Chapter 1400: Daddy, That Branch Is Gone!

The cloud immediately began bobbing up and down like crazy.

Its two little hands withdrew into its body as the surrounding clouds converged on it. The pale green mist merged, rapidly expanding in size.

Within moments, an enormous cloud large enough to carry everyone floated before them.

It certainly seemed friendly.

Ethan still didn’t let his guard down completely.

These clouds had lured them here with those green lights. That alone was reason enough to remain cautious.

The view below soon captured everyone’s attention.

Towering blue mushrooms rose from the ground, their caps piercing the low clouds. Blue and green lights shimmered between their gills.

A breeze swept through the mushroom forest.

The thick grass below rippled in the wind, while birds nested among the caps and stems of the giant blue mushrooms. Everything teemed with life, and the life energy in the air was so dense it almost felt tangible.

The closer they came to the ground, the brighter the green light in Auri’s eyes became.

Ethan only grew more wary.

Could a place with this much life energy truly have no dangerous creatures?

The enormous cloud carried them down.

They stepped off onto soft grass. The blades bent gently beneath their feet, then sprang upright again as soon as the pressure lifted.

Nearby animals stopped what they were doing and stared curiously at the strangers.

And it wasn’t just the animals.

The plants slowly turned their leaves and branches toward Ethan’s group, inching closer.

Auri stared around with wide eyes.

The towering blue mushrooms blocked out part of the sky, and blue-green lights drifted beneath their caps. Small animals hid behind the grass, peeking out at the newcomers. Even the flowers and plants underfoot were gradually leaning toward them.

Auri had barely taken a few steps when Feylora grabbed the back of her collar.

"Don’t run off."

She lifted Auri off the ground and carried her back to the group.

"You can’t go running around in a strange place!"

The moment her feet touched the ground, Auri tried again. She rose onto her toes, peered over the dense vegetation ahead, and pointed into the distance.

"But there’s so much life energy over there!"

Ethan followed her finger.

The meadow extended deep into the blue mushroom forest, but he saw no distinctive buildings or creatures anywhere in sight. He tossed the energy sphere still lingering in his palm onto the ground. Its white glow sank among the blades of grass before he bent down and picked Auri up.

"You want to go that way?"

Auri nodded excitedly.

Green Fairy power flowed from her little hand, condensing into a slender branch. It stretched forward, its tip pointing straight toward whatever she had sensed.

Ethan looked again.

He still saw nothing unusual.

The only thing worth noting was that there seemed to be more animals ahead. Ears and tails shifted everywhere among the grass, and numerous birds had perched on the mushroom caps to watch them.

"Then that’s where we’ll go."

Auri immediately broke into a smile and waved the branch from her perch on Ethan’s arm.

She swung it too hard, and it slipped from her hand into the grass beside his feet. Ethan was about to bend down and retrieve it when green light appeared in Auri’s palm and formed an identical branch.

She blinked at him.

Since she could make another whenever she wanted, there was no reason to pick up the one she had dropped.

Ethan carried Auri forward.

The others followed, entering the mushroom forest one after another. The grass parted around their feet and closed again once they had passed.

None of them noticed the movement beneath the soil.

Several small shadows darted between the roots. When they sensed the targets above moving away, they changed direction and burrowed anxiously after Ethan’s group.

Some of the underground creatures remained behind.

They had set their sights on the branch Auri had dropped.

Whoosh!

An unseen force dragged the little branch into the soil, leaving only a small hole in the grass that quickly closed over.

A struggle immediately erupted underground.

Roots and tendrils tangled together, each trying to pull the branch containing Fairy power in a different direction. The soil trembled faintly, but the group above had already moved too far away to notice anything behind them.

After a while, the struggle finally ended.

One unusually thick root wrapped itself around the branch and forced all its rivals back. It withdrew into deeper soil, absorbing the Fairy power within the branch while using its finer roots to sense its surroundings.

The other underground creatures didn’t leave.

They waited nearby for another chance to seize it.

But the thick root had already begun to change.

Green energy seeped through its surface and into its core. Its tendrils grew tougher, and its range of perception continued to expand.

The mushrooms and grass above changed with it.

One mushroom suddenly shot upward, its cap spreading wide. The grass beside it grew several times larger, the blades rubbing together with a dense rustle.

A few breaths later, they returned to their original size.

The brief expansion seemed to be their way of digesting the power they had just received.

Ethan stopped and surveyed the area warily.

He didn’t find any enemies, but several nearby plants had undergone the same change. They grew for a moment, then shrank again. He could also hear the faint movement of roots beneath the soil.

Ethan looked down at Auri in his arms.

"Auri, where’s the first branch you made?"

Auri was still absorbed in the abundant life energy surrounding them. She had completely forgotten what had happened.

At his question, she looked at her hand, then turned and pointed back the way they had come. But the meadow behind them had already disappeared from view. They couldn’t even see where they had landed.

"Daddy, that branch is gone!"

Auri narrowed her eyes and searched as hard as she could.

"I didn’t make it disappear! Daddy?"

Ethan didn’t answer.

His pupils contracted as he stared into the distance.

How long had they been walking?

At their normal pace, they shouldn’t have gotten this far from their landing point. Yet all he could see behind them was an unbroken mushroom forest. The giant cloud that had carried them down was nowhere in sight.

The first anomaly was Auri’s missing branch.

The second was the impossible distance they had traveled without noticing.

The nearby plants swelled with power again.

Mushrooms, grass, and trees all expanded at once. Thick trunks crowded together from both sides while vines filled every gap, forming walls in the blink of an eye.

The left side was completely sealed.

Only tangled branches and leaves remained on the right.

The path ahead alone stayed wide open, as though guiding them deeper into the forest.

Ethan turned to the others.

"Does anyone know how long we’ve been walking?"

They stared at him in confusion.

They had only been walking for a little while.

But when they turned to look back, their expressions froze just as his had.

The distance was wrong.

So was the landscape around them.

No one had noticed any time passing. They weren’t tired or hungry, yet they could no longer see where they had started.

Deep underground, the thick root finished absorbing the last of the power in Auri’s branch.

Even through the heavy soil, it could clearly sense the agitation of its rivals. The other roots were still creeping closer, waiting for an opportunity.

But it was no longer the ordinary root it had been.

Green energy flowed through its body, allowing it to push the surrounding soil aside with ease. Faced with the enemies still lying in wait, it didn’t retreat. It only tightened its grip on the branch.

Aboveground, the group remained where they were.

Time passed.

The brightness of the sky didn’t change, and the surrounding plants remained as they were. No one felt any physical discomfort. Even the impossible distance that had opened behind them now seemed as though it had never existed.

Everything had returned to how it was when they first entered this place.

To keep themselves from wandering farther in, the group sat together and raised a shield around themselves.