Against The Heavens 110 Devil's Grasp Vine.

Li Yang and Fang Ying looked through the open entrance, inspecting the garden that surrounded the hexagonal palace, giving the various plants a closer look. The garden seemed to surround the entire palace, just as hexagonal as the palace itself. The threes were somewhat bent, their trunks almost twisting in a circle around the middle part of the trees, the bark on the trees was a very light brown and surprisingly smooth, as if the trees were still very young.

There were various fruits growing on the trees, and looking at how orderly the largest trees were lined up this place might have been an orchard once in the past. But now there was knee-high gra.s.s growing everywhere, colorful flowers, mushrooms, and strange shrubbery peeking over the top of the gra.s.s. There were a few smaller trees growing in the empty s.p.a.ce between the trees, a few fruits had likely fallen and eventually started growing into new trees that ruined the organized aesthetic the garden once had.

There were a few places where deep green vines covered in finger-sized thorns grew out of the earth and coiled around some of the trees, the bark of these trees was far gnarlier than the bark of the other trees, their leaves not as verdant or lush. Contrary to what Li Yang and Fang Ying expected, the scent of herbs wasn't as thick as it had been earlier. There might be an array here that prevented the scent from becoming so thick that it became noxious, it wouldn't be fun to become nauseous whenever one entered their own garden after all. After sweeping every part of the garden they could see, Li Yang's eyes landed on the th.o.r.n.y vines.

"Ying'er, don't those vines look rather familiar?"

Fang Ying had also noticed the th.o.r.n.y vines, her brows furrowing slightly when she first saw them. Langshen also looked at the vines with a wary gaze, his instincts had likely warned him that the vines weren't as simple as they looked. Fang Ying nodded her head, tracing the vines and inspecting the place where they came out from the earth.

"Yeah, but they aren't quite the same as the ones we saw, their color is wrong, they don't have the characteristic growths around the base, and the thorns are a bit smaller. Although, if it really is one of those, it seems like the people of this city didn't just up and vanish into thin air."

Fang Ying and Li Yang had lived for quite a few years in their past lives, they were already approaching their millionth year when they died. They had seen countless things in their long lives, some which they remembered fondly and some which still terrified them when they thought about them now. And if the vines in front of them were what they were suspecting them of being, they would belong to the latter category. Li Yang cast a sideways glance at a group of four people who were wading through the gra.s.s, quickly getting closer to a tree that was rather close to one of the vines.

"They'll enter the range soon, we'll see whether or not we're wrong once they do."

Fang Ying's eyebrows twitched slightly, but she didn't say anything against it, keeping a vigilant eye on the four people. There were other groups spreading through the garden, but this group was the one closest to the vines, the others were still a bit further away. Looking at the robes that the four people were wearing, it seemed like they were unaffiliated cultivators who had earned their spot in this compet.i.tion by taking part in the tournaments hosted by the Huo clan. It was likely that they were hoping to quickly s.n.a.t.c.h up some resources before the stronger groups had a chance to take everything.

The group scoured the area around them for any useful herbs or flowers, only casting a fleeting glance at the vines before ignoring them. They eventually spotted an orange flower with ten petals that had potato-like fruits growing along the stem, each of the fruits releasing a small fluctuation of Qi. The four people locked eyes for a short second before making sure that no one else saw the flower, quickly moving closer in a nonchalant manner.

The moment they got within 10 meters of the flower, parts of the earth around them exploded upwards, th.o.r.n.y vines rising up from the ground and surrounding them. After surrounding and imprisoning the group, the vines quickly closed in on them, aiming to turn the encirclement into an iron maiden. The tips of the thorns opened slightly, revealing that the thorns were in fact completely hollow. The attack had been launched too fast, the group wasn't even able to put up a defense in time to block the vines. But luckily for them, Fang Ying had been watching them intently. She quickly called out to Langshen, her white sword appearing in her grasp.

"Langshen! Get me over there!"

Fang Ying had no problem with killing people or letting others die, but that was if they were enemies or people she deemed evil. She would not just sit back and watch other people, who might be innocent, die. s.p.a.ce around Fang Ying rippled for a split second before she suddenly vanished appearing in front of the group of four and slashing down with her sword, large blades of blood appearing around her and attacking all the other vines. Li Yang looked at her actions, swiping his interspatial ring and taking out one of the countless swords he had acc.u.mulated after killing other cultivators.

"Good grief, she really can't just leave people alone. Then again, that was one of the reasons I ended up becoming attracted to her. Oy, Wolf, bring me 200 meters to the right of that tree over there, the one that splits in half in the middle. Once I stab the ground, send me over to that tree that's 175 meters to the north, you yourself can head to that tree over there, the one that's 60 meters to the left of the split tree."

Li Yang knew that if Fang Ying weren't here, he wouldn't make a move to save these four people, he would watch as they died and use their deaths to gather more information. Langshen cast a sideways look at Li Yang, growling in dissatisfaction at the name Li Yang had given him. But even so, Langshen still did as he asked, s.p.a.ce around Li Yang rippling for a split second before he vanished and arrived in the exact spot he had pointed out, 200 meters to the right of a tree that was cleaved open in the middle before connecting again at a higher part.

He tightly grasped the double-edged sword he had removed from his interspatial ring, channeling as much of his energy into it as he could. The blade quickly turned crimson from the heat of the energy he poured into it, small drops of molten metal starting to run down the blade. He stabbed the sword into the ground, the entire blade sinking into the ground with a sizzling sound.

The moment his blade entered the ground, s.p.a.ce around him rippled and his body vanished, appearing in the other spot he had told Langshen about, right next to a small tree that carried a few fruits that looked like small yellow stars. The moment he vanished, the energy within the sword was fully unleashed, a golden pillar of fire and lightning stretching into the sky and turning all the trees around it to ash.

The pillar of fire, as well as Fang Ying's blades of blood and the moving vines, caught the attention of every person present, no one noticing that Li Yang grabbed onto it and uprooted the entire tree and quickly stored it into his interspatial ring. Langshen wasn't standing still at this time, he was doing as Li Yang had said, appearing next to a small herb that looked like green and white mint but released the faint scent of peaches. He didn't use the same brute force procedure as Li Yang, using sharp blades of compressed s.p.a.ce to cut out the earth around the herb and then sending it into a ripple in s.p.a.ce, causing the herb to appear in front of Li Yang.

Li Yang stored away the herb and then returned to the place where he had stabbed the sword into the ground, inspecting the hole that was a result of the sword exploding. After a bit of digging, he pulled out some ginger-like roots covered in fine spines, his brows furrowing. Despite being badly scorched by the flames, the roots were squirming slightly, almost wriggling like worms. Li Yang scorched the roots with some more fire, turning them to ash while he clicked his tongues.

"It really was one, seems to have mutated a bit as well."

He waved his hand to disperse the ash, turning his gaze onto Fang Ying, who was currently being thanked profusely by the group of four. She raised her hands to show that it was nothing, moving away from them and heading over to Li Yang. The other groups were looking at the area with a vigilant gaze, immediately realizing that the th.o.r.n.y vines were likely very dangerous. Fang Ying looked at the scorched hole, raising an eyebrow.

"Looking at your expression, I guess that it's safe to say that our guess was correct? Was this enough to deal with it?"

At the same time as she spoke, she swiped her interspatial ring and took out the ten-petalled flower with the potato-like growth, showing that she had snagged the flower while protecting the group of four. Langshen walked over to them, vigilantly examining the area while Li Yang shook his head, casting his gaze out of the garden and onto the city.

"Yeah, we were correct, it's a Devil's Grasp Vine, but this one has likely mutated somewhat. And no, this was far from enough. I pulled out some roots, but they were only the roots of a tertiary type heart, I suspect that all the hearts in this forest are only tertiary."

A Devil's Grasp Vine was, in fact, a plant type Demonic beast that could be born in one of two ways, an existing Devil's Grasp Vine could split off a small portion of itself to create a child Devil's Grasp Vine, or it could be born in a place where vast quant.i.ties of blood have been spilled and stained both the plants and ground, forever tainting them. It sounded easy to birth one with this second type of birth, but it was actually incredibly hard, as there were quite a few minute factors that had to be right for this Demonic beast to be born.

But once it was born, it would become a terrifying existence. It would first feed on blood and flesh, slowly evolving and reaching a stage where it could absorb any type of lifeforce. Once in the past, Li Yang and Fang Ying had encountered a Devil's Grasp Vine that had taken over several planets, its vines stretching out and invading the other surrounding planets, sucking them completely dry of all life so that the plant could continue to grow and spread. Even at their peak, the two had no choice but to flee from a Demonic beast like this.

Not only was this Demonic beast terrifyingly strong, but it was also incredibly resilient and hard to kill. It had multiple different types of hearts that could each serve as a new main heart, the amount of hearts differed depending on how old and how large the beast was, some only had three while others could have several thousand, and all of them had to be destroyed if they truly wished to kill the beast.

A tertiary heart was the smallest and weakest type of heart the beast could have, they were considered throwaway hearts that could serve as a distraction while the beast moved to protect its secondary and primary hearts.

But all the Devil's Grasp Vines they had seen in the past were as red as blood, small black roots growing out from the ground around the vines. Their thorns were also larger, some as long as a grown man's arm, they had never seen any with thorns as small as these. The thorns also shouldn't be hollow, they should be filled with a flesh-like substance that absorbed the lifeforce of whatever they pierced. So upon seeing this strange version of a Devil's Grasp Vine, Li Yang could only a.s.sume that it had mutated. Fang Ying's expression sank slightly when she heard Li Yang's guess. She knew that he wouldn't state it if he wasn't at least 90% sure that his guess was correct, but that could only mean one thing.

"This entire garden might be filled with nothing but tertiary hearts? Then if we compare it to the ones we saw in the past, this Devil's Grasp Vine should be about as large as this entire city, maybe a bit larger, no?"

If that was true, it would explain how the people in this city had simply vanished, all their lifeforce had been sucked dry and they had withered away. Li Yang nodded his head, glancing at some of the vines that were coiling around trees further away from them.

"Yeah, its roots and vines probably spread through every inch of this city. But it didn't attack everyone as they landed in the city, nor has it attacked us yet. It should have brought out all its vines to suck all our lifeforce the moment we arrived, but it didn't, it only launched an instinctive attack when people got close. My guess is that it is sleeping, hibernating since it's been so long since anyone last entered this place. If we can find the current primary heart before it fully wakes up, we should be able to extract all the lifeforce it has stored up to support its hibernating, it'll be a great help for body and soul cultivation."

Most people would be filled with fear upon realizing that they were standing atop a sleeping beast, but Li Yang and Fang Ying were not most people. They recognized the danger, but they also recognized the great benefit they could get here. They had never shied away from danger in the past, and they certainly wouldn't do so now, no, they would poke the sleeping beast and extract as much use out of it as they could.