Chapter 44: West River Forest (2)

Su Chen didn’t avoid the microscopic organisms.

At the same time that this red wave entered his body, he ripped apart his clothes and began to inspect his body.

When combined with his internal view technique, he could clearly see what was happening in his body.

He watched as those small red microorganisms burrowed their way into his bones like maggots, distributing themselves into every part of his body, including his heart, intestines, kidneys, stomach, spleen, and even his Qi Sea, where his Origin Energy was stored.

In an instant, Su Chen suddenly found it hard to breathe. His heart rate began to race as his chest felt like it was burning, and he began to feel dizzy.

“Curse……” Su Chen spat out arduously.

“Master!” Iron Cliff could tell that Su Chen’s situation wasn’t right and was about to charge over.

Su Chen swung his arm fiercely. “Don’t come here! If you come over, I won’t be able to save you!”

“But your body……” Iron Cliff pointed at Su Chen as he yelled in shock.

In just a few moments, he watched as a strange change began to occur across Su Chen’s body. Large swathes of red blotches began to appear all over his body and his face like red birthmarks, but they then began to blister.

Suddenly, one of the blisters exploded. A pungent spray of water exploded forth, filling the air with a gross stench.

Iron Cliff couldn’t see the changes taking place within Su Chen’s body. This frightening turn of events had given him quite a shock.

Su Chen lifted his arm. He could see that his entire body had been covered in a large, red, blistering rash.

Su Chen coughed out a mouthful of blood.

That blood was actually alive. It circled around in the air before slowly landing on the ground, landing on a bed of leaves. The blood began to sizzle as it corroded away

If he couldn’t clearly see what was happening within his body, even Su Chen would be badly scared by this scene.

“Master!” Iron Cliff couldn’t help but yell out.

“Don’t worry,” Su Chen replied, his voice hoarse.

The red microscopic organisms had burrowed their way into his throat, making it difficult for him to speak.

However, Su Chen didn’t pay it any mind. Rather, his eyes began to glow brighter and brighter. “So this is the source of the curse! No wonder most of the people who came in here died. Even Blood Boiling Realm cultivators wouldn’t be able to endure this since it corrodes even Origin Energy. Impressive! Impressive! Truly impressive!”

As Su Chen spoke, he began to laugh. When paired with the blisters still covering his face, this scene was incredibly unsettling.

“But unfortunately, these things aren’t effective against me in the slightest,” Su Chen said in a low voice.

His consciousness tendrils began to reach out, capturing the red microscopic organisms.

The consciousness tendrils didn’t have physical substance and couldn’t affect the macroscopic world. It was only effective against these kinds of microscopic organisms.

When the consciousness tendrils expanded, the microscopic organisms that had entered his body were fiercely slaughtered.

If these microscopic organisms had a consciousnesses, it would be as if they had discovered a star full of energy. Just as they were consuming it, countless column-like demons suddenly appeared from the horizon and swarmed them, beating them to death with extreme precision.

This was an accurate representation of what these microscopic organisms were going through. The consciousness tendrils killed them in one blow like they were insects.

Thousands of these consciousness tendrils constantly moved around, killing these microscopic organisms in large waves.

Iron Cliff watched as the red patches on Su Chen’s body disappeared one after the other, and the blistered skin slowly began to return to normal.

Su Chen’s face, which had been extremely frightening to look at just moments before, had returned to normal.

“Whew!” Iron Cliff sighed. “Master, you gave me quite a fright.”

Su Chen didn’t reply. He slowly raised his left hand.

In the palm of his left hand, a bright red imprint remained.

Su Chen had purposefully left this there.

Then, he waved his right hand, forcefully ripping off this red mark from his skin.

This time, however, he had used a macroscopic technique to try to handle the situation. He wanted to see if it would have any effect.

He quickly discovered, however, that even if the red mark was ripped off, the microscopic organisms still remained in his blood.

The microscopic organisms hiding in his body couldn’t do much because of their small numbers. However, they were still secretly breeding and reproducing, continuing to survive.

As long as there was some room left for them, they would constantly reproduce and expand……

“It seems like this is the root of the West River Forest Curse,” Su Chen said. “If anyone accidentally stumbles into the region inhabited by these microscopic organisms, those people will be attacked. Even if they discover that something is off and cut it off immediately, even the tiniest amount that gets into them will slowly grow until they inevitably die of the curse. All that happens is that they delay the inevitable, I suppose.”

“But the lifeforms and natives in the West River Forest affected by these things,” Iron Cliff noted.

“That’s right.” Su Chen smiled slightly. “This is what I’m interested in too. They definitely can’t use the way I deal with it. I just don’t know what alternative they would use to fight back against it.”

“No matter what it is, we’ll see for ourselves if we keep going,” Iron Cliff said.

Su Chen laughed, “That’s exactly right! Let’s go.”

As he spoke, he waved his arm. The red patch of skin he had ripped off from his palm went right into a beaker, along with a piece of beast meat. He had officially begun to study and cultivate these microscopic organisms.

After taking care of this, the two continued to advance deeper into the forest.

Even though these extremely strange and sinister microscopic organisms inhabited this forest, nature had found a way to propagate, and many Vicious Beasts still populated the forest. The abundance of food allowed the beasts to grow and reproduce rapidly, which in turn positively reinforced the cycle. As such, this place was also rich in natural resources.

The whole way, Su Chen and Iron Cliff constantly hunted any Vicious Beasts they encountered and harvested any resources they came across. As they progressed deeper into the forest, the beasts they encountered also grew stronger and stronger. They gradually advanced from low-tier Vicious Beasts to mid-tier, and then eventually to high-tier and even top-tier Vicious Beasts.

Su Chen only ran into a single top-tier Vicious Beast.

It was a Buried Armor Beast. Even though it didn’t have as much brute strength as the Clay Giant, it was still an incredibly difficult opponent to deal with. Thankfully, Su Chen wasn’t the same either. After a pretty intense battle, he was able to defeat it.

The meat of a Buried Armor Beast wasn’t worth much, but the single horn on its head was quite a rare treasure. The massive horn was like a curved sword. A Buried Armor Beast had the innate ability to charge through a person’s defenses; as long as it infused Origin Energy into its horn, it was comparable in strength to a decent Origin Tool.

Iron Cliff picked up the horn and waved it around in his hands a few time. It whistled through the air sharply, so he decided to treat it as an Origin Tool. The Black Streak Battle Blade’s side effect was too big to ignore, and it was time to get rid of it.

Iron Cliff took point as he advanced spiritedly, carrying the massive horn-blade on his back.

As they were advancing, they suddenly saw some movement in front of them.

Iron Cliff stopped moving and carefully pulled the horn blade off his back, staring intently in front of him. He was just about to attack when he suddenly saw a few people step out from the trees in front of them.