The City of Terror

 Finally, the swan drew its last breath amidst a weak cry for help.

At this instant, Wei Xiao Bei felt a chill run down his back for no reason, as if something incredibly dangerous was surging toward him from below.

“Let’s go!”

He did not hesitate at all. He reached with both his hands, grabbing Kashmir and Andre, who were both on the tree branches, and jumped, somersaulted through the air and started running toward the higher branches.

He even activated [Intermediate Power Burst] to increase his speed to its maximum. In the blink of an eye, they had charged over a hundred meters away from their original location.

The danger Wei Xiao Bei had sensed finally lowered when they were five hundred meters away.

More accurately, this danger wasn’t aimed at him. He was merely an unfortunate victim caught in it.

A spear made of golden light instantly pierced through the thick and massive branches of the World Tree, striking the Boston ivy where the vines were the densest.

Boom! A loud sound.

The golden spear exploded, turning into countless shorter spears that shot in every direction.

Wei Xiao Bei was now over a kilometer away, but he still could not escape the impact. Several of the short spears passed by him.

The look on his face was grim, for his back had been stabbed by one of the golden short spears in that instant. His skin that could deflect even a rifle bullet at zero distance had not managed to deflect the spear.

Fortunately, the spear vanished on its own after piercing halfway through his body. It left a bloody hole the size of a bowl in his back.

There were no side-effects.

Wei Xiao Bei was relieved after examining the wound.

The hole on his back and the injured organs were quickly healing as well.

Even he had been caught in the attack despite how far away he was. It wasn’t hard to imagine what it was like to be at the center of that golden spear attack.

Wei Xiao Bei couldn’t be bothered with his wound at this moment either. He turned to look and was almost shocked to death.

The explosion of the golden light spear had forcefully blown away the stem of a branch belonging to the World Tree. No wonder he felt such intense tremors from below his feet.

This branch was about to snap.

Just imagine if this branch snapped. Disregarding the impact resulting from a branch as thick and heavy as this falling to the ground, just the height alone was unimaginable. If Xiao Bei fell from here, being smashed to pieces would be the best possible scenario.

As for the Boston ivy vines? Well, even the World Tree’s branch had ended up like this. It wasn’t too hard to imagine what had happened to them.

Still, the Boston ivy had tremendous resilience. Even though most of its vines had been shredded to pieces, there were still a few vines entangled with the swans and greedily sucking their blood.

Wei Xiao Bei was terrified now. He turned and ran toward the trunk of the World Tree.

He made sure not to waste anything when he ran past the remains of the Boston ivy. He quickly grabbed a few of the vines with his left hand, along with some of the ivy seeds, both of which he stuffed into his storage bracelet.

When he passed by above the two swans, he hesitated for a moment. Many thoughts ran through his mind.

He might not have any chance to cooperate with those unreasonable giants in this World Tree Dust World, but it might be a different story with the World Tree and its allies. Let’s see if there’s a possibility.

Wei Xiao Bei sighed in his mind and reached with his left hand, grabbing the two swans to his side. The few vines were naturally reluctant to abandon this sumptuous feast and immediately started tightening their grip.

He did not stop moving, and let go of Andre with his right hand. Electric sparks came from his finger as he wiped across the vines lightly. The vines immediately shrunk and removed themselves from the swans’ body. They then fell toward the ground.

Just as he suspected, these Boston ivies were most afraid of high temperatures.

The quick burst of electricity from Wei Xiao Bei’s fingers had created heat as high as six hundred degrees. Even his fingertip had been charred by the sparks. It was more than enough to frighten the Boston ivy.

He had no intention to let the swan that had died to the vines go to waste either. He quickly put its corpse into his storage bracelet as well.

Wei Xiao Bei then picked Andre back up from the ground.

Andre’s face had already turned green. It couldn’t be helped. No one would be in a good mood if they were almost thrown aside in such a circumstance.

The whole group barely made it in time. He had just leaped away from the tree branch and charged into the tree hollow when a loud crackling sound came from behind him. It was the sound of a snapping branch.

Kakakakaka.

He felt the ground beneath him tremble. The tremor was so strong that it almost made him slip and fall, despite his [Unobstructed Path] skill.

After stabilizing himself, Wei Xiao Bei stuck his head out and looked down. The gigantic tree branch was quickly falling to the ground. There was only empty air in front of him.

The branch might not be much for the World Tree itself, but it was still incomparably massive to him already.

Some of the thinner and smaller branches down the tree could not endure the weight of this branch as it fell. These smaller branches immediately snapped in half and started falling as well.

The impact of this branch falling could be felt even on the ground.

In truth, both the Giants and the allies of the World Tree had noticed some commotion due to the sudden weakening of the valkyrie’s golden light and her enraged expression.

The valkyrie had suddenly leaped out of the battlefield while fighting against the Giants, before launching a spear of golden light into the air.

Everyone could tell that this attack had exhausted the valkyrie, as over eighty percent of her golden light faded after that.

She did not even use this ability when she was fighting against that eighty-meter tall Giant.

Then, something appeared to fall from the sky. Something that applied immense pressure to everyone, almost as if the sky itself was what was falling.

Fortunately, it wasn’t the sky.

The tree branch, large as an entire mountain range, was finally stopped by the other branches, a thousand meters above the ground. It swayed threateningly there, making for tremendous pressure for the monsters fighting on the ground.

The Giants, the Giant Wolves, and the Einherjars were all beginning to be distracted from the battle.

No one was willing to flee from the battle first. That would give the enemy the chance to follow them and run them down.

However, continuing the fight on this battlefield meant constantly enduring the fear of the tree branch suddenly falling on them.

This was even more terrifying than having a sword hanging above their necks.

Most of the monsters couldn’t help but divert part of their attention above their heads, even as they fought.

Consequently, the intensity of the fight dialed down and became somewhat lukewarm. It less resembled a war now and more a sparring session.

This was something that the valkyrie had not expected.

The battle below did not concern Wei Xiao Bei. He ignored the intense tremors and started to climb upward along the tunnels. He now had two chickens, no, swans in his left hand, Andre in his right and Kashmir crouching on his head. He rushed upward while his legs were still empowered by the Intermediate Power Burst, seemingly not exhausted in any way.

It wasn’t until waves of weakness washed over his body that he finally stopped walking and sat on the ground.

Wei Xiao Bei didn’t completely relax either. He kept a close eye on the two swans with [Response Search].

Unfortunately, one of the two swans had died just like its companion. He had no choice but to put it in his storage bracelet.

The last swan also seemed to be in a terrible condition from the vines’ bloodsucking. It had not recovered at all even after all this time, still teetering on the brink of death, as if it was about to die at the very next moment.

Wei Xiao Bei took out two pieces of roast meat and tore away at them while gulping down one mouthful of Lesser Spring Water of Youth.

He wasn’t trying to be wasteful. His body’s regenerative ability had simply been weakened in his current state of fatigue. He had to be a little extravagant now if he wanted to heal his wounds and regain combat ability as quickly as possible.

He glanced at the dying swan and hesitated for a moment. In the end, he fed the swan one drop of the Spring Water.

At any rate, after robbing the Einherjar’s gathering place, he had over four thousand milliliters of Secondary Spring Water of Youth. It wouldn’t matter if he wasted a bit of that.

Of course, he wouldn’t feed the swan too much of the Spring Water.

Once it had fully recovered, the first thing it would probably do was attempt to fight him.

He had only saved the swan to see if there was a chance to mend their relationship. If it wasn’t possible, Wei Xiao Bei was not the compassionate sort.

He had slaughtered plenty of chickens and ducks back when he was helping in the army kitchen. He wouldn’t feel bad about wasting the meat in any manner.

However, his head started to ache soon.

The swan might have escaped from her comatose, near-death state after swallowing the Spring Water, but it also began to undergo an unbelievable change.

The feathers on the swan started to fade and its body started to grow in size until the swan turned into an extremely pretty girl.

The girl looked to be about fifteen or sixteen years of age. She had long golden hair that reached down to her waist, a pretty face and a long and slender neck just like a swan.

As for the rest? Well, Xiao Bei was a little embarrassed to keep looking.

After all, the girl was completely naked after turning from a swan into a human.

If this was an R-rated film, Xiao Bei would watch the whole thing without even blinking.

However, when it was the real thing before his eyes, anyone would have the decency to look away, especially when Andre and Kashmir were still by his side.

“What are you looking at? Remember, you already have a wife and a bunch of children.”

Xiao Bei immediately saw the saliva dripping out of Andre’s mouth. His eyes almost turned green with envy at the moment. He slapped the guy over the head and woke him to his senses.