As Felix and companions got further into the forest the temperature started to go down resembling the coldness they felt when they were swimming towards the island.
Felix found it strange as the temperature decreased he could feel something inside of him cooling off and it wasn't his body temperature alone... his organs slowed down as they got colder?
This wasn't right, not even the coldness from the water made his organs slow down by this much, he inspected himself and found that the poison from the trees started to get stronger as they advanced further into the forest.
He wasn't the only one who realized this as both Bizkier and Altraeimo stopped on the spot, Lindo himself felt something was wrong with his body a few seconds later than the other two.
Bizkier opened his mouth as he coughed up one globe of purple-colored blood and frowned:
"It seemed the poison intensity intensifies the further we walk in the forest."
"We can already feel that know-it-all."
Lindo said and frowned as he asked:
"How do we stop it from invading our bodies though? We are already using hex energy as shields."
"It seems the poison is getting thinner and it finds spots to infiltrate our bodies through the shields... after all, we don't have perfect control of our Hex energy to create flawless shields."
No one truly had flawless control of the hex energy in their bodies besides shamans and the shamans only got to that point in hex energy manipulation half because of their innate talents and a half because of the special training techniques they could use in combination with their bloodline.
"Hmm... so what should we do in this situation? Go back?"
Lindo shuddered as he asked, he wasn't sure if the ape was still there but he didn't want to find out.
"Well, we could either go back or slowly walk to our deaths in the poison infested forest."
Altraeimo said while sighing, he was really scared by that ape back then but now he had to go back but he didn't want to go towards certain death either, they might be able to evade the ape if they played their cards well but the poison was certainly impossible to resist with their current capabilities.
Felix looked to their front and sighed as he said:
"What Altraeimo said is true... we can't go further as the poison starts to become visible the further we go in, our organs are already slowing down at this point and if we walk further we will slowly lose feeling in our organs before they would stop and we die."
This was a very grim but true outlook of the situation so all they could do was walk backward to the same direction they came from.
Even though some time had passed since they walked away and came back shockwaves could be still felt from the battlefield as the fight continued, the shield was still holding strong but it was also full of cracks and the foxes inside of it were full of sweat that made their clothes see-through and sticking to their bodies, blood also flowed from their mouths freely as their internal organs took great hits from the continuous shockwaves.
However, the good thing was that the ape was also getting tired from pummeling the shield for such a long time and its complexion started to turn back from its red form to a normal color which indicated that his rage was subsiding.
Felix was in his stealth mode as he watched everything unfolding before he went back and reported what was happening to his teammates.
Bizkier almost wanted to laugh as he said:
"2 birds with one stone, let's go and take care of all of them together!"
Altraeimo nodded as what Bizkier said was pretty logical for him in the current circumstances, Lindo didn't like taking advantage of others but this event was serious and they had to act unsavory in wars as well since this was basically a simulated war between the 4 continents they had to play dirty.
Felix didn't have any problems with the suggestion as he nodded and entered stealth again, he would decide to strike when both of the parties were at their weakest!
He stilled for a moment as he realized that if they would end up like this the others wouldn't end up being better either, which meant they would all come back and end up with the same decision as theirs seeing the current situation of the foxes and the ape!
If Felix could understand this the other three could naturally as well, they frowned as they made some hand signs indicating for Felix to come back, but Felix didn't even leave as he revealed his body to the others.
"It seems we have been rushing a little bit too fast."
"Indeed..."
They watched on as the ape finally started to run out of steam and the barrier that the foxes employed cracked and dissipated into nothing.
The foxes could barely move in this situation but the ape was quite tired as well and it seemed to have used all of its anger up as it reverted to its fat human form and it looked into its special bag for bananas only to find none, then it fell to its ass and started crying.
Felix's team was quite perturbed by his actions, such a strong and angry ape acted like a cub?
As Felix took a better look at the ape it could be seen that while he looked old he really wasn't, Felix's eyes lit up with soul energy as he gazed at the ape's soul, and from what he could gather the ape's soul was rather young, actually, he could even be considered an infant in human years!
Felix had gained the ability to identify the soul age of others after the grueling soul training he had done with Lindo, it actually came quite naturally after he learned how to see the souls properly but it wasn't a really useful technique for him as souls could be cloaked if the user knew a proper technique.
"So what do we do now? Wait?"
"Well yeah, considering the others must be waiting nearby as well, it's a case of the mantis stalking the cicada unaware of the oriole behind."
"What does that even mean?"
"I'm not sure but Mashi said this when you guys were attacking our village and contextually it applies here as well."
Lindo and Bizkier chatted a bit to make the time pass as waiting was quite boring and they had already healed the damage done by the poison.
Felix made a shushing sound as he looked towards the battlefield, it seemed the Balton continent contestants couldn't wait anymore as the muscled kangaroo appeared and glared at the ape and the fox contestants, his kangaroo buddies were behind him while the spider expert was nowhere to be seen as he was readying an ambush for those that would slip through.
The 6 Kangaroos were quite imposing as each had their own impressive mass of muscles and their stances indicated that they were adept boxers.
Felix watched as they rushed towards the crying ape trying to push him down and gang up on him to beat him to death!
The foxes were forgotten as they slowly tried to get away while crawling towards the exit of the woods trying to go through the same direction they came through, they wanted to quit!
Suddenly out of the trees the spider expert came laughing as he threw some blades towards the necks of the exhausted foxes ready to take all of their lives.
The spider expert eyes glowed with energy that was transferred to the flying blades increasing their speed as they easily pierced through the two males with white lines on their tails transforming them both into corpses that suddenly started stinking.
Those two weren't foxes but skunks!
The moment a skunk tribesman died he would unleash all of his pent-up gas creating a chemical bomb that was akin to highly concentrated poison!
The duo didn't look like skunks at first glance as they were disguised as foxes but the moment they died their identity was revealed!
The gas was highly toxic and corrosive as it even touched the other foxes who were nearby transforming them into puddles of pus and black blood, the great fox beauty with 3 tails lost another tail as her body recovered and she ran away as her stamina recovered to full capacity.
The spider from the Balton continent fell with his legs upwards as he died from the smell only for him to get right back up and turn away from the infected area with a speedy gait, the poisonous gas also started to reach the ape and the kangaroo's location but the kangaroos were already jumping away the moment they felt the smell leaving the ape alone.
The ape got up and smelled the air before he started belching from the smell... but he didn't seem to be getting injured at all from the poisonous gas the skunk's bodies released.
The skunk's bodies were also quickly dissipating due to the gas and after a short, while all of the gas disappeared as it was absorbed by the tress who turned a combination of toxic green and purple, they also started to drip with the toxin and whenever it dripped to the ground a small hole would appear that would slowly get bigger and bigger.
Felix looked at the ape who was glancing around waiting for his friends to pop out but the ravens were nowhere to be found.
Felix frowned as he put his attention to the skies, where could have the ravens gone? They were the only ones who could fly so they could go further into the forest as they could fly above the poisonous field but would they get disqualified if they flew away from the forest entirely?
The ape glanced towards Felix's direction as it started to walk there slowly, it felt like its actions were random but he actually felt the life force of Felix and the others!