The Avalon Of Five Elements

Ai Hui sprinted forward.

Behind him, a shrub filled with red fruits pursued relentlessly.

Granary? How naive of him and how embarrassing. Arrogantly thinking that his spirit sword would allow him to kill as he pleased, Ai Hui ended up getting humbled by all sorts of weird plants.

These plants were growing increasingly bizarre and beyond his imagination, just like the shrub that was giving chase.

When Ai Hui first laid eyes on the shrub, he had been attracted by the bright, alluring fruits. They were plump and carried an exotic fragrance.

But...

While sprinting, Ai Hui had a sudden hunch and leaped to the side. A red fruit brushed past his face with unimaginable power, producing an intense airflow that hurt his face.

Boom!

A bright orange flame rose as that fruit explosively hit the ground. The surging shockwave made Ai Hui feel like a small boat amid a rainstorm. He was almost unable to steady himself.

Ai Hui had used his spirit sword to block the fruit when he first saw it, but that resulted in him being blasted 200 meters backward together with his sword. Smoke rose from his body as if he was a coal miner. The vigor within his sword was damaged as well, leaving it looking much dimmer.

Despite his suffering, Ai Hui took to his heels without a word. Soon after, he detected movement behind him, and when he turned back, he received the shock of his life.

The shrub had uprooted from the ground and was giving chase. Its roots wiggled nimbly like spider and centipede legs. Unable to fly, Ai Hui could only consecutively change directions, but even then, he simply couldn’t get rid of the shrub.

"Is that really a plant?" Ai Hui cursed inwardly. "Can’t it just stay in a place and act like one?"

It seemed that the shrub bomb had no intention of giving up.

The wind howled behind him once more.

Eye twitching, he shouted, "Swords!"

The swords circling around Ai Hui swiftly appeared before him. They opened up in sequence like a pontoon bridge. He bent his body slightly and leaped onto the "bridge," stepping on the bodies of the sword blades like an agile leopard. He borrowed this momentum and started running wildly.

Boom, boom, boom!

His earlier position had been enveloped by orange flames, and he only felt a powerful gush pushing him forward. Instead of resisting, he made use of it to advance forward.

Whoosh! He managed to increase the distance between the shrub and himself.

He could finally let out a small sigh of relief. The red fruits were alarmingly powerful. Fighting against them would only cause him more problems.

Suddenly, the sky dimmed.

Ai Hui tilted his head upward.

Sss! He involuntarily drew a deep breath.

A green cloud was floating toward him. It covered the sky and cast a huge shadow.

An indescribable sense of danger burgeoned within him. At the same time, the swords around him were buzzing and vibrating, displaying a huge warning sign. Without hesitation, Ai Hui squatted and sprung forward like an arrow shooting from its bow.

Overhead, the green cloud layer started to descend, its shadow becoming increasingly dense. Ai Hui could clearly feel a sense of danger so overwhelming that his heart was about to jump out of his chest. The descent of the cloud did not slow down. It only appeared this way due to its massive size.

Boom, boom, boom!

A series of explosions echoed. Ai Hui did not dare to look back. Instead, he lowered his head and focused on dashing outward, which was a wise decision on his part.

If he could see what was behind him, he would agree.

As the green cloud layer floated toward Ai Hui, even the shrub could detect the danger. It shifted its roots instantly and charged back to its nest.

The green cloud layer was less than 60 meters away from the ground at this point.

Like an endless wall, it gradually pressed closer to the ground as if it was about to flatten everything into a pancake.

The shrub stopped escaping. Its roots were trembling uncontrollably. The red fruits started detaching and launching themselves toward the cloud like raindrops.

Boom, boom, boom!

Balls of orange lights flashed. The intensity of the blasts produced shockwaves that worsened the conditions of the narrow space and threw the shrub a few hundred meters away.

Bubbles started bulging above the cloud layer. The boundless green cloud was like a soft, yet durable piece of rubber.

The cloud layer continued descending. Feeling it almost touch his head, Ai Hui had no choice but to bend his head down a little.

His surroundings were completely black by now, and he could only locate a small wisp of light in front.

There was not much time left!

Ai Hui inhaled a huge breath. He raised his index and middle fingers, but kept the rest curled. Upon this activation, the spirit swords around him lit up. They gathered before him like an opened umbrella, their tips facing forward.

This eight-sword umbrella turned brighter before folding up.

In that instant, Ai Hui used both palms to grab ahold of the sword hilt.

A light speck lit up amid the darkness.

Sss! As gentle as a breeze, it flashed by like a meteor and stuck itself onto the ground before drilling toward the narrow light gap.

Faint sword rays could be seen swiftly flying out from beneath the thick cloud layer.

Ai Hui could feel his surroundings brighten. He had managed to escape the cloud!

Chi, chi, chi! The sword rays plowed into the ground, leaving a deep and pencil-straight pit behind Ai Hui that only ended after about 1.5 kilometers. Ai Hui felt heavy-headed, but his knees were wobbly.

When he regained his senses and turned back, he saw an enormous sheet of green sea. He couldn’t catch sight of where it ended. If he hadn’t witnessed its descent, Ai Hui would’ve believed it to be a sea of grassland.

He inched closer, only to realize that it wasn’t grass, but a kind of grassy algae. They looked soft and frail, were as fine as hair, and were all tangled. Because they were over 300 meters thick, the scene became a eerie sight.

Above the flat green sea were bulges of different sizes. Ai Hui could see something wiggling and struggling within them and guessed that they were plants that had failed to escape.

Waves of aquatic grasses rose one after another, sweeping toward the bulges.

Even with Ai Hui’s rich knowledge and experience, the scene before him made his blood run cold.

The shrub that had terrorized him had also failed to escape the cloud’s wrath. In fact, as far as Ai Hui could tell, there wasn’t a single living being that had managed to flee.

Gradually, the waves calmed and the sea of algae returned to its carpeted form, leaving no creases.

Throughout the whole process, Ai Hui hadn’t made any excessive movements. He knew very well that the massive thing before him wasn’t something he could handle. At least within this strange world, this thing was at the top of the food chain.

The quiet aquatic grasses started lifting off the surface of the ground and floated up toward the sky.

Once high above, it started closing up. A short while later, it turned into a green mountain peak that drifted in midair. It continued ascending until it eventually became an unnoticeable black dot.

Having seen this whole event, Ai Hui was determined to be extra careful when it came to dangers from the sky.

Later on, this would prove to be a wise decision.

During a blue snowfall that occurred some time later, Ai Hui observed how the aquatic grasses spread open to intercept snow flowers that fell within a few hundred hectares from its location.

Ai Hui no longer dared to be mindless.

Perhaps it was because of his increased vigilance, but he could faintly feel a thread of consciousness from high, high above that was paying attention to him.

How powerful was it really?

He wanted to go up to see for himself. It was a pity that he wasn’t able to fly.

When he first woke up in this place, or rather the edge of this world, it was completely desolate. Now that he was advancing toward the center, he could feel an omnipresent pressure.

He felt as though he was underwater.

This invisible pressure made Ai Hui feel strained. Not only was he unable to fly, everything that he did required more energy. He had to constantly strengthen his spirit swords in order to adapt to the gradually increasing pressure.

Whenever he started to feel strained, he would suitably retreat and seek out weaker plants to fortify his abilities.

He had 16 spirit swords at this point, a major leap in his eyes.

However, the plants he was exposed to became increasingly powerful and dangerous as well.

Addressing his enemies as plants was merely a habit. Despite looking like plants, these strange organisms acted more like dangerous predatory animals.

At this point, practically all the plants Ai Hui met could move of their own free will.

The mental pressure he felt was no weaker than the physical one that he was subjected to.

He could be a predator, but also a prey. He needed to be alert at all times. Fortunately, keeping focus was his forte. Sometimes, he would have the illusion that he was back in the Wilderness and slogging hard.

The unknowns were all dangerous.

He carefully kept the remains on the ground. This thistle had exhausted a significant amount of his energy. On it were dense, gleaming blue spikes, and Ai Hui could occasionally spot fine lightning arcs above them.

Ai Hui was extremely interested in this plant since it was his first time seeing a plant that could generate electricity.

One of his spirit swords moved closer to the spikes.

Zap! A fine electric arc struck the sword. Ai Hui felt a slight numbness, but continued to observe and experience.

Shortly after, he used another spirit sword to experiment while remaining deep in thought.

He then made a bold move by placing his finger straight onto the spikes.

Whoosh !

A dazzling electric arc lit up. Like a slithering snake, it coiled around Ai Hui’s finger and entered his body. The thistle that once possessed an almost undetectable breath became lively and rolled toward Ai Hui. The spikes on it flashed with fatal light rays.

Just then, an even more dazzling electric arc spurted out from between Ai Hui’s fingers to strike the thistle.

The perky thistle became stiff as countless electric arcs started refracting and swimming along the blue spikes, causing them to explode.

Unknowingly, Ai Hui’s eyes were shrouded by a layer of dense electric arcs. He looked effortlessly intimidating.

His sword rays interlaced, and the thistle snapped into sections.

The spirit swords floating around him were now coated with dense lighting arcs.