Lucas who was keeping the night watch at the moment was stayed awake and was fully alerted when he suddenly heard some rustling sound of leaves which was different from the sound of leaves made by the blowing of the breeze.
Lucas made a flame torch and walked outside the cave. In the chaotic forest where darkness thrived, the flame lighted the area.
Lucas frowned and his pupil shrank when he saw black trees branched wriggling around slowly making their way.
All the tree leaves were withered and their trunk had been rotten. Their brown branches are dyed in pitch black and what more frightening was that they were slowly extending their branches and were slowly crawling on the ground, heading towards the cave.
"Are they responding to the light?" Lucas spoke taking a deep heavy breath as the sudden flash in his mind.
"Charles," Lucas shouted.
Lucas's loud voice woke him up from sleep and hearing Lucas's voice, he panicked and ran outside.
Seeing the scene outside he almost lost his balance.
"What is this?" Charles asked as he looked at Lucas and notice Lucas's solemn expression.
The trees are bending down on the ground and the branches are crawling slowly which looked as if they are extending their hands to engulf the prey.
Lucas tried to remain calm but in truth, he was really frightened and his back was already drenched in sweat.
He can only think of one thing seeing the monstrous trees before him.
Seed of darkness.
It had a wide range of effects and one of its effects was to turn trees into monsters known as treants.
It is a seed that is full of negative mana and when planted it corrupts the area around it and turns trees into leaving monsters. Moreover, it only shows its effect at night.
It can even corrupt the monsters.
There were even some guesses made in the novel that it corrupts and taints one soul.
If it is planted in a forest. It will be normal during the day but at night time it will turn these trees into mindless monsters. These trees will trap leaving beings and pull them into their trunk and absorb their mana.
Living beings become nutrition for them. Moreover, they react to light.
"Charles make a wall in front of the opening. Let's close the mouth of the cave for now." Lucas spoke and extinguished the fire.
Charles nodded and placed his hand on the ground and a wall of mud extended from the ground and closed the cave.
With Charles's ability fortunately they were able to seal the entrance. Lucas even asked him to fortify it with several walls covering it.
Lucas massaged his forehead.
This time he felt that the situation had taken the worst possible turn, it could take.
Cause this was not the work of Demons or Villain Society.
The seed of darkness is used by the Darkness Cult and the most frustrating thing about them was, his knowledge of them was close to none.
Villain Society and Demon goals were quite clearly described in the novel but the Darkness Cult goals were unknown.
'Maybe because they were saved for the later part of the story .'Lucas muttered inwardly.
Lucas only knew that they worship some evil god or something and generally don't attack humans.
They were just focused on increasing their numbers.
The planting of seeds of darkness was their symbol of showing that the land belong to them. Once the seed of darkness had completely turned the entire into its periphery. They will make a base in that area.
The seed of darkness can corrupt the entire forest like a miasma. The forest that had been corrupted by this method was often named as Forest of Darkness where creatures of Dark thrives.
Moreover, there was nothing much mentioned about how the seed of darkness originates and what it looks like.
'Damned.' Lucas cursed inwardly cause he didn't know how much part of the forest had been tainted.
"What was that?" Charles asked Lucas curiously seeing his worried expression.
He was getting goosebumps all over his body as remembered the scene he saw outside.
"I don't know. It's just, I feel threatened when I saw those creeping trees." Lucas answered casually without looking at Charles.
He was in a pinch contemplating whether to run away now or wait for the sunrise.
In the day everything will become normal but if they caught the eyes of the people of the Darkness Cult while escaping, they will surely be doomed.
Just as Lucas was immersed in deep thoughts, a blue light glowed in Charles's pocket.
Lucas's brows furrowed seeing the light. He had already guessed what it is but he didn't think it will with Charles now, as if the thing was already with Charles then wouldn't he already been saved.
Charles's eyes full of worry suddenly lit up and hurriedly took out a small pendant from the pocket which are emitting blue light.
Looking at the blue light, he finally breathed an air of relief and looked up to see Lucas looking at the pendant he held curiously.
Noticing Lucas's gaze, he explained "This an artefact, if I activate this. My father will know that I have been trapped somewhere in a life and death situation. But I don't know why it wasn't working before but the glowing blue light indicates that father had got the signal and the reinforcements should be on their way."
Lucas nodded. Due to Charles, he got another trump card.
The thing he needed to do now was now to remain calm and think about how to proceed from here on.
"Charles, let's get out of here now," Lucas spoke with a solemn expression.
"Why? Isn't it better to stay here and wait for my father knights to come for rescue after all the inside is much safer than outside?" Charles frowned as he spoke.
Lucas didn't speak muck and lifting the fire torch pointed his finger at the side of the wall.
Charles twitched as he saw the branches of the black trees wriggling by slowly breaking the walls of the cave.
"If we hole up here then the trees would surround us from all sides and break through the walls of the cave. The wall of caves is made up of normal stones and rocks. They won't last till morning. This cave will be our deathbed." Lucas explained as he stood up from the seat.
If they walked carefully hiding their trails it would be difficult for the trees to find them. After all the trees don't have eyes or sense organs. They can only rely on external stimuli to find a living being.
Moreover, the fire element is their nemesis. They respond to the fire at night as they can feel the warmth of the fire like the thermal signals that the human body emits so they are confused in front of the fire.
"Charles can you use your earth ability to open the other side of the cave. Just do a small hole big enough for us to pass." Lucas spoke.
Charles and nodded manipulated the earth's ability. A small hole started to appear and started to enlarge until it was big enough for them to pass through.
Lucas and Charles both looked at each other and after preparing everything they hopped outside.
After jumping out from the other side of the cave both of them squatted down and scanned their surroundings.
The environment was not much different from the other side.
At least the withered trees nonetheless the trees were silent without much movement.
"Lucas.Hey Lucas." Charles whispered.
"Shhh!."
"Lucas," Charles called again.
"What, we will alert them if we keep talking," Lucas spoke.
"Look at that," Charles spoke as he pointed his finger towards a certain.
"Shit!!!"Lucas cursed as his eyes fell on an oxen beast whose body is shrouded in darkness and his eyes were burning in green flames which were even notable from the distance.
" Is it an undead? Are their necromancers nearby."Lucas muttered.
Necromancers were seen as heretics and as soon as they were found the entire army of the kingdom and paladins from the church will be on its back.
But as he noticed its feature carefully, Lucas noticed that the dark oxen beast feature was quite different from the undead bodies. The body of the dead often have skeleton structures hanging out and their skins were rotten but the beast's skin looks fine.
Moreover, he didn't know whether the seed of darkness could corrupt the dead.
"Did it get infected by the seed of darkness? Is this even possible?" Lucas pondered.
Charles surveyed ahead and thought it was better to move now. The oxen beast was too far from them to notice if they walked with soft feet.
Lucas squinted. He already noticed several shadows moving under the darkness of night and based on their movements and their mana signals, Lucas concluded they were low-level beasts and don't possess any threat.
Both of them moved ahead slowly but steadily taking each step with utmost caution.
"There seems to be a lot of things moving around us," Charles muttered.
Lucas noticed that Charles had calmed down from his frantic behaviour and was being in his usual shape.
The two people continued to climb as the ground of the forest became higher leading towards a small mountain cliff.
"Screech!!"
As they were climbing, Charles accidentally stepped on the tail of a small cat type beast.
The beast emitted a screeching sound and jumped on Charles
Charles didn't panic and swung his sword cutting it into halves. Even if he was able to get rid of it quickly, the shrill cry of the beast didn't go unnoticed.
The beast was able to catch the faint cry and started to gather around us.
Lucas looked at Charles and whispered, "Run!"
It was not a safe place for them to fight moreover trees surrounding them had formed a trap for them so it was better for them to get around an open area where they can fight without any restraint.
