Cursed Immortality

After crushing one of the ten chief alchemy elders' head like a bug, Jacob stowed away his body and tried to check his space ring.

However, a deep frown appeared on his face, and he stowed the ring away as well, mumbling, "Another ring with mystic signature. First, the Flame Iron Giants, and now this idiot elf as well. I've killed quite a few high-class beings, and I need my mystic signature, too."

Jacob lamented his helplessness against these locked space rings, and despite having two unique magic cores and a unique physique, he still couldn't awaken his mystic signatures, which was quite frustrating.

Now, he mused that his mystic signature was probably connected with the hex magic core, which was still at extraordinary rank, and it wouldn't evolve into a unique rank until he was in unique plains or encountered unique rank dark beings.

At this moment, he looked at the dense population of trees around him, and it all seemed like a giant death jaw to him. He was in the middle of deadly trees that could be active with his touch, and he had no way of navigating.

He couldn't even see the sky, much less search for a landmark. This was a perfect trap for anything, and now he had to choose a direction to move forward. For all he knows, he could be going in the opposite direction where he needed to.

In the end, Jacob didn't want to take that risk, especially when he was halfway there to reach his goal.

He started to move carefully while looking for an opening. The size of the trees was almost the same as if something had deliberately made this living tree wall to block the sky, and there's lie the answer to his question.

However, even after walking for hours in the sea of trees, he still didn't even spot a trace of light. In fact, he found that the trees were only growing higher, and the pathways between them were becoming narrow.

But it didn't mean he was going deeper because there were certain areas where pathways were massive, but the tree branches seemed to be longer, and the veins hanging from there gave Jacob no room for moving.

At some point, Jacob completely forgets where he entered this place and where he is right now. But he suddenly heard something which put him on high alert, a sudden commotion at west!

Carefully, he headed there silently as he passed arrays of trees, and soon, a scene of horrors played in front of him.

Over thousands of branches had come alive like lashes as they were all moving on a small agile figure which was jumping around on tree barks to avoid and even made those deadly trees strike each other.

The moment those trees were wounded, dark brown liquid gushed out, emitting poison brown smoke, and Jacob instantly remembered that Ephraim had warned him about the acid.

'How can one kill a tree… it has to have a heart or core…' Jacob mused. He watched from a distance how the scene played in the distance while closely observing the array of branches rushing towards the small figure clad in black armor while his face and head were covered.

But Jacob noticed that no matter how many attacks those tree branches did, the person wasn't attacking back, nor were the trees using any mana attack as they were all using their sturdy, long branches.

Jacob found it quite strange as the more he saw, the more he noticed a peculiar pattern to those tree movements. Each one of them only used 12 or 14 branches, and the moving and expanding brandies didn't have any razor-sharp leaves on them, and they were highly flexible.

As for their attacking prowess, each lash left behind a deep gush even on their kind, or those trees were too fragile, and the most crucial part about those trees was despite being cut and wounded, they didn't seem to be losing their attacking speed or slowing down.

At this moment, the figure jumping in the middle of those menacing whips suddenly changed its movement pattern, and the next moment, a faint azure glow surfaced below the person's feet.

Under Jacob's astonished eyes, the guy suddenly jumped in the air, and then he took another one rising thirty meters high. It was like there were some invisible steps in the air as that person continued to jump higher, even faster than those veins could catch up and reach halfway toward the tree crown.

'He also wanted to see the view from above!' Jacob's eyes shimmered with sharp light as he quickly saw through what that person was doing, and he seemed to be succeeding.

However, at this moment, something strange happened: the tree crowns suddenly started, and after that, the razor-sharp leaves started to fall, creating a beautiful leaf rain.

But for someone like Jacob, who was extremely sensitive towards mana and danger after his last evolution, he sensed dread from those falling leaves as each of them was coated in a layer of faint brown mana, and there were tens of thousands falling towards the advancing dark figure without leaving any opening.

Right then, the leaves suddenly started to spin at terrible speed, creating sharp whistle sounds of wind cutting.

But the person who was going to slice into mincemeat didn't seem to be afraid as he continued to jump, and the next moment, he suddenly took out a milky white scroll and activated it!

Under Jacob's narrowed gaze, beautiful white runic symbols started to appear in the air, forming a particular array circle pattern at terrifying speed, covering a hundred-meter area.

The runic array was completed instantly, and a powerful pressure suddenly descended in the vicinity. Then, an aura of destruction spread from the array circle as the white rune symbols started to crackle with white lightning.

The trees in the center of this strange runic array circle started trembling when white lightning began to charge. It even affected the surrounding trees as they all seemed to have sensed their nemesis approaching, and all hell broke loose when the white lightning started to shoot down on anything that seemed to be moving or had any aura of life on it.

Furthermore, whenever the lightning lands, it leaves a strange white fire behind, which begins to burn even more fiercely once it comes in contact with trees. Moreover, the lighting suddenly surrounded the dark figure like a shield, and the mana-filled leaves couldn't even graze him anymore.

This lightning range also targeted Jacob as he watched with a grim expression a few lightning bolts coming in his direction!