Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 194 - 49 Escape_1

Chapter 194: Chapter 49 Escape_1

(263...084...458... Readers are welcome to join our group. P.S. To all passing by friends, please add to your collection or recommend. Your support energizes me. Also, feel free to share your opinions, thanks! P.S.2: Book title change, refer to project details. P.S.3: Thanks to our reader ’Momo’ for tipping 100 Qidian coins. My apologies for not expressing my gratitude yesterday. I forgot.)

"Chirp, chirp." The clear bird call echoed from above the team.

"Safe." Pannis raised his thumb towards the overhead Night Owl, making a gesture of understanding, "Pass quickly. We’re too close to Butterfly Valley."

"Looks like you’ve been into Butterfly Valley before." Elrad looked at Pannis with admiration, "Daring enough to venture in."

"Once, years ago," Pannis nodded, "Back then we were not... Well, we were too careless that time, lost three teammates but managed to escape in the end."

"That dangerous?" Lina asked curiously, "What’s inside?"

"Bugs," Pannis twitched the corner of his mouth, still visibly jittery, "All kinds of bugs everywhere. More than a hundred thousand different breeds, in the sky, on the ground, underground, every corner swarming with bugs. Each day, for 22 hours, swarms fight and devour each other. Apart from bugs, there aren’t any other creatures, whatever entered already got completely eaten. Those bone-eating worms we saw are actually just one of the weaker breeds in Butterfly Valley."

Lina shivered, rubbed her arms while trembling a bit and tried to change the subject. But she couldn’t help her curiosity, "Then why is it called Butterfly Valley?"

"The area’s lord-level creature is a type of butterfly," Elrad explained, "Supposedly very formidable."

"Yes, truly formidable," Pannis nodded, "Remember the Hell Crystal we encountered underground awhile back? This butterfly is called the Singing Butterfly. It’s attack style is similar, it has an organ at its tail that emits inaudible sound waves to attack, ignoring defense and combining the target’s body from within, unless a Shield is used. One or two Singing Butterfly’s attacks can only harm small creatures like bugs. However, when countless Singing Butterflies attack simultaneously, no one can survive the attack besides a Demigod. Moreover, these Singing Butterflies eat meat. So, we need to pass here quickly, lest we run into a wandering butterfly swarm at the boundary," Pannis concluded.

"So, they have no natural predators? " Lina asked flipping through the Magical Beast Handbook as she followed along, quickly glancing over the Singing Butterfly’s entry," The book doesn’t mention any weaknesses, do they not have any?"

"They do. Their bodies are very frail and when they launch an attack they must keep their tails aimed at the target for seven seconds. During that time, the target can launch a counterattack. The problem is that a butterfly swarm usually numbers in hundreds or thousands, and it’s impossible to kill them all." Pannis walked for a while longer and climbed a slope without any plants. He observed the vegetation around, took a deep breath when he was satisfied, "Alright, this area is away from Butterfly Valley’s range. Look back."

Looking back, thanks to the advantage in height on the slope, they could see a valley where countless colorful butterflies danced in the canopy under the midday sun, their dazzling colors radiating mesmerizing allure.

"So beautiful." Catherine reached out with her hand in a daze, futilely trying to grasp the beauty from a distance.

"Sis, snap out of it." Lina poked Catherine’s arm, "You won’t catch anything."

"Truly a pity," Catherine looked lingeringly at the butterfly swarm in the distance, "Such pretty and rare butterflies, if we could catch a bunch of them, they sure could fetch a good price."

"As I suspected, your pursuit," said Lina shaking her head and sighing, then consciously moving a distance away.

"You guys sure move fast." The branches lightly rustled as Elrad appeared from the side as he parted the branches.

"How’s the way ahead?" asked Pannis, "Any danger?"

"The way we need to go is close to three bear dens." Elrad replied, "I just checked, one of the dens is empty, the bear has probably gone down the mountain, the other two bears are in their dens, given the time, they would have had their lunch by now, so it’s still relatively safe."

"Then let’s move," Pannis waved his hand at the team, "Walk fast, and try not to disturb the earth bears. We need to hurry and get down the mountain, we’ll rest outside of Raccoon Valley today."

The presence of the twelve Earth Bears on Earth Bear Mountain meant that there weren’t many large magical beasts. Or more accurately, there weren’t many large, aggressive magical beasts, which for passing squads was good news. It meant that as long as they avoided the threat of the Earth Bears, this zone was relatively safe. Therefore, the group was relaxed on their journey, only at odds with the fierce natural environment. Of course, that was no easy task, as traversing through dense forests made it challenging to avoid being injured or cut by thorny plants, leading to bleeding. Even if they were extremely careful, accidents were bound to happen.

As such, when they discovered an Earth Bear growling and wandering a few hundred meters behind them, near some vegetation, Illusion Fox didn’t even realize he had been sliced open by something called the Drunken Dragon Grass. He left the scent of fresh blood on the plant.

Drunken Dragon Grass was a rather troublesome plant in the forest. The edges of its leaves had sharp serrations that could easily slice through skin, even that of a Gold Rank, whose physical prowess was high. As the skin was split, a substance secreted from the leaves would numb the area locally and prevent the blood from coagulating. That allowed the victims to lose a lot of blood without feeling any pain or discomfort. The Drunken Dragon Grass was thus able to take in additional nutrients from the blood of its victims.

For smaller wild creatures, such a plant could easily claim their lives. However, for large magical beasts or human professionals, while the plant was annoying, it didn’t pose a lethal danger. Thus, they didn’t pay much attention to such vegetation. Meanwhile, Illusion Fox’s bleeding went unnoticed due to the presence of a deodorizing powder that absorbed the scent of the blood. When the blood-stained Drunken Dragon grass area fell outside the coverage area of the powder, Pannis smelled the scent of blood from behind. By then, it was too late. Sensing the scent of blood, an Earth Bear had quietly approached the group, maintaining a few hundred meters of distance. Though it had yet to notice the team’s presence, it was already tracking the occasional droplets of blood on the ground.

"Don’t panic. Stop the bleeding first. Otherwise, the bear will chase you wherever you flee." Pannis pointed to Illusion Fox’s still bleeding wound. After seeing Illusion Fox patch the wound quickly, Pannis calmly turned around and started running, saying, "Now, prepare to run for your lives."

"What?" Dora was shocked at Pannis’s calm manner of escaping, but seeing the three girls of the adventure team simply running without surprise, she could only wave to her team to follow and ask, "Didn’t you say that we should just kill it if there’s only one?"

"Screw that." Pannis yelled back without looking back, "Another three are coming. If you want to fight, be my guest."

Just as Pannis said, Dora turned her head to see four Earth Bears charging after them, one in the front and three at the back. Terrified, Dora let out a shriek and started running faster than Pannis.

The group’s location was at the two-thirds point of the second peak of Earth Bear Mountain, quite close to their destination. That was why Pannis dared to organize a retreat. If it weren’t for their particular position, running a footrace against the bears in the mountains would be nothing short of suicide.

"I think guiding you has been the biggest mistake of my life," Elrad, running alongside Pannis, lamented. "In less than half a month on this journey, we seem to have encountered almost every kind of bad luck possible. Everywhere we go, something goes wrong. Is this some sort of divine punishment?"

"Haha, just take it that way." Pannis couldn’t help teasing while running, "Actually, you should be happy. After all, you got to see many magical beasts’ habits and characteristics that you had never witnessed before, which will be helpful for you in the future. So, you should be grateful to us."

"I’d have to be insane to be grateful to you," Elrad laughed angrily, "Right now, I’m just hoping to complete your commission quickly and never get involved with you again."

"I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible for the time being, Elrad." After grasping Vivian and putting her on his back, Pannis adjusted his position. Vivian no longer resisted physical contact with Pannis after the encounter at the river, so she naturally lay on his back. Then Pannis continued, "Once we reach our destination, no matter what happens, we’ll probably need you to lead us to another location."

"Another location?" Elrad asked in confusion. "What place?"

"We don’t know either, it has something to do with an ancient nation, so we need your help to analyse." Pannis looked back at the slowly gaining Earth Bears and estimated the time for them to catch up. Then he spoke more comfortably, "We’ll give you the details when we’re safe and have set up camp. It’s too hard to explain right now."

"I just hope it’s not some troublesome place." Elrad was anxious, "I’ve had enough of you guys. It’s like I’ve been cursed."

It’s generally accepted that descending a mountain is more challenging than ascending, especially the steeper and more dangerous ones. But that’s for average people. For upper-rank professionals, whose physical strength vastly exceeds that of ordinary humans, there were no such restrictions. When these professionals recklessly charged downhill, they only needed to control their landing. There was no need to worry about speed. When going too fast, they would simply crash into the large trees on the slope. This kind of impact wouldn’t affect upper-rank professionals at all, even for the more fragile mages.

"Move, we’re not far off," Pannis said, making several leaps on the slope. In between, he also found time to look back and estimate when the Earth Bears would catch up, "I smell a lot of rotting flesh. It must be the numerous animal carcasses that Guli-Elmer saw. It seems we’re only a few hundred meters away from leaving the territory of the Earth Bears. Everyone, keep going. Beasts are very territorial and won’t step out of their territory easily. It will be safe once we reach there."

"Why they haven’t used Earth-attribute magic to interfere with us?" Katherine asked while running, "Wouldn’t that be more dangerous?"

"Elder sister, I have released an Earth Element Absorption Barrier." Vivian clinched a spell seal in her hand, guiding the spell, "Don’t worry."

All of them were rolling and running between the mountains, with the colossal bodies of the Earth Bears hot on their heels. Numerous trees were being knocked over, and rocks and soil slid down the slopes. The rumbling sounds of the shaking earth echoed through the forest.