He was sweating profusely, but within five minutes, the sweat had already soaked the inside of Yajiro's armor. Heat rises from around the neck. If the cloth under the forehead protector hadn't absorbed the sweat, the sweat dripping from the forehead would have eroded the eyes like rain, further disturbing the already poor vision.
The biggest difference between actual combat and the competition arena, apart from the weapons in hand and the fact that the opponent does not follow the rules and is one-on-one, is probably this complicated environment.
The competition ground has been renovated by dedicated personnel for a clear view, and even the ground is flat without any fluctuations. But the environment in the wilderness is not like this. The ground will be uneven with stones, shrubs and weeds. If it rains, it will be muddy and slippery. If it is too dry, dust may be thrown up to block the view.
If you don't pay attention to the ground you're stepping on, you won't even be able to stand firm. And it's even more troublesome in the forest. The shrubs will catch on your clothes and block your view. If the opponent is not a human being but some kind of creature crawling on the ground, it will be difficult for you to judge where the opponent is attacking from.
——It’s so deadly, and the wind is blowing now.
The sound of "rustling--" came from the bushes in front of him. The young master clutched the cross gun in his hand and turned around to face that direction, but he couldn't be sure whether it was the sound of earth spiders or the wind.
The blazing torches swayed crazily in the strong wind, making the scene in front of them flicker. However, this was their best means of lighting - the lighting range of lanterns and candles was small, suitable for use in campsites, and was relatively fragile. In rough environments, only simple and crude torches are suitable, and they can also be used as blunt weapons to hit enemies in emergencies.
Yajiro held the torch with the index finger, middle finger and thumb of his left hand, while the remaining two fingers hooked the front end of the cross gun. He stretched this hand forward to illuminate the scene in front of him as much as possible, while his right hand held the cross At the end of the gun, the center of gravity dropped, and the tip of the gun pointed at the lower bushes.
My feet were getting weak, as if they were filled with lead and it was difficult to move due to the long stalemate.
Rustling sounds surrounded the surroundings, telling the fact that they were completely surrounded.
"How is it possible? There are so many carnivorous creatures of this size. What do they eat to survive?" Ling, who was in the center of the defense formation, said to herself. She could not think of a reasonable explanation no matter what. The three young warriors from Pingshan County, including Torataro, looked frightened and were trembling even though they were holding weapons in their hands.
"Here it comes!" Lao Qiao, who was in charge of the other direction, shouted and then stabbed the cross spear from bottom to top. Galeva beside him was half a beat slower but followed with the advantage of his height and long hands. Go up.
"Pa!" "Hiss--" A giant spider half as tall as a man jumped up from the ground, but Lao Qiao and Galeva, who had judged the movement, accurately stabbed it, and the cross-wings of the cross gun stopped it. Actions.
"Young man! Nail it to the ground!" "Okay." Old Qiao directed the tall but inexperienced young man. Galeva stabbed the spider hard on the ground. After that, Old Qiao pulled out the cross gun and turned the direction accurately. It penetrated the gap in the center of its torso.
"Hiss -" The earth spider hissed, its seven legs curled together and twitched for a while before going silent.
"How much?"
"11. The teacher has already killed 7 centipedes." Mira, who was standing on one side with Yajiro, replied. Among all of them, our Luoan girl is probably the one with the most experience in combat except Henry. But even if she faced such an enemy in this environment, she was still very nervous.
"In the sky." Lulu, who lacked the ability to fight head-on, found herself a big rock in the center of the defense formation and stood as a sentry post, suddenly said, and the group looked up, and saw several huge bird shadows in the dim sky. Hovering under the moonlight, getting closer and closer.
"The human-faced bird was attracted by the insect corpses." Aya seemed to be able to remain calm. She used her knowledge as a doctor to try to analyze these monsters to help everyone, but the more she thought about it, the more unreasonable she felt. .
Although there are creatures such as deer, wild boars and rabbits in the wilds of Zhangzhou, they are completely unable to support predators on this scale. The bodies of these bugs are often half the size of a human being. Even if the consumption of arthropods is lower than that of warm-blooded animals, it is absolutely impossible for earth spiders, which are ambush predators with strong territorial awareness, to live in groups of more than a dozen like this.
Not to mention those giant centipedes two or three meters long that didn't attack each other but just attacked the group of people.
It's as if they are all under the command of a higher-level existence.
This is not a product of nature.
Kazuto's so-called monster reminded Mira of many things, and this unpleasant sense of contradiction pointed to one fact——
A fact that she didn't want to think about and didn't have time to think about right now.
"Pa—!" Henry stepped on the smooth shell of another centipede. This giant centipede, which was several meters long, immediately curled up and planned to wrap around his legs and climb along the body. The sage He held the sword in his backhand and cut off its body with a slight stroke. While the insect's bodily fluids were spraying out, he swung the sword high and cut off the head of the centipede in front of him with a reverse cassock slash, which was raising its body and intending to spit out venom. department.
"Bah!" The acid splashed from the split head stained the clothes and immediately began to corrode. Even the fallen leaves on the ground emitted some green smoke, but no one noticed it because of the darkness.
"Acid spitting for self-defense." Aya noticed this scene happening again next to her. Although the centipede with a body only one and a half palms wide seems very disgusting to humans, it can be regarded as a predator in the middle ecological niche. . The acid with a strong pungent odor and corrosiveness stored near the back of the neck is a means of self-defense they use to face threats - although the sages are undoubtedly a threat, the current use of these centipedes is obviously not It is in line with the self-defense and life-saving nature of escaping after spitting out acid.
——It was used as an offensive method: the centipede that crawled on the ground to catch the night and complex terrain approached the sage, while the one in front kept a distance and propped up its body to attract his attention while spitting acid to interfere.
Buy time for similar creatures approaching on the ground so that they can attack with more threatening fangs from the sage's visual blind spot at night.
It’s hard to imagine, hard to understand. The more she thought about it, the more she came to the conclusion that it was precisely because she had so much biological knowledge as a scholar that the behavior of these monsters made the doctor feel so unreasonable.
This kind of division of labor and cooperation goes against nature and even exceeds the intelligence of an insect's brain.
It's just like.
Same as humans.
"Crack-" Galeva and Lao Qiao killed another earth spider that jumped up. A sage was cleaning the centipedes on the periphery, which had a flatter body and was harder to find. The group used a careful formation to defend against the fatter earth spider. It's not difficult, but that's assuming there's a result.
"It's endless!! Let me out!! I want to leave!" Among the three Torataro, a young samurai did not make any effort but seemed to collapse under the pressure. He grabbed the sword in his hand and was in the formation of a group of people. Lulu was swinging wildly out of fear. Lulu, who was climbing on the stone, was almost cut by him and fell down to avoid it. Fortunately, Ling was holding her up. Noticing the movement, Mira turned around and kicked him accurately on the side. Then she stepped hard on the right hand of the young samurai who fell to the ground, causing him to let go of the knife in pain.
"Don't pull it out if you don't know how to use it." Our Luoan girl, who was very different from the gentle Kazuto woman, decisively disarmed the collapsed samurai to prevent him from causing a fire in the backyard. But before this interruption, only Yajiro was left in the defensive circle that was already under great pressure. Two earth spiders immediately sprang out from the bushes. The young master stabbed one with quick eyes and hands, but the other crossed the defense line and headed directly towards He rushed towards the Luoan girl who was facing the enemy from behind.
"Mira!" Ling shouted anxiously, while Lulu struggled to take out the knife.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, seize-" Henry on the other side threw out a flying knife but couldn't stop it completely because it wasn't heavy enough.
"Tsk -" After noticing all this, our Luoan girl knew that her turn was too slow, so she directly turned the cross gun in her hand and thrust the gun head out towards the back - since this guy was rushing towards her. Yes, then just focus on yourself for defense.
"Crack!" The spider's carapace is very weak. Even the earth spider that stands half as tall as a man has no power to resist in front of the metal weapon. The earth spider's torso weighing more than 10kg that was pierced by the cross gun was immediately struck. In an emergency, the girl from Luoan, who was holding a gun with one hand, couldn't help but let go of the weapon, but she turned around without hesitation and pulled out the long knife from her waist, and slashed into the spider's head with a sword-drawing slash.
"It's shallow." The strength and speed of the weapon she was not used to were different. The knife could not cut very deep. She directly kicked the back of the knife with her foot to let the attack penetrate deep enough to cut off the nerve, and then stopped the earth spider. Come down.
"Wha—" "The bird is coming!" Yajiro on the other side noticed that Mira couldn't free her hand, so he held the torch under his arm, stepped on the wing blade of the cross gun, pulled out a waist knife, and stabbed into the center of the spider, killing it too. , and the human-faced bird that had been hovering in the sky suddenly swooped down at this time and planned to join in the fun. Mira quickly lay down and pulled out the flying knife that Henry had just thrown. At the same time, she rolled to avoid the human-faced bird's dive, but this weird The giant raptor flew towards her instead of staring at the insect corpse. Although she was in a hurry, the Luoan girl remained calm. She judged the other party's intention in the darkness and threw the throwing knife.
"Wha--" But it failed.
"Lie down." Lulu, who had finally tidied up, called out from behind, and the Luoan girl's hearing, which was raised to its maximum sensitivity, accurately captured the sound of the bowstring tightening, and she decisively lay down on the ground.
"Pah!" The petite Yiren girl who was born as a hunter opened a long recurve bow that was disproportionate to her body. With the addition of the special bow body, the extremely high-speed arrows flew toward the opening. clawed human-faced bird, and hit its left eye with unerring accuracy, piercing the fragile hollow skull of the flying creature.
"Bang bang - bang -!" Big Bird, who died without even uttering a scream, tilted his body and fell into the center of the formation of a group of people. The young man was holding the hand that was stepped on by the Luoan girl and was crying secretly. In front of the warrior, the strange human-like face and a little blood gushing from his eyes scared the man to jump up and hit Lao Qiao with his back, almost causing him to fall down.
"It's not enough!" Yajiro finally couldn't help but cursed. He put the sword back into its sheath, holding the cross gun tightly with both hands, picked up the earth spider and threw it to the side, clearing the ground nearby to prevent the insect corpses from hindering the movement, and then took it again Mira, who walked over with weapons in hand, once again strengthened the defense line.
"Huh-huh-" Panting, our Luoan girl rolled on the ground. Her white hair was stained with some fallen leaves and dust, and there were small scratches on her arms from pebbles.
Both physical and mental energy were consumed tremendously, and this was despite the fact that there were sages on the periphery who spared no effort to clean up a large number of bugs by themselves.
The sword is not suitable for defending the formation when it is opened and closed. His physical strength and speed are more suitable for a person to wander outside to reduce the pressure on his companions who form a formation with spears in the middle.
"It's hard to move even an inch." Lao Qiao sighed, and Galeva next to him nodded in agreement.
The attack seemed to have paused for a moment. There was no trace of the human-faced bird in the sky, but the torch itself was unable to illuminate the sky. The moonlight tonight was not bright enough.
They have already attacked once and may do it again. The swooping speed of the human-faced bird is quite fast, and you may not be able to notice it in time next time.
Inseparable.
Although Ling and Lulu from my own family have no fighting ability, they can still be used. What is sad is that these three young warriors from Pingshan County are complete losers. Not to mention that they will only cause harm to themselves and others by wielding their weapons randomly out of fear. trouble.
4 people protecting 5 people, even if there is a cross gun with a longer attack range, it is still very troublesome.
The most important thing is the loss of vision - although the wind is gradually decreasing, the swaying torches are still difficult to illuminate a large area of the scenery. If it is daytime, as long as they can see the target coming from a distance on the open ground, they will not be trapped in this situation. Dilemma, the darkness now makes the enemy a more threatening object.
"Light."
If only.
If it won't be blown back and forth by the wind, won't be wiped out by the rain, and is stable enough to illuminate the surroundings -
An unknown language suddenly sounded in her ears, and Mira shook her head vigorously. She felt that she was experiencing auditory hallucinations due to too much pressure, but the sound only became stronger and stronger.
There was a cramping pain near the heart, but it was neither the heart nor the lungs.
It's a magic pool.
Then there was a burst of burning and numbness in the blood vessels near the collarbone and arm.
"Qiangdang——" She let go of the cross gun in her hand.
"Mira?!" The young master next to him shouted. Henry decisively chopped to death the last centipede and kicked it away before rushing back.
"...Medaluna, please visit Douse."
"Iluna Tiam (White Moonlight)"
"Bangba -" A strong white light instantly rose from the forest and then exploded into debris all over the sky, illuminating the entire forest as bright as day. The sage immediately closed his eyes and covered them with his hands, and then Quickly getting used to the change in light, I jumped up and stepped on a tree trunk to help jump into the air and split a low-flying human-faced bird in half. When I landed, I just enough to support us who turned pale again. The Luoan girl.
"So bright!"
"What's going on?"
The debris exploded by the light ball was like snowflakes, but it did not fall to the ground but floated in the air, covering a radius of 20 meters, enough for everyone to see what happened.
"She..." Ling looked at all this in shock. Her expression was even more exaggerated than when she saw the insect before. She looked at our Luoan girl who looked weak due to the consumption of magic power and hesitated to speak.
"What a bright light, calling for light, just like the Great Moon God." Yajiro looked at Mira blankly, and the Luoan girl whispered to Henry after she was sure that she could barely stand. , and the sage slowly let go of his hand, letting her stand up with the cross gun.
"Ah? The bug ran away." The dull Galeva once again looked around slowly, but he noticed something that others did not notice.
"Hey, is that one over there--" He patted Torataro on the shoulder and pointed forward, and the young man from the Wu family in Pingshan County who had always been timid screamed when he saw the luggage.
"It's our thing, Hui, Hui, where are you!" Shouting loudly, Torataro rushed out of the defensive circle and ran in front of the thing. Yajiro clicked his tongue and quickly followed to protect it. The other two Pingshan County warriors also followed. Whether it was due to the white light, the insects retreated without a doubt, and they were not in danger for the time being.
"Teacher, do you know something that I don't know?" Mira, who had regained some of her color, looked at the white light around her, and then looked at Henry, who had not released her magic yet. He rushed over as if he knew what was going to happen.
"What the guy who interrogated me said before, and the witch seems to know me, what is the connection between the Luoan people and this land."
"I."
"What on earth is it?" She looked at her hand with a wry smile. Possessing power that she didn't even know brought the girl not inflated self-confidence, but confusion.
"I don't know either." The sage ruffled her white hair as always. The little one when they first met is now only a head shorter than him. She is growing at an alarming rate.
Time flies, maybe it's all too fast.
"Most magicians master new magic through learning, but it is also said that there are some who are born with particularly keen perceptions and can understand it on their own under certain circumstances."
"There is a saying that magic has an atavistic phenomenon. If it is triggered under certain circumstances, it can possess the abilities mastered by its ancestors." He knew that Mira was no longer satisfied with a simple ignorance, so he continued.
"But my parents just-" the girl from Luoan sighed.
"It probably has something to do with this land." The sage continued to rub her head until Mira grabbed his hand and began to use the other hand to tidy up her messy white hair.
"It's really troublesome." I put aside the things I couldn't figure out for the time being, and there were more important things at the moment.
Ignore and move on. This is a must-have strong nerve for adventurers. Staying stuck on the problems that cannot be solved temporarily will only miss the truly important things.
They followed the group, and the rest of the group, who walked away to do other things while the two were talking, discovered two things in total -
"The cave, probably the earth spider came out of here." Under the white light, it was as bright as day. In order to save burning time, the group temporarily extinguished most of the torches. They found a huge cave that could accommodate two people walking upright and side by side. It was hidden under the bushes. If it weren't for the many bugs that had just entered and exited, they might not have been able to find it.
Galeva, who arrived first, had already cleared away all the unnecessary bushes with a one-handed knife. When the firelight shone, the inside was filled with dripping water. The invisible darkness in the depths made people shudder.
But judging from the luggage scattered at the door, the missing followers and warriors were obviously dragged inside.
The other thing is the result of our doctor's investigation because she could not suppress her doubts.
"Look at this, did you find anything?" She pointed to the two dead spiders on the ground.
"What, just a really big one? Wow, it's even more disgusting when you look at it under the bright light. Were we fighting this just now?" Leng Tou Qing said while touching his upper arm, while Ling glanced at him and sighed helplessly. The tone came closer and pointed more accurately at the soil spider's legs.
"They are all, seven legs." Yajiro was stunned.
"Yeah, and so were all the other bodies around there."
"Ah? Are the spiders in Crescent Continent like this? Rigal's spiders all have eight legs." Before Galeva could react, Mira kicked him: "Idiot, didn't you see the broken gap? ."
"Yes, they are all broken." Ling nodded: "I also checked Centipede and the two dead human-faced birds. Except for the fresh wounds we caused, they all have the same scars or disabilities. "
"Combined with the density of these carnivorous creatures and the behavior that goes against their biological habits."
"Man-made." Henry squatted down and observed the dead bug.
"Is it some kind of summoning spell?" Mira raised this possibility based on her knowledge of Rigal's magic.
"It's not very similar." Ling shook her head: "If the summoning technique you are talking about is similar to the onmyoji's use of shikigami, it requires the user's own spiritual power to maintain it."
"Most of Onmyoji's shikigami are semi-spiritual bodies, because they need objects to maintain their entities in this world."
"The most common ones are paper dolls or puppets. If they are killed, they will return to their original appearance. This one is still a bug after death, so it is not a shikigami but a living thing - at least that's what the book says." Aya I added this last sentence somewhat unconfidently.
"Then what is this?" Lao Qiao asked, and Miss Doctor sighed helplessly: "I don't know either, my knowledge is shallow and beyond my knowledge."
"God does not need to make everything conform to human cognition and understanding." Suddenly, our sage next to us said this.
"What does this mean?" Ling asked with interest.
"It's a commonly used vocabulary in the church. When faced with something they can't justify, they use this sentence to suppress people." The sage shrugged: "Although they always claim that humans are the descendants of God and the most important spiritual leader of all things, But there are too many unreasonable things in the world.”
"When encountering these things." Henry pointed to the sky: "Put it all on the Lord God, saying it is God's will, supreme, no need to explain to the world, no need to be reasonable."
"It's really Tu's own convenience. La Mo is, Rigal is a place like this, isn't it?" Miss Doctor lowered her eyes thoughtfully.
"In short. They are exactly the same as if they were mass-produced products made by craftsmen, that is to say."
"There will be more of this, right?" Mira converted the information into a pattern she could understand - enemies, there will be more enemies.
"Probably so. Although we still don't know the energy and production methods of these creatures, after all, this place-" "In short-" The Luoan girl covered Ling's mouth, which was in scholar mode again, and then turned her head to look at The three of Torataro who were making a fuss next to them said: "Someone seems to not want to stay any longer."
The son of the Pingshan County Magistrate obviously wanted to go into the cave to save people, but the other two, including the man who was stepped on and disarmed by Mira, experienced this series of changes and just wanted to go down the mountain and hide next to the bonfire.
"We'd better go back and bring in some reinforcements." Henry said, and the people around him nodded.
