Chapter 251: Chapter 251: Ambushed by a Strong Tree Demon in the Deep Mountains
In the hemispherical brick house.

Shi Lei was on the night watch.

The other three sat cross-legged on their meditation cushions, like they were in a light sleep, but they would wake immediately at the slightest noise from the outside world.

However, the shadows lurking in the dark were very strange.

They crisscrossed, and one could vaguely see some vines extending, casting countless tentacle-like shadows on the ground against the bright moonlight.

Rustle rustle rustle…

The breeze brushed through the woods, making thousands of leaves tremble.

Danger followed close behind!

In the darkness.

Shi Lei lit a fire and placed it on either side of the brick house door to brighten the surroundings but failed to notice the countless vine-like tentacles spreading its way from the nearby trees, approaching like numerous octopuses, creating an increasingly intense sense of oppression.

“This feels ominous!”

Shi Lei opened his eyes to scan the surroundings, but all the vine shadows had already retreated back into the thicket, leaving no trace.

To be safe, Shi Lei cast “All-Dimensional Spiritual Perception” and carefully sensed his surroundings, yet found no trace of the Demon Race or other cultivators.

“Maybe I’m just being overcautious!”

Shi Lei scratched his head, sat cross-legged at the door, guarding the night while cultivating the “Mystical Spirit Catalogue”.

The spell was difficult, but he had already reached the beginner’s level.

This was, however, the result of Ye Feng’s personal guidance.

Shi Lei’s talent wasn’t particularly high, so it would take a lot of time to achieve Minor Achievement in the “Mystical Spirit Catalogue”, and during cultivation, he frequently encountered questions he couldn’t comprehend. He had no choice but to wait until he was back at Misty Peak to ask for Ye Feng’s advice.

Cultivation was a dull process.

Time ticked away.

The wind outside kept blowing.

The tentacle-like vines continued to quietly spread: some among the trees, others on the ground and the last part beneath the earth’s surface.

A cloud drifted across the night sky.

In the latter half of the night,

it obscured the moon.

The vicinity plunged into darkness, and a gust of wind extinguished the torches at the door, engulfing the area in pitch darkness.

“Danger!”

Shi Lei was quite perceptive.

In a split second, he used “Fiery Cloud Palm” to illuminate his surroundings and was startled to discover numerous eerie vines hurtling toward him, swift as lightning.

“Ambush!”

Shi Lei shouted, and immediately attempted “Earth Escape”, but as only half his body had submerged into the ground, he felt his upper half trapped by something and couldn’t move.

In the next moment, countless vines wrapped tightly around him.

Inside the brick house.

The three disciples woke up instantly but still, it was too late.

Huo Yunjie had barely unsheathed his sword when he found himself entangled by numerous vines, bound so tightly he could not move and soon lost consciousness.

Long Tian Xing instantly lit up and shifted into his Dragonfolk Form, only to be knocked unconscious by a thorny wooden stick at the back of his head.

Wang Ping’an, the one with the lowest cultivation level, had already been cleanly dealt with.

Rustle rustle rustle…

When the cloud passed and the moonlight bathed the earth once more, the brick house in the woods had been reduced to ruins.

“Eh, where did they go?”

The Thousand Faces Demon Monarch poked his head out from behind his feathers and looked around, only to find the place in ruins and Shi Lei with his three companions had vanished without a trace, causing him to panic immensely.

“If the Sect Leader finds out the disciples are missing, he will surely give me a thrashing!”

The Thousand Faces Demon Monarch felt extremely anxious and quickly released his Spiritual Sense to track the scent left by the Tree Demons.

The next morning, at dawn.

Shi Lei slowly woke up.

“Not good!”

He suddenly had a tingling sensation on his scalp and quickly found that a special spike had been thrust into his glabella. He was unable to use his cultivation.

Looking around, Shi Lei saw that Huo Yunjie, Long Tianxing, and Wang Ping’an had just opened their eyes, each with a green spike stuck in their glabella.

“What’s going on?”

“We’ve been ambushed!”

“Ah, it hurts so much. What exactly is stuck in my glabella? It hurts like death if I touch it. It can’t be pulled out at all. It must be what’s restricting my cultivation.”

“Why does the place we’re in look so much like a… cage?”

After their shock, the four disciples realized they were trapped inside a spherical vine cage, hanging dozens of meters in the air from a giant tree over a hundred meters tall.

Looking around, they saw many other cages hanging from the big tree, each imprisoning quite a few people, numbering in the dozens altogether.

“Fellow daoist, do you know where we are?” Shi Lei whispered, asking the person in another vine cage about ten meters away.

“Ah, I don’t want to die!” The two disheveled cultivators in the adjacent cage were howling and crying, tears streaming down like rain, obviously having a mental breakdown.

“Sigh, they’ve been driven mad, but no wonder, every few days they witness other cultivators being sacrificed, not knowing when they themselves will follow suit. It’d be strange if they weren’t mad!” An elderly voice sounded.

Shi Lei and the others turned their gaze to yet another vine cage some tens of meters away, where they saw only an old man with gray hair sitting cross-legged, appearing relatively composed.

“Elder, we are disciples of the Misty Sect. May I ask which force you hail from, how should we address you, and why have these Tree Demons imprisoned us?” Shi Lei swiftly asked the old man, showing great respect.

“Misty Sect? Never heard of it.”

The gray-haired old man looked at the sky, his face full of dejection and self-mockery, “I used to be the Sect Leader of a High Ranked Sect. As for my name… it’s better left unsaid. Three months ago, I took my disciples to slay demons, but we were ambushed by these Tree Demons at night. Even I was struck by the ‘Soul-Suppressing Nail’, unable to exert my cultivation.”

“Soul-Suppressing Nail?”

Shi Lei and the others exchanged glances, all puzzled.

Seeing this, the old man explained, “The Soul-Suppressing Nail is the Innate Talent of this Tree Demon. As a Demon General at the Peak of Middle Rank, its talent is also very strong. Anyone struck by the Soul-Suppressing Nail in their glabella whose cultivation is lower than its own will be completely restrained.”

“Then what can we do?”

Shi Lei and the others were shivering with fear.

The Tree Demon was at the Peak of Middle Rank Demon General, meaning that anyone with a cultivation lower than this level would not be able to defeat it.

When taking the entire Misty Sect into consideration, only the Sect Leader could overpower this Tree Demon.

But the problem was, with their cultivation restrained, they couldn’t open their storage rings, nor could they use the Identity Tokens within to call for help.

Considering this, the disciples felt a chill in their hearts.

“What to do?” The elder gave a self-deprecating smile, “Sigh, we can only wait for death… You might not know yet, but the Tree Demon captured us to sacrifice us to the ‘Tree Ancestor’ to gain the Wood Spirit Power, for the purpose of enhancing its bloodline and breaking through its realm.”

“Sacrifice?”

Shi Lei and the others gasped in shock.

In this way, weren’t they certain to die?

High in the sky, hundreds of meters above.

The Thousand Faces Demon Monarch transformed into a cloud, observing the area below where there was a large valley. In addition to the Tree Demon with a robust aura at the Peak of Middle Rank Demon General, there were also ten or so smaller Tree Demons on the verge of entering the Lower Rank Demon General level.

On the ground, there were many crawling vines with eyes and noses, clearly the minions under the Tree Demon’s command.

“With so many people, this Demon Monarch can’t beat them!”

After a moment of thought, the Thousand Faces Demon Monarch hurriedly made the Spirit Beast Pavilion the relay point, continuously calling for Ye Feng on Misty Peak.

In the Sect Leader’s Great Hall.

Ye Feng opened the furnace lid and picked up the Heaven-Asking Mirror, which had been re-melted.

“Although it’s only been upgraded to the peak of a Middle Grade Spiritual Artifact, its scouting range has increased from within a thousand li to within one thousand five hundred li. Moreover, even if the area being scouted is covered by a Formation, it can still see more clearly than before.”

After examining the Heaven-Asking Mirror for a moment, Ye Feng grew even fonder of it.

Just then, he received the call from the Thousand Faces Demon Monarch, his gaze fixed intently as he immediately activated the Heaven-Asking Mirror.