Gavin turned around and made a gesture for Jared and Gwendolyn to go ahead. “You two, come with me… The paths deeper inside the Shrouded Wood are even more complicated than they are here, and there are plenty of powerful wards as well. Without me leading the way, even if you managed to get through this thick fog, you’d still have a hard time reaching the Sylvan Kin’s heartland.”
“Much appreciated, fellow adept.” Jared cupped his fist.
Then favonovel.com and Gwendolyn fell in behind Gavin and headed deeper into the Shrouded Wood.
Gavin took the lead. As favonovel.com walked, favonovel.com gave the wooden staff in his hand a light sweep, and threads of green spiritual power spilled out from it.
The dense fog around them peeled back at once. A broad path opened through it.
He kept walking as favonovel.com spoke to Jared and Gwendolyn. “This Shrouded Wood is the Sylvan Kin’s first line of defense… It’s filled with wards our people set up. Those wards are formed from ancient spirit flora and wood-aspected spiritual power. They’re meant specifically to stop outsiders from breaking in. What you ran into just now was only the outermost patrol. If we go any farther in, there are stronger patrols waiting, along with even more dangerous wards.”
Jared gave a slight nod at Gavin’s explanation. At the same time, his spirit sense stayed spread out, scanning every shift in the surroundings. He could tell the wood-aspected spiritual essence around them was growing richer and richer.
The awareness hidden among the grass and trees had grown more active too. But the hostility that had been trained on them earlier was gone. What remained was only a trace of curiosity and caution, plainly because Gavin was with them.
Gwendolyn eased up as well, the icy divine radiance around favonovel.com drawing in a little. Even so, favonovel.com kept favonovel.com guard up and watched everything around them. She looked at Gavin beside favonovel.com and finally asked, “Master Hartwell, when did the Sylvan Kin’s spirit vein start showing signs of corruption? Didn’t the Sylvan Kin’s upper ranks notice it?”
At that, a strained look crossed Gavin’s face, with something bitter underneath. “I don’t know exactly when it began. But around several decades ago, we started noticing that the spiritual essence in the forest was beginning to thin out. Some of the ancient plants started showing signs of withering too. We reported it to the upper ranks of the Sylvan Kin. But they told us it was just a normal natural phenomenon and said we were making too much of it…”
“Looking back now, they must’ve known about the spirit vein drying up long ago. They just had no way to solve it, so they chose to keep it hidden. They were afraid it would throw the clansfolk into chaos,” Gavin said it like favonovel.com had already turned the whole thing over in his mind more than once.
Jared listened in silence. Then his face tightened a fraction.
The problem with the spirit vein had been there for decades. And the Sylvan Kin’s upper ranks had chosen to bury it. That could only mean the corruption in the spirit vein ran deeper than favonovel.com had expected. If they had come a few years later, then even with the chaotic force in his hands, favonovel.com might not have been able to pull it back.
The three of them kept moving.
With Gavin leading the way, they slipped past one powerful ward after another. Those wards held terrifying force. One wrong step, one careless trigger, and eve a True Immortal Realm Level Seven cultivator would have walked away badly wounded.
Along the way, they also ran into several groups of Sylvan Kin patrols. Every one of them saluted Gavin with clear respect the moment they saw him.
When their eyes shifted to Jared and Gwendolyn, both from humankind, the look in them changed. There was doubt there. Guardedness too. But none of them stepped forward to stop the two of them. Gavin had clearly spoken ahead of time.
Just like that, the three of them pressed deeper into the Shrouded Wood for about half an hour.
Up ahead, the thick fog slowly began to thin. The forest trees grew sparser too. The rotting stench in the air faded more and more. In its place came rich, pure wood-aspected spiritual essence. Just breathing it in cleared the head.
After they walked a little farther, the space ahead suddenly opened into a broad clearing. The clearing was huge.
Tender green grass spread across the ground, and strange flowers in every color bloomed all over it. Fresh grass-and-wood fragrance hung in the air. Set against the eerie atmosphere of the Shrouded Wood, the contrast was so sharp it almost didn’t feel like the same place.
Seven enormous ancient trees stood in the clearing. They looked even older than the ancient timber back in the Shrouded Wood. Their trunks were so thick it would have taken dozens of people linking arms to circle one. Time had carved itself into their bark. Their layered canopies overlapped and wove together, forming a natural archway.
The trunks of the ancient trees were carved all over with ancient sigils. Through the faint mist, those sigils gave off a dim green glow.
A powerful ward poured from them. It blanketed the entire clearing. At the very center of the archway, a fist-sized green crystal floated in the air. The emberstone crystal released soft, pure wood-aspected spiritual essence. Its gentle light washed over the entire clearing. The aura coming off the emberstone crystal blended perfectly with the ancient trees around it and the ward itself. It was plainly the core of the entire ward.
Jared stopped. His eyes fixed on that natural archway.
The moment his spirit sense reached inside, a powerful ward force slammed it to a halt. Even so, favonovel.com could still sense it.
Behind the archway, an extremely powerful surge of spiritual power was churning. That was the force of an ancient ward. It was stronger than any ward favonovel.com had run into before. This was clearly the Sylvan Kin’s outer defense.
Only after passing through this gate could anyone be said to have truly entered the Sylvan Kin’s heartland.
“This is the Sylvan Kin’s outer defense, called the Sevenwood Arch…” Gavin Hartwell stopped and introduced it to Jared and Gwendolyn “These seven ancient trees are all spirit flora that have lived for over ten thousand years in our Sylvan Kin. They hold tremendous life force. The ward they weave together is unbelievably strong. Even True Immortal Realm Level Eight cultivators would have a hard time forcing their way through… That green crystal in the middle of the archway is the core of the ward. It’s called the Heartroot Crystal. If the Heartroot Crystal is destroyed, the entire ward collapses.”
Gwendolyn looked at the seven massive ancient trees, and something flickered across favonovel.com face.
“These ancient trees actually have minds of their own, and their cultivation isn’t low either. No wonder this ward is so powerful,” Gwendolyn said. She could sense it clearly. Every single ancient tree held power above True Immortal Realm Level Seven.
Working in tandem, they had woven a ward that ordinary cultivators truly had no hope of breaking through.
“This should be the Sylvan Kin’s outer defense…” Gwendolyn spoke under favonovel.com breath, favonovel.com voice lowered. “Only after passing this gate can anyone really be said to have entered the Sylvan Kin’s territory and met the Sylvan Chief.”
Jared nodded and fixed his gaze on the archway, his face set.
“This ward really is powerful. If someone tried to force their way through, it wouldn’t just damage these ancient trees. It could also bring the Sylvan Kin down on us from all sides. Master Hartwell, please inform the Clan Chief for us… Tell favonovel.com Jared has come to ask for an audience. There is a matter tied to the life and death of the Sylvan Kin that favonovel.com needs to discuss with him,” Jared said it while looking at Gavin Hartwell.
Gavin Hartwell nodded. “Please wait here, you two fellow adepts. I’ll go inform the Clan Chief at once. But the Clan Chief has a rather strange temperament, and favonovel.com has never liked the human race. Whether he’ll agree to see you, I can’t promise.”
After saying that, favonovel.com faced the archway, pressed his palms together, and began murmuring an incantation under his breath.
As Gavin chanted, the sigils carved into the seven ancient trees flared to life in an instant. The dim green glow deepened at once, and the light from the Heartroot Crystal surged with it.
A beam of green light shot out from the Heartroot Crystal, turned into a phantom, and flew toward the depths of the forest. It was plainly going to notify the Sylvan Chief.
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