The area didn't change much but it was a whole lot different from when they came in. Some how the place had changed without them noticing. At some point, Zhao Wei thought he was just being paranoid.
"Hey Jeff." He called out.
"Yeah?"
"Can you walk there?" He was pointing at one of the trees.
"What for?" Jeff looked puzzled.
"Just trust me."
Jeff felt like something was up, but against his better judgement he moved there anyway. Nothing happened. Jeff turned to Zhao Wei again, wondering what was going on.
"This isn't the same place we entered through." Zhao Wei explained.
"How do you know?" Jeff asked before a horrific thought went through his mind. "You put a trap there didn't you!?" Zhao Wei simply nodded in response. "Which one!?"
"What do you mean which one?"
"Is it the one that catches stuff or the one that has teeth?"
"They all catch stuff though..." Zhao Wei couldn't look him in the eye, and he was fighting a losing battle trying to suppress the smile that was creeping onto his face.
Jeff wanted to punch the kid in the face, but as soon as he wanted to step forward, Zhao Wei screamed "Stop!"
A canister suddenly flew up from the ground between them flying until it was about eye level before it turned into blinding light and searing heat, the quiet forest came to life as a giant ball of flame exploded within it. This time, Zhao Wei was really worried, if they'd stepped just a little closer the blast would've seared the flesh from their bones. Once it died down, a stunned Jeff could still be seen on the other side with his eyebrows partially burnt off.
That trap also wasn't there when they entered, otherwise why did it choose to activate only right now. They had stumbled into another person's hunting ground, and it seems they also used traps to dispatch of their prey. Unlike his however, theirs was mechanical instead of ones formed from mana.
And somehow, they were able to control their hunting ground to their will.
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"Another prey?" A voice called out
"It seems so." An eerily similar voice replied.
"Oh thank God, it's been quite some time since the last one." The former speaker cheered.
"Well... I don't think it's going to be that easy." The latter replied. "We've rotated their area into the trap zones but it seems that they've already circumvented two traps without a casualty. We might be dealing with a more intelligent organism than we usually encounter."
"They're probably just lucky, just wait for it. If it survives more of our traps then we should initiate the lock down protocol."
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Zhao Wei and Jeff had spent 10 minutes after they'd notice that the quiet environment had suddenly changed into a deadly one. In this time, they'd somehow been lucky enough to set off nine traps which were deadly as they were creative.
One specific trap actually trampolined him towards a waiting spike that jutted right out of one of the trees, his hands smoked as he held the spike and used the friction as brakes before it pierced through his torso.
Another were a series of rapid fire crossbows which fired from angles that made sure anybody caught right in the middle of the storm would be turned into a pin cushion.
At one point he was extremely cautious of his surroundings, waiting for the next trap to spring onto them. On the other hand, there was a little excitement for him, as this dangerous place would also serve as inspiration for his future traps.
Just as he thought so the place began to rumble. Everything shook around them as suddenly the flat ground started to become steeper and steeper making it hard for them not to slide further towards the center.
From outside, Thirteen and Panda could only watch with their mouth wide open as the edges of the environment began to get higher, as if the whole place suddenly decided to wrap itself up.
There was only one thing going through Zhao Wei's mind, 'Not only was this place filled with traps, this whole place was a giant trap on it's own!"
Jumping on Myra, he didn't even need to give her orders to start running. A good thing about this place activating itself was the fact that they could see the way out. Jeff released his Tantra and grabbed a hold on top of her as well as she sped towards the edge.
As they sped, the ground kept curving upwards, what was flat was now like a bowl, some of the trees that were originally upright towards the sun were now pointing inside, from this angle, Zhao Wei realized that like they looked more like spikes than trees, preparing to skewer whatever giant beast this thing was made to catch like a woody iron-maiden.
The place continued to change as part of the sky they could see was becoming smaller, the edges of the environment didn't just curve upwards but also inwards, it's edges closing up like a giant ball.
Thirteen couldn't help but worry about those inside, this thing was closing in on itself, and it was happening at much too fast a pace for comfort. Worse was, that even at this point there was no sign of Zhao Wei and Jeff coming out of there.
Just before it closed suddenly she saw a wolf's body pop out of the opening of what she could only describe as a giant dome, which relieved her immensely. But as Myra closed the distance, Thirteen's eyes widened. She'd escaped, but the other two weren't with her.
The thing had turned into a massive ball that reached towards the sky. At first thirteen thought this massive structure was floating in mid air, that was until she spotted a small building just where the base of the structure was. The much larger dome was propped up comically on top of it.
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Inside, both Zhao Wei and Jeff were latching themselves to a tree. Though they were pretty sure it wasn't actually a tree at this point considering that it was hanging up side down.
Only when he saw like this did Zhao Wei understand, this thing was a giant beast trap. When anything entered, this contraption would close all around it, and the trees which adorned this place would pierce it from every direction like a custom made Iron Maiden.
Zhao Wei would've felt truly inspired if it weren't for the fact that they were stuck in this death trap themselves with no visible exit.
Also, he had to consider the person or creature who made this place. Considering they were the only living things here at the time the thing activated, if it was automatic then he'd have less to worry about. But what if it was activated intentionally with the knowledge that they were the only living things in here, that meant whoever or whatever made this had a craving for human and Naga flesh, then it'd be a whole different story.
Despite that, Zhao Wei and Jeff began to make their way downwards, jumping from tree to tree towards the less upside down parts of the place.
The whole time, they didn't make conversation with each other. In unfamiliar territory, they weren't sure who was watching, easily giving away their location was among the dumbest things to do.
They communicated with simple gestures on the direction they would take and which side the other one would watch.
Jeff didn't enter his Tantra form yet, like it or not, it wasn't something he could do infinitely, and they were sure this wasn't the place for Jeff to recharge his Tantra a should it run out. If he finished his tank, the alternative would be focusing purely on his physical and martial skills to take on whatever was coming for them.
Zhao Wei on the other hand, still had his Tantra locked. As for Traps he was lacking the quantity he had before as he'd emptied himself in the big fight before, when he wasn't sure what exactly he was up against, blindly setting up traps wasn't the best of plans right now.
Though despite their lack of other skills, the both of them were already physically at the peak of both their species, at the very least with their punches and kicks alone, they could give any type of enemy a little bit of hell.
As they finally reached the bottom, each signaled the other to scout out the area to figure out what was going on.
Just as they were going to move, the whole bottom section suddenly opened up into a giant hole. Jeff and Zhao Wei had just enough time to jump toward one of the trees and latch on for dear life as what appeared at the bottom of said seemed to look like the blades of a giant meat grinder, anything that fell in was sure to be turned into paste regardless if it was flesh or solid objects.
But Zhao Wei had just the thing for this, climbing up the tree he held onto, he snapped several branches and attached a trap to them before throwing them into the grinder.
As the branch entered the metal teeth, it snapped into pieces. Jeff looked at him, wondering what he was doing, wasn't it obvious that the thing was made to crush stuff? Was there a need to test it?