Chapter 3159: Sniper
Chapter 3159: Sniper
Date: Unspecified
Time: Unspecified
Location: Myriad Realms, Realm Of True Evil
With my senses sharpened and my Soul Pupils fully activated, I stood on the trunk of the clone I had transformed into a gigantic tree. I had deliberately turned it into bait for the creature that had been capable of moving faster than my thoughts while I was in tree form. If I couldn’t catch the creature through speed, I would force it to reveal the method it was using to attack.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Once again, I felt that familiar sensation of being watched.
This time, however, I was prepared. I had used the elasticity of space to create an invisible spatial trap around the tree. If the creature was somehow capable of bypassing my perception, I wanted the space around its target to betray it.
A loud crunch suddenly tore through the silence.
The next instant, I was spinning through the air alongside what remained of the tree.
I had been wrong about its speed.
My Soul Pupils caught a glimpse of the phenomenon this time. The space around the tree had suddenly distorted, folding inward before breaking through the spatial trap I had created. Something had emerged through that distortion and taken a massive bite out of the tree.
It wasn’t a hit-and-run attack.
It was sniping.
A creature with powerful spatial abilities was eating the tree from several miles away.
I immediately searched for its location and once again detected a faint disturbance in the air. This time, however, it came from a completely different direction than the disturbance from the previous attack.
That made me reconsider what I had been seeing. The disturbance probably wasn’t the creature fleeing after each attack. It was changing positions, likely using its spatial abilities to relocate around its target after every successful snipe.
The distance was too great for my Soul Pupils to examine it properly, but the attack itself told me enough about its physical capabilities. The spatial maw had bitten through the trunk of that gigantic tree with enough force to snap it in half.
Whatever was hiding out there wasn’t small.
Yet my Soul Pupils still couldn’t find it.
A gigantic creature capable of remaining hidden while sniping prey from several miles away. That was a particularly nasty combination. In most ecosystems, a creature that large wouldn’t need stealth or long-range attacks. Its size and strength would already give it enough advantages to dominate its surroundings.
But this wasn’t most ecosystems.
Here, even something enormous had apparently been forced to develop specialized methods of hunting.
I used reconstruction to restore the clone’s tree form and had it return to its previous position. I had it emitting the fragrance of the World Calamity Tree, a scent that very few creatures across the Myriad Realms could resist.
This time, I moved several miles away and remained suspended in the sky, watching the tree through my Soul Pupils. I wanted to observe the spatial phenomenon directly and, if possible, trace it back to its source.
Once again, I felt the familiar predatory gaze, and the attack came almost exactly when I expected.
My eyes caught the tree suddenly snapped in half, followed by the familiar crunch reaching ears.
My Soul Pupils were active and already focused on the surrounding space, they saw everything a naked eye would miss.
The space around the tree molded inward, forming something resembling an enormous pair of pincers or the beak of some gigantic bird. It clamped down on the middle of the trunk and tore through it with frightening precision.
Just as I had expected, it was after the heart of the tree.
A century-old tree would begin developing a core within its body. Some trees formed their cores in their roots, others in their branches, while this particular tree had formed its core inside its trunk. I was certain that this creature could locate the heart of a tree, but the way it did so suggested that its ability was based on experience rather than simply sensing the core directly.
I say that because both my clone and I had previously taken tree forms and moved our cores to the stump of the tree to maximize the senses in the roots of our tree forms. Yet in all three instances, the creature struck directly at the center of the trunk with frightening precision.
That made one thing clear. It could sense the core of a tree, but it didn’t seem to know its exact location instinctively. Instead, it appeared to rely on experience and its knowledge of where a tree’s core was most likely to form.
So the creature wasn’t interested in consuming the entire tree. It was targeting the heart specifically, aiming for the most valuable and nutritious part.
While I was processing that discovery, movement suddenly erupted below.
Multiple branches from the forest began growing toward the clouds.
It stretched upward for miles in what seemed like instant, reaching the remains of the tree almost immediately after the attack. The branches wrapped around the severed trunk and dragged it downward with tremendous force.
I immediately recalled the clone’s primordial ethereal spirit.
The forest had claimed its remains.
I had been several miles above the canopy, yet the forest had extended its branches all the way into the sky and seized the prey with remarkable precision and speed. The World Calamity Tree’s fragrance had likely attracted it.
Suddenly, the existence of a giant flying predator with stealth and spatial sniping made considerably more sense. In an ecosystem where the forest itself could reach into the sky and reclaim anything it detected, attacking prey from a distance while remaining hidden wasn’t just useful. It was an excellent survival strategy.
Fortunately, my trap had accomplished exactly what I wanted. It had successfully captured the creature without fail, despite it being several miles away and completely hidden from my sight. Though I had little doubt about it, it was a relief to see it succeed without a hitch.