Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1055 - 170 The Brown Python

Chapter 1055: Chapter 170 The Brown Python

"Keep going, don’t look back, watch your step," Pannis urged, no longer leading as before but closely following at the rear of the group, pushing his surprised comrades who were taken aback by the surge of water. Fortunately, just seconds before the flood hit, Pannis had also made it to the opposite bank, narrowly escaping the river’s threat.

The opposite bank was covered with weeds and shrubs, with trees belonging mostly to the second and third layers of the Forest of Death, tall and with dense canopies, while their brown trunks were exposed to the environment below. All along the riverbank, weeds and shrubs appeared as if they had been freshly ploughed, every few to a dozen meters marked by deep gouges, as if left by some enormous magical beast dragging itself along. The problem was, these gouges were very wide, at least one to two meters across, indicating that if they were indeed made by a magical beast, then that beast must be very large.

"This is giant brown python territory," Pannis explained as he ran to and fro, "They have a high body temperature and really dislike the cold, so they sleep in their nests until the morning and only leave to feed as a group. See these tracks? These are their animal paths. Indeed, these brown pythons are so big, it’s very common to find them over one meter in diameter and around fifty meters long. They could swallow something our size without any effort at all, but they generally don’t choose small animals as their prey. However, once a creature enters their territory, it will face the frenzied attacks of the entire group of pythons."

"So we’ve already trespassed?" Catherine, keeping pace with the group to maintain formation, had the energy to ask, "Aren’t you worried about them attacking us?"

"No need to worry, because it’s their feeding time," Pannis explained, "Five minutes ago, the brown python hunting party had already left the nest, so we are safe for now."

"Hunting party?" Catherine tensed up and pressed on, "Does that mean there’s a team left to protect the nest?"

"Of course, many magical beast groups have a force left behind," Pannis said matter-of-factly, "A brown python group should have about twenty giant pythons, and they usually leave one fifth to guard the nest and protect their eggs. If there were no pythons left behind, their eggs would have been stolen and eaten by other magical beasts in the area long ago."

"Huff, huff, then why are you still so relaxed?" Lina couldn’t help but ask, panting as she ran and lowering her voice, "Aren’t you worried about being discovered by the pythons that stayed behind?"

"They’ve already discovered us," Pannis looked up, "Just look up and you’ll see."

When the girls looked up, they could barely make out several brown figures among the dense canopy, these brown giants wrapped around the trunks of hundred-meter-tall trees, with just their tails coiled around the horizontal branches, anchoring them in place. Their appearance was so similar to the tree bark and the distance so great that it was hard to tell them apart, but the shining eyes, like Crystal Energy lamps, were unmistakable, watching the adventurers intently as they passed below.

"Oh, Denia the Great bless us," Lina exclaimed under her breath, nearly losing her balance and falling, suddenly realizing how difficult it was to stay calm with several such eyes fixed upon her, "If they’ve spotted us, why haven’t they attacked?"

"It’s because we haven’t approached their nests," Pannis explained. "When I said an intrusion would lead to an attack, I meant that’s under the condition the hunting party hasn’t left. If the hunting party is gone, they’ll contract the defense around their own nest, and we can pass through safely if we don’t get near. But we’re running out of time. Their territory has a radius of five kilometers in a fan-shaped area, and we need to reach the border of the next territory within fifteen minutes. Any unexpected encounter along the way can give us a lot of trouble."

"Will there be trouble?" Catherine asked. "Theoretically, there shouldn’t be very strong creatures within the territory of social magical beasts, otherwise the territorial owners would feel threatened and launch an attack," she said.

"It’s hard to say," Pannis didn’t clarify and instead urged, "Let’s take a look later. Right now, everyone needs to move at top speed to spare a few minutes."

In such a situation, teammates wouldn’t hesitate to follow Pannis’s command. Even if they had doubts, they would act upon his request first before questioning at the right moment. Just as now, once Pannis asked for full speed, everybody clammed up and focused entirely on the path ahead and the ground beneath their feet, doing their best to get away from the territory of the brown pythons. As they kept running, each of them could hear the incessant rustling of something crawling overhead, closely following their footsteps. Without looking up, they knew it was giant pythons shuttling between the tree canopies, some of which were vigilantly monitoring the tiny intruders below. These nest-guarding pythons had a strange way of moving, traveling entirely through the trees. Due to their sufficiently long bodies and tremendous strength, they could extend themselves horizontally in mid-air by coiling their tail around a tree trunk and then wrapping the front end around another tree, thus moving in mid-air.

But no one looked up at them because the pythons were merely following without any intention to attack. After following for seven to eight hundred meters, it seemed they had finally left the pythons’ watchful range, and the crawling sounds from above disappeared at last.

"As expected, we’re still not quite lucky," Pannis suddenly frowned and said resentfully, "I was worried we’d encounter them, and the more I worried, the more we ran into such misfortune."

"What? Oh, I hear it now," Flare was about to ask when she already found the answer, saying with a wry smile, "We’ve encountered the pythons’ hunting party, haven’t we?"

"Yes, with so many other directions they could have chosen, they had to choose the same direction to hunt as us," Pannis sighed and continued, "Everyone slow down a bit and get ready for combat. Dillie..."

"I know, I’ll release the aura when it’s the right moment," Dillie growled in response. "When it really comes down to it, we can’t bother with what other troubles it may bring. We’ll deal with the problems in front of us first."

"Alright, judge the timing and necessity for yourself," Pannis nodded and added, "It shouldn’t be a big problem. They’re already fighting now. As long as we keep our distance from them, those giant pythons won’t turn on us. Look, there’s the hunting of the giant brown pythons."

Following the direction Pannis pointed, the girls witnessed a shocking scene.