Chapter 146: Rainforest Vines

The Mayor Pig treated Caesar Pig with such flattering servility not only because Caesar Pig was the savior pig in his own right, but likely also because the Piggy King held the prophesied pig warrior in very high regard.

If the King did not care, it would never have distributed the prophetic journals to every city in the first place...

Qin Fei deduced that the Piggy King, or perhaps other pigs in its inner circle, likely possessed some kind of prophet-like ability to foresee future events.

Perhaps even the journal in the Fishermen's Village and the murals in the secret chamber had been left behind by that very pig.

As long as Qin Fei could meet it, the quest regarding the Cataclysm contained within the rhombus crystal should be completed much more smoothly.

Qin Fei learned from the Mayor Pig that there were two routes leading to the Piggy King's capital.

The first was the water route, which involved taking a boat across the strait connecting Porkpolis and the royal capital, leading directly to the destination.

However, it was currently the dense fog season.

Sailing on the sea during the fog season meant occasionally encountering terrifying monsters... Therefore, during this period, generally no boatman was willing to venture out to sea.

The second route was through a temple located deep within the rainforest.

This temple was built underground and was full of crisscrossing passages. Passing through the temple allowed one to directly cross the strait and emerge in a rainforest near the royal capital...

After obtaining the precise location of the temple from the Mayor Pig, Qin Fei, Xie Nainai, and Caesar Pig prepared to set off from Porkpolis and head toward the temple.

Seemingly to curry favor with Caesar Pig, before it left, the Mayor Pig presented it with a bag of gold coins.

Inside were a total of 50 Gold Oink Coins. Calculated according to the Piggy Kingdom's currency exchange rate, one Gold Oink Coin was equivalent to 10 ordinary Oink Coins.

Fifty gold coins were thus equal to 500 ordinary Oink Coins.

This was actually quite a substantial sum of money. One had to know that inside a pig city, the price of a house was only fifty Oink Coins.

Not only that, the Mayor Pig kept insisting on gifting Caesar Pig a black suit, though it politely declined.

With this wealth, Caesar Pig, along with Qin Fei and Xie Nainai, ate and drank to their hearts' content in Porkpolis for another two days.

It traded all the gold coins for delicious food.

Having spent all the gold coins, the two humans and two pigs left Porkpolis.

Even as they stepped out of the city gates, Caesar Pig was still wearing its signature grass skirt... It followed behind Big Nose, entering the rainforest alongside Qin Fei and Xie Nainai.

[Cataclysm Countdown: 57 Days!]

The temple was located deep within the rainforest, and it was impossible to reach it within a single day.

The group journeyed through the rainforest for the entire day.

Seeing that night was approaching, Qin Fei found a large tree and gathered some firewood, intending to build a fire and spend the night right here.

After lighting the campfire, Qin Fei tossed the frog meat by the flames to roast.

……

"Eating frog meat again... I feel like throwing up just looking at it now!"

Xie Nainai stuck out her tongue and made a disgusted, gagging expression.

"You think I want to eat this?" Qin Fei took out a small pouch of salt and sprinkled a few grains over the frog meat.

Ever since they had slain the Toad King underground, Qin Fei and Xie Nainai had acquired a massive amount of frog meat.

For some time afterward, roasted frog meat had become their primary source of food.

Having eaten frog meat for so long, aside from Caesar Pig—that creature who thought everything tasted delicious—even Qin Fei had grown thoroughly sick of it.

It was so much better when they were living in Porkpolis... Qin Fei felt a pang of nostalgia.

After seasoning the frog meat with salt, Qin Fei leaned back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes.

"You keep watch first, I'm going to take a nap!"

Qin Fei was genuinely exhausted at this moment, and before long, he drifted off into a heavy sleep. In his dreams, Qin Fei felt as though some kind of elongated creature was slithering against his back.

A snake?!

This strange sensation made Qin Fei spring up from the ground like a coiled spring.

He spun around to look behind him.

To his shock, countless vines had emerged from out of nowhere near the campfire and were rapidly surging toward the group!

There was something wrong with these trees!

Qin Fei immediately looked up to inspect the large trees surrounding them.

The sudden influx of vines was dangling down directly from these massive trees!

These trees... seemed to be alive!

Moreover, by the looks of it, they must have regarded Qin Fei and his companions as their prey.

The vines moved at an incredible speed, and their numbers were staggering; the mass of vines rushing toward Qin Fei and Xie Nainai numbered at least in the hundreds.

With such a dense network of vines, no matter how fast Qin Fei's reflexes were or how agile his movements, evasion was utterly impossible.

"Quick, turn into a shadow!"

Qin Fei roared at Xie Nainai.

The very instant the vines coiled around Qin Fei, even before they could tighten, his entire body transformed into a wisp of black shadow, drifting right through the bindings.

In his shadow form, nothing could trap Qin Fei.

At the same time, Xie Nainai utilized the exact same skill to escape from the encirclement of vines.

However, Big Nose and Caesar Pig were unable to get away.

Once the vines ensnared the two of them, they began rapidly pulling upward, and soon, both pig heads were hoisted high into the air by the vines.

Seeing this, Qin Fei frowned.

These two fellows were going to be troublesome to rescue... While his shadow form was extremely practical for defense, it possessed almost zero offensive capability.

Chop the trees down directly?

Impossible.

Putting aside the sheer hardness of these trees, under the obstruction of so many vines, he would have to maintain his shadow form at every single second.

Otherwise, he would be instantly crushed and shredded by the vines.

Yet Qin Fei in his shadow form could not touch any physical objects around him, let alone pick up tools to chop down an entire tree.

Just slash the vines directly?

That wouldn't work either.

The sheer quantity of these vines was overwhelming; just dealing with the hundreds already present would take an unknown amount of time.

And this was likely only a small fraction of them.

As the vines aloft gradually tightened, Caesar Pig and Big Nose had blue veins bulging on their faces, which had turned completely red from suffocation.

Unable to find a way to deal with the vines, a thought of fleeing crossed Qin Fei's mind.

Although Qin Fei desperately wanted to save their lives, the prerequisite for saving the pigs was that his own life must not be threatened.

If this dragged on any longer, not only would he fail to find a method to save them, but Qin Fei's own stamina might be completely exhausted from maintaining the shadow form for too long.

By then, forget saving the pigs—Qin Fei himself stood a high chance of dying right here.

Were they really forced to abandon these two fellows...?

Just as Qin Fei intended to make a run for it with Xie Nainai, he noticed a very intriguing detail: the dense mass of surrounding vines seemed to be consciously avoiding the campfire on the ground!

Were these vines afraid of fire...?

Qin Fei had previously considered using fire to burn these trees.

Setting aside the naturally damp environment of the rainforest, even in a dry climate, these massive trees with diameters spanning several meters could not be ignited in a short period of time.

But now, the situation was different.

The way the vines recoiled from the flames indicated that they were indeed afraid of fire.

Furthermore, this fear was likely a stress response—in plain terms, an instinct.

As long as they got close to fire, the vines would pull back.

Leveraging this weakness, although they couldn't burn the trees down, using fire to drive the vines away and rescue those two pig heads was entirely feasible!