"puff!"
With a sound, regular circular cracks appeared on the ground.
Holo raised her hand, like cutting a cake, and cut out a cylinder with a diameter of two meters and a depth of about one and a half meters from the soil. Then she gently placed the cylinder on the ground next to it without damaging its structure. .
After doing this, Holo pointed at the soil and said, "Look, not only are there no animals around, there are no animals in the soil either. The most common earthworms and some reptiles don't exist either, and they all disappeared inexplicably. "
"So, this is an empty forest?" Bobo Bo Vicki said.
"An empty forest will not kill people one after another." Holo disagreed. She turned to look at the silent Richard and asked, "Wizard Richard, what do you think?"
Richard touched his chin, pondered for a while, and said what he had felt since entering the forest: "I feel that this forest is not empty, and the animals have not all escaped, but are deliberately avoiding us. Change. In other words, wherever we appear, the animals leave and move to another place."
"Why do you do this?" Holo was puzzled.
"Because they don't want us to find out. On the contrary, they want to find out everything about us so that they can attack us at our weak points." Richard said, his expression slightly solemn. "I have a guess. Maybe they... have been secretly hiding us." Watching us everywhere.”
"Surveillance?!" Holo and Bobo Bowitch said at the same time, and then their expressions darkened. Obviously, their senses are more or less aware of it.
At this moment, there was a "swipe" sound in the grass in the distance, and a black figure suddenly burst out of the grass, feeling that it was exposed, and flew towards the depths of the forest close to the ground as if flying.
Richard, Bobo Bo Vicki and Holo looked at each other and quickly exchanged glances to clarify their respective thoughts.
The next moment, without any hesitation, the three of them jumped up at the same time, bursting out three colors of gray, blue and purple respectively, chasing the black shadow. During the pursuit, he constantly applied a variety of defensive spells to his body to defend against possible sneak attacks and to be prepared.
The black shadow was very fast, and the three of them kept alert to catch up, but for a while they couldn't close the distance at all. Even in the complex terrain of the forest, he was gradually pulled away by the opponent.
"Don't run! Cover me!"
At this time, Holo first spoke to the fleeing shadow, and then issued a request to Richard and Bobo Bo Vicki. The purple light on her body flashed at high frequency, bursting out at a higher speed, and chased after the shadow.
The black shadow sensed the danger and ran to a large open space after passing through a dozen trees. He jumped up and burrowed under the soil, as if he was going to use some kind of soil spell to transfer.
By the time Holo approached the clearing, most of the black shadow had entered the soil.
"Stop it!"
Holo shouted quickly, raising her right hand to cast a spell to stop it.
As a result, his left hand moved faster, and a golden energy ball appeared in his palm. He aimed it at the position where the black shadow had penetrated into the ground and threw it directly.
"Boom!"
There was a huge roar, and after the energy ball touched the ground, it expanded rapidly and exploded into a huge fireball. Immediately afterwards, the extremely destructive shock wave spread, completely rolling up the ground, breaking many nearby trees, and igniting them.
When Richard and Popovich arrived a little later, the entire open space was wrapped in flames. The broken trees swaying around were burning like big torches, and the scorching air around them was like the thorns of a devil. Tongue, skin of the person licking is sore. Holo was at the center of the fire, using magic to dig out the remains of the shadow, trying to find some clues.
After digging for a while, Holo looked at Richard and Bobo Bovich, shook his head with some disappointment and said: "There is nothing. I originally thought that after the attack, even if I couldn't catch anyone alive, I would still be able to catch them." Dead. But now, there are no living or dead ones, not even blood or fragments can be seen."
"What on earth is the other party? Why is it so weird?" Bobo Bo Vicki asked.
"Actually, this is also the question I want to ask." Holo said, spreading her hands, "But, I don't know."
After saying that, Holo looked at Richard and asked, "Wizard Richard, do you have an answer? Have you seen the other party clearly?"
"I didn't." Richard shook his head and answered truthfully.
"Then what should we do?" Popobo Vicki asked with a frown, clearly feeling the pressure of this seventh-level mission.
"My suggestion is, don't give the other party too much preparation time. No matter what the other party is, since we have discovered it once, then move forward quickly and try to enter the core area of the forest before the other party can react." Richard He said, "This may disrupt some of the other party's arrangements and allow us to take a certain initiative."
"It's a good suggestion." Popobo Vicki commented. "Although there is a lot of danger, logically speaking, it is indeed a good suggestion. I agree."
"I also agree with Wizard Richard's suggestion." Holo said.
"Okay, let's move on." Richard said, and the three of them walked deeper into the forest.
After taking a few steps, Holo suddenly thought of something, stopped and said, "Wait a minute?"
"What?" Richard asked.
Popobo Vicki took a few steps away, then looked at Holo and asked, "What's wrong?"
"I forgot to put out the fire." Holo said, turning to look at the many burning trees behind him, and with a wave of his hand, several heavy, milky white ice bullets exuding cold air were shot out.
"Bang bang bang!"
Ice bombs landed on top of the fire and exploded, causing the temperature to drop suddenly.
The burning flames were extinguished as if they were struck by a giant's hand. Then, a layer of crystal ice quickly formed on the dark red tree trunks with lingering warmth, eliminating any possibility of rekindling.
After doing this, Holo explained to Richard and Popovich: "In this forest, if the fire spells are not processed well, it is easy to cause fires. Although in most cases, fires are not harmful to us. What impact does it have? It burns for a certain period of time and burns down the surrounding trees before extinguishing itself. But in a few cases, it may be detrimental to us, so we should try our best to avoid this happening."
"Minimize the disadvantages." Richard finished Holo's words.
"Yes, that's it." Holo said.
"Okay." Bobo Bovich shrugged.
After that, the three of them started on their way again without any further nonsense, heading towards the depths of the forest.
What the three of them didn't know was that a few minutes after they left, the charred trees that had been covered with ice suddenly oozed out a lot of blood from under the bark.
The blood was bright red, flowing on the surface of the tree trunk, and then fell to the ground, forming a small pool.
Extremely weird.