Chapter 353: Searching in the Mountain
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
According to Gelton and Ophra, this bizarre mountain path could sense approaching outsiders as if it was conscious of its surroundings. Even if only one knight stepped on the mountain road, it could cause the road to collapse. Plus, the spot where it collapsed was very accurate: only the stones at the outsider's foot would collapse. According to the soldiers fleeing back, this kind of landslide process was as strange and unnatural as how the Sky Road appeared, as if the mountain rock was consciously shaking the insect and ants off the body, so the soldiers were terrified. The whole Sky Road kept changing shape, so the locals were unable to figure out the collapse, plus the bizarre miasma that filled the air in this area. These were the reasons why the knights had not been able to capture this place. Although there was no "enemy" stationed here, it was more impregnable than any pass.
Facing the power left by the ancient magical empire, the modern natives of the Plane of Dreams were powerless just like facing the great forces of nature.
Of course, the Knights could also try to blow up the "bridge", but apparently, it was a stupid idea: Dragonspine Ridge could rebuild the Sky Road countless times, and it would not stop until the whole mountain was flattened.
However, Hao Ren was wondering another doubtful point after hearing these things: why was there only a "bridge" on the south of Dragonspine Ridge? If the whole mountain was really active, with the power shown on the south side, it could even engulf the entire Beinz, and the knights would not be able to do anything to stop them. But the situation now was that there was only one entry that could be broken through in the entire mountain, and until now, there were only four mountains that could produce rock giants.
Hao Ren speculated that perhaps the "ancient power" in Dragonspine Ridge was not fully awakened, or maybe there was only so little power left after it had been suppressed for million years, or maybe the person behind was not able to control everything. Anyway, Hao Ren sensed the disturbing smell from the change in this mountain for two months. He felt that there were more formidable forces hidden in the depths of the mountain, which had not yet manifested.
Now he was going to test the quirks of this place himself, and let the MDT monitored the energy readings around them to find out the source of the various bizarre changes in Dragonspine Ridge.
First, he threw some stones to the path in front of him. And of course, it did not work. Then, he walked cautiously to the Sky Road. At this moment, he suddenly remembered he should let Vivian come with him: she could fly...
But he did not want to think that much at the moment. After embarking on the Sky Road, the road did not collapse as he expected. The surrounding was still quiet, and the ground was not shaking.
"Nothing happens," Hao Ren walked a few steps forward, and then ran back and forth, and said, "Are the soldiers made it up to scare people?"
"Impossible," said the MDT while floating around Hao Ren, "They are the elite troops. How can they joke with their superior? And there are many soldiers died in the landslide. I think it might be some kind of surveillance system in this place has fallen asleep at the moment…"
Hao Ren stared at the MDT and said, "Your reason doesn't even make sense!"
Anyway, there was nothing unusual on the ground. Nangong Wuyue was looking at the distance nervously. She also coiled herself on a big rock beside her nervously. Now she saw that nothing happened, she slowly crawled to Hao Ren and asked, "Nothing happen?"
"For some reasons... It seems that we won't 'alert' the mountain." Hao Ren had regarded the unusual change of the Sky Road as a conscious act, so he unconsciously treated it as human. "According to the information Lily heard from the soldiers in the town, anyone standing here for more than a few seconds, this place will collapse. The stones on the ground would turn over and over or even suddenly bounce up and throw people down the cliff. No exception--except now."
Nangong Wuyue tapped the ground with her tail tip, trying to find some empty space beneath the ground but she did not find anything. "Does this mountain only respond to 'locals'? It may indeed have a detection mechanism, but it is not operated manually. This automatic detection mechanism only senses the locals as 'people'."
Hao Ren touched his chin, nodded and said, "Probably. Anyway, let's go back the mountain to see the situation there."
As he was speaking, he turned around and walked back, Nangong Wuyue moved her snake body and follow behind him. However, after a few steps, they heard a loud "bang" coming from afar!
Nangong Wuyue was immediately startled and shouted, "Alas—it's collapsed…"
However, nothing happened on the ground beneath her feet. The loud bang was coming from somewhere else. Hao Ren turned around to comfort this timid siren. "Don't be oversensitive. It happened somewhere else… Err, do you have to do this?"
Actually, Nangong Wuyue coiled her tail the moment she heard the loud bang just now. The self-tying speed was super fast. Hao Ren turned his head and saw a familiar snake ball swaying on the ground. Nangong Wuyue was moving her arms trying to keep the balance.
Hao Ren covered his forehead and asked, "... Do you need to coil yourself into a big snake ball every time you heard a little sound?"
Nangong Wuyue untied herself and muttered, "So is this what the big snake ball mean…"
The loud bang was coming from the east--in the depths of the mountain where Hao Ren was but a little distance from here. Hao Ren suspected that a new rock giant had collapsed from the mountain and quickly pulled Nangong Wuyue along to rush to that place see the situation there. They bolted on the bumpy mountain road, and a moment later they were approaching the position of the loud bang. Suddenly, Nangong Wuyue stopped Hao Ren and whispered, "I smell blood."
"How come your nose is more sensitive than mine?" Hao Ren immediately slowed down the pace and muttered.
Nangong Wuyue crept down and wriggled slowly along the mountain path, and said with a low voice, "Everybody has something they specialize in. According to what you said, compared to Lily's nose, our noses are useless then."
Nangong Wuyue was approaching a huge mountain rock. She hid her body, coiled herself and then slowly lifted herself. Hao Ren thought what this girl could do was more than what he had imagined: she was a jack, though he did not know how much weight she could handle.
The siren stretched out her head to look further. She then immediately cried out in a low voice to call Hao Ren to come forward. Hao Ren immediately held his shield and running in front of her: Nangong Wuyue could not fight. If there was an enemy, he must be in front of her.
However, there were no rock giants on the scene. Under the dim moonlight, there were only a few soldiers lying on the small rock flat ground. Strictly speaking, the soldiers had died. They died miserably, apparently dead in the hands of the rock giants.
"They just died a while ago," Nangong Wuyue was quickly wriggled to one of the soldiers and said, "The blood is still warm. How miserable..."
Nangong Wuyue sighed. She had seen a lot of life and death during her time on earth, so she had no resistance toward the dead. However, the people died at the hands of rock giants often extremely miserable that even an unusual creature like her also found it a little uneasy.
Most of the soldiers who were killed, their limbs were broken, and some even crushed to the ground together with their armor. There were also several wizards on the scene, but apparently, they were killed before they even got the time to cast the Gravity spells on the rock giants: they did not even have the chance to take out their wands.
Relating this incident to the loud bang just now, it was easy to guess what happened here: These soldiers should be members of the Royal Knights of Dragonspine Ridge. According to the situation on the spot, they probably just rested here for a while. But just as the soldiers let their guard down, the cliff on top of them suddenly cracked--the rock giants fell from the mountain which did not give these soldiers the time to react. Some of them were probably killed on the spot.
Hao Ren looked up at the rock and did find the dent that was probably left by rock giant.
This was a small probability event, but this was the unfortunate event that was very likely to happen in the current Dragonspine Ridge. Now, what the soldiers and mercenaries who were patrolling the mountain every day were most afraid of, was the stone giants falling from the sky and smashing them. But a case like this did not happen very often.
"The monster should have gone down the hill," Nangong Wuyue raised her body and looked into the distance. The traces left by the rock giants on the road were easy to spot. "Want to chase?"
Just a single rock giant had little value to Hao Ren. There were many such trolls wandering on the west side of the mountain. Therefore, he shook his head and said, "No, we'll go to the main peak over there. The MDT detects a suspected energy active point there."
Two of them stood in silent tribute for the soldiers who encountered unexpected tragedy. Nangong Wuyue left a layer of enchantment around the bodies to prevent the wild beasts from gnawing at the bodies of the soldiers, and the next day another patrol unit would find the missing soldiers and bring them back.
Then, they left.
But soon after they left the place, Nangong Wuyue's expression suddenly changed and she said, "We need to go back! Something's happening there!"