"This is... a Blighted Treant?" Orum's pupils contracted.
Treants were legendary monsters, usually scary figures made up by farmers to frighten children into staying away from the forest.
Orum had seen with his own eyes how some kids got so scared by stories of "man-eating ancient trees" that they wet their pants.
In this world where fantasy was real, Blighted Treants not only truly existed, but were terrifying magical creatures that could easily kill people and livestock.
However, the black ancient tree before him was vastly different from the Blighted Treants in Orum's memory.
The birth of Blighted Treants came from underground pollution.
If tree spirit saplings on the surface were contaminated during their development stage, they could transform into Blighted Treants. These monsters had obvious undead creature characteristics, so the kingdom classified them as "undead creatures."
Adult Blighted Treants were about 5 meters tall, with thin, curved branches hanging down like hair, almost every inch covered with serrated black leaves.
About 2 meters from the ground, there were three pitch-black, deep tree hollows arranged in a triangle. When it hunted, the upper pair of hollows were its eyes, and the larger hollow below was its mouth.
But right now, the Blighted Treant in Orum's vision was over 10 meters tall. Hundreds of black branches hung down from the top, coiling around the surrounding tree trunks like straws, forcibly draining the life force from other trees.
Orum had never heard of Blighted Treants killing other trees and plundering their life force. Their hunting targets were usually only animals in the forest or humans who wandered into the deep woods by mistake.
In that instant, a flash of inspiration suddenly struck Orum's mind.
He abruptly remembered... in the task list his predecessor had accepted, there happened to be exactly such a mission:
[Investigate Mutated Plants in the Misty Forest]
[Task Content: Mid-last month, adventurers discovered multiple mutated plants in the north-central Misty Forest, including mutated carnivorous flowers, mutated dandelions, mutated oak trees, etc.]
[These mutated plants plunder the life force of other plants, rapidly expanding their size.]
[This abnormal situation may be a harbinger of the next "Dark Surge" coming to the Misty Forest.]
[The Blackwater Town outpost monitoring station will maintain long-term attention to these mutated plants.]
...
"Massive size, devouring other plants' life force... it really does seem to be a mutated plant?"
Orum paused, his gaze moving along the black ancient tree's trunk.
When accepting the task, the mission information also provided instructions on how to identify mutated plants in the Misty Forest.
All mutated plants had a protruding purple crystal that glowed naturally, making it conspicuous even at night.
Orum walked halfway around the black ancient tree and sure enough, behind its "face," found a fist-sized, brilliantly glowing purple crystal.
"It has a purple crystal, so it really is a mutated plant."
Looking at the giant ancient tree before him, slowly stretching its branches as if breathing, Orum couldn't help but feel somewhat amazed. This world was truly too fantastical, even things like man-eating trees actually existed.
After stopping to observe for a moment, Orum set out again.
He needed to take a detour.
Although defeating this mutated Blighted Treant and taking the purple crystal condensed on its surface could be exchanged for a huge sum of gold coins at the monitoring station, Orum knew perfectly well he couldn't win.
Right now, Orum had neither martial skills nor equipment, and couldn't cast powerful fireballs like a mage.
If he stupidly charged up with an axe, he'd probably be whipped to death by the Blighted Treant's branches before he even got close.
Orum still didn't agree with that kind of reckless, kick-down-the-door approach...
What Orum envisioned was that someday in the future, he'd shoulder a rocket launcher, ride a dragon-blooded warhorse, with twenty barbarians wielding flaming greatswords clustered behind him. With just one command from him, these barbarians would charge forward hollering and chop the Blighted Treant into firewood.
"Gwaaah!!!"
A battle cry filled with fighting spirit suddenly exploded through the forest.
Then came urgent footsteps, the rustling noise of the jungle, heavy panting sounds!
Orum froze.
Just from the sounds alone, he could immediately tell that a squad of at least twenty or more was rushing through the dense forest, rapidly approaching!
Is their target me? No, that's not right!
Orum jerked his head around, looking ahead.
From the violently shaking bushes, an exceptionally tall goblin suddenly burst out, wielding a curved blade in its hand, charging straight at the Blighted Treant ahead!
How could a goblin be this tall, this fast?
Orum looked carefully and was shocked to discover that the goblin was actually riding a waist-high wolf!
This was a goblin knight who had tamed a riding wolf!
Immediately after, three more riding wolves emerged from the bushes, along with a full 20 goblins in a swarm, pouring out one after another!
These goblins formed a single-file line formation, charging together toward the Blighted Treant like a green flood surging forward, their raucous "gwaaah" sounds continuous and unending.
The moment the goblins charged, black smoke suddenly billowed from the tree hollows representing the Blighted Treant's eyes and mouth, as if invisible flames were burning deep in the tree's core.
In that moment, Orum seemed to see the Blighted Treant's gaze from within the pitch-black hollows.
It was staring at the goblin squad before it.
"Hummm—"
The sunless Misty Forest suddenly lit up. Around the Blighted Treant, countless orbs of light appeared out of thin air.
Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple—light of various colors sparkled brilliantly, as if a thousand stars had opened their eyes simultaneously.
Streams of light as thin as embroidery needles shot out from inside the light orbs, firing at the goblin horde. Different colored streams carried different powers, burning, freezing, electric shock, dark erosion... The front ranks of goblins tumbled over in chaos, while the rear ranks pressed forward one after another, screaming as they continued advancing.
Orum looked carefully and could vaguely see tiny human figures inside each light orb, along with a pair of transparent, rapidly vibrating insect-like wings.
Bodies as small as thumbs, natural invisibility abilities, trailing sparkling dust behind them...
These characteristics flooded into Orum's mind, allowing him to instantly identify their species.
Forest sprites. In ancient folk songs, people also called these thumb-sized creatures "pixies."
"Forest sprites? How would these spirits of nature help a Blighted Treant? They should be natural enemies, shouldn't they?"
Orum watched this scene with some astonishment, the sprites were actually fighting alongside the treant against the goblins.
This was like a priest teaming up with a witch. It really didn't make any sense.
A flash of insight crossed his mind, and Orum suddenly shifted his gaze to the Blighted Treant in the center.
"Could it be that... when the Blighted Treant drained the surrounding trees, it also seized the sprites that were attached to them?"
"Even if these sprites are unwilling, they can't break free from the Blighted Treant's control?"
Hmm... why does this feel a bit like an NTR scenario?
Compared to the sprites and treant joining forces, this newly appeared squad of goblins alarmed Orum even more.
Just counting Orum himself, he'd already encountered the second batch of goblins today. Add in the goblins from the Wailing Cavern, and that made three full batches of goblins.
Orum now had no doubt that goblins in the Misty Forest had become an overwhelming infestation.
"Ahhh—"
A delicate shout came from the direction of the Blighted Treant. Orum looked up and was startled to see a goblin raise its arm, grab a red light orb, and like catching a firefly, stuff the orb into an iron cage.
The red-haired sprite struggled desperately, but for her at thumb-height, the goblin that seemed short to humans was an enormous, irresistible monster. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't break free.
Sprites could pass freely through wood, but couldn't pass through iron containers.
Once inside the cage, the sprite charged left and right, only managing to scatter phosphorescent powder everywhere.
After a few seconds, she seemed to accept reality. She sat dully in the center of the cage, curled up her knees, and began to cry silently.
"These goblins' goal is to capture sprites?" Orum, lurking in the shadows observing the battle, was startled. His gaze quickly swept across the entire battlefield.
The facts confirmed it.
The goblins weren't stepping into the Blighted Treant's shadow at all. They spread out around it with strict discipline, braving the sprites' spell attacks, methodically capturing the isolated sprites.
Come to think of it, that made sense. These goblins really didn't have the capability to challenge a Blighted Treant.
Their weapons could probably only leave a few scratches on the bark, while the treant's branches whipped down with sonic booms every strike. If they hit a goblin on the head, they'd definitely splatter its brains everywhere.
So the goblins weren't coveting the Blighted Treant's crystal, nor were they here to crusade for the "love and peace" of the Misty Forest.
Their target was simply the forest sprites around the treant!
"But what are these goblins capturing sprites for?" Orum had trouble understanding.
Could there really be a great scholar among the goblins who could research magical devices from sprites?
Don't be ridiculous!
However, whatever the goblins were planning to do, it had nothing to do with Orum.
He was just an adventurer eager to return to human society, a spectator of a goblin war film, a pure passerby.
These conflicts had nothing to do with him. At this moment, Orum had only one thought: take a detour!
However, the instant that thought surfaced in his mind.
Orum felt the battlefield ahead suddenly fall silent.
He looked up into the distance and felt all the hair on his body stand on end.
Because at that moment, the sprites and goblins who'd been fighting just seconds ago, even the ferocious riding wolves, all stood frozen in place, their gazes uniformly turning toward him, toward Orum's location.
This extremely bizarre scene made Orum momentarily think he'd fallen into an illusion.
"I've been discovered?" This thought first flashed through Orum's mind, but the next moment he quickly realized that he hadn't made any noise. The goblins couldn't possibly have discovered him while he was in stealth.
Soon, Orum understood. The goblins and sprites weren't looking at him, but at something behind him.
The light all around suddenly dimmed, as if ink had soaked through the air. Orum felt many sticky things brush across his back, and some liquid rose over his ankles.
Orum turned to look and saw that in the ink-black depths, countless blood-red tendrils wriggled and coiled. In their center, a pitch-black stag slowly emerged.
The stag's head bore a pair of equally black, meter-long antlers. The countless crimson tendrils were its tail, swaying behind it. Its physique was robust yet ethereal, carrying a certain divinity as it walked forward unhurriedly.
Seeing this pitch-black stag, Orum was thunderstruck. His mind went blank, and he froze completely in place.
He had never imagined he would encounter a legendary being here.
This pitch-black stag roaming the wilderness represented only one existence's avatar—
The Goddess of Misfortune, Beshaba.