With a clear master-slave relationship, Gargamel was no longer as lazy about this trip as before.
Relying on his special ability as a pharmacist, the small monster immediately hid as far away as it could smell the herb bag hanging from his witch staff. This also allowed the expedition team to avoid many unnecessary battles!
However, Gargamel's witchcraft obviously only works on monsters, and has no effect on ordinary jungle beasts. And this time is the time to reflect the value of this group of mercenaries.
Ordinary beasts, the three of them plus Neal, a half-hunted hunter, can handle them as well. If attacked by a large herd of beasts, Sabrina, the mechanical girl's terrifying combat power, will be fully released. No matter how terrifying the beasts were in her hands, they were just pieces of rotten meat that could be slaughtered and dismembered at will.
If it wasn't for avoiding disturbing too powerful monsters, Sabrina could even slaughter the entire pack of more than 200 wolves by herself without getting hurt.
In the eyes of adventurers, Sabrina, who is protected by witchcraft power, is almost a terrifying existence like a god, but she often dare not breathe in front of the two wizards, and obeys their orders meekly. Even Gargamel, who was thin and dry, as if he could be blown down by a single wind, was so domineering and unscrupulous when he drove the mechanical girl.
With the full cooperation of Wizard Gegewu, the speed of the team is naturally countless times faster. It took only 3 days, and they arrived near the destination of this trip under the leadership of Lowe and others.
When they first arrived here, they did not act rashly. The team set up camp near a hidden canyon.
Sword and shield warrior Lowe led the two wizards, Greem and Gargamel, up a small slope. Through the gap between the dense forests, they peeked at this mysterious area half a mile away.
Sick Woods!
This is also the local people's name for this area of the Black Forest that covers a range of 50 miles.
The only reason why it got such a title is that the trees here seem to have a strange disease, and all the leaves are withered, yellow and withered, looking sickly.
Seriously speaking, the diseased wood forest is actually a small earth mountain, the highest point is only 200 meters. The top of the mountain is flat and gentle, without too steep peaks. The whole mountain is covered with skinny old trees, the leaves are half yellow and half green, which looks quite weird.
The old trees on the earth hill are not very tall, and large metal rocks are exposed from time to time under the thin soil layer, reflecting the light of the stars under the sunlight. The roots of the ancient trees struggled to stretch between the soil and the rocks, and many places have already exposed the alder fruit out of the soil.
The soil on the hill is gray-brown with a hint of burnt yellow. It seems that an infinite heat is slowly radiating from the ground, turning this place into a small oven. And the ancient trees on the dirt hill are baked semi-burnt cheese. If it weren't for the intermittent heat that gave them a chance to survive, the whole dirt hill would have turned into a bare barren land!
Greem and Gargamel looked at each other and nodded silently.
From the appearance of the diseased forest area, it can be seen that there is indeed a heat source underground. And if you want to find out the cause of the heat source in detail, you can only go to investigate at the risk of danger.
"There, there, and there is a hole, all narrow and small, just big enough for a grown man to bend over. And in that direction... there is a slightly bigger hole, but it's full of horrible bats, and it's very difficult for outsiders to walk through it. It's hard to get inside without disturbing them..." Lowe is indeed an adventurer who lives here all the year round, even in dangerous areas like the diseased forest, he is very familiar with it.
But obviously, his understanding is only limited to the shallow surface of the diseased wood forest, as for the world under the earth mountain, it is not within his reach at all!
Fortunately, Greem had already obtained some information from the forest demon, otherwise, he could only bite the bullet and go down and take a risk. Even with Greem's self-confidence, if he bumped into a group of manticores with smeared eyes, it would be easy to be ashamed. If he doesn't pay a price, even with his strength, he will lose his skin if he doesn't die!
At this point, the adventurer team has actually completed the task commissioned by Greem. As for exploring the underground world deep underground, this is not a task that ordinary adventurers can accomplish. No matter how many magic crystal rewards Greem offered, Luo Wei would not be so stupid as to lead his teammates into a group of monsters' lairs.
Although the magic crystal is good, it needs life flowers to be really good!
Regarding this point, Greem didn't force it, but only asked them to maintain the temporary camp on the ground. The real members of the expedition team are still Greem, Gargamel and Sabrina.
In the evening, when the sky darkened again, the people gathered in the camp suddenly heard a strange sound.
A large number of nocturnal bats swarmed out of a huge cave at the foot of the sickwood forest, and the huge number even covered the nearby sky. They fluttered around the sky, and when they gathered enough numbers, they suddenly rushed towards the distant forest like a cloud.
These nocturnal little guys are finally dispatched!
And not long after the night bats were dispatched, the cave that had just fallen silent suddenly heard a loud breaking wind.
With strange roars, a terrifying manticore that was as big as a rhinoceros and had a hideous figure flew out of the cave. They circled in a half-glide in the sky, and landed on a towering stone pillar near the entrance of the cave.
It has a majestic body and head like a lion, with brown hair all over, a pair of leathery dark red bat wings on the back, and a terrifying arthropod-like scorpion tail behind their tails. The poisonous needle of the scorpion tail was raised high, and the ends of the limbs flashed a strange blue luster. It was not an ordinary toxin at first glance.
Compared with the huge body of the manticore, the bat wings on its back are too slender and thin. With such a size, it is obviously impossible to lift them up into the sky, nor can they fly quickly, but the manticore doesn't care at all.
After all, the manticore is a rare monster that lives in the underground world all year round. The area there is narrow and rugged, and it is difficult to spread its wings if it is too large. So it only needs to use bat wings to glide at a semi-low altitude, so that it can dive down to its prey from a condescending height.
One, two, three, four... nine...
The three of Greem hid in a crevice of rocks, used medicine powder to eliminate the smell on their bodies, and observed the movements of the group of manticores at close range.
There were nine manticores in total, some big and some small, but all were adults and young manticores good enough to be hunters. This also indicates that there are still two juvenile manticores staying in the manticore lair below the cave.
After a moment of 'argument' and 'disturbance', the nine manticores were divided into three groups, roaring and rushing towards different directions. Although they are underground creatures, the food in the underground world is too scarce, so they also need to come to the surface for a large-scale hunt at regular intervals, in order to satisfy the newborn manticore in the group's desire for a large amount of blood food!
"Let's go! Let's meet those two young manticores!" After the group of manticores had completely disappeared into the dark night, Greem waved his hand and led the two of them towards the entrance of the huge cave.
Only after this departure can it be seen that Sabrina, who exists as a coolie, is actually carrying a huge cloth bag on her back, and the inside is wriggling, as if it is some kind of living thing.
When entering the cave for the first time, the strong and suffocating pungent stench hits the face.
Thousands of bats breed and live here, making the air in the cave filthy, and the floor and stone pillars are covered with a thick layer of bat droppings, making it impossible to step down.
Greem stood at the entrance of the cave, his eyes slowly scanned the dark space inside, and quickly locked on to an area.
The damp and cold air blows from there, and there must be a hidden passage leading to the lower floor behind the jagged stalagmites.
In Greem's elemental vision, infrared detection, low-light vision and long-distance touch alternately function, supplemented by the wizard's spiritual perception, the darkness in the cave is rapidly retreating and peeling off. Sharp stalagmites as sharp as fangs, stone pillars leading straight to the cave roof, hidden cracks hidden among the rocks... All these slowly emerged in his mind centered on Greem.
Multi-dimensional scene construction!
This is also the enhanced visual perception ability step by step as Greem's strength gradually becomes stronger.
In the past, Greem could only see objects within a straight-line vision, but could not see things hidden behind walls or stone pillars. But now, with the improvement of his ability and the growing strength of his mental perception, his sight can even bypass obstacles and see what he wants to see.
Of course, the premise is that there is no energy interference, or the walls are not too thick!
And the birth of this ability also means that he will have no dead ends in future battles. No matter where the enemy attacks him from any direction and any angle, he can react immediately, or attack, or defend, or dodge, and each time he can make a response that is more in line with his own interests from a more overall perspective.
"Come closer, I'll take you in!"
Greem ordered in a low voice, and when Gargamel and Sabrina approached, he stretched out his hand to grab their arms, then his body paused slightly, and disappeared in place in a burst of flames.
The next second, in a dark corner of the cave where bats dare not approach, flames shot up into the sky, and the three of Greem emerged.
Gargamel didn't care, relying on his strong mental strength, he overcame the dizziness caused by the sudden change of space. Sabrina, as a quasi-witch apprentice, was obviously experiencing the weird witchcraft of 'flame teleportation' for the first time. In an instant, she felt that her throat was dry, and the scene in front of her was chaotic, she staggered two steps, holding the stone pillar with her hand, panting for a while before recovering.
"Let's go, there are two babies waiting for us inside!"
Greem chuckled, and immediately got into the dark underground passage.