The moment the three set foot in the Dragon Tribe's territory, the mana barriers condensed, forming a barrier to prevent them from going back the way they came.",

But this was no ordinary barrier. Filled with runes and spatial distortions, touching a single one of them would not be pleasant, even for the strongest of the group!

"I didn't know the dragons' methods were so incredible," said the elder Leshy, unable to help but look back in amazement.

As Vicente and Victor examined the barrier that would prevent their escape, leaving only the path in front of them, Elmo sensed something strange and shouted, "Raise your defenses!"

As soon as he said this, he raised his arms in front of his body, causing his roots to grow armor and a special shield.

In an instant, he raised his arms in front of his body, causing his roots to grow into armor and a special shield. The surrounding trees began to move, the ground trembled, and the leaves in the air shifted their trajectory, hurtling towards them like daggers.

Flowers sprouted from the ground and opened, releasing colored powder that quickly spread through the area, carried by the winds.

"Shit!" Vicente exclaimed.

Metal armor formed around Vicente as he, too, took up a defensive position, several shields appearing near them.

Victor condensed a spherical mana barrier around himself and couldn't help but frown and control his breathing.

"This powder is poisonous. Be careful when you inhale it."

Then, while they were in defensive positions, the attacks from the area hit them hard. The leaves tested their defenses, striking with such force that Vicente's artifacts were torn as if they were made of paper.

Elmo and Victor withstood the first wave of attacks, while the Leshy tried to influence the surrounding forest, leveraging his natural ability. But strangely enough, except for his own body, he could not affect anything around him.

When Vicente showed him the Throne of Darkness, the wooden fellow saw that standing still would be too risky. He said, "We have to move through this area. If we stand still, we'll suffer more and more. We can't do anything against this force! A damned earth-dragon made this trap!"

As soon as he said this, he jumped eight meters ahead and then started to run, dodging the roots that moved through the area, trying to attack him and the others. Vicente and Victor followed suit.

Shadow creatures appeared on the outskirts of this living area and attacked them, with several demons trying to stop the roots and leaves from reaching Vicente and the others.

Victor's magical form manifested, the trident-bearing ghost counterattacking as its user ran to cross the enchanted forest.

"That" Elmo saw more barriers, like the ones behind them, forming in front of them as they advanced.

"I don't understand. What's going on?" Victor asked, his voice tight with frustration.

"I think we need to beat this place," Vicente said, defending and counterattacking, dodging attacks that could hurt him badly.

Elmo shook his head negatively. "That's not it. We need to find the trap's core."

"Trap core?" Vicente looked at the Leshy, recognizing him as the best suited for this challenge.

"A trap's core is its major strength. Normally, ordinary traps aren't meant to give chances to those who pass through them. But dragons like challenges. If someone shows potential, it's someone many dragons would like to fight to test their strength.

For beings as strong as they are, there's nothing like fighting a prodigy who's already proven themselves in their traps.So somewhere inside the trap must be the core of the trap that we can use to deactivate it."

"I see. What would that look like?" Victor asked as he looked around, feeling his mana shield gradually cracking as his mind seemed to be overwhelmed by the attacks in the area.

"That's the key point. I don't know what it could be. It could be this stone, or one of the many leaves in the area. Either way, it could be anything." Elmo said in a less than optimistic tone.

Vicente clenched his fists when he heard this, realizing that he would have to use everything he had besides just trying to defend himself and running around the area.

Since this wasn't a challenge that could be solved by following a certain route, the only option left to him was to find the trap's core.

His eight pentagrams condensed in the air, causing the mana there to be slightly disturbed, and the area itself to direct more of its attacks against him. As this happened, enormous blades imbued with darkness emerged from the ground and sliced through dozens of roots at once.

Several intelligent metallic artifacts formed at Vicente's command, attacking everything in their vicinity in search of a single high that would resist or, if attacked, would deactivate this trap.

Vicente's electromagnetic senses were heightened by the appearance of so many metallic beings around him, and his vision of the electromagnetic fields became stronger and more precise.

"I see ten things around us that don't look ordinary. Let's test them and see what happens."

Vicente said as he told his companions the locations of the points that had caught their attention.

Elmo and Victor moved against their first targets while Vicente's Throne of Darkness grew, defending him from the many attacks in the area. Meanwhile, demons of darkness appeared next to three of those ten targets, a purple crystal, a seemingly ordinary stone, and a seemingly dead root.

But when Vicente attacked these three targets, all he saw were failures, nothing like what he had expected from the encounter with the trap's core.

He didn't get frustrated as he moved on to the next targets while Elmo and Victor had already tested their first targets.

While Vicente and Elmo watched their new targets being easily destroyed without deactivating the trap, Victor narrowed his eyes as he picked up a golden leaf in the center of the area.

When he touched it, everything in the area lost its power, the leaves flying through the air and falling, while the roots stopped moving.

The trees stopped attacking them at the same time as the mana in the area returned to normal, causing Vicente and Elmo to breathe a sigh of relief before noticing the various injuries on their bodies.

But all that mattered was their victory.

"Guys..."