"Seraph, use your fire!" Cassian commanded in a low, firm voice. "Burn a path ahead!"
"Got it!" Seraph replied, immediately summoning her power. A scorching fireball condensed in her palm and then whistled towards the writhing "carpet of worms" in front of them.
"BOOM—!"
The flames exploded, instantly engulfing a large area of the strange worms. The air immediately filled with the extremely foul stench of burnt protein. The worms directly hit by the flames turned to charcoal amidst sharp hissing sounds.
However, the effectiveness of this method was less than ideal.
Although Seraph's flames were powerful, her control over them was not yet precise enough. She could create large-scale explosions and combustion, but she struggled to maintain a continuous, stable "flame corridor" that wouldn't ignite the strange trees around them. Moreover, the number of worms was simply too great. As soon as one patch was burned, the worms from the sides would immediately swarm in to fill the gap. After several attempts, not only had she failed to clear a path, but she had also consumed a significant amount of her power.
"It's not working! I'm burning through my power too fast, and I might set these trees on fire. That could be even more trouble!" Seraph said, panting, her face a little pale.
"Let me try!"
Jorah, who had been protected in the middle of the group, looked at the disgusting scene before him, then at the still-faintly-aching wound on his chest. It seemed a spark of courage had finally been ignited. He took a deep breath and, mimicking what he had done at the villa, tried to focus his mental energy on the tangled tree roots and low shrubs blocking their path.
Under the influence of his power, a miracle happened!
The previously stationary plants actually began to slowly squirm, stretch, and recede, as if they were alive, voluntarily clearing a narrow gap just wide enough for one person to pass through!
"It's working!" Elara's eyes lit up at the sight.
"Zephyr! Freeze them!" she immediately shouted to Zephyr beside her.
Zephyr understood instantly, immediately releasing his ice ability. A bone-chilling cold spread along the plant corridor Jorah had created, instantly freezing the moved plants and the countless strange worms clinging to them into glittering ice sculptures, temporarily halting their movement.
"Quick! Keep up!"
The group immediately seized the opportunity, one by one, carefully passing through the strange, temporary corridor made of plants and ice.
Although clumsy, the method was effective. With Jorah struggling to clear the path with plants and Zephyr quickly freezing it in place, they painstakingly advanced, step by step, for more than ten meters into the depths of the forest.
As they got closer and closer to the center of the strange forest, everyone felt a slight sense of relief, their tense nerves unconsciously relaxing their guard.
However, at that very moment, another sudden change occurred!
The entire forest suddenly began to shake violently, bizarrely! The ground beneath their feet seemed to tremble, and the canopy above rustled with a loud "whooshing" sound, as if the entire forest had awakened from a deep slumber!
At the same time, the surrounding temperature began to rise sharply at an incredible speed! The air became increasingly hot, humid, and thick, as if in an instant, they had been thrown from a world of ice and snow into a gigantic, constantly heating sauna!
They felt as if they were soaking in a boiling hot spring, and even breathing became difficult.
"Not good! The ice walls are melting!" Zephyr's face changed drastically. Around him, the plants and strange worms he had just frozen were now visibly melting, their icy surfaces giving off clouds of white steam!
Even worse, the strange worms that had been frozen but not completely killed, the moment they thawed, all opened their mouthparts and spat out streams of highly corrosive acid!
"Sizzle—"
The acid landed on the ground, immediately corroding it and creating small, smoking pits. The living worms that hadn't been frozen also seemed to be stimulated by something, becoming even more frenzied, swarming towards them like a tide from all directions!
In an instant, the group was once again trapped in an extremely dangerous situation, caught between a rock and a hard place!
"Everyone, to me!"
At this critical juncture, Cassian, who had been calmly dealing with the situation, finally unleashed the true power of a top-tier water-ability user!
With a low shout, a torrent of water-elemental power poured from his body! He spread his hands, and a massive amount of clean water instantly surged from the ground beneath his feet, forming a huge, constantly rotating, flowing circular wall of water that securely protected them all in its center!
The water wall was not only thick but also flowed at an incredible speed, forming an indestructible, fluid protective barrier. The corrosive acid spat by the strange worms was instantly diluted and washed away by the massive volume of water upon contact, unable to harm them at all. The dense swarms of living worms trying to approach were also swept up by the torrential current and carried far away.
For a moment, a small, absolutely safe "island" surrounded by rushing water formed where the group stood.
However, despite temporarily resolving the crisis, everyone's expression, including Cassian's, grew even more solemn.
They all knew that these troublesome strange worms were probably… just the appetizer.
Sure enough, as they were trapped within Cassian's water wall, warily observing their surroundings, pairs of oily, glowing green eyes began to light up silently in the shadows of the dark, twisted bushes around them!
The green eyes were numerous, densely packed like ghostly will-o'-the-wisps in the dark, flickering in and out, exuding a chillingly greedy and bloodthirsty aura.
"Small body size… agile movements… looks like some kind of… small mammal, rodent-like…" Zephyr's sharp eyes strained to make out the silhouettes of the creatures hidden in the darkness, his voice low as he made a preliminary judgment.
"Rodent-like? Then… then aren't they just rats?!" Before Zephyr could finish, Jorah, who had a deep-seated fear of rats, turned pale with fright, his voice tinged with tears.
"The situation… might be even worse than you think…" Alan, who was beside them, had lost his earlier relaxed and excited demeanor. He sighed and added in a leisurely tone, "The greatest danger of these mutated creatures isn't just their aggression… but the high probability that they are carriers and spreaders of new viruses."
His words made everyone's heart sink to the bottom.
"Screech—!"
With a sharp roar, unlike that of any known creature, the "rats" hidden in the darkness finally launched their attack!
Countless black shadows, like arrows released from a bow, shot out from the bushes on all sides. Their speed was astonishing as they, with their long tails trailing behind them, shrieked and lunged at the water wall Cassian had created!
In the ensuing battle, Elara fully demonstrated the terrifying combat prowess she had honed over her ten years of rebirth!
Faced with such a large number of fast-moving enemies with tricky attack angles, her powerful mental strength and her meticulous control over her space-time abilities were brought into full play!
She held her hands in a gripping motion, and in front of and behind her, countless spatial rifts, so fine they were almost invisible to the naked eye, appeared out of thin air, forming an invisible absolute domain filled with blades! Any mutated rat that tried to rush into her defense range was instantly and precisely sliced into several pieces by the silent spatial rifts, without even having time to let out a cry!
Her attack range might not be as wide as Cassian's or Zephyr's, but her defense was impenetrable, watertight!
The others also showed their skills. Zephyr's wind blades and frost, Cassian's water manipulation, and Seraph's searing flames blocked most of the mutated rats attacking from the front.
But these mutated rats were not only numerous, but they also seemed to possess a certain intelligence and… a reckless, death-defying madness!
After several consecutive frontal assaults failed, a mutant rat king, noticeably larger than the others, suddenly let out a shrill cry!
Then, to everyone's astonishment, several mutated rats, in a suicidal attack, deliberately rammed into a weak point in Cassian's water wall! They used their own bodies to forcefully create a temporary gap in the wall!
And the moment the gap appeared, a long-lurking, entirely black, lightning-fast mutated rat, like a black arrow, shot through the opening, heading straight for the back of Elara, who was fully focused on maintaining her "spatial domain"!
It all happened too fast, too suddenly! Even Elara herself, with her mental energy highly concentrated on her frontal defense, didn't immediately notice this fatal sneak attack from behind!
"Elara! Watch your back!"
Seraph, who was closest to her, was the first to spot the ambushing mutant rat! Her pupils contracted sharply. Without time to think, the flames in her hand instantly condensed into a crimson fire whip, which lashed out towards the black mutated rat with a scorching wind
!
This was a combat instinct honed over a long time!
The moment Elara heard Seraph's warning, she didn't even turn her head; her body had already reacted subconsciously! She abruptly sidestepped while simultaneously conjuring a distorted spatial barrier behind her!
"Squelch—!"
The black mutated rat slammed headfirst into the invisible spatial barrier, its body instantly twisted and torn apart! Seraph's fire whip followed closely, precisely engulfing the already severely wounded mutated rat and burning it to ashes!
Having narrowly avoided this fatal sneak attack, Elara and Seraph looked at each other, both seeing a trace of lingering fear in the other's eyes.