Chapter 50 – Sunrise
Translated by Sunyancai
It was better to be more cautious.
A bit later, there was another avalanche, but not as massive as the last one.
Shao Xuan did not intend to leave before dawn. So they waited until sunrise, for it was not convenient for them to move or identify the paths when it was still dark.
They were targeted by both a ferocious beast and a severe avalanche. After running away for such a long time, all kinds of emotions began to well up once they relaxed.
Hungry and tired, but they still had to stay alert because it was necessary to avoid unforeseen dangers. Because of that, Shao Xuan had cursed the trouble-maker Ah-Fei over nine thousand times in his heart.
Originally, they had brought a piece of meat with them, but they lost it during their escape. Shao Xuan searched in his animal skin bag and found a spearhead and a small gourd inside. The gourd was filled with boar blood, and there was still some boar blood left. Mai and the others had put in some kind of a grass essence, which could prevent the blood from coagulating.
After drinking some boar blood, Shao Xuan passed his gourd on to Mao. That guy was in even worse condition than him. All his stuff was lost on the way, except for some short spears and a stone sword.
Although there was no meat, a swig of the four-fanged boar’s blood could restore their energy to some extent. Mao looked around and asked Shao Xuan, “Do you think Mai and the others will come to find us?”
“I’m not sure.” If they were in some other places, for example the basin or the valley, or the forest they marched through, Mai and the other warriors would probably come and find them based on their traces. However, in this place, since they were stepping on ice and snow, a lot of the traces they left had been erased by the snow. Besides, when they were chased after by that Thorn Black Wind, instead of going straight up, Shao Xuan began to escape circularly after they got to a certain altitude.
The temperature at night was far lower than during daylight. When they were climbing up the mountain, it was the middle of the day, and they already felt quite cold, let alone now when it was already mid-night.
Perhaps they had consumed too much energy that night, the absorption of the four-fanged boar blood was quicker than before. Mao took three swigs constantly.
Their totemic power hadn’t stopped running. It was the only option, for one would get easily frozen without the support of the totemic power, so they had to keep it running.
Finally, they had some calm, but Mao did not know what to talk with Shao Xuan. After all, he had some problems with Shao Xuan. After drinking quite a bit of the blood of the four-fanged boar, Mao felt a little sleepy. However, the taut nerves and endless icy wind had driven away his drowsiness a lot. Glancing at the surroundings, there was nothing but the darkness. They could barely see the vicinity, but everything disappeared in the distance. After having bottled it up for a while, Mao finally decided to ask Shao Xuan why he could see the surroundings in the dark. However, just when he turned to Shao Xuan, he found him gulping down the boar blood again from his gourd.
It was the fifth swig…
Normally, Mai only allowed them to take one swig at a time, for they would not be able to endure the energy from that blood if they drank too much. Even when Mao himself was exhausted, he merely constantly took three swigs, which made him feel that it was near his limitation. When you have too much energy at one time, you may find it difficult to control, and when the energy got out of control, you may suffer from the energy rioting inside your body. However, Shao Xuan had no intention of stopping, and judging from his actions, perhaps there would be a sixth swig shortly.
“Are you okay…with so much of that?” Mao asked.
“For now it’s okay.” Shao Xuan felt that the energy brought in by the boar blood would quickly fade away after some time. The feeling of exhaustion hit him again and again, so he needed to take another swig. After a few rounds of that, Shao Xuan did not find any side effect, so he followed his feeling and kept drinking the boar’s blood.
Mao only took three swigs from the half-full gourd, and Shao Xuan drank up the rest. When there were no more boar blood in the gourd, there was a misty light on the horizon.
Mao looked at Shao Xuan as if he was staring at a monster. He could not figure out why that guy could drink so much boar blood and still act normally. Instead of suffering from issues in his body, he seemed more and more vigorous!
No one would believe that if he told the people in the tribe!
“Shall we leave now?” Mao asked.
The snow had stopped falling for quite some time, and with the lighted up horizon, they could obviously feel the rise of the temperature. When the sun rose, they would not have to continue circulating their totemic power.
“Let’s wait for a bit more.” Shao Xuan answered as he gazed at the sky.
The clouds dispersed a little and Shao Xuan could see a peak among the sea of clouds, which was the mountaintop of a mountain in the distance. It constantly revealed its existence within the surge of clouds. Farther away, there were taller mountains poking into the deep blue sky.
When the sun finally came out and shed its lights on the snowy region, the icy tone finally lessened. Endless snow filled one’s horizon and when you looked up, you could see the peak of the mountain.
Snow covered their knees and they could only see the color of white for as far as their sight went. Heaven and earth seemed to be merged together. When you looked down the mountain, the world down there was buried in mist, which could not be seen through clearly.
The vision ahead made one feel as if they were lost in a world of white, which could never be crossed. Some less determined minds might probably flinch at the sight of it.
Here, it was higher than the mountain that Mai had led them to before. Shao Xuan was looking at one of the mountains inside a mountain range. When you looked afar, you could see the white mountain peaks for a thousand miles.
“What…is this place?” Mao looked at the strange scenery and asked anxiously. He remembered the places that he had been to before, and even the scenery nearby. However, he felt completely unfamiliar with the things he was seeing now.
When they were escaping, it felt not far, but judging from the circumstances now, they realized that they were in big trouble.
It was impossible to stay here for long, so Shao Xuan decided to head down the mountain first, at least they would go to somewhere warmer.
In his heart, Shao Xuan was still worrying about old Ke’s tooth sword. When old Ke had given him that sword, he had held it in front of old Ke and told him to rest assured, for he promised to take good care of the sword. However, the sword was gone now.
They headed down the mountain, and after they had gone through the mist, scenery from down the mountain began to appear.
In these mountains, there was no vegetation in the snow covered area, while down here there was a lot of green that enjoyed short winters and long summers.
They were almost two different worlds.
After walking for some time, they saw a big chunk of snow and a thin layer of snow that was melting under the sun. The chunk began to reveal its true appearance under the snow…black scales.
The sword sticking out indicated that it was the Thorn Black Wind’s head, and Shao Xuan quickly confirmed that.
A ball of snow fell down along with the melted snow-water, with traces of red mixed in. Shao Xuan looked closely and found that the sword pierced through for over half its length instead of the previous one third. Around the sword, there was some frozen blood.
Thorn Black Wind’s thorns and scales which usually looked majestic while standing straight, had now all lowered, not moving at all.
Shao Xuan closed his eyes after indicating Mao not to move. When he opened his eyes again, he saw a giant skeleton in his view. Unlike yesterday, the huge ferocious beast had quite a few broken bones now, as if it had hit something hard. Even if it was still alive, it would be severely injured. And the head… the sword got stabbed in deeper into the skull.
If not for the sword, Shao Xuan would be heading down the mountain without any hesitation, and he would never try to examine if that Thorn Black Wind was still alive. It’d better be dead, for even if it was barely alive, with Shao Xuan’s condition, he had no confidence in beating it.
Shao Xuan made a hard snowball with the snow he gathered, and then tossed it towards the sword.
The sword trembled, while the huge ferocious beast did not move.
After a testing a few times, Shao Xuan finally confirmed, that the ferocious beast, that dominated on the top of the food chain in the basin, was actually dead.