"Huff! Huff!"
The two young men knelt on a knee as they clutched their injured shoulders and abdomens.
The ground under them was completely cracked and a deep crater was formed where they were standing.
With each passing second, they were going deeper and deeper into the ground and the crater kept expanding.
"Grah!"
Despite their best attempts, the young men couldn't stand.
The gravity on them was increased to a ridiculous degree. The force with which the ground pulled them was equivalent to holding a hundred big mountains by a rope.
Even for level 8s, it was terrifying.
Splash!
Blood continued to spill out of their injuries. Even their healing potions weren't functioning properly under this terrifying pressure.
However, the young men felt lucky.
'She isn't trying to kill us.'
'She didn't ask us for the treasure we used to isolate this area from the forest.'
Indeed, they borrowed a treasure from their seniors. With it, they were able to completely isolate this area from the rest of the forest.
Otherwise, when Sia landed in this place, the nearby trees would've sensed it and tried to attack.
As a level 8, she could've killed them easily. But that fight alone would've caused more commotion and attracted more trees.It'd have snowballed from there and ended up in a fight against the whole forest.
'We thought the treasure would help us, but.' The two young men gritted their teeth and raised their heads to meet the masked woman.
She was the one who got lucky with their treasure, damn it!
Sia looked at them with indifferent eyes before tapping the ground with her left foot.
The next second, she was in front of the tree, her feet a few inches above the lake. With a single wave of her hand, the blue liquid dropping from the leaves flew into a crystal bottle in her right hand.
She swiped in the air and a cut appeared on the tree's trunk. The same blue liquid started to flow out, in a much larger quantity and reached the crystal bottle.
With another wave of her hand, the red liquid lake began to shake. It was as if someone held the lake's liquid in a bowl and started shaking them. The red liquid got violent and the waves grew bigger and bigger.
Sia tapped her finger in the air and the lake's liquid suddenly froze.
Then, out of the large red liquid, a very small but exceptionally bright red liquid flew into another crystal bottle in her left hand.
"Damn it!" The young men gritted their teeth as their eyes burned with jealousy.
The tree was special. It consumed aura from the air and condensed chi into a consumable.
This was the blue liquid that was released from the leaves. If a body awakener took it, they'd benefit tremendously.
Of course, there was a limit to how much a person could improve from this liquid.
But there was a bigger problem. Once this blue liquid interacts with the aura in the air, all its chi would be replaced by prana.
The red liquid, thus, had only prana and it was supplied to the trees in the forest. Of course, even in this red liquid, there was one with more quality—which was precisely what the woman took.
"..U-Unlucky." One of the young men had given up on struggling.
Indeed, they were plain unlucky.
One of them was a body awakener and the other was a plant morpher.
At any given time, the amount of blue and red liquid the tree had was limited. So, they even borrow a treasure and get the precious liquids.
But now.
"Fuck!" The blue liquid would take at least a few days to recover since the tree had to create it.
The best of the red liquid was taken away and it too would take time to accumulate. All Full ᴏᴠʟ
"Good luck to you two." Sia greeted them and tapped the ground again.
Under their complicated gaze, she reached the sky in a single step and disappeared.
The terrifying pressure on them disappeared and the two young men finally stood up.
"Haa!"
"Haa!"
Panting heavily, they rubbed the sweat off their foreheads and looked at each other.
'What now?'
Their gazes conveyed the question they wanted to ask.
"Let's wait for the tree to stock up. It'll take at most a week." The first young man said.
"But we'll miss the Ruler's Abode if we wait." The other replied.
"Not like we had a chance with monsters like Victor and Hongya participating."
"Does anyone have any realistic chance against those four monsters?"
"The Great Four, heh. The Ruler's Abode will be their playing field."
They both looked at the sky and sighed.
*** *** ***
Sia moved toward her next destination.
So far, she had collected four things.
Thunder Fruit, Ice Orb, Tempering Liquids—both red and blue.
There were only two items left—but they were considerably harder than the rest.
'After that, I need to go to the Ruler's Abode.'
Sia's expression tensed as an equal mix of anticipation and fear flooded her mind.
She was wishing for something good to happen. But it was beyond her control.
No matter what, she was at least not worried about Varian's safety.
'With his ghost ship, he can escape from any enemy. The ghost ship also teleported from Julius Xander and escaped wholly. There are no Sovereigns here, he should be very safe.'As she thought about the ghost ship, Sia finally noticed something she never thought of before.
'Wait! With ghost ship, getting a key isn't too hard for him. Then we're definitely meeting!'Her heat pounded and Sia's breath turned heavy.
When the reunion went from a possibility to a certainty, Sia couldn't help but feel even more nervous.
'…I really wonder what will happen.'
She moved closer and closer to her next target.
The space around her started to twist and grow unstable.
For some reason, the expressions of the young men who were immobile under her gravity force flashed in her mind.
'…Like lab rats.'
Sia's body stiffened and her face turned pale.
A painful memory flashed in her mind.
***