Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1082 - 197: The Bat

Chapter 1082: Chapter 197: The Bat

No one hesitated; no one wavered. Every individual present was an adventurer who had faced numerous life-or-death situations, and their wealth of experience told them exactly what to do in such moments. Thus, when Pannis shouted "Raise shields!" all of them simultaneously lifted a wooden shield above their heads. Although most people lacked formal training in shield usage and their shielding posture was quite unstandardized—if they had actually faced an enemy’s assault, the close-range attacks would likely have been easily deflected or bypassed the defensive shields, while ranged attacks would have peppered their bodies full of holes just like an Arrow Mouse. Fortunately, their enemy’s attack wasn’t physical; they only needed to lift their wooden shields above their heads to protect the one exposed vital area, their faces and necks.

Still without any sound, and no force felt upon the shields, the girls suddenly experienced a strange sensation, as if something invisible swept past them, or as though their bodies had passed through an invisible barrier. As for Pannis, after rolling away from his original position, he fiercely hurled a one-handed sword into the air and gritted his teeth spitefully, "Got you now."

It seemed that a round of attacks had passed. Catherine slightly angled her shield to peek out with one eye in the direction where Pannis had thrown his one-handed sword, and there, a few dozen meters behind the group, a large creature hung upside down from the treetop, its two gleaming eyes ominously fixed on the people in their group.

"A bat?" Right beside Catherine, Lina, unable to curb her innate Curiosity, also couldn’t help but peer out from behind her shield, eyeing the large creature hanging twenty meters up in the tree canopy.

The title the priestess girl cried out was not mistaken—it indeed resembled a bat, a gigantic bat magnified dozens of times. The giant bat was a greyish-black color with a clump of huge flesh wings wrapped around its body like a cloak. Its lower limbs were much sturdier than an ordinary bat’s and ended in a pair of sharp claws. The hook-shaped talons gripped the tree trunk tightly, leaving several sharp gashes in the bark. Its head bore a resemblance to a rat’s, with the one exception being the two white, bone-chilling fangs protruding from the corners of its gaping mouth. The hollow fangs were slightly curved forward, their tips gleaming with a hint of blood-red. The only difference from a usual bat was on its chest, where a protruding tumor-like mass filled with gas rose and fell with its breathing.

Saying it was a giant bat was no exaggeration, for it was over two meters in length. If it stood upright on the ground, it would tower over an adult male by a considerable margin. Judging by normal bat proportions, its wingspan could be close to five meters, making it hard to imagine how such a creature could navigate and fly through the dense forest.

"Roar~~~" The giant bat suddenly spread its wings wide, batting away Pannis’s thrown sword, and simultaneously opened its mouth—a tremendous roar erupted from within. The roar, amplified several times by the resonance of the air sac on its chest, spread outwards like thunder, echoing all around. The powerful sound made the leaves near the creature fall off in clusters. Amidst the roaring, the girls involuntarily frowned as the roar caused their eardrums to ache and their hearts to race. It even made them feel as if everything around them was spinning, as if they might succumb to the roar just like the leaves.

Pannis didn’t need to remind them; as soon as they saw the giant bat’s air sac begin to throb once more, the girls quickly sought refuge behind the wooden shield. And sure enough, another roar erupted, but this time there was something different. Within this roar, the girls felt something graze by once again. Of course, nothing actually passed by; it was merely a sensation, akin to the feeling of a breeze brushing against one’s cheek.

This time, the strange attack occurred simultaneously with the roar. No one knew how the giant bat, with only one mouth, could produce two different sounds for the attack. Of course, there wasn’t any need to know this. Before the roar had even finished, Flare promptly discarded the wooden shield and curled up close to the ground, rolling away from the spot in rapid succession. As she rolled, an arrow was released at different angles with each revolution, making it hard to imagine how Her Majesty managed to draw the hunting bow while tucking in and rolling.

Unlike Pannis, who had hastily thrown his one-handed sword, this time the giant bat clearly couldn’t handle Her Majesty’s attack as leisurely as before. Nothing in the world would dare face Her Majesty’s arrows unguarded, and the giant bat was no exception. Thus, the great roar abruptly turned into a piercing screech. Panic showed on the rodent-like face of the giant bat as it suddenly let go of the branch it clutched and fell rapidly under the force of gravity, narrowly evading Flare’s shooting. Mid-fall, the giant bat suddenly spread its gray-black membrane wings, flying off at an odd angle with an unpredictable trajectory that made it difficult to anticipate its next position.

"Hiss, after causing so much trouble, you still think you can escape?" Alcmene’s protruding eyes narrowed into slits, and she hissed through her forked tongue rhythmically as she intermittently threw three Throwing Spears, her voice cold, "In a hunter’s eyes, any of your struggles and evasions are laughable. Hiss, since you dared to appear before us, prepare to embrace your death."

Though enormous, the giant bat was incredibly agile in flight, reacting in advance to anything flying towards its path and taking seemingly impossible evasive angles to dodge Flare’s arrows and Alcmene’s Throwing Spears consistently.

However, the two experienced hunters seemed unfazed by this, well aware that one of the greatest traits of bat-kind is their astonishing evasion abilities, so missed attacks were all too common. The two ladies glanced at each other and smiled in unison before launching a coordinated attack.

Alcmene threw her fourth Throwing Spear, and Flare released another set of three arrows. The High Priestess’s spear shot straight towards the path the giant bat was about to reach, and with a sharp shriek, it deviated slightly to dodge the spear, continuing its flight in the same direction, attempting to escape the expedition team’s sight. But there were Her Majesty’s arrows; their targets were not the giant bat but the Throwing Spear in midair. The three arrows hit the tail end of the spear in succession, changing its direction in flight and driving it forcefully into the back of the giant bat.