Death Train: SSS-level talent right from the start!

The middle-aged man in the Lei Xing team who had not received the Tree God's blessing did not move.

He stood still, his gaze not on Lei Xing or Li Tianran, but scanning the crowd with resentment in his eyes.

His gaze lingered briefly on the center of each person's forehead before quickly shifting away.

Then, his gaze stopped.

It stopped on Li Jiahao.

Li Jiahao stood beside Jiang Ning, the pale green leaf mark between his eyebrows standing out prominently in the twilight.

He noticed the strangeness in that gaze, but before he could think about it, the middle-aged man had already moved.

His right hand suddenly reached for his waist, from which he drew a short knife. His body instantly sprang from a standstill, his right foot pushing off the ground, and he charged towards Li Jiahao like a cannonball.

The speed was astonishing; there was no longer any expression on his face. The blade of the short knife drew an arc in the air, heading straight for Li Jiahao's neck.

Li Jiahao reacted quickly. When the middle-aged man's blade was less than twenty centimeters from his neck, his body began to blur.

The area around the neck and shoulders simultaneously became transparent, like a piece of glass that had been wiped clean, causing the surrounding air to distort slightly.

The middle-aged man's short knife sliced ​​through the area without encountering any resistance. The blade cut through the air, grazing Li Jiahao's ethereal neck as if cleaving through a wisp of air, and continued to slash forward with momentum.

The middle-aged man staggered forward due to the excessive force, and the blade missed its mark, causing him to lose his balance.

Li Jiahao stumbled back several steps, breaking out in a cold sweat.

If his intangibility had been even half a second slower, he would already be a corpse lying on the ground by now.

Jiang Ning's figure blocked Li Jiahao's path as he retreated.

The roar of the Emperor's engine exploded across the open ground, a pale red halo enveloped his body, the longbow was already in his hand, the bowstring was drawn taut, the arrow was nocked, and the arrowhead was steadily aimed at the middle-aged man's heart.

The heartbeat of the Emperor's engine echoed across the open ground, deep and muffled, one beat after another.

The middle-aged man stood still, still holding the short knife in his hand.

His breathing was rapid, and his shoulders heaved violently.

"Wu Gang! What the hell are you doing?!"

Lei Xing's voice boomed from the crowd.

Wu Gang suddenly turned his head, his eyes bloodshot: "Captain, I can't die yet. My wife and children are waiting for me to go back and help me kill this kid. If I kill him, maybe his Tree God's Blessing will be mine, and I won't have to die."

Lei Xing gritted his teeth, strode up to Wu Gang, and snatched the dagger from his hand.

His movements were swift and decisive, giving Wu Gang no chance to resist.

"The rules don't say that killing a passenger blessed by the Tree God will inherit that passenger's blessing." Lei Xing's voice was a few decibels lower than before: "This isn't Mirror City, killing him won't do you any good."

Wu Gang swayed, his knees bent, and he slowly squatted down to the ground, then slumped down, his back against the bulging roots of the ancient tree.

Jiang Ning stood in front of Li Jiahao, his longbow still fully drawn, the arrow still aimed at Wu Gang.

His gaze lingered on Wu Gang's face for a few seconds, confirming that the other party had completely given up the intention to attack, before he slowly retracted the bowstring.

The pale red aura around his body gradually dissipated, and the roar of the Emperor Engine subsided from its high pitch and finally fell silent.

Li Jiahao stood behind Jiang Ning, his chest heaving slightly.

His blurred areas have returned to normal, and his neck has returned to its normal state, but he can still feel the cold sensation when the blade grazed his skin.

His gaze fell on Wu Gang, paused for a moment, and then looked away.

Jiang Ning put down his longbow and took a few steps back with Li Jiahao and Jian Lan, keeping a distance of ten meters from Su Jin and Lei Xing's team.

By this time, it was completely dark, and the blood mist in the forest became visibly thick, reducing visibility to less than five meters in a short time.

The outlines of the surrounding trees began to blur.

Chen Ye stood at the base of the ancient tree, his gaze fixed on the approaching darkness.

The leaf-shaped mark between his eyebrows emitted a faint green glow.

Chen Ye turned his head: "Gu Qinghuan, can you sense monsters?"

Gu Qinghuan closed her eyes, and the leaf mark between her eyebrows was also lit up. Six silver-white throwing knives hovered around her, their tips trembling slightly, and their rotation speed was much faster than usual.

A moment later, she opened her eyes and shook her head slightly: "No, I don't sense any monsters around."

There are no monsters.

The words were passed around among the group, and everyone looked at each other in bewilderment.

The absence of monsters suggests that the blood mist engulfing the entire forest might be the real threat of the night.

Just as Chen Ye was about to speak, the thick, blood-red mist in front of him suddenly surged violently.

A whooshing sound burst from the fog, accompanied by a whistling sound that tore through the air.

Chen Ye's pupils contracted, and his body instinctively veered half a step to the left, his right hand already drawing the Demon-Slaying Halberd from his storage space.

But the attack was not aimed at him.

A thick vine burst forth from the blood mist, its entire body dark red with a purplish tinge, its surface covered with fine barbs, as thick as an adult's arm, moving so fast that it left only a blurry afterimage in the air.

The vines were targeting Su Jin, who was on the outermost edge of the crowd.

Su Jin reacted quickly.

The silver-white longsword was drawn instantly, its blade flashing like a bolt of lightning, followed by three crescent-shaped white blade waves that cleaved out almost simultaneously, precisely cutting into the middle of the vine.

"Sizzle—sizzle—sizzle—"

The blade sliced ​​through the vine, cutting it into several pieces. Dark red sap gushed from the cuts, spilling onto the ground and emitting a pungent odor.

The broken piece lay on the ground, still wriggling slightly, like a severed snake tail.

But no one had time to breathe a sigh of relief.

Almost at the same moment, the surrounding air seemed to be stirred up by something, bursting out with a dense, chilling sound.

One, two, five, ten—countless dark red vines simultaneously burst forth from the surging blood mist, densely packed, as if the entire forest had come alive in that instant.

Some of these vines were as thick as buckets, while others were as thin as whips, but each one moved with the same speed and force, leaving dark red trails in the night as it closed in on the crowd in the center of the open space.

Gu Qinghuan's six throwing knives had already formed an impenetrable net of blades in front of her.

Su Jin's sword light formed a silver-white curtain, severing the several vines that were attacking from the front.

Zhao Hai's arms had become completely metallic. He grabbed a vine as thick as an arm with his bare hands, and with a burst of strength, he tore it off, spraying dark red sap all over him.

Jiang Ning's cyan arrows were also being fired one after another.

But there were too many vines.

It surged forth from the depths of the blood mist, overwhelming everything, as if the roots of the entire forest were wriggling in this direction.

The ground trembled slightly, and the thick vines churned up from the soil, swirling up fallen leaves and pebbles and tossing them down with a dull rumble.