous situation wasn't anything like any frightening experience they've been in before. Every single time, Darcel and Aniela were backed by a firm confidence in their unique, overwhelming powers.
To the Parasol Organization, the wrathful clan, the Giel's brother, no matter what they were up against, they knew they would win. But for this….creature, this thing truly inspires a sense of crushing crisis in them.
The crisis of near brutalizing death hanging right near their necks.
Darcel and Aniela both knew that it's incredibly hard for even average cultivators to maintain calmness or hell to even feel any excitement in front of impending doom.
But as their legs sprinted across the sickly green floor, Darcel and Aniela could taste the adrenaline pumping in their veins. This is what they truly mean by a life or death situation!
Still, while madly dashing, Darcel took a brief second to trail his eyes down.
Even in such a perilous event, it was practically impossible to ignore the tender, soft body clinging on to him. Though to Darcel's surprise, Hao Cao was managing reasonably well.
Her gorgeous face was morphed into a full focused one making her all the more dazzling. Glittering sparks of purple electricity sizzled out of her eyes, putting all of her power into searching.
Compared to the passionately enthusiastic duo, Hao Cao had a more normal reaction to a life or death situation.
Her obvious main goal was focused on them all surviving and, hopefully, never encountering that disgusting creature again!
At Darcel and Aniela's speed, they at least managed to stay several meters ahead of the creature. The only problem was, they couldn't truly outrun it no matter how hard they try.
Crawling like a madman on the ceilings, the creature's luminous glaring red eyes never went off the trio for even a single second.
It honestly couldn't believe its prey could run so annoyingly fast!
For a few thrilling minutes, the chase between creature and humans carried on. All plant monsters and whatever traps that attempted to spring upon them were utterly crushed and destroyed in their mad dash.
Just when Darcel and Aniela wondered if this thing knows anything about stamina, Hao Cao's eyes sparked in a bright purple lightning flash!
Her hand ignited and swirled in raging purple lightning as she told the duo,
"....Ok….now….STOP!!"
The sweet natural voice of Hao Cao carried an awe-inspiring commanding presence now. On a dime did Darcel and Aniela stopped near a seemingly ordinary looking sickly green wall.
But immediately when they stopped, Hao Cao didn't lag behind for even a split second. Tremendous Nascent Qi spewed out of her as she thrust her beaming purple lightning hand to a specific spot on the wall.
'BANG!!'
Powerful purple lightning blasted from Hao Cao's hand and demolished the sickly green wall!
A big opening was made as the stones were destroyed to tiny pieces, revealing a massively spacious room on the other side of this wall.
Peering inside the room, the trio only saw one non-menacing monster there. It was a vast, admittedly horrifying looking monster spouting a rotten molding tree's appearance in a pale green color.
Horrid sickly green tree branches spread out through the entire room, and at the trunk of the tree, there lay a large putrid gaping green hole filled with disgusting green fluids.
This mangled scene would've sure at least halt people or turn heads. But Darcel's team didn't even register this monster. Mainly due to the fact the aura of this tree monster was merely at the fifth level of Nascent Core.
Though it being a fifth level Nascent Core monster in an expansive room, undoubtedly would mean fabulous rewards for killing it.
Unfortunately, it was a shame the trio had zero time for bountiful resources.
Springing into the room as soon as the entrance was destroyed, Darcel briefly sensed how close was that revolting creature. A smirk etched on his face once sensing they were about two meters ahead now.
While smirking, Darcel didn't get lax at all. Numerous sickly green tree branches blasted at his group in an attempt to wrap them up.
The branches split the air apart, reaching lightning speeds, but it didn't cause any panic in the trio.
Stopping for only a second, Darcel's bloodline arm intensely glowed in suffocating Darkness, painting the whole room in a night abyss. And matching Darcel's Darkness was blinding pure white light coming from Aniela's bloodline arm.
Her white light shimmered with magnetic intensity, beautifully mixing in with the Darkness. Furthermore, her white light caused all of the blitzing tree branches to halt right before reaching them.
Before the tree monster could even muster up a semblance of thought, in a split second, the temperature raised to blazing degrees! And in the exact split second, two powerful voices boomed around the room.
"Fiery Slice!!"
'Sssch!!'
Immensely powerful black flames blasted out of the tip of Darcel and Aniela's rapier, utterly destroying the green tree monster to near-instantaneous ashes.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Amid the raging black fiery downpour, Hao Cao's eyes brilliantly lit up in intense streaks of purple lightning.
Through the blinding ashes and fire, Hao Cao spotted precisely what they needed.
Pointed her hand to a spot where even Darcel and Aniela looked over, she said, "There! Jump there!!" Abruptly, while directing the duo, Hao Cao hurriedly ignited her purple spatial ring and fished out their barrier talisman.
All in one motion, she activated the talisman, spawning the mystical dark purple barrier over them.
Darcel and Aniela didn't question her action, and as Darcel tightened his hold on Hao Cao, they all heard a spine-chilling grunt.
"Keh!!"
Darcel, Aniela, and Hao Cao all felt the small hair on their neck rise.
Instantly when hearing the voice, Darcel and Aniela frantically pour massive waves of Nascent Qi into their legs and swiftly jump to where Hao Cao pointed.
Only, while jumping, neither of three would have predicted a bright red horrifying tongue sailing to them, nearly matching their speed!
The trio only felt the previous nauseating feeling get worse as then,
'BANG!!'
Violently and savagely did the creature's beating red tongue fiercely struck the trio's barrier! Immediately it caused the barrier to have numerous long-running cracks, almost breaking on impact.
Inside the barrier, the trio felt an immense force strike their back as that creature attack bypass any standard rule of a barrier.
But right when the creature struck them, there was a silver lining.
Due to the sheer force and not being able to completely shatter the barrier, the creature ended up sending Darce's group flying straight towards the portal at blitzing speeds!
The trio only had a brief moment to glance at a dark, sickly green looking portal before getting sucked right into it.
Seeing this from behind, the creature leaked out a grunt of annoyance and instantly gave chase to them.
No matter what, that trio of juicy prey won't escape from its gruesome claw hands!
….
A deep, dark, sickly green brilliance flashed on the same matching color dark, pale green floor. Out from the blinding flash spewed three charming looking youths.
At high speeds, the trio crashed into the floor, skidding along on it for a few feet. Snapping his eyes open, Darcel felt uncomfortable sore pain coarse through his body.
It wasn't to the point of being unbearable, but it certainly wasn't pleasant to have. Putting his hand on the ground to lift himself up, Darcel tasted an oddly sweet liquid in his mouth in the middle of this process.
"Ack! I'm really am odd…." Darcel coughed out unique dark red blood and quietly mirth to himself while shaking his head.
Frankly, he had to give it to himself; his own deep dark red blood tasted like addicting candy. Though he prefers to not have the taste of his own blood in his mouth at all.
"Ack!! Wow! That's an oddly pleasant surprise…." Right beside him, Darcel also heard Aniela shock about her blood. He assumed her blood tasted just as impressive as his, and he was right to think so.
Aniela had an inquisitive smile on tasting the after taste of her blood. It was this sweet peach-like taste that could smoothly melt in your mouth like warm butter. Plus, her blood was also a very light red in color.
Glancing over to the duo, Hao Cao merely shook her head while spouting a mirthful smile.
She didn't know what they were talking about, but she assumed it was just another specialty about them judging by their unique looking blood.
Standing on their feet, the pain the trio felt was noticeable but wouldn't impact their movement or future prowess. After all, they wouldn't be fit to be called cultivators if they can't stand mild pain.
Taking a moment, Darcel's group observed the new floor they crashed onto. Immediately they noticed it was a bit similar in terms of colors to the previous floor.
Now instead of sickly regular green, everything was a pale dark green color. Though a critical difference on this floor was the lack of strange moving plants growing on the walls.
Aniela breathed a small sigh of relief and still managed to shine with exuberant energy while saying, "Huuu….so not only we have to deal with this Labyrinth crazed monster and traps. We also have a dangerous unknown variable to deal with now!"
"Hmm….well, currently, we're gonna have to deal with a couple of known dangerous variables right about now," Darcel remarked once spreading out his Spirit Sense on this floor.
Suddenly before any one of the three could make a move, their immediate danger senses crazily went off.
The brushing of fierce wind passed on their necks as two monsters were attacking at immense speeds from behind.
Keeping their cool and remaining steady, Darcel, Aniela, and Hao Cao all at the last second ducked the swiping of sharp, feral claws!
'Hua!'
Whatever passed by them indeed had a uniqueness in speed as the air was torn apart through their sheer momentum. Furthermore, the trio sensed two potent, refined aura at the sixth level of Nascent Core!
Snapping their heads up, Darcel's group had hoped to see whatever that attacked them. Only they were doomed to be disappointed as their gazes met empty spaces.
Swiftly standing back up, Darcel and Aniela felt the slight shift in the air from right in front of them.
Hao Cao still relied on her Spirit Sense for these monsters' extreme speed. Yet, clearly, these beings are even quicker than her senses.
Once again, just at the last second before the monster struck them, Darcel and Aniela narrowly counter attacked.
A soul-stealing shimmering black glow spewed out of Darcel in extraordinary power. And mixing with it was a blinding radiant white light that exuded out of Aniela in an elegant presence.
Unleashing their bloodline arms now did cause some fatigue in the duo. However, it wasn't to the point where it would dramatically affect their overall prowess.
Immediately as well, when activating their bloodline, Darcel and Aniela's hand ignited in raging black flames.
Matching the immense speeds of the monsters Darcel and Aniela struck out their palms!
'Bang!!'
A tremendous collision of powerful Nascent energy swirled in the air. Hao Cao had to root herself in the ground just to not get thrown off by this fierce clash of Nascent power.
Peering over to what the duo struck, her eyes widened a bit.
In Darcel and Aniela's black flaming hands were the enormous claws of dark green color wolves!
These wolves easily topple over six feet long, had savage features, and frightening spiked up fur. Feral foam dribbled from their mouths as the two wolves bared their incredibly long, sharp teeth.
Staying rooted in their spots, Darcel and Aniela attempted to latch on the wolves' claws and break them in touch.
But when trying to apply more pressure, the wolves managed to dash backward out of their grasps with their insane speeds.
Promptly while dashing backward, the wolves gathered a small bit of air into their foam mouths, causing a tremendous swirl of Nascent Qi in the space.
Before Darcel and Aniela could react, the wolves' bright green eyes locked on to them as their stomachs tightened.
"HUOOOO!!"
Both wolves unleashed a tremendous powerful howl fill to the brim with immense Nascent Qi!
Not expecting it all, the trio had their ears blasted by the wolves mighty howls, and their bodies were flung backward through the sheer power of the wolves howls.
Sailing in midair, Hao Cao's eyes sparked with bright purple lightning. Hurriedly she ignited her hands in raging purple lightning and smacked them together, creating her signature purple lightning barrier.
The purple lightning barrier disrupted the wolves howl effect and let the trio forcefully land on the ground. From up ahead, the three already saw the wolves' lightning speed mad dash to them.
Smirking while they skidded on the floor, Darcel and Aniela were ready to end things.
That is until Darcel, Aniela, and Hao Cao feets had all sunk into the ground, forcing their bodies into an abrupt stop!
'Chi!'
Surprising them, this time, strings of dark green wolf fur quickly wrapped around Darcel's group bodies. And on this floor, the trio immediately found out these traps were now actually dangerous!
Hao Cao gritted her teeth as she couldn't move at all in the wolf fur. While Darcel and Aniela could barely move their arms now.
A sense of slight dread filled their minds as only a few meters away from them will the wild feral wolves dash right up to them.