Chapter 458: Demonic Trees Rampant

Chapter 458: Demonic Trees Rampant
Xie Ling returned to the shore and dried his body and clothes with magic flames.

He didn't wear a watch, so he could only calculate in his mind. He spent nearly an hour at the bottom of the lake. Including the time spent collecting sleepy trees, the competition had probably been going on for an hour and a half.

Eel eyeballs, frog brains, and lionfish spines are all easy to collect; the only thing that is most troublesome is the mucus secreted by water snails.

Water snails are creatures that like to hide under the lake and rarely come out to move. They are one of the most difficult ingredients on the list. Fortunately, Xie Ling found a group of colorful ball fish - ball fish are spherical fish with patterns on their bodies. They have two long legs and webbed feet on their legs. Their favorite food is water snails.

Xie Ling followed them patiently and actually found a small group of water snails. He caught them all and put them into the space in his bag.

"Let me see," Xie Ling took out the list written on waterproof parchment, crossed out the things he had found, and focused his attention on what he could collect in the cave. "Next should be the spleen and wings of the bat. I remember just glancing at the location of the cave from a distance. I should go up the slope... Don't forget to check for these on the way - toad bile, nightshade, African tree snake skin..."

The journey was peaceful, but Xie Ling did not let his guard down. He was sure that no creature could sneak attack him within the range of his divine vision. Suddenly, he stopped and smelled a very strange smell.

"This is... the breath of black magic..." Xielin frowned tightly. Although this breath was very weak and could not be sensed by normal wizards and even ordinary black magic detection methods, Xielin had been studying black magic non-stop for the past month, which made him more sensitive than ordinary people to the breath of black magic.

He looked around carefully, but didn't notice anything unusual, so he ignored it and quickened his pace, trying to buy time to collect all the raw materials as quickly as possible.

……

Alison, Mara, and Rafaela are together again.

Mara stood on the branch of an ancient tree, waving his hands, with a faint magical fluctuation between his palms. His magic power spread out silently, turning into an invisible airflow, driving the fairies flying around in the direction of Alison.

This is a wandless spellcasting technique, and it is very skillful when he performs it, and his control of magic power is very precise. This is no wonder, although in Europe and America, this magic technique is usually difficult to perform, and if the operation is not accurate enough, it is easy to cause unexpected consequences, but in Africa, many wizards are proficient in this technique.

This is because the wand is a European invention and African witches and wizards did not consider it a useful tool until the last century, so in Ouagadou many spells are cast by pointing or gesticulating.

"Here they come!" Mara chuckled, and with a slight flick of her wrist, the fairies seemed to be swept by the wind and rushed towards Alison together.

Alison took a step back and raised her wand. A shrewd look flashed in her clear blue eyes. She murmured, and an invisible wave of magic spread out. The air in front of her seemed to be torn apart, and a huge transparent cage formed out of thin air, trapping all the fairies tightly.

The creatures that were originally flying and playing in the cage flapped their wings and chirped in protest, but they could not escape no matter what.

Mara looked at this scene, raised her chin with satisfaction, crossed her arms, and said with a bit of boasting: "Well now, I have cleared all the fairies nearby, and other contestants will never see even half of them again."

Alison smiled slightly, with a hint of pride in her eyes, while Rafaela raised the corners of her mouth and nodded slightly.

Fairy wings were also an extremely important material on the collection list. A line was even solemnly drawn on the list with a red pen, and there was a mandatory requirement for the quantity - at least ten pairs of wings were needed.

"Then, next should be... the feathers of the Silence Bird - there are Silence Birds living here?" said Mara.

However, the next second——"Everyone be quiet!"

Rafaela's expression suddenly became serious.

Her relaxed expression froze, and her nostrils twitched slightly, as if she was using her keen sense of smell to detect something strange in the air. She frowned, raised her hand and pressed Alison's arm, signaling her to be quiet for a moment.

There was a faint, decayed and strange smell in the air.

Rafaela took a deep breath, a dangerous light flashing in her eyes: "Something is wrong... The smell of this forest has changed."

Alison and Mara looked at each other, a hint of confusion in their eyes.

Rafaela slowly looked around, her black pupils shrinking slightly, like a predator confirming the location of its prey. Her voice became low and serious: "This forest has been cast a spell."

"Cast a spell?" Mara raised an eyebrow. "What kind of magic?"

Rafaela's fingertips lightly traced the air, sensing the almost imperceptible fluctuations of magic. After a moment, she whispered, "It's probably some kind of dark magic that can control the forest."

Her tone was somewhat firm. At the same time, an inexplicable cold wind blew from the depths of the forest. The leaves swayed slightly, as if something was quietly waking up...

"What kind of magic makes you so solemn?" Mara jumped down from the tree. When he was close to the ground, he tapped his palms downwards. An invisible airflow was generated on the ground to support his body and slowly landed on the ground. At this moment, he still had a smiling expression on his face, as if he didn't take Rafaela's words to heart.

"Do you know... uh... what happened in the magical forest on the Siberian plains around the time of the Quidditch World Cup in 1809?" Rafaela said seriously.

"1809? The Siberian Plain?" Alison frowned cutely, revealing a thoughtful expression. After a while, "Ah! I remember--"

Mara looked up at the same time, and they both said in unison, "Killer Forest Attack!"

The Quidditch World Cup in 1809 is a very important part of Quidditch history, and it is also a dark history. It is considered by many magical historians to be the most serious violation of sportsmanship in wizarding history.

The Quidditch World Cup at that time was hosted by Russia in a magically hidden wilderness plain in western Siberia. When the incident occurred, it was already the final of the World Cup, with Romania and New Spain competing against each other.

Before the game, Romanian Beater Niko Nenad secretly found dark wizards operating in Russia, and hired them with money to cast an evil curse on the entire forest next to the plain. Two hours into the game, when the Romanian team showed signs of imminent defeat, Nenad deliberately hit the Bludger into the forest, and the trees came alive. They roared, pulled their roots out of the ground with amazing momentum, and turned into an army of walking giant trees, trampling the Quidditch stadium.

The Quidditch match soon turned into a bloody battle between the human wizards and the giant tree army. The battle lasted for seven hours before humans finally won the final victory with great difficulty, and countless wizards were killed or injured, including Nenad, the instigator.

Later, people began to study what kind of power could transform all the trees in the forest into an iron-blooded army that was not afraid of death. The final result of the research was the ultimate dark magic that was secretly circulated among Russian black wizards. They named it -

"Evil trees are rampant."