Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 328 - 40: The Sisters’ Choice _1

Chapter 328: Chapter 40: The Sisters’ Choice _1

The existence of the Undead, although not common in the Yarran World, are often encountered by adventurers who frequent remote places or relics. Among them, skeletons are the easiest to handle, wraiths are the most bothersome, death knights are the hardest to defend against, and necromancers possess the strongest attack power.

As long as there is no skeleton lord’s presence, a few ordinary sturdy people can handle two or three skeletons. The solution is straightforward: smash the skull of the skeleton with heavy weapons or stab their eye sockets with piercing weapons. Damaging the Soul Fire protected inside the skull will naturally lead the skeletons back to death. However, when the number of skeletons reaches a certain scale, the difficulty of dealing coping with them increases exponentially. Even as the lowest-grade existence of the undead, they can injure or even kill higher-level creatures.

The speed and defense power of ordinary skeleton are nearly equal to those of average people, so their overall strength is hardly equivalent to two human beings. However, their attack power is significantly higher than that of ordinary people, being between Bronze and Iron Rank. Even if they exhaust all their strength, they can still inflict superficial injuries on the unprepared Gold Rank professionals. With a large number, they can slaughter an upper rank professional whose Aggression has been exhausted and is surrounded. For caster-type professionals, who tend to be one to two ranks weaker in physical strength, the threat is even greater.

"The current situation is our fault," Vivian finally finished handling all the arrays and started to activate them, at the same time finding leisure to chat with the maid sisters, "The Undead also pose a significant threat to us, so don’t feel like you’re dragging us down. We’re all in the same boat here, so just think of a way to get through the crisis together. They’ll be here in a few minutes. I’ll need to guide the magic, you just try to take care of yourselves."

"Will we die?" Pansy asked timidly, biting her lower lip.

"Who knows?" Vivian’s eyes were a bit peculiar, and she spoke smilingly, "Let’s hope we all can survive. Don’t you still want to leave the City of Innocence and live a peaceful life outside? Here’s a little tip for you. It’s not difficult to live peacefully outside, but the first thing you have to confront is yourselves. You may not understand it now, but you will eventually, as long as you live through today. Alright, let the curtain rise, the show is about to begin."

The maid sisters turned back to find that the skeletons had slowly surged over just a few steps away, stepping on the magical array Vivian had previously marked. However, Vivian did not initiate any magic. Rather, she had her eyes closed, her arms spread out, leaving herself completely defenseless. The only hint of her activity was her lips continuing to wiggle, silently chanting the magic words.

As the ocean of skeletons approached slowly, the maid sisters’ faces grew paler. Looking back, they saw Catherine doing her best to distract the huge metallic puppet’s attention. The sisters shared a glance; if they took the opportunity to escape using the ropes to climb down the sewer while Catherine and Vivian were holding back the attacks on both fronts, perhaps they had a good chance of escaping the puppet’s blockade and shaking off the pursuit of the ocean of skeletons.

The sisters exchanged opinions through eye contact: to escape, or not to escape? As citizens of the City of Innocence, fleeing should be instinctive. No one is to be trusted, and the only one to rely on in life-or-death situations is oneself. Sacrifices are to be made for survival; waiting for death because of someone else’s promise is the most foolish behavior. That is just how people in the City of Innocence think.

But what did she mean in her last sentence? The sisters were both confused. Fight against oneself? It seemed she’d seen right through something before she spoke. Was it a warning? Or maybe a reminder or a hint? How to fight oneself? Why fight oneself? Fight what aspect of oneself?

Eye contact seemed to be insufficient now, as the sea of skeletons was approaching closer by the moment. Panic was written all over the sisters’ faces. The chances of survival were fleeting, and if they didn’t make a decision now, they would not need to anymore. Out of habit and rationality, the frightened young girls started to back off. However, Mimosa, the short-haired sister, suddenly grabbed her elder sister’s arm and whispered, "Let’s gamble, sister. It’s our one and only chance. We will never get another."

Though her words were enigmatic, Pansy understood her sister’s intention instantly. She gritted her teeth, grabbed her sister’s hand in return and responded, "Let’s gamble then."

The sea of skeletons finally reached Vivian’s location. The skeletons in the front rows swung their rusty utilitarian tools at Vivian. Luckily, Vivian had already prepared her magic shield. The various weapons left ripples on her magic shield without causing any damage to Vivian’s body. However, with more skeletons slashing at Vivian and closing in on her, they would be able to knock her down or severely injure her simply through sheer force and weight if they continued at this rate.

The two resolute sisters suddenly waved their hands, forcefully tearing open the seam of their maid outfits on the side, and each pulled out a long, narrow dagger from their outer thighs. Holding two daggers in both hands, they pressed themselves dangerously close to Vivian, brandishing their weapons at the skeletons.

"Damn skeleton frames, go to hell!" The usually timid and docile Pansy’s eyes were filled with insane bloodlust, the daggers striking out like venomous snakes from unpredictable angles, accurately stabbing into the eye sockets of approaching skeletons. "Don’t underestimate us, bastards. We’ve already killed Iron Rank professionals. Let alone you bunch of skeleton frames, die, die, die!"

The younger sister, Mimosa, usually lively and brave, but more timid than her sister when facing formidable opponents, was now expressionless, her gaze as calm as a corpse’s. Each time before her sister thrust her dagger, Mimosa would aptly use her limbs or weapons to immobilize the skeleton’s head, allowing her sister to deliver the fatal blow. Their coordinated movements were as smooth as if they had practiced together countless times. The sudden frenzied attack from the two sisters momentarily halted the advance of the skeletons, keeping them at bay for a good ten seconds or so.

There were just too many skeletons. Even though the majority of the skeleton’s attacks were avoided by the two sisters with Vivian’s magic shield, the ten seconds still left five or six deep wounds on both girls. Blood continuously flowed from their wounds, but the ferocious city of Innocence traits in their bloodlines spurred them on. They fought with the skeletons, their eyes bloodshot with a ’If I can’t survive, I will drag you down with me’ aura.

"Fall back." Vivian’s voice sounded as if it came from heaven. Each of the two sisters felt as if a hand at their backs was dragging them backward. Stimulated by their injuries to the brink of insanity, the girls didn’t hesitate to start stabbing behind them. It was only after their daggers were repelled by the magic shield did they snap back to their senses and retreat to support Vivian.

"First off, Impact Space." Vivian waved her hand and a magical burst erupted in front of her, pushing back a large number of skeletons and causing them to bunch up more closely.

"Then, Purgatory Soul Calming Song." Vivian abruptly lifted both hands. There were no flames, no signs, but the temperature in the space of tens to nearly a hundred meters in front of her rose by several hundred degrees. All the skeletons under the high temperature had their bones’ moisture evaporate substantially. Their bones became increasingly brittle, and the surface of the skeletons faded to a pale yellow color.

"Lastly, Vivian mode." Vivian pulled her hands back to her chest, forming a magic seal, chanted loudly: "Wind Requiem."

A magic barrier slowly rose along the edge of the high-temperature covered ground, encompassing most of the skeletons located on the half of the sidewalk near the four women. Wind blades were formed on the barrier, flying in straight lines without purpose. Whenever they hit the edge of the barrier, they would refract like a mirror and fly in another direction. More wind blades continued to generate from the barrier, making the interior of the barrier increasingly crowded with them.

Ordinarily, the power of the wind blade could at most sever the joint of the skeletons or slightly thinner arm bones, unable to deliver a fatal blow to the skeleton’s hardest skull. However, after the previous high-temperature assault, most of the skeletons’ bones had become increasingly brittle, their hardness falling drastically, and the wind blades could easily shatter the skull, destroying the Soul Fire inside.

The skeletons kept crashing into the magic barrier blocking their way. But the barrier was built up by a Gold Rank mage like Vivian, who had spent so long preparing it and was continuously guiding the strengthening spell, was not that easily broken. Under the skeletons’ onslaught, the barrier became increasingly unstable. However, the number of skeletons that could still move inside also continued to decrease. Countless Soul Fires emitted sorrowful wails from their souls, and dispersed in the air.

"Bang." Catherine burst back from behind for the fifth time. This time, she directly hit the barrier, making it sway violently and then slid down the barrier to fall on the ground. But this time Catherine did not struggle to her feet slowly, but sprung up as if a rabbit shot with an arrow, quickly fled to one side, shouting all the while: "It burns, it burns! I’m burning up!"

"If no new undead appear, the channel should be open now." Vivian watched Catherine shaking her hand that had been badly burnt while she coughed up blood, but she could only hide her worries and attempt to be nonchalant as she handed over an advanced healing potion: "I used two Legendary Rank magician-grade spells, even though they are simplified small-scale versions, and also used arrays and potions for assistance. But the backlash on my magic channel was strong. You know this, at this moment, I can only be paralyzed for half an hour, you’ll have to take over from here, big sis." (To be continued. If you like this work, please vote and recommend it on qidian.com. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users can read on m.qidian.com.)