After discovering he couldn't break through the treants' defenses, Shen Feng chose to retreat. He estimated that if he took another hit, he wouldn't be able to withstand it. Just being struck once had left him in excruciating pain all over. It was clear he was no match for the opponent, so Shen Feng had to opt for a strategic withdrawal.
This time, Shen Feng didn't charge forward but instead retreated, sprinting back along the path he had come. The treants immediately controlled vines to pursue him, but this was a futile effort as Shen Feng's speed was far beyond what those vines could match. Moreover, as long as Shen Feng activated the "Wind King's Barrier," the treants would be completely unable to bind him with vines.
Feeling that the treants were particularly troublesome, Shen Feng decided to retreat. He had already put away his long sword. Since his attacks couldn't inflict substantial damage, there was no point in continuing the offense.
"It seems that to escape this white mist, one will inevitably be targeted by these treants!" Shen Feng thought to himself.
Shen Feng found a small mound and sat on it to ponder. He seemed to be in a predicament. He wanted to go out to find reinforcements, but even getting out was difficult. Furthermore, the treants were clearly not easy to deal with. Even killing them wouldn't be a simple task. Perhaps artillery shells could kill them, but no one knew the treants' numbers.
"What should I do?" Shen Feng muttered to himself, completely at a loss.
Suddenly, Shen Feng noticed many bulges on the ground. These bulges seemed to extend from afar, moving towards an even more distant location. From a distance, these raised parts of the ground looked like winding earthworms.
Shen Feng was curious. Why were there so many bulges on the ground? And it seemed like something was beneath the earth! With this thought, Shen Feng used his hand to dig into some of the raised parts of the ground. He discovered a massive root underground, with a diameter as thick as a bucket. As it traveled underground, it had pushed up the soil above.
"Such a thick root, what kind of tree could grow to be so enormous?" Shen Feng was startled. He hadn't expected to uncover such a colossal root system. Ordinary trees couldn't grow to be as thick as a bucket in a short time, but here he was, digging up such a robust root system beneath the soil. It was incredible!
Shen Feng thought for a moment and then walked along the direction of the root. To his surprise, the further he walked, the smaller the bulges in the soil became. Shen Feng slapped his forehead, realizing he had gone the wrong way. He turned around and proceeded along the ground bulges again. The further he went, the more pronounced the bulges became.
Finally, Shen Feng saw the root system exposed above ground. At this point, the root was already a meter thick. Shen Feng could hardly believe his eyes.
Walking forward again, Shen Feng spotted a colossal figure ahead and immediately stopped. Seeing that the figure remained motionless, Shen Feng crept forward, trying not to make any sound. This time, Shen Feng indeed heard no movement of vines.
When Shen Feng reached the front of this behemoth, he finally got a clear view of it. It was a treant, not the one Shen Feng had encountered earlier. This treant showed no reaction to Shen Feng's presence; it simply stood there quietly, without any extraneous movements.
Shen Feng gently touched the treant and found that it had no warmth. Its surface was covered in rough bark. If it had remained completely still, Shen Feng would have simply thought it was a tree. However, after witnessing the treants' strength and defenses, Shen Feng no longer dared to underestimate trees.
However, Shen Feng suddenly had a question: since these treants had no eyes, how did they detect prey? And where did the captured prey go?
Shen Feng turned on his phone's flashlight and cautiously tested the treant. He found that the treant didn't react, indicating that it didn't hunt based on light.
Afterward, Shen Feng picked up a large stone and threw it with all his might. With a "thud," the heavy stone landed on the ground, emitting a dull sound.
Instantly, dozens of vines moved towards the source of the sound, slithering forward like venomous snakes. Within seconds, the stone was bound and dragged back. When it was brought to the treant, the treant used its twisted vines to attach the stone to its body.
Witnessing this, Shen Feng understood. These treants hunted based on sound. The reason he had been targeted earlier was likely due to his high speed, which had generated significant wind noise, thus attracting the treants' attention and capture.
"This means that as long as I don't make any noise while walking, I probably won't be caught!" Shen Feng seemed to have figured it out. As long as he didn't make noise when moving, he wouldn't be prey.
Shen Feng thought for a moment and chose to continue advancing cautiously, following the tree roots that had already grown onto the road. After walking for two hundred meters, he discovered a towering ancient tree, surrounded by five or six treants. It was evident that these treants were protecting this ancient tree.
The ground around them bore many traces of combat, with numerous vines scattered on the ground, likely remnants of past battles. Looking at the surrounding treants, they also had varying degrees of damage, with dozens of their vines broken. However, such a small number of broken vines was insignificant for treants with hundreds of vines.
"There seems to have been a battle here. Could someone else have reached this place?" Shen Feng was somewhat puzzled. Even he, an ability user, couldn't defeat the treants. Could ordinary people have come here and fought desperately?
Shen Feng looked at the ancient tree and suddenly had an idea: to set it ablaze with gasoline. If he was lucky, he might also be able to kill the surrounding treants. This way, he might be able to solve the current problem.
Shen Feng approached the ancient tree with light steps and began to observe it carefully. However, he noticed something strange: the tree had numerous small holes from which a lot of white mist was being sprayed. This meant that this entire large area of white mist was released by this tree.
"This tree is spraying mist. Could it be hollow inside?" Shen Feng looked at the towering ancient tree, finding it hard to believe. A tree over ten meters in diameter, perhaps a hundred meters tall, being hollow? This wasn't bamboo; it was a tree. How could it be empty inside?
Shen Feng observed the tree closely. In his opinion, the tree didn't seem like the mastermind; rather, it appeared to be a simple mist-generating device, existing to maintain the white mist in this region. And these treants might not be protecting the tree but simply standing there.
As Shen Feng was observing intently, a muffled sound suddenly came from afar: "Bang, bang, bang..."
These sounds came one after another. Shen Feng was perplexed. Where were these sounds coming from? They seemed to be originating from a very distant location.
While Shen Feng was wondering, many artillery shells suddenly fell from the sky. Upon landing, they immediately exploded. One of the shells landed right next to Shen Feng. His survival instinct kicked in, and he quickly dodged behind the tree. At that moment, the shell exploded: "Boom!" The deafening sound occurred right beside Shen Feng's ears, rendering him deaf. He immediately activated the "Wind King's Barrier" to block out the external explosions and cautiously guarded against further shells.
At this point, Shen Feng no longer cared about alarming the treants and fled the area at extreme speed. He cursed inwardly, "Damn it, didn't they say they would prepare to attack in three days? Why are they attacking now? Could it be targeting me?"
Artillery shells continued to fall from the sky. Shen Feng was running behind the large tree, so the shells didn't land near him, at most falling beside him. The shrapnel and shockwaves from the explosions were blocked by the "Wind King's Barrier," and even the sound of the explosions couldn't penetrate the barrier.
Shen Feng's only desire was to leave this area. His hearing gradually returned. The nearby bomb explosions had not harmed Shen Feng with their shrapnel and shockwaves; it was the immense sound that had temporarily deafened him. At the time, Shen Feng thought he might have been permanently deafened, but now it seemed it was only temporary.
It was also fortunate that Shen Feng used the large tree to avoid the direct bombardment of the shells, otherwise, he would have been torn to shreds by now. This was also a matter of luck.
Shen Feng, worried about the treants attacking him, kept a safe distance. He didn't even care if he exposed himself. However, he forgot one thing: treants acted based on sound. And at this moment, shells were falling like raindrops, with explosions everywhere. Even the treants couldn't move.
At this moment, a shell fell from the sky and directly hit a treant, then exploded instantly: "Boom!" The treant was blown to pieces on the spot. Seeing this, Shen Feng became even more frightened. If even the treants couldn't withstand the artillery shells, then he certainly couldn't. Fortunately, he hadn't been hit by a shell earlier.
Shen Feng ran five hundred meters in an instant. At this point, he had just managed to get away from the explosion zone. He stayed outside the explosion zone and waited, not daring to deactivate the "Wind King's Barrier." Shen Feng's biggest worry was being hit by shrapnel from an unknown location. In this place, there were no doctors, and being hit meant certain death.
The artillery shells didn't stop. All the treants near the ancient tree were blown to pieces. Even though their exteriors were hard, they were ultimately made of wood and couldn't withstand a single artillery shell. Under the carpet bombing, the treants didn't even have a chance to hide.
The ancient tree was also hit by several artillery shells. One or two shells could be endured, but the bombardment lasted for thirty minutes. During this time, countless shells fell, and the roots of the ancient tree were bombed multiple times. Finally, it was forced to fall.
With a "rumble," the ancient tree fell like a golden mountain collapsing, its hundreds of tons of wood crashing to the ground. This instantly stirred up a large amount of dust, and the nearby white mist was blown away by the immense shockwave. For a moment, the space within dozens of meters of the tree became clear. The white mist, blown away, found it difficult to re-aggregate, and everything around became clearly visible.
The bombardment also ended at this time. Shen Feng finally felt relieved. It seemed he was temporarily out of danger. He just didn't know what had happened to the treants that were bombed; were they all blown to pieces?
"Wang Yue Sheng, that scoundrel, when I get back, the first thing I'll do is beat you up. You almost blew me to death. If it weren't for my good luck and not being hit by a shell, I'd be lying here now!" Shen Feng thought to himself.
Shen Feng slowly deactivated the "Wind King's Barrier" and then moved towards the interior of the bombing zone. The surrounding white mist was slowly closing in. Shen Feng prepared to take this opportunity to observe the situation carefully.
Under Shen Feng's observation, the ancient tree was over three hundred meters tall. Such a tall tree could be considered the largest tree in existence. The tree had numerous pores on its surface, and the white mist emerged from these pores. Now, no more white mist was being released.
Shen Feng walked all the way to the base of the tree. The ground around it was already scorched earth, and many fires were still burning. All the treants from before were gone. Shen Feng guessed that these creatures had likely been blown into pieces by the artillery shells.
"It can be considered a blessing in disguise, that these treants are all dead," Shen Feng muttered to himself.
Then, Shen Feng saw a dark hole at the base of the tree. The hole was one meter wide, and from above, one couldn't see what was below. Shen Feng pressed his ear to the opening. A gust of wind could be heard from the opening, and other sounds were mixed within the wind.
"Is there an underground space? Could it be that the enemies are not just these treants, but other enemies are hidden underground?" Shen Feng frowned and thought.
Suddenly, Shen Feng heard a strange sound, "Thump, thump..." This sound continued incessantly, as if someone were beating a drum. The ground vibrated slightly, and even small stones were shaken loose from the ground.
"Thump, thump..." The sound of the ground vibrating grew more intense. Upon hearing these sounds, Shen Feng had a bad premonition. It seemed like the sound of treants walking, but there were so many of them. Could it be that there were many more treants?
"Swish, swish," countless vines emerged from the mist. Shen Feng quickly hid in the tree hollow, daring not to make any sound. A minute later, more than ten treants emerged from the mist, all heading in the direction from which the artillery shells had been fired. It seemed that these treants' target was not him.
Shen Feng looked at the more than ten treants emerging from the mist, his worries increasing. The number of treants seemed to be quite significant. He had thought that perhaps a dozen treants in the mist would be about it, but now it seemed the number of treants in the mist was completely uncertain. If a battle were to break out, there would be no possibility of victory.