Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 578 - 45 The Meaning of Divinity_1

Chapter 578: Chapter 45 The Meaning of Divinity_1

The ground was quaking fiercely, trees moving ceaselessly, and the thud-thud-thud of footsteps were getting closer and closer. Just when the footsteps were about to emerge from the forest ahead, the trembling suddenly stopped. Only the rustling of lightly swaying leaves echoed around. Accompanying the rustle was a deep and heavy breathing sound, which could be heard even from several tens of meters away.

"Quick, look, what’s that?" Lina’s face suddenly lit up with excitement. She couldn’t exactly describe the expression on her face, pointing at the forest ahead, she said, "Denia, its size is really huge."

In front of the six people, a head poked out from the forest. Its two round eyes blinking in curiosity at them. The head was rather spheroidal and didn’t look too big, about the size of an adult’s upper body. However, it had a very long neck, over thirty meters long, winding and twisting flexibly in all directions, much like a snake. The root of the neck was connected to the body, which was short, only about ten meters, but twenty meters high with a tail just as long. It looked like a small, moving mountain.

The enormous magical beast looked at the six of them curiously for a while, seemingly puzzled at these creatures it had never seen before. But it quickly lost interest in these beings that were just slightly larger than its own toes. It propped itself on its robust legs, straightened its neck leisurely nibbling at the tender leaves hanging from the trees. When it enjoyed its breakfast, the long tail habitually whipped back and forth on the ground, creating a dull striking sound, like a couple of monsters were fighting here.

After stripping a few trees of their tender leaves, the giant magical beast gave a satisfactory swing of its tail, slowly took a few steps out from the edge of the forest, stretched its neck to take a sniff at the six people, and no longer paid them any mind. It turned around and made its way along the rock wall in another direction, quickly disappearing into a huge cave. The thumping echoes gradually faded away inside the cave, eventually disappearing.

"That is one of the passages to another Earth’s Scar." Ike explained, "These giant beasts don’t have their own territories and don’t have any natural enemies. Their massive tails can easily break the neck of any other beast, so they are pretty safe in the Earth’s Scar. As you’ve seen, they eat plants and need to feed every couple of hours. Their consumption is very large."

"Yes, the size is enormous." Vivian murmured, "Among the land creatures, maybe only the Drakes can match it. But if the beasts here all have this size? That would be terrible."

"No, it’s the biggest." Ike clarified, "You guys are pretty lucky to have seen the largest yet most docile one as soon as you got here. Most of the magical beasts here are much smaller than it. One that’s over ten meters long would be considered large, and they are typically about five to six meters tall. Fighting them wouldn’t be too difficult, after all, most of them have the strength of the Gold Rank."

"I don’t think I want to fight them." Freya sighed softly, shaking her head, "These magical beasts are all physical enhancers, aren’t they? The three types we’ve encountered so far seemed to be."

"Three types?" Catherine was stunned, "Other than the flying insects we just saw and this one, are there others? Why didn’t we notice?"

"You’ve seen them, but you didn’t realize." Freya shook her head, "I didn’t get a good look at the small beasts that were attacking us through the mist, but all those birds that are flying in the sky are actually flying magical beasts. I got a clear look at them. Their forelimbs resemble bats, but their heads are sharper and they have short hind limbs, which makes them capable of short-distance crawling on the ground. Their mouths are full of sharp, dense teeth, so it’s hard to believe they belong to the bird family."

"Indeed, their wings are more bat-like, but their body looks more like a lizard." Pannis nodded, "These creatures have never appeared outside. If we had to make a comparison, it’s more accurate to say they are like bats. Or perhaps ... "

"Like the Drakes?" Lina came up with the connection first. She rummaged around in her backpack for a while and took out a book, flipping to a page with illustrations on it: "Although I’ve never seen a Drake, but what Freya described sounds similar to the image in this illustration. Could they really be distant relatives of the Guardians? If so, that would be very intriguing."

Freya took the book and examined it, then nodded, "Yes, they do look a bit like that, but there are some differences."

"Actually, they are indeed distant relatives of the Drakes, if we may put it that way." Pannis added, "Although they don’t share a blood relation, their bond with the Drakes is even closer."

"What do you mean?" Vivian asked in confusion, "What’s closer than a blood relation?"

"Primordial." Pannis explained, "Their primordial origin is entirely the same as the Drakes. Remember we’ve mentioned before, these creatures here have likely been living here since before the First Epoch, generation after generation, until now."

"Right, you did mention that." Catherine nodded, "But what does that have to do with their primordial origin? Are you suggesting that these races were created by Lord Yarra? But aside from Drakes and Deities, it’s unheard of that Lord Yarra had created any other races."

"Do you remember what the Song of Yarra said?" Pannis countered. "How the Creator Yarra crafted the Guardians’ race?"

"How would I possibly know that?" Catherine gave Pannis a scowl. "Even the gods don’t know that."

"Alright, I asked the wrong question," Pannis scratched his head, "The Song of Yarra says that the Drakes’ form resembles that of the Creator Yarra’s. Remember that? It’s no coincidence. In fact, I suspect that both the Drakes and these creatures came into being through some unique signals that unintentionally disseminated from Lord Yarra. That’s why the Drakes resemble Yarra so closely and these magical beasts share more or less similar features with them."

"So you’re saying, you believe the Drakes and these magical beasts here are of similar origin?" Vivian asked earnestly. "No, no, no, not necessarily those here, but they share the same origin as the creatures from before the First Epoch? I think that’s an interesting hypothesis, wait, let me jot that down. Any supporting evidence?"

"Ha ha," Pannis laughed dryly, "None, it’s just a guess I made while chatting with a friend. Who knows if it’s right or wrong."

"Hmm, it’d be interesting if it’s true." Vivian bit on her pen tightly, and pondered, "But, where would the Deities from the First Epoch come from then? Were they directly created by Yarra? Or like the Drakes, were they the result of some special signals? According to the Song of Yarra, the Deities evolved slowly. What does ’slow evolution’ mean? Can a race just materialize out of nowhere?"

"The existence of Deities was probably created by Lord Yarra directly," Pannis explained, "In the Third Epoch, someone researched this specifically. I don’t know their reasoning process, but they finally concluded that Lord Yarra created the Deities and opened the door to knowledge for them. The phrase ’slow evolution’ in the Song of Yarra refers to the Deities’ gradual acquisition of knowledge and wisdom from being on par with wild beasts. This makes sense. One piece of evidence is that the Deities of the First Epoch, with human bodies, each possessed divinity. Only creatures directly created by the Creator can possess divinity. Besides that, you have to gather enough belief and obtain some law’s acknowledgment to ascend the divine. None of us—me, you, everyone here—has divinity. The Deities from the First Epoch did, and that’s evidence enough."

"What about the Drakes?’ Vivian asked, "They’re so powerful..."

"The Drakes, of course, don’t have divinity. That’s why I said earlier that the Drakes were not directly created by Lord Yarra, but chosen from the creatures who came from him to be Guardians," Pannis answered, "And, being powerful and possessing divinity are two different things. Look, since the Godslaying War of the First Epoch, there has not been any incident of mortals slaying gods because Deities possess divinity while other beings don’t. In this world, a Deity as weak as an ordinary person would still not lose to the most powerful mortal, because without the presence of divinity, no matter how powerful, they can’t even touch, let alone harm, a Deity."

"Why?" Lina asked with intense curiosity, "Are you sure about this?"

"Why? How would I know why," Pannis responded, his expression eerily calm while his pupils shrunk to the size of a needlepoint and his hands behind his back shook slightly, "I’m certain about this. This is the insurmountable gap between gods and people."

"How much longer do you intend to discuss this here?" Catherine coughed and asked, "Instead of focusing on these insignificant matters, we’d better decide our next action. We’re already standing in Earth’s Scar now, do we want to search for our mission target in these dense woods that span across the thirty or so Earth’s Scars?"

"No need," Pannis shook his head, "All the Earth’s Scars in this region have been explored by adventurers. If our research target was here, it would’ve been discovered by now."

"So we’re heading underground directly?" Catherine asked without doubting Pannis’s judgment, "The underground is vast, where do you propose we start searching?"

Pannis looked over at Ike, and asked, "Ike, are you certain that you’ve covered all the first eight levels within a fifty-kilometer radius from the Peak of Ferlias?"

"I am," Ike assured, "And even if I wasn’t certain, the fifteen days period would only be enough to explore two levels."

"Let’s start from the eighth level then," Pannis proposed, "Let’s give the ladies some time to adjust, lest they feel uncomfortable if we directly enter the ninth level."