Chapter 31: The Spirit of Flora

Life, indeed, is a series of rises and falls, ups and downs—nothing could be more ordinary. In the wild, where hunting means both killing and being killed, it feels almost natural. Only in retrospect does one feel endless emotion; in the moment, however, the despair is as overwhelming as if the very sun had turned its back.

In the middle of the pond, Qin Ming twisted his neck stiffly. All around him—before, behind, on either side—countless gray-furred rats ringed the water, amidst scattered blood and bones.

“Why are there still more here?” Qin Ming was baffled.

A python at the mountain’s summit at night was one thing. But why, in a valley by a pond, would there be so many gray-furred rats? Even with two heads, he couldn’t fathom it.

Yet, uncannily, the rats did not move. They stared at him with blood-red eyes, their gazes fixed and unyielding. At last, Qin Ming noticed something different.

Amidst the throng of gray rats, there was a patch of empty ground. At its center stood a single rat, this one enormous—nearly the size of a calf.

“An advanced beast-lord!”

Qin Ming recognized its rank at a glance, and his heart sank. Surrounded by so many rats, with a high-level beast-lord eyeing him hungrily, escape was impossible. An advanced beast-lord possessed intelligence rivaling a human’s; clearly, all these gray-furred rats obeyed its command. It was likely that the horde pursuing him had been summoned by this very leader.

Perhaps the pursuit was only incidental to its path.

At this thought, Qin Ming felt as though he had been abandoned by fortune a thousand times over.

In the blink of an eye, countless ideas rushed through his mind. But he quickly calmed himself.

Faced with certain death, should he simply yield? That was not his way.

His thoughts raced, searching desperately for a sliver of hope.

“No, that’s not right!”

“There’s a pond here, but no waterfall, no streams feeding into it. How could a pond form out of nothing?”

“The pond connects to the world outside the valley, and its waters flow outward—how can water flow out if there is no source?”

“Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!”

As he remained motionless in the water, the gray-furred rats finally lost patience. They began to close in, some even leaping through the air, claws bared, fangs gleaming menacingly in the moonlight, descending upon his face.

With a sharp breath, Qin Ming plunged downward without hesitation.

He sank, diving deep. The icy water sharpened his senses.

To his surprise, apart from a few monstrous fish, there were no formidable aquatic beasts in the pond. Looking up, he saw the rats already parting the water above, descending after him.

The deeper he went, the darker it became. At last, he felt the current rising from below.

Using his shield to part the water, he reached a depth of seventy or eighty meters—far beyond the reach of any ordinary man.

It was pitch black. He could see nothing. Groping in his pocket, he retrieved a headlamp and fastened it on. Judging by the water’s flow, he soon discovered a cave entrance—the pond’s mysterious source.

He gritted his teeth and slipped inside.

Forward, forward, ever forward. Qin Ming sensed that the passage sloped downward into the earth.

His chest began to tighten; his body felt heavy.

Monstrous fish swam by, jaws open, snapping at him. He dispatched them with swift strokes of his blade.

Behind him, chaos erupted. Glancing back, he saw, to his horror, that the gray-furred rats were in pursuit.

“If I survive this, one day I’ll wipe out your entire nest!”

His resolve hardened.

After traveling some two hundred meters, the tunnel abruptly widened. He found several branching underground streams, and above, a faint light glimmered. With all his strength, he shot upward—faster than any fish, swifter than an arrow.

His head broke the surface, and he gasped deeply, his chest finally freed from suffocating pressure.

“Where is this…?”

He looked around in astonishment.

Above him rose stone walls, hung with drooping stalactites. The entire area was encased in rock; there was no exit save the underground river. It was a sealed cavern.

Beside the water grew a willow tree, over ten meters tall, its crown brushing the rocky ceiling. Droplets from the stalactites fell now and then upon its roots, forming pools of milky liquid. The willow’s drooping branches shimmered with a silvery glow—these were silver willow twigs, and a quick glance told him there must be at least three thousand of them.

“This is a Spirit of Flora!”

Qin Ming’s eyes widened in awe.

When plants mutate and gain abilities, they are called Spirits of Flora. The core of such a being contains terrifying vitality—enough to drive even a warlord mad, to make the most powerful senators fight for possession.

Never in his wildest dreams had Qin Ming expected to find one here.

Just then—

With a sudden swish, a branch shot toward him like a spear.

Qin Ming’s eyes narrowed; he raised his shield just in time. The force of the strike sent him hurtling out of the water.

His senses alert, he took in the terrain. On the stone wall to his upper right was a protruding ledge. Twisting in midair, he slashed the wall with his blade, both absorbing the force and changing his trajectory, landing atop the outcropping.

Without hesitation, he delivered eighteen swift strikes, carving out a new tunnel in the rock. Debris tumbled into the river below, sending up a spray of water.

More branches lashed out—six at once this time.

Crouching, Qin Ming ducked into his hastily carved tunnel, using his shield to block the entrance.

Six consecutive impacts thundered against the shield. The force nearly broke his arm; his chest rattled so fiercely he almost coughed blood.

Sensing the branches withdraw, he shifted the shield slightly—only to see the silver twigs still thrashing, but this time lashing the river’s surface.

Below, more than ten gray-furred rats had followed him, but they were clearly weakened, gasping for breath—evidently victims of suffocation.

With the speed of arrows, the willow branches skewered the rats, draining them to dried husks in an instant before tossing the corpses into the river.

The sight sent a chill through Qin Ming’s heart.

More rats surged from the river, swarming ashore to launch a frenzied assault on the willow.

The silver branches danced, impaling rat after rat—a one-sided massacre.

Yet the rats showed no fear.

In the space of a few breaths, the shore was heaped with rat corpses. As the space grew cramped, the rats’ attacks became even more frenzied.

With a deafening crack, all three thousand branches lashed out, shattering the corpses and sending their remains tumbling into the river.

At that moment, a massive fish over a meter long swam over, its huge head gaping as it fought the rats and devoured the corpses.

Yet still more rats emerged from the underground river.

The slaughter was brutal beyond words.

From his vantage point above, Qin Ming watched, dumbstruck.

But his heart grew heavy with worry: How would he escape from here?