Dragon's Soul Chapter 44: Dead Forest

Zhang's group had set up camp within the forest. Tomorrow would be the fourth day of the tournament so Zhang was sitting in his tent looking at list that was compiled by his men. He had to pick out a target to take a flag from. On the list there were nine names and locations. These were the names of the people who had the nine flags that were found.

"Perhaps I should wait until the last day before making my move." Zhang thought. Making his move too early would do more harm than good. Once he took their flag the previous owner of the flag would definitely go after him. Once a flag was stolen then everyone who did not have a flag would also try to steal one for themselves which would cause lots of chaos.

Although the Demonic forest was not very big it still encompassed a large area of land and was complete with a large river and mountain within it.

The dignitaries had hired many of the participants to join their group using gold.  With large amounts of manpower, they were able to locate flags.

"Odd the spiderlings combed the entire forest today but have yet to locate the final flag." Yuying said while facing Zhang inside their tent.

"Guess so." Ai said as she hopped onto her own bed.

Thanks to being fed essence water since hatching Silky's power was many times stronger than a regular spider queen hatchling. It also seemed that by being near the Underworld Heart affected it also. And since this is was the first time the Underworld Heart appeared in the mortal plane who knows what effect it would have the things around it.

The group's small horde of spiderling roamed the forest hunting prey at an astonishingly fast pace. Individually there were too weak however thanks to their numbers despite their small size the spiderlings were able to hunt pretty much any demonic beast or animal in this forest without suffer any casualties.  

Thanks to the fact that they had just hatched it was easy for her to use her magic to manipulate them. It is easier to break and rebuild something undeveloped compared to something that was. Unlike Silky she did not cast magic on them individually. Yuying had casted her magic on the small horde of spiderlings all at the same time.

Tonight the moon was out and throughout the forest countless animals were being hunted down. However, in the morning when the people wake up there wouldn't be a trace of these animals.

In the morning when everyone woke up there was an eerie silence looming over the forest. At night all of the animals had been driven very deep into the forest by the spiderlings.

"Wonder where they are." He murmured as he got up from bed and began getting dressed. Once he was fully clothed Zhang walked outside of his tent to find that it was almost empty. Besides for a few people the rest were gone.

"My lord a hot spring was discovered in the mountains and the madams wanted to go there to bathe. They did not wish to wake you my lord so they headed off by themselves. However, how could we let the three madams go into the mountains alone? So we large number of our men went to guard them." The soldier replied.

"My thanks my lord. The madams and the other men headed in that direction." The soldier said as he pointed Zhang to where everyone went.

"No need I will be fine by myself. You guys may rest for the remainder of the day." Zhang replied as he began walking in the direction the soldier had pointed to.

"My Lord!" One soldier said the moment he saw Zhang and got up to salute.

"Where are they?" Zhang asked.

"Ok once you finish eating you can all return to the camp and rest for the remainder of the day." Zhang said.

After talking to the soldiers Zhang slowly began walking into underbrush. He stealthily maneuvered himself through until the hot springs was in sight. Puffs of steam can be seen rising from the water and into the air.

With his attention elsewhere Zhang kept walking and eventually stumbled on a rock and fell into the hot spring fully clothed.

"Wait wait! It's me!" Zhang yelled as his head popped out of the water.

"Yo-you look away!" Yuying, Ai and Ling yelled in unison.

"It's not like there's nothing I haven't seen before." Zhang murmur.

"No-nothing." Zhang replied as he began taking off his wet clothes.

"Changing out of these wet clothes of course." Zhang replied while in his hand a pair of dry clothes appeared.

After putting on his clothes Zhang found a nice looking tree and sat down under it facing the opposite direction of the hot spring.

However, sounds of people getting out of water could be heard. A short while later Yuying, Ai, and Ling came to the tree Zhang was sitting under and sat beside him.

"Yea there better be no next time brother!" Ai said as she sat down in his lap.

Anyone who happened to pass by and see this scene would most likely turn green from envy. Perhaps if an artist was able to capture this scene he might even be able to sell it for a lot of gold. Many men would want to buy the painting and imagine that the young man in the painting was them.

Soon a hissing sound could be heard from the top of the tree and when they looked up they could see Silky dropping down from above. It was dropping down as it hung from a single strand of thread. Its target was the top of Yuying's head.

The group proceeded to hang out by the hot springs for the next few hours. Ling enjoyed this very much being the first time she was able to have quality time with Zhang after three years since his disappearance.

After a while the group headed back to camp to find something to eat. They were in no rush to get a golden flag so as everyone else frantically searched they would leisurely do nothing at camp. Tomorrow would be the last day of the tournament and the king will arrive to initiate the second part of the tournament.

Some asked to be picked by him to enter the seconds stage while others asked to buy the flag off of him. This particular person was only a simple farmer who had joined the tournament to get a shot at possibly being selected for the second stage and getting some gold.

So far only people with a lot of influence and manpower have been able to obtain a flag which meant that this mean was very lucky.

"One hundred? I'll give you one thousand!" Another man yelled.

"I will give you thirty thousand gold coins. I think that will be enough to live out the rest of your life and have enough for the next few generations of your family." Ming Jiang said.

"Deal!" The man who found the flag yelled.

"This means that bastard won't make it to the second stage." Ming Jiang sneered in his mind. He knew who had the previous flags and since he had the last one it meant that Zhang would be left without a flag.

Many people looked at the man's sack of gold with greed but before they could do anything a voice rang out from behind him.

Once they looked back they could see Zhang standing there and alongside him were three very beautiful women.

Although he was not the only poor person present Zhang felt that if he did nothing this man would be killed for no reason and he could not just ignore that. In war everything was fair game. But outside of it he could not just sit by and watch a huge mob gang up on one poor man for his wealth.

"Ah if it isn't the next lord of Aurora." Prince Ming Jiang said with a sneer.

"Ha say what you will but I have the last flag now meaning that you won't have a chance to move forward. How does it feel be to lose?" Ming Jiang replied with a sneer.

Eh was suppose to post this last night but i got sleepy and was like 500 words short from the length i wanted. Maybe 2 more chapters today? Let's see how busy the shop is. Also thoughts O_o ? ??

Chapter end