Chapter 4260 — The Ghost Mist Formation
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
The group silently buoyed their own spirits like this, and after walking for the better part of an incense stick's time with nothing untoward happening, their hearts grew steadier by no small measure, and their steps were no longer as hesitant as they had been at the start.
Yet after another moment, Wei Zhao suddenly sensed something amiss. The jade pendant began to give off a faint warning, and his heart gave a sharp jolt. Something was wrong!
"Xiaotao!" Instinctively, Wei Zhao tightened his grip on Huang Xiaotao's hand and turned to look both ahead and behind—only to find that, aside from Huang Xiaotao, whom he still held, everyone else had vanished without a trace, he knew not when.
Even before, no matter how thick the mist, they had been only a step or two apart and could always make out a blurred silhouette. But now there was not even a shadow. Guo Dengtao and Wang Feng ahead, Chu Bubai and Feng Hongyu behind—all of them had suddenly disappeared.
So there really was something wrong! Wei Zhao was greatly alarmed, and at the same time could not help feeling somewhat fortunate. Thank goodness he had been holding on to Huang Xiaotao all along; otherwise she too might well have vanished along with the rest.
"Wh-what's going on... where did everyone go..." Huang Xiaotao had finally noticed as well, and her voice could not help but tremble. She was a girl, after all, and stranded in such an eerie place, she was still very nervous.
"Don't do anything rash for now—let's see how things stand first!" Wei Zhao said in a low voice, turning to scan ahead and behind, and cautiously extended his divine sense to probe. But it was just as before: his divine sense, which had never failed him out in the world, sank here like a stone into the sea, giving not the slightest response.
Just then, a familiar voice suddenly rang out from not far behind them—none other than the vanished Chu Bubai.
"This is the Ghost Mist Formation! We can't stay here long. Everyone, charge forward—just keep charging forward and we'll get through!" The moment the words fell, a series of swishing sounds followed, clearly someone racing forward at speed.
At the sound, Huang Xiaotao instinctively made to charge forward, but before she could take a single step, Wei Zhao pulled her back with one yank.
"Xiaotao, steady!" Wei Zhao barked in a low voice.
The shout was not loud, yet it struck Huang Xiaotao's heart like the evening drum and morning bell. Her whole body gave a sudden shudder, and only then did she snap awake, her face blank with astonishment.
"I... what happened to me just now?" A wave of lingering dread washed over Huang Xiaotao. Chu Bubai's voice just now had seemed to carry some bewitching magic that clouded her mind, and only then had she obeyed his command without thinking. Had Wei Zhao not pulled her back in time, there was no telling where she would have charged off to by now.
"You must have had your mind ensnared just now. There's definitely something strange about this Chu Bubai!" Wei Zhao said, warily watching everything around them, on his guard.
Only at this moment did he begin to understand Chu Bubai's design. All along the way, everyone had followed his lead, and thus sufficient trust had been built up; at the same time, they had unconsciously let down their guard, growing somewhat blindly obedient to his commands.
Especially along this stretch after they entered the mist—almost every step had been taken under Chu Bubai's direction, which only reinforced that unconscious habit. Add to that the fact that the man's voice just now, by some means or other, clearly had the power to bewitch the mind—and that was how he had made them all unconsciously do as he said.
This was a trap laid from the very beginning. From the moment they agreed to join up, they had in fact already fallen into Chu Bubai's rhythm of hypnosis. This Chu Bubai—his scheming ran that deep!