Chapter 5: The Utterly Strange Northern Reaches of the Continent

Three days later, Dysia arrived in Li Bin's territory with three vampire castles and a great stock of supplies. When he saw the troops Li Bin had prepared to take with him, he understood what Li Bin meant.

He said gravely, "Li Bin, rest assured. While you are away on campaign, I will guarantee the safety of your territory."

Li Bin smiled. "Then I will leave everything in your hands. While I am gone, you can go take a look at that sacred land. This is the map..."

"No need," Dysia said solemnly. "When you return, we will go together. Besides, these few things are a gift for you..."

"There is no need for that either. After all, I am doing this for myself as well," Li Bin said, shaking his head. "I checked the map. That Great Alliance of Leaves Everywhere has already begun closing in on my territory."

Dysia understood the situation. Without another word, he escorted Li Bin onto one of the vampire castles, then gave the order, "Yilisi, keep your forces here. If anyone dares attack this land, wipe them out. Then send word to Quka to march toward the Great Alliance of Leaves Everywhere and prepare for total war."

Seeing the stern look on Dysia's face, Yilisi knew that his mind was made up and could only agree. Thus, the war between Dysia's territory and the Great Alliance of Leaves Everywhere began one step ahead of Li Bin.

For the sake of safety, the three vampire castles carried Li Bin on a great detour before finally setting him and his party down at the far north of the continent.

This was the place where the Great Alliance of Leaves Everywhere had first developed, so Li Bin could gain a very direct understanding of its situation.

The moment he set foot here, his first feeling was that everything around him was green. His second was that the surroundings were filled with a vitality that made him uneasy.

It was not that a place overflowing with life was a bad thing. But when that life was too intense, it became unsettling. Anyone would feel that something was wrong if trees as tall as thirty-odd meters grew on gravel, on snow, and even on the surface of little rivers, while every road was covered with grass more than three inches high.

Li Bin spent a full day walking through this place more frightening than a jungle, yet he had only managed to cover a little over thirty miles. That was far behind his former pace of more than a hundred kilometers a day.

Fortunately, the Amazon Jungle Hunters were fairly familiar with such an overgrown forest. They kept sending back reports from the front, which kept Li Bin and the others from losing their way in the dense sea of trees.

This situation continued for two days before it gradually improved. In an area where the trees were not so thick, Li Bin found a small village.

By then, Wine Barrel, who belonged to the nature system, was able to play his proper role. Carrying two large barrels of wine, he walked straight into the village.

Half an hour later, Wine Barrel staggered back. The first thing he said to Li Bin was not about the village's condition, but, "The wine in this village is pretty good."

Only afterward, still drunk, did Wine Barrel speak haltingly about the village's situation. It was a level-three public village of the mechanized system, but under the influence of the Great Alliance of Leaves Everywhere's forest-clothing plan, the whole place was now in a very poor state.

The Great Alliance of Leaves Everywhere simply did not care about villages outside the nature system. Many roads leading to the mines had been blocked by layers upon layers of forest, and the number of players and heroes developing here had dwindled more and more.

At present, only a few players and heroes remained in the village, either because they truly had nowhere else to go or because they had some hidden agenda. But from their attitude, Wine Barrel could tell that nature-system players and heroes were unwelcome here.

Hearing this, Li Bin exchanged a look with Shen Ling. Soon, Shen Ling had walked around the village once and returned with the information on the players and heroes living there.

Bai Lingyu, male, VIP player, construct-beast engineer, level 4/5, mechanized-system hero, warrior type. He had long blue-green hair, a boyish face, a spiral horn like a unicorn's on his forehead, very fair skin, and a pair of retractable mechanical glider wings and thrusters on his back. His hands could turn into claws, and he carried a three-charge special weapon.

He had driven here in a dragon-serpent long car, but because he lacked the special lubricant used by the mechanized system, he could not leave. Since he was merely an ordinary VIP player with limited funds, he had no choice but to remain trapped here.

Cui Site, male, a fan of the legendary novel's Third Master Cui. He even liked to make his appearance and his name resemble that Third Master Cui. He had come here in search of a suitable dwarf partner for the Mithril Four Heroes team, but had ended up trapped inside and unable to get out for the time being.

And then there was the elf hanging behind Shen Ling. According to the elf bounty hunter Almu's own account, he was a celebrity from a nearby elf forest and had come to enlighten the other races.

But Shen Ling's report said he was the love saint of the elf forest, having been involved with two-thirds of the women there, and that he had been exiled for it.

Looking at Almu's face, Li Bin was naturally more inclined to believe Shen Ling's version of events when faced with such two utterly different accounts. He said bluntly to Almu, "I do not believe your story, and I do not believe in nature-system people."

Instead of taking offense, Almu smiled. "Good that you do not believe it. Come inside with me. But that dwarf under your command cannot hold his liquor. You had better let him sober up before bringing him in."

Li Bin only smiled and said nothing. He ordered his troops to make camp outside the city, then entered the city with several of his heroes.

Only after going inside did Li Bin realize that the little village had been transformed. The mechanized style of architecture had originally been mostly polar or desert in flavor, but now the whole settlement had somehow taken on the wooded appearance of the nature system.

The fountain before the town hall could no longer produce the spiritual machinery energy required by the mechanized system. Instead, it was covered in bizarre vines.

After letting Li Bin into the town hall, the other two trapped players also came out. As soon as they saw Li Bin, they introduced themselves, and then Bai Lingyu said, "Brother Li, from the look of you, you do not seem to have just come out of the beginner continent. How did you end up here?"

Li Bin gave a wry smile. "I came for my own territory."

"What? Brother Li, is your territory also caught in this forest catastrophe?" Bai Lingyu asked excitedly.

"Forest catastrophe? Is that what you call this forest-clothing plan?"

"What forest-clothing plan? They are just planting trees, but they have even sealed off the roads. Originally I could still get some fuel and take everyone away, but you saw it yourself, even the fountain cannot be used anymore. What kind of nonsense is this?" Bai Lingyu said, looking deeply dissatisfied. "If I ever get out of here, I will definitely track down the leader of the Great Alliance of Leaves Everywhere and send someone to cause him trouble."