Chapter 57 - Handful Bandits Continued

"Hmm? Something is wrong with him. The body proportions are all wrong.." Hao Xuan mumbled the second he saw the hooded figure.

*CRASH*

The figure which was sprinting away at the speed of a bullet suddenly stopped dead in its tracks, leaving a five-meter-long trail of destruction in the wake.

"What the fuck, did he hear me?" Hao Xuan thought and put his right hand over his mouth so as not to make any other sounds accidentally and backed up into the cave. The figure was more than four hundred meters away from, how could he still hear Hao Xuan 'mumble' through all the rain?

He must be a high-level expert!

"Shit shit, where is it!" he rummaged through the contents of the storage ring and took out a mini illusion plate and threw it towards the entrance of the cave. It activated within a second and covered the entire front area making it look like the inside of the cave was empty.

The figure slowly backtracked until he saw the cave. He walked up to the cave entrance which was nowhere big enough to allow his massive body to enter. So he bent down and peered inside.

"What the fuck!" Hao Xuan was thoroughly surprised. The hooded figure was a man with dark brown skin.

It wasn't your normal brown but mud-brown and if he was standing near a swamp or something similar, then he might as well be invisible. It looked like he was sculpted out of clay and almost looked like a puppet, but something told Hao Xuan that he was just as alive as him, if not more so.

What Hao Xuan wasn't aware of was that this was a special body type. There were many races in the universe that had special body types from birth.

For example, due to living in the forests and jungles since time immemorial, the so-called "Wood Elves" where born with bodies that had a natural affinity with water, earth, and wood. This made them exceptional healers and was one of the reasons they had lifespans of several thousand years.

There were also golems, different types of giants etc. The man in front of Hao Xuan had a minor earthen body with another bloodline mixed in.

This gave him and everyone like him extremely sturdy physical bodies and a huge amount of raw power. They were basically walking tanks and made exemplary bodyguards as well.

The man looked inside but saw nothing. Hao Xuan was simply holding his breath with his hands over his mouth trying not to make any sounds. Which was kind of redundant since the formation would block everything anyway.

The man frowned when he saw the empty cave. There was absolutely nothing there but he was sure he had heard someone talk. He stretched out his massive arm which was bigger than Hao Xuan's leg and tried to touch the ground further in, but just as he was about to touch it, his ears twitched, he turned his head and looked in the direction he was heading to at the beginning and ran out again.

"Pheeew," Hao Xuan finally breathed out about 20 seconds after his departure.

"Thank god there was something else to grab his attention." He waited about fifteen more minutes just to be sure and then slowly made his way back to the siblings.

***

"Lieutenant, I doubt we will be able to find the captain in this rain. Wouldn't it be better if we took cover for a little while? just until the sun comes up, which shouldn't be too long now," Jin Wang said with a raised hand.

"Fine. The chances of us finding him in this situation are already slim. We will make camp for a few hours here," Kuo said after thinking about it for a while. The small party of seven found an abandoned cave and set up their tents.

Kuo took the first watch himself and sat near the entrance with crossed legs, meditating. An hour went by when he was awoken by a noise.

*CRUNCH*

There was an extremely loud sound of a tree breaking not far from the cave. It was still raining heavily and was really dark. This wasn't your run of the mill darkness. With Kuo's realm he would be able to see things from almost a mile away but here, he was just the same as everyone else.

This was because of the copious amounts of spiritual energy in the jungle. It hindered their senses and movement, basically, anything that required Qi would be severely affected here.

He squinted his eyes trying to make out anything in the darkness but there was nothing visible.

*AUUUUUUUUUUUH*

A horrendous noise sounded just a few hundred meters away from the cave followed by the sound of big footsteps.

Kuo stood up and took out his weapon.

*SPLAASH*

Several trees broke and a beast that looked like a mudfish with short legs dawdled past the cave's entrance as fast as it could. This was a normal brute beast that lived near rivers and preyed on smaller beasts.

It was only about 3 meter in width and 8-10 meters in length. Not really a threat to anyone.

*THUMP*THUMP*THUMP*

A few seconds later a massive shadow came out of the darkness. It was more than 20 meters tall with small wings on the side. Its head looked like a mix between a pigeon and a chicken and its body was that of a T.Rex. It stopped and looked at Kuo dead in the eyes. Kuo didn't make a move and stood completely still. The beast turned its head and ran after the mudfish once again without giving him and the party a second thought. These ants were too small anyway. The fat fish would make a much better meal.

Kuo's expression didn't change from the beginning. There weren't a lot of things that could pose a threat to him here. He sat back down and continued listening to the mudfish's screams as it got devoured alive.

*ROAAAAA-*

The T.Rex like beast let out a massive roar but stopped in the middle, catching his attention once again.

*Achhhh*

It sounded like it was being chocked alive.

"Hmm? That's strange...."