Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 595 - 62: Review of the Demonic Region_1

Chapter 595: Chapter 62: Review of the Demonic Region_1

"Gurgle gurgle," in the crystal energy stove, the thick soup gradually bubbled up, emitting a buttery aroma. Small chunks of grey-brown meat rolled in the soup, accompanied by the brown tubers of Warren vine. The soup stirred, with its steaming heat slowly rising from the pot and spiraling towards the roof of the cave. A few girls laid next to the crystal energy stove, propped on their arms, staring blankly at the crystals shimmering like stars on the high cave ceiling. In Pannis’s hand was a yvelin root as thick as the leg of a child. His knife skillfully glided across it, peeling off the thick skin and revealing the tender, white, fleshy parts inside.

"It’s time to eat, everybody get up." The knife in Pannis’s hand twirled acrobatically, changing its motion from longitudinal to lateral. The yvelin root, which emitted a unique vegetative fragrance, was quickly sliced into half-centimeter-thick pieces of even size, which flew from Pannis’s hand. The slices, like beads on a string, fell directly into the boiling soup. Once they were immersed in the liquid, the originally white fleshy root turned a light goose yellow color due to the heat, appearing even more translucent under the rolling water.

"It smells so tempting," Catherine said as she sat up cross-legged, propping her chin with her hand while looking at the soup in the pot. She forced a smile and said, "But I’m afraid no one has an appetite, considering that last battle was so...yikes."

A few hours before, after they’d made it out of the dissolution cave without incident, they encountered no enemies and broke through the fifth and sixth layers directly, entering the seventh one. Upon entering the seventh layer, the light here was even brighter than in the previous layers. Large chunks of crystals grew together in clusters, glaringly bright to look at. That’s when the girls realized that sometimes a light-filled environment could be more headache-inducing than the darkness. With brightness all around, those inside quickly felt dizzy, and after a while, they even saw double, making it impossible to observe their surroundings and spot potential enemies. In such a situation, perhaps wearing sunglasses could effectively alleviate the impact of the bright light, but besides Ike, the Cavern Dwarf who was knowledgeable about the situation, who would think to carry sunglasses with them on an underground adventure?

In helpless frustration, the girls could only squint their eyes and make their way through the clusters of crystals. Thankfully, Ike had mentioned beforehand that this kind of concentrated crystal growth only occurred in a few areas. Once they left here, everything would return to normal. But the journey was not smooth. Numerous snake-like bugs grew within these clusters of crystals. They were about as thick as a thumb but could extend to three meters in length. Their outer shell was a dazzling bright white, and they clung tightly to the crystals with their tails. Their bodies contracted into a length of several dozen centimeters, appearing just like outcropping crystals in the areas where the crystal luminance was highest. Under the interference of the strong light, it was almost impossible to spot these bugs’ anomalies. When any creature passed by, the bugs would spring out like an excessively compressed spring, reverting to their original length. Their pointed armored heads could pierce deeply into prey, after which they would rapidly burrow in and begin eating the prey’s flesh from inside.

This was a mutated form of the Arrow Worm. The girls had once seen their distant cousins in the Misty Forest in the Shining Forest. Back then, they were hidden within the trees and were only about thirty centimeters long. However, these worms had not only grown ten times larger since then but had also started growing together with the crystals. When the girls first arrived in this area, had it not been for Ike’s warning about the Arrow Worms’ presence, they would not have been able to detect these bugs disguised as crystals. Even with the advance warning, they had to squint their eyes and look for a while before they reluctantly discovered these crafty bugs.

Nobody knew whether the power of these bugs could break the Legendary Rank Shield, and no one wanted to put their bodies to the test. Thus, each time they couldn’t avoid going past large crystal clusters, Catherine would use her two Falcon Shields to carefully guard every part of her body, while the others would cautiously pass on the other side of her. There were a few times when they startled the Arrow Worms, but they stopped in front of the metal-cast Falcon Shields. However, after the dull impact, several shallow depressions were left on the Falcon Shields, while the Arrow Worms, which got knocked back to the clusters, were unscathed, showing just how hard their head armor was.

Leaving the area where the light was blinding, the density of the surrounding crystals returned to their normal sparsity, and the girls were finally able to open their eyes without any apprehension. But as soon as they opened their eyes, they encountered the most intense battle of their adventure so far. It was in an environment where the crystals were sparse, with a few on the ceiling providing enough light for everyone to see the surroundings clearly. Shortly after entering this area, the five members of the adventure team felt an intense flow of Demonized Energy. This was when everyone realized for the first time that besides sunlight, high-density crystal light could also suppress the diffusion of Demonized Energy. That’s why the dark spaces above the fifth layer were not invaded by Demonized Energy, while everything below the fifth layer, except for the areas illuminated by a large number of crystals, had been completely occupied by Demonized Energy.

Not long after they entered this area, they were suddenly attacked viciously by a large number of Demonized bugs. Their innate aggressiveness towards living creatures made these Demonized bugs extremely cruel. They had very low intelligence and did not care about their own lives; as long as they could take a bite of a living creature, it was acceptable to them if they were torn into pieces.

Because the Demonized Energy was afraid of the crystal light, the Demonized creatures also dared not leave this area, which resulted in a large gathering of Demonized bugs. Even though the adventure team had a sense of the Demonized Energy and had prepared in advance, they never expected such a large number of Demonized creatures to rush at them at once. In an instant, all the empty space around the team was filled with Demonized creatures, leaving them little room to move.

The battle had been fervent from the start. The bugs’ characteristics allowed them to disregard terrain, flowing like a tide from all directions, from the ceiling or the ground. Everywhere one looked, there were innumerable bugs piling up like tiny mountains. This visual onslaught created boundless psychological pressure.

In response to this situation, Pannis directly activated her Inherent Psychic Domain, dragging a majority of the bugs into it. This created a tactical buffer space for the girls. In a critical moment, Catherine invoked her Legion Defense. The phantoms of the knights occupied all the space around the girls. Lina then called forth an invisible barrier, inhibiting the bugs’ intention of getting through the gaps between the knights.

But while they could defend against those on the ground, they couldn’t defend against those in the air. Whether flying bugs or those with the ability to climb, they could easily break through in mid-air and swoop directly onto the girls’ heads. Luckily, there were Vivian and Freya. Vivian dared not use her Fire-attribute magic casually and had to resort to wide-area wind-attribute magic instead. Within an instant, colorful crystal potions flew upward from her hand and exploded mid-air, causing intense magical fluctuations. Countless wind blades hovered above the girls’ heads, whirring like meat grinders and obliterating bug carcasses, which, like rain, fell from the sky, splattering the girls in foul fluids. If a particularly strong bug broke through Vivian’s Wind Blade Purgatory, the rumble of Crystal Energy guns would echo, and an energy cluster packed with chill would promptly bombard the demonic bug, freezing it into a chunk of solid ice that would then fly back and shatter against the cave wall.

As for Ike, their guide, it turned out he was a sort of ranged axe warrior, wielding thrown Whirling Battle Axes. He handled both axes with exceptional skill, flinging them from both hands, where they circled in the air like butterflies to work together with Freya in finishing off the bugs that managed to slip through.

The high-intensity battle went on for a full half an hour. By the time Pannis returned from her Psychic Domain a second time, the five warriors had collapsed onto the ground from exhaustion. They couldn’t care less about the disgusting bug fluid that splattered everywhere, and the severed bug limbs littering the battlefield. They just lay there, using the bug remains as their cushions, too tired to move even a finger. A rough estimation put the count of bugs killed directly by the five Legendary warriors at over 50,000, not counting those that Pannis cleared away.

Urged by Pannis, the five of them reluctantly struggled to their feet and forged ahead for another hour. Exhausted as they were, they only set up camp to rest at the entrance to the eight-tiered platform. With no energy left to do any work, the task of preparing the camp fell onto Pannis’ shoulders.

"I’m sorry," Ike confessed, propping himself up like Catherine. His hands quivered subtly with fatigue as he took the meat soup offered by Pannis. "The last time I came here, the number of demonized creatures was still small, I had no idea there would be so many this time. My oversight almost led to irreparable damage."

"We can’t blame you," Catherine replied shaking her head. "The concentration and range of demonized energy is always changing and no one can predict it. Especially considering the last time you were here was ten years ago. If I had prepared thoroughly before entering the demonized energy zone, it wouldn’t have been so bad. Anyway, we can summarise the experience later. For now, everyone, get up. We need to eat before we rest."

"But big sis, we really can’t eat anymore." Freya grimaced as she sat up and complained, "Thinking back to the feeling of the bugs on us makes me... uh..."

Catherine’s mouth twitched as if she too could feel the repulsive slick bug fluid drenching her body. Despite having washed five or six times already, the disgusting sensation lingered. Biting her teeth against the urge to throw up, she instructed with bitter determination, "To replenish our strength, we must eat. Even if you can’t handle it and throw it all back up afterwards, some will still have been absorbed. Now, everyone get up."(To be continued. If you like this story, please come to qidian.com to cast your recommendation vote or a monthly ticket. Your support is my biggest motivation. For mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)