Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1097 - 210: The Gifts Once Received

Chapter 1097: Chapter 210: The Gifts Once Received

All sorts of bizarre three-dimensional figures floated in the air, slowly rotating and twisting as though they were nonreactive to the external world, simply following their own mysterious rhythm in their isolated existence. No one knew why, after a soul was twisted and torn apart, it would exist in this form, nor could anyone tell from their current appearances what creatures they had been before the distortion. All that people could see were pure symbols, emitting a faint halo of light.

"Don’t treat these things like the Twisted Shadows we saw earlier, and don’t startle them," Pannis said with an unprecedented seriousness, his eyes fixated on what he referred to as Chaotic Fragments. "Their essence is still that of a soul, capable of flying through obstacles at an extremely fast speed. Once discovered by them, we definitely won’t be able to escape. Luckily, they rely on the soul’s induction to search for enemies, so as long as we don’t get too close, they won’t detect us."

"Well, that’s a relief," Dillie said, licking his paws. "Just keep our distance, right?"

"It’s not good at all," Pannis shook his head. "Many of them float among the treetops, hidden by the canopy, making it impossible for us to even notice their halos. We rarely encounter them when wandering through wooded areas; they usually appear near the Graveyard Plains and Lake of Termination. We have explored those areas before; they are open spaces without cover, so it’s not difficult to avoid them. But the wandering woods are different; I have to admit, the situation is quite troublesome and could be described as the worst-case scenario."

Although the trees in the wandering woods were much sparser than those on the outskirts of the Forest of Death, there were still enough obstructions to block the view. Anticipating these silent, odorless, and energy-less Chaotic Fragments was impossible, even for someone with Pannis’s perceptive abilities. Encountering Chaotic Fragments in such an environment was indeed the worst possible case.

However, the girls appeared calm and were not worried by the worsening situation. Catherine looked steadily at Pannis and said, "Stop joking around. Since you knew about these Chaotic... Chaotic Fragments in advance, you couldn’t have failed to anticipate that we might encounter them in the wandering woods. Especially earlier in the fog, the dense fog made it even less likely for us to detect them. If we had unfortunately run into them then, are you saying we wouldn’t have a way to protect our souls from being shredded apart? If you were reckless enough to lead us deep into the fog, you wouldn’t have earned so many people’s trust. So, you must know how to deal with them. And if the situation were really that dire, you definitely would not have had the mood to stealthily touch Lina’s head, um, although it must have been an interesting feel."

"Hey, big sis," Lina raised an eyebrow, protesting discontentedly, "You’re getting worse and worse at this, just like Pannis."

"Alright, let’s not talk about the feel," Catherine covered her mouth, giggling softly before shaking her head. "Am I wrong, though? So just say it, how do we deal with them?"

"Life-aspected Divine Spell." Pannis, his thoughts exposed, scratched his head with an awkward smile. "Although they are bizarre and highly dangerous, they also have significant weaknesses. Unlike the Twisted Shadows, which exist as flat forms and whose soul components are already very sparse, making them unaffected by Divine Spells, nor like other types of Twisted Souls because the extent of soul fragmentation isn’t as extreme as with Chaotic Fragments, making Divine Spells unable to easily destroy them. Chaotic Fragments are exactly in between, so a simple life-aspected Divine Spell can completely purify them, and we just happen to have someone here who can counter them."

"Is this why you wanted to touch my bald head?" Lina gritted her teeth, poking Pannis’s waist forcefully as a punishment, before reaching out to grab her tome. "So I should just use the Ode to Life to purify them now?"

"That’s possible, but think it through," Pannis said as he held down Lina’s arm, which was about to be raised. "Life-aspected Divine Spells indeed strongly counteract souls, but equally, souls, even those that are twisted, also have a certain hostility towards the energy of life. It’s easy for you to purify them, but once you release a Divine Spell, it might attract all kinds of Twisted Souls nearby. If some more troublesome types come along, we might end up having to keep running all the way into the Graveyard Plains."

"That’s still better than being stuck here, afraid to move forward," Lina began to say, then paused, glancing sideways at Pannis. "I get it. Divine Spell purification is the last option in all your backup plans, isn’t it? It’s a choice when there’s really no other way. You have a better solution, right?"

"It’s not that I have a better solution," Pannis suddenly wore a strange expression, like a bitter smile mixed with regret and a bit of confusion. "I once received a gift and for a long time, I was puzzled by it because its effect seemed a bit forced. It wasn’t until recently that I tested it personally and realized that I had completely misunderstood where this gift should be used."

"You mean... the potion Master Fila finally gave you?" Catherine immediately linked the critical issue and despite seeming to question, her tone was affirmative. "You think Master Fila’s potion could be used here?"

"Yes, it could be applied here," Pannis said with a wry smile. "Master Fila once told me that after taking that potion, a magical beast would ignore the presence of a living being, perceiving the consumer as an inanimate object. However, it cannot fool their senses; a magical beast can still detect the consumer through sight, hearing, smell, and touch. I thought at that time that the potion wasn’t very practical. Although there are magical beasts that locate their prey from afar by sensing life, most still rely on their senses to find their prey. Even after taking this potion, you still need to take great risks. Although I didn’t point these out at the time, I always wondered—given Master Fila’s knowledge and experience, it was unlikely he hadn’t considered these issues. Yet, he still spent a lot of time and effort to produce a batch of potions and even left the formula with me. I can’t understand why he did that."

"Indeed, when you recounted it to us at the time, I also didn’t quite understand," Vivian said as she massaged her soft hat, recalling, "I even went to consult a lot of literature, but I could never find why Master Fila did what he did."

"I couldn’t figure it out either, until that conference in the City of Knowledge," Pannis sighed. "At that conference, I learned about the expansion of the Forbidden Land of Living Souls and also tentatively confirmed our plan to use it to venture deep into the Core Area of the Forest of Death. Then it suddenly hit me—had I misunderstood something from the beginning? Or perhaps, did Fila intentionally alter some content, knowing full well that the potion’s effect on magical beasts was minimal because what he actually wanted to elude was not the beasts but the Twisted Souls wandering in the Forbidden Land?"

"So you took three bottles of the potion?" Catherine said, realizing. "Just to verify your suspicion?"

"Correct, after I figured out the key issue, I conducted an experiment," Pannis explained. "I took one bottle myself, but noticed no change in me. Then I coaxed Antuin into taking one, and similarly, I couldn’t sense any change in him either. Theoretically speaking, Fila wouldn’t joke about giving me useless potions, so there must have been some changes, but I couldn’t sense them."

"Changes at the soul level?" Catherine ventured. "Without specialized skills, no matter how sharp one’s perception, it’s impossible to sense changes at the soul level, including Lina."

"That’s what I thought too, and it also fit my hypothesis perfectly," Pannis nodded. "So I found Annie and Little Deer."

"Who? Who’s calling me?" Before he had finished speaking, Little Deer’s voice came from behind Lina, from a compartment in her backpack, "What’s the matter?"

"No worries, go back to sleep," Pannis dismissed the little one casually and continued, "They were naturally able to sense souls, but after I took the potion, they could no longer sense me—not just the aura of living beings, but also the soul itself."

"Huh," Catherine exhaled deeply. "So it is true, then. It seems that after taking the potion, even if we pass by these Twisted Souls, they won’t notice us."

"Yes, so I could be pretty sure at that point that Fila’s potion was specifically prepared for this situation," Pannis said with a sigh. "And with the part later produced by Antuin added, we had enough potions to move quickly through the wandering woods."

"Master Fila is truly remarkable, he..." Catherine began but suddenly stopped, looking up sharply, her eyes widened as she asked, "Wait, how did the master know we would face this situation?"

"Yes, how did he know? Although there are many possibilities, I am also very eager to know the real answer. I’ve always hoped that he merely deduced it, just guessed it," Pannis said, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Because along with those things, he also often used methods only Clergy would use to tell me about many other issues. Haha, if this wasn’t just a guess but turned out to be accurate, what about the other issues?"