Condemning the Heavens

647 Traps in the Forest

“This path is going to be difficult to traverse. Although we are not likely to encounter many living dangers, the terrain itself is enough to trouble us.” Xue Wei was looking around their surroundings as they walked.

There were no larger animals attacking them on the way, but the forest floor was hidden beneath a blanket of rotten leaves and old branches. It was slippery, but the biggest danger was the numerous traps that had been placed on the path.

It was not only one kind of trap, but any trap that their mind could think of, and not all of them were made by humans, some were created naturally by the environment.

If any of them were to rush through the path, they would, without a doubt, die before they could reach the destination, so all of them were moving forward, little by little, while also examining their surroundings at the same time.

At a place like this, Bai Tianyi should have had a natural advantage with his spiritual sense, but as this was a trial, a certain formation had been placed outside the trial grounds, and it was impossible for anyone to use their spiritual sense to gain a better understanding of the surroundings.

As a result, the group had taken the most primitive measures they could find. They had taken a stick each, and were using it to test their path; never placing down a foot before they were certain that the location was safe.

They were also walking in a straight line, trying to minimize the path they needed to test, and each of them had their own category of dangers to look out for. Some of the dangers were, as previously expected, on the ground, but many of the dangers also came from above or the sides, so they could not focus all their attention to only one direction.

Xue Wei was walking at the front, and his stick was the shortest, but also the thickest. He was aiming at the ground to see if anything would appear on the path where they sat their feet. Behind him was Bai Tianyi. He had a longer stick which was above Xue Wei’s head, and kept checking to see if anything would come down from above. In the case of a trap being triggered, it would fall to the ground in front of them all, and it would not hit any of them in the passing.

Both Hei Gou and Lin Xiao had long branches too, but where Bai Tianyi was focused on the above, the two of them took care of a side each. Their aim was all in front of the group, but in this way, they had managed to trigger many traps before they got caught in the dangers involved.

.....

Although this process did trigger almost every trap they could find, and their speed was lowered drastically by this method, it also protected them in their endeavor to get safely to the top.

“Don’t you find it weird? When we entered the forest, everyone seemed to be on the same path, but now, we have not come across anyone else. Not only this, no traps have been triggered in front of us, so I dare to say that we are the first to step on this road.

“On the other hand, we are triggering every trap possible, so those that would be walking behind us should be having a fairly safe journey, but we have not been caught up with any other groups, and you can still hear the mournful screams throughout the forest from time to time.” Lin Xiao was looking around as he spoke. He did not forget to keep looking for traps, but he did find the current situation rather weird.

“Since the judges were able to place a formation with the purpose of blocking spiritual sense, then it should not be a challenge for them to make each group step onto a path of their own.” Bai Tianyi was not surprised by the current situation.

“You have to remember that we are merely inside a trial. We are here to be tested, and to ensure that everyone has equal rights and chances, they will most likely send the teams on their own paths. A few might share a path, if they are lucky, but that might not be an advantage.”

Xue Wei considered Bai Tianyi’s words, and he agreed deeply.

“We are on high alert as we are moving forward, because we know that everywhere in this path, traps will be hidden and waiting for us to step into them, however, if a group has walked half of the way without having triggered the traps themselves, they might not know which ones are dangerous and which ones are activated from which direction. They might become complacent and easily swayed, resulting in dangers they had not expected.”

The group was still making their way forward slowly, when the sound of arrows shot through the forest.

“It’s here again.” Xue Wei called out, and the whole group stepped into formation. Xue Wei kept looking forward, Bai Tianyi went to face the right side, Lin Xiao remained facing the left, while Hei Gou turned around to face the back where they had come from.

The group did not know what kind of danger they would encounter, so every time a trap was triggered, they would stand up in a protective formation and face the dangers that came their way, taking them head on.

Unbeknown to Xue Wei and the others, a group of experts was standing at their destination, looking at a mirror-like treasure in the air that displayed the situation of all the participants.

“That group is really quite good. I would imagine that the dangers they have gone through together cannot be little.” A woman spoke gently, with a simple smile on her face, but her eyes did not leave Xue Wei even one inch. A fervor she could not conceal lit up her eyes and the rest of the group looked at her with reverence.