Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 800 - 65: Astonishing News

Chapter 800: Chapter 65: Astonishing News

"What are they doing?" Pannis kept asking, "Do they have any special moves?"

"I already told you they’re wandering around." Jack despised Pannis and spat, with all nine heads showing a mocking expression, "Isn’t what I said in the common tongue? Or don’t you understand what wandering around means? It’s just a few people, walking to and fro over a large area, back and forth, that’s what wandering around is, got it?"

Clearly harboring a grudge about their previous dispute over robbery, Jack’s attitude towards Pannis was noticeably different from the one towards Alcmene. Pannis sighed helplessly and rubbed his forehead, "I understand what ’wandering around’ means, but apart from walking in circles, they must be doing something else, right? Otherwise, just turning in place would make them like the water wheel in a mill."

"Alright, you two stop bickering, hiss hiss." At this point, even Alcmene couldn’t enjoy the spectacle any longer and quickly chimed in to ask, "Jack, hiss hiss, why do you think they are in your territory looking for Marsh Stalkers?"

"Wasn’t it you who brought it up?" Jack’s answers were always so frustrtating, but fortunately, she added, "They’re always roaming around where the Marsh Stalkers frequently appear. Sometimes they do things likely to catch the Lurkers’ attention, like running quickly across the swamp. I didn’t understand what they were up to, but now that you put it that way, I get it. They want to find some Lurkers to take away, right?"

Exchanging a glance filled with astonishment, Pannis and Alcmene had plenty of questions brewing in their minds. Pannis tentatively asked, "When did this happen? I mean, when was the last time you saw them?"

"Let me think, I didn’t pay much attention at the time, so I don’t remember very clearly." Jack intertwined her nine necks as if deep in thought and after a while said, "It must have been less than a year, you know I’m not good with the concept of time. I don’t know what your civilization considers a month or a year, but I remember it was about four hundred days ago, probably less than a year."

"That fits the timeline." Although the two demigods didn’t speak, their eyes conveyed the same message. Still, for assurance, Alcmene pressed, "Hiss hiss, Jack, you’re more familiar with the Southern Marshes than I am. Tell me, the juvenile period of the Marsh Stalkers, hiss hiss, if I’m not mistaken, is similar to yours, hiding deep in the mud, right?"

"Yeah, they do like to burrow into the mud and stay there." All nine of Jack’s heads nodded, expressing nine-fold agreement, "During their larval stage, nearly all their life can be lived in the mud, hmm, now that you mention it, it is indeed quite like us. However, after a period of growth, they’ll come out of the mud to hunt with the mother, so it’s not like they spend their entire juvenile period in the mud."

"I do know that, hiss hiss, but is there a chance to capture them shortly after birth?" Alcmene asked, "At that time, they should be deep in the mud, surely no one could dive into the swamp to catch them, right?"

"Why not?" Jack’s head moved closer to Alcmene and nuzzled her, shaking his head, "There’s a demigod here, as long as we can accurately sense the position of the Lurkers, just open the Inherent Psychic Domain right at that spot, and we can easily catch the young. But it’s not easy to sense the location of the Lurker young; they hide deep, and the marsh can block energy perception to some extent. Actually, there’s a really simple but effective method, which is to disturb a large number of adult Lurkers in great numbers and then search downward at the spot where they appear, there’s about a ten percent chance of finding the young ones."

"Wait, that’s not right." Pannis asked, puzzled, "The moribund are Deities, they can’t use the Inherent Psychic Domain, so how do they pull the young out from under the marsh using the Domain?"

"What the heck is a ’moribund’?" Jack asked back, clearly confused, "I’ve never heard this term before."

"Because you weren’t listening just now," sighed Pannis, explaining, "It refers to a few half-human, half-Undead. They also have some ghouls as subordinates. Ghouls are Undead who were transformed by the moribund after death but still retain their own bodies and will. Do you understand now? Several moribund are Deities; they can’t use the Inherent Psychic Domain like you said. As for ghouls, though not heavily laden with the Energy of Death, they also lack the breath of life and don’t have breathing or heartbeats, making them easier to distinguish. And the ghouls are likely all awakened by the moribund, who can’t awaken beings that are close to them in strength."

"You’re so strange, why do you draw conclusions without listening to others?" Jack said with doubt, "Who told you those people are moribund? I never said that; I have nine pairs of eyes, so I can confirm nine times over, those people, including the leading demigod, are all purely humans, as normal as humans can be. There’s hardly any Energy of Death on them, so they definitely can’t be what you call ’moribund’. Whether they are ghouls, I don’t know, who has the time to check if they’re breathing or have a heartbeat."

With a "snap," the metal dinner knife in Pannis’s hand inadvertently broke into two pieces. Shocked, he no longer had the leisure to argue with Jack about who wasn’t listening, because the information Jack unwittingly revealed was too startling and might overturn some of his previous assumptions. Pannis asked very carefully, "Did you notice any particular traits about those people?"

"They all wore black robes," Jack replied, "Uh, there seems to be a mark at the hem, I remember it’s gold, yes, that’s right, gold, shiny and quite beautiful."

"The mark is a golden hourglass, isn’t it?" For this particular attire, Catherine felt she would never forget it to her dying day, the numerous massive tragedies, the scores of innocent victims aged and on the brink of death, the mysterious Arrays, the stolen time—all these were deeply etched in Catherine’s memory. Once Jack mentioned it, she easily made the connection.

"An hourglass?" Jack recalled for a moment, thinking of the hourglass he’d heard about but never seen from Alcmene, he nodded, "That’s right, it seemed to be an hourglass carved on it, thick at both ends and slim in the middle, no mistake."

"Whew, that makes sense now," Pannis breathed a sigh of relief. The information Jack provided hadn’t overturned his previous assumptions but had instead filled in a very important missing piece.(To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it on qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to continue reading.)