" I think I found one!" Sofie yelled out loudly in an excited voice after having searched for the moon flower together with Yue Wan and Yang Meng for the last 15 or so minutes.

Even after searching the barren mountain side for so long, they had not managed to find a moon flower yet, so hearing Sofie's yell, both Yang Meng and Yue Wan hurried over to her position.

Without waiting for Yue Wan and Yang Meng to arrive, Sofie moved towards the moon flower in front of her.

The flower, like Yang Meng had described earlier, had a single star pattern glowing weakly on every single leaf of the pure white flower. The place it was growing was at the side of a small rock and it almost looked it was hiding away beneath the rock.

Sofie did not wait for even a second, as she grabbed onto the moon flower and carefully pulled it out of the ground.

Sadly, things did not go Sofie's way, as the moon flower didn't budge even a little with Sofie pulling it.

Surprised at this, Sofie put more strength into her arms as she once again tried pulling the moon flower out of the ground, this time using way more strength than before. However, to Sofie's surprise the moon flower stayed in place. Only moving a little from one side to the other, like it was mocking her.

Growing annoyed and angry at the moon flower that was seemingly mocking her, Sofie didn't care about being carful any longer and pulled at the moon flower with full strength.

This time around, the moon flower slowly started getting pulled out of the ground to Sofie's delight and with a tearing sound, Sofie successfully pulled the moon flower out of the ground.

Wait a minute.. tearing sound..?

Thinking back to the sound, Sofie thought it sounded very much like a time where she had forcefully pulled at one of her plushies and ended up tearing its arm off. This memory was deeply ingrained in Sofie's mind as it was something, she had cried over her poor plushie for at least an entire week back when it happened.

Only after her big sister had come back home and helped her repair the plushie had she finally calmed down and recovered from the tragedy.

B-but why did the tearing sound remind me of that..?

Sofie thought to herself as she looked a Yang Meng who had caught up to her and was now standing beside her.

"Did you find the moon flower?!" Yang Meng asked her in an excited voice, while quickly finding the moon flower held in her hands.

"Y-yes, but there was something weird.." Sofie said as she decided to ask Yang Meng if he knew something. Maybe the tearing sound was something normal that the moon flower made when it was pulled out of the ground?

"Weird? What do you mean?" Yang Meng asked in a confused voice. Not understanding what Sofie was looking worried for all of a sudden.

"T-there was a weird tearing sound when I pulled it out of the ground.. I-is that normal..?" Sofie asked in fearful voice.

"Hmm... Not from what I know, they should only be hard to pull out from the ground, I have never heard about any moon flower making a tearing sound upon being pulled out of the ground." Yang Meng said in a voice that was growing more and more confused as he looked at Sofie's fearful expression.

Is it not only a sound, why does she look like somebody who saw something terrifying?

Yang Meng thought to himself as he inspected Sofie's expression, while leaning slightly forward to inspect closer.

*Crack*

A cracking sound could be heard as the earth beneath both Sofie and Yang Meng started to slowly crack apart.

"W-what is that!?" Sofie said as she stared down at the ground that was slowly cracking apart, still having a slightly fearful expression when looking down at the ground slowly cracking open, like something tried to forcefully make its way out.

"Think about it later! We first need to get away from he-"

*Smack*

A smacking sound could be heard as Yang Meng was sent flying all of a sudden, interrupting what he was about to say.

Sofie was scared by suddenly seeing Yang Meng flying through the air and looked at the person, who was now standing beside her. Replacing the now flying Yang Meng.

"BASTARD! W-w-what did you do to Sofie!" Clearly misunderstanding something, Yue Wan stood beside Sofie, while murderously glaring at the body of Yang Meng laying on the ground a few meters away.

Sofie quickly discovered that it was Yue Wan, who send Yang Meng flying through the air and calmed down.

"Yue Wan.. Why did you send Yang Meng flying..?" Sofie asked in a confused voice. Not understanding why, the first thing Yue Wan did when she showed up was to hit Yang Meng, sending him flying into the distance.

"Huh..? Did he not do something indecent to you?" Yue Wan asked in a confused voice. Clearly having seen Sofie's fearful expression and seeing Yang Meng standing beside her did not help Yue Wan reaching any good conclusion..

So.. As the hero of justice (only when the victim is a girl), Yue Wan decided to punish Yang Meng before asking if anything was wrong or what really happened. Resulting in Yang Meng being send flying without a chance to defend his innocence.

*Crack*

Another cracking could be heard as the ground started splitting open at a much faster speed than before.

"W-what is happening!?" Yue Wan asked in a confused voice as she looked down at the cracks spreading all over the ground below them.

"Something enormous is most likely trying to make its way out from whatever place it was sealed or just sleeping in before, so like I said earlier before a certain someone decided to hit me flying.. Let's get away from here quickly." Yang Meng said in a angry tone while looking towards Yue Wan, who looked embarrassedly to the side. Trying to avoid eye contact.

"H-how do you know it is something trying to come out!? I-it could just be a small earthquake!" Sofie said as she did not really want whatever was underground to be anything living, a earthquake would be better..

"I can somewhat sense something massive is trying to force its way up through the ground with the help of earth qi.." Yang Meng said. Destroying Sofie's illusion of them perhaps being unlucky and ending up experiencing a small earthquake.

*Crack*

A cracking sound way louder than any of the past could be heard as the ground in front of them slowly split apart.

Following the ground splitting, a giant tentacle looking thing excited through the crack. The tentacle had eyes all over it and wiggled weirdly from side to side.

Sofie, Yue Wan and Yang Meng looked bewildered at the giant tentacle several dozen meters high and several meters thick, swaying from side to side, while wiggling weirdly.

"Let's get out of here.." Yang Meng said in a quiet nod, earning an approval from the two girls.

Running as quickly as possible towards the mountain road, Yue Wan picked up both Yang Meng and Sofie with one hand each.

Sofie looked back at the tentacle piercing into the sky and saw more tentacle of similar size coming out of the ground all over the place.

Fear slowly overcame her as she looked at the eyes on the giant tentacle wiggling around weirdly, at this moment, Sofie whished with all her heart to leave the moonlight mountain as fast as possible.