"There are three things you need to kill your enemy," Hao Yu muttered while sitting on the ground, tired after walking a lot in the forest. "They are strength, people's harmony, and terrain."
Hao Yu smirked. "With their strength, they will have that boundless confidence, thinking that they will be able to complete their mission. However, they are lacking two things: people's harmony and terrain."
Just as Hao Yu predicted, one of them fell into the first trap and died.
"Unfortunately, they aren't familiar with this terrain. Once they are aware that this forest is filled with traps, the group will turn into disarray."
As soon as one of them died, panic spread among the group. Xiao Jun shouted, "Quiet. Keep calm."
He tried to stop them, but they were exchanging looks while shouting, "What is going on?"
"Are we going to die?"
"We have cultivated this far. Only a bit more to reach the Foundation Establishment Stage."
"I don't want to die and waste all that time of cultivating."
Obviously, these people had less chance of becoming a Foundation Establishment Stage expert. However, they still had some chance, which had become their goal since the beginning.
The only reason why they followed Xiao Jun was because of his influence, fear, and reward. But once they knew that there was a chance they could die, the reward seemed lacking.
Xiao Jun shouted, "Don't worry. This might be a trap of a hunter."
A hunter's trap wouldn't be effective against a cultivator, especially if they were aware of it. However, this dense forest made the traps even more terrifying. Even if the cultivator could cut a tree, it would be over if their neck was sliced. On that part, they were the same as mortals. It might be trickier to kill a Foundation Establishment Expert, but a Qi Gathering Expert was still vulnerable to this kind of trap. Li Xue had confirmed it.
Xiao Jun continued, "We're going to search for the traps in this area first. I'm sure that this is just a hunter wanting to kill some spiritual beasts in the past. We can find them first before advancing."
Once they heard Xiao Jun's decision, it didn't sound that bad. After all, if they were more careful, they could find those traps. Unlike earlier when they were unaware of the traps' existence, they now had a higher chance of finding them.
However, their actions had been predicted by Hao Yu.
"People's harmony. This is what I like the most. Once your group is in disarray, you will do your best to calm them down. However, at what cost? Your progress will slow down, you will have to raise their morale, and more importantly, there will be an illusion… an illusion of accomplishing something."
What had Xiao Jun's group actually accomplished?
One of the cultivators suddenly shouted, "I found another trap here!"
"What?" Xiao Jun hurriedly rushed to his side and found a few wires inside the bush. "You open this bush for me. I'm going to check where it leads to."
The cultivator agreed, and Xiao Jun began following the wire without activating the traps. Surprisingly, he saw a huge trunk hanging behind a tree. It was covered by the trees, so he didn't notice it. But when he took another look at the wire, it was actually connected to a branch that barely stopped the trunk from falling over.
Still, this trap looked less dangerous compared to the previous one. After all, the incoming trunk could be sliced by their swords, which could easily cut through a brick wall.
"This trap is connected to that trunk," Xiao Jun pointed at the trunk with a serious expression.
"Is that so?" The cultivator nodded, feeling relieved.
Xiao Jun thought for a moment and said, "Maybe we should disarm this trap before continuing?"
"Disarming this trap?" The cultivator was confused. On the one hand, he thought it was unnecessary. On the other hand, they might return through this place and knowing that there wasn't a trap.
However, Xiao Jun had a different thought. He wanted to disarm this trap to show that he had the strength to lead them, thus raising their morale.
"Yeah. Since this trap is connected to that trunk, we will trigger it and let the trunk come to us. I will cut it in half." Xiao Jun explained his plan.
The cultivator was a bit unsure. Not knowing what to do, he turned around to ask the others.
Surprisingly, they agreed with the fact that they needed to disarm the trap. They showed it with a single nod, but their expressions were still a bit hesitant.
As soon as they came to an agreement, Xiao Jun pulled out his sword. He stepped forward, protecting the guy from the trunk.
Xiao Jun gave the signal to trigger the trap. Although hesitant, the guy still stepped on the wire.
The tense wire immediately moved, causing the branch that barely stopped a huge trunk to fall over.
The huge trunk began to shake uncontrollably as it soon slipped out of the tree.
As expected, the trunk was connected to a wire, hanging on another huge, sturdy branch. This way, the trunk would swing toward Xiao Jun.
Xiao Jun didn't realize one fact. How could a hunter bring this trunk all the way up there? The tree was big and thick, but its height wasn't that high. Still, a normal hunter wouldn't be able to carry the trunk all the way up there.
There were only two possibilities. First, it was a cultivator. The second one was more ridiculous but it was more reasonable than a cultivator since there was no need for a cultivator to do all this work. It was none other than a joint effort of a group. And who would be the person who had enough time to organize this?
It was none other than Hao Yu.
There was no way Hao Yu would prepare such a simple trap to kill a cultivator.
The moment the trunk fell, the rope attached to the trunk began to swing it, albeit it was never intended to strike the one who triggered the trap.
"Huh?" Xiao Jun and the others were startled by the movement of the trunk. They realized that there were two ropes attached to the trunk. Normally, it would cause the trunk to swing in a single direction, but its current movement was as if it was only attached to a single rope.
As for the second rope, it was actually connected to something behind Xiao Jun and the other guy.
Once the trunk fell, the rope tensed up, pulling something underneath the ground.
It turned out there was another trap connected to it. The rope had been buried a few centimeters underneath the soil, causing a simple weight to be able to pull it.
All of a sudden, a board filled with spikes emerged from the ground and impaled the guy who triggered the trap.
There wasn't a single word coming out of his mouth. Another 7-Star Expert had just died.
They just wanted to disarm the trap and were confident that everything would go smoothly. But that sense of accomplishment cost them yet another life.