Chapter 85: Smoke + Skin


    ude entered the depths of the Gryfino forest, trying to find the hideout of the Carus worm.


    The Gryfino forest had giant trees everywhere that seemed like it would touch the skies,pletely blocking one''s vision. As he went deeper and deeper into the forest, the size and number of these trees only seemed to increase, and in this type of dense jungle, one could lose their way if they weren''t careful.


    Whoosh!


    ude used the tree branches to move around, jumping from one branch to another,pletely evading the ground.


    "Oh? What''s this? I can''t believe I got lucky!" All of a sudden, udended on one of the branches and stopped moving and looked down at the ground a few metres away from his location. There, he could see a group of tigerwolves were roaming around, seemingly looking for a prey to hunt down.


    One of the tigerwolves had a cloth-like object on its mouth, and the rest of the tigerwolves were biting on it, trying to tear it into pieces.


    "Well now, isn''t this perfect!" As he spoke, a sinister smile had formed on ude''s face.


    *******************


    "I would like to say that this is a great idea and all, but how on earth am I going to find a small worm like creature in one of the biggest and most dense forests in all of Argria, when it doesn''t even appear above the ground?" ude asked Senior Beldon, who nodded. "I know. But there is an easy way."


    "Which is?" ude asked.


    "Every now and then, the Carus worms shed their skins, which are so light that it''ll get shot up through the hole by the spiritual energy that the worms release," Senior Beldon exined. "Theseyers of skin are eaten only by tigerwolf beasts, who have a strange addiction to it. So in order to find the location of a Carus worm, you need to look out for any tigerwolf beasts. As the Carus worms shed their skins almost every day, this''ll make it much easier to locate them."


    Senior Beldon paused, before continuing. "Of course, this method isn''t exactly urate. The tigerwolf could''ve just taken the worm skin and moved elsewhere, which would make it difficult to get a clear understanding of the Carus worm''s location. I would just rmend using a tracking potion and hope to god it hasn''t been a long time since the skin was taken from it''s orginal spot and the scent hasn''t gone away yet."


    "This sounds like a hassle," ude had an annoyed expression on his face as his senior finished speaking.


    Senior Beldon simply shrugged his shoulders in response. "Yeah, it probably is." He stopped for a second, looked at ude and said. "But I thought you liked challenges...."


    "..."


    ********************


    *grrrrr*


    Suddenly, the herd of tigerwolf beasts stopped moving, turned around and started to growl with bloodshot eyes.


    It looked like they had noticed the presence of ude, much to his surprise.


    "Oh, wow! These tigerwolves are extremely sensitive to their surroundings, huh..."ude''s eyes widened as he spoke. ude was a sky realm cultivator who was at the first rank, which meant that he had the ability to blend into his surroundings and suppress his presence and aura, making it really hard for others to spot him.


    However, the fact that these spiritual beasts were able to recognise his presence meant that they were extremely skilled when ites to scents and aura detection.


    *GRRR!*


    While ude was thinking to himself, the group of tigerwolf beasts on the other hand were staring at the trees, growling as though there was something in the woods that were their enemy.


    ZOOM!


    At that instant, one of the tigerwolf beasts leapt forward, heading into the depths of Gryfino forest, with its target being the same tree that ude was currently sitting on.


    "I guess I will deal with you guys first..."


    ude simply jumped off the branch as the Tigerwolf beast approached the tree that he was sitting on,nding gracefully on the ground, opposite to the beast, who was brandishing its sharp and deadly teeth at ude as saliva began dripping out from its mouth.


    "A warm up is exactly what I needed to start my day!" As he finished speaking, his eyes shed with a serious light, and a white light shed from his palms as arge katana suddenly manifested in his hands, and he pointed it at the beast.


    GRAAAAR!


    The tigerwolf raised its head and howled as loud as it possibly could, and then leapt forward and headed straight towards ude.


    BZZZ!


    As it moved, the tigerwolf beast''s mouth opened up and split itself into four parts, revealing it''s inner flesh and a red burst of energy shot out from its oesophagus.


    "That''s not going to be enough to defeat me..." ude had a devilish smile on his face and he swung his katana, as a powerful sword strike shot out towards the tigerwolf''s red beam attack. As the two attacks made contact in midair, it generated a strong explosion which resulted in the tigerwolf being flung back, hitting the tree behind it as a result of the powerful force of the energy that was released.


    "The skin of the tigerwolf absorbed some of the spiritual energy that was released from the explosion, which resulted in the attack being softened. Interesting..." ude muttered to himself as he fixed his bright eyes on the tigerwolf that was trying to get up after being struck down. "Pretty useful but it''s not invincible!"


    Whoosh!


    ude swung his katana once again, and his strike traveled towards the injured tigerwolf with blinding speed, suddenly appearing above it and hit it with a tremendous force. Unable to defend against the powerful strike, it instantly sliced through the beast''s body, knocking its corpse backwards, in the direction of the rest of the tigerwolves.


    BAM!


    The tigerwolf''s corpse bounced off the ground as itnded right in front of the rest of the tigerwolf beasts.


    "Well, that was a disappointing fight. He didn''t evenst a minute," ude''s voice rang out from the wilderness in front of them, causing the tigerwolf beasts to be alert. He walked out from the darkness, revealing his katana as his gazended on the group of beasts. "But I suppose you''ll all make up for his failure, right?"


    GRRRRR!


    The group of tigerwolves instantly burst into a rage when they saw the human who was responsible for theirrade''s death standing in front of them without any fear, and roared out explosively as all of their mouths opened, splitting into four parts, and shooting out a crimson red energy beam burst out from their split open mouths, aiming at ude.


    "Forget it. I was expecting some form of resistance, but this is simply too disappointing. I won''t y with you anymore." A trace of a cold smile appeared on the corners of ude''s mouth as his body blurred before disappearing from their view, surprising the group of tigerwolves.


    "Don''t worry. I''ll make this as painless as possible." By the time his voice was heard, he was already behind the group of tigerwolves, and the katana in his hand was enveloped in a hazy glow.


    Swish!


    With a swing of his arm, he shot towards the tigerwolves from behind as fast as lightning, and the katana in his hand moved so fast that it had transformed into a glowing beam of light.


    SLASH!


    The streak of light shot forward and struck the tigerwolves'' throats from behind, cleanly cutting their heads off and passed through the other side.


    Plop!


    Only after a brief second did the heads of the tigerwolves separate from their bodies and fall down, and the bodies simply shuddered a few times before they fell like jello onto the ground. ude walked over to the corpse of the tigerwolf that had the Carus worm''s skin in its mouth, and pulled it out.


    "Now to add the tracking potion to it.." ude muttered to himself as he took out a medicine bottle and opened it. He had bought the tracking potion from Edwards, who had given it to him as a free addition to his drug purchase.


    Puff!


    The bottle opened with a small sound, and a white vapour escaped out from the bottle as soon as he did so, leaving behind a pungent smell.


    He flipped the medicine bottle onto the piece of worm skin, and a purple coloured jello like substance dripped down onto the skin, and as the jello like substance touched the piece of skin, it suddenly be enveloped in mes!


    ude didn''t seem to mind the mes and instead stared at the smoke that it was emitting. The mes were emitting a purple coloured smoke that was more thick and dense than any normal smoke, and it wasn''t moving in the direction of the wind either.


    "Come on, show me the way...." ude scratched his chin and waited, as the tip of the purple smoke suddenly bent like a solid object and slowly started flowing deep into the wilderness.