Chapter 346: The Burrow XX
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
After the group saw Grimm and Nairo’s pale expressions, and how they had trouble catching their breaths, they knew something really bad had happened. There was no hesitation at all as they flew into the tunnel entrance that were at the top of their head.
“Holy mother, that scared me to death, wu...”
The Myna screamed out as it was perched on Grimm’s shoulder. It wiped its tears off with its wings. Amazingly, it didn’t fly back into the dimensional gap. Perhaps it was afraid that Leafie would laugh at it?
Whoosh!
Grimm and Nairo landed on the red-brownish hair on the back of the Thousand-eyed Carcinus. Grimm shouted beneath his Mask of Truth,” Get away quickly!”
“Understood, Master Grimm.”
The Thousand-eyed Carcinus collected its strength as it scurried into the tunnel with its eight crab-claws.
As they turned their backs, Grimm and Nairo watched terrifyingly as a pack of dense, blue dots of light converged into a cloud that covered the sky and was flying in their direction.
But as the Thousand-eyed Carcinus went further away from the Slush Burrow, Grimm breathed a sigh of relief. He said, “With those kinds of numbers, even a conventional Bright Sorcerer legion would suffer heavy casualties, much less a small team of ten Dark Sorcerers like ours.”
“Yeah.”
Nairo nodded and responded. There was also an Ice Hornet that was about twenty centimeters in size that were chained up by Nairo. It was buzzing and struggling endlessly.
In a short while, the Thousand-eyed Carcinus caught up with the eight dark sorcerers that fled earlier. The group formed up again as they flew toward the burrow space above.
Grimm did not feel dejected by how his own team had abandoned him and fled before him.
It was the rules of engagement among the Dark Sorcerers.
The hive of Ice Hornets did not pursue further. After thirty over hourglasses, they passed through the tunnel and reached the first chamber that had yet to be explored by the Demon-hunting Sorcerers.
The ground was covered to the brim with Snowthread Worms. Although they weren’t as many as the Snowthread Burrow, it was much more than any of the other burrow spaces that Grimm and his team had seen.
There were creatures that seemed like jellyfishes from the Sorcerer World floating across the sky. Their sizes varied from centimeters to meters, glowing in a rare sight of gentle lights as their tentacles softly swayed.
It would be more appropriate to call them ‘Frost Jellyfish’.
As the team lead, Grimm had to collect information regarding the lifeforms that were in the burrows. He then started recording the ecosystem of this burrow space in his crystal ball and started naming the burrows that he thought was of interest.
Obviously, the biggest feature in this burrow was the Frost Jellyfish.
Generally, in the burrows, creatures that emit light were like the roars of land animals. They were some kinds of warnings; or temptations like a rattlesnake’s tail.
The Frost Jellyfish were obviously not the temptation of a rattlesnake’s tail.
As if it had felt that the Frost Jellyfish were harmless, Little Myna burst into laughter. “Caw! Caw! Master, we could now have a change of taste in our dinner tonight!”
The Myna flapped its wing and flew toward a small Frost Jellyfish that was around twenty centimeters in size.
The Frost Jellyfish apparently sensed the approaching strange species that was Myna, and tried its best to glide away with its tentacles. It wanted to escape but its speed was no match to the myna. The myna started to circle around the Frost Jellyfish.
The rest of the Demon-Hunters too started to flock toward the Frost Jellyfish. They were hoping to collect some specimens for their research.
As if it had sensed that it could not get away from the Myna, the Frost Jellyfish shrank rapidly and turned into a semi-translucent frost ball. This made the myna even more curious.
“Caw! Caw! Master! It looks like riceball is on the menu today!”
The myna picked the balled-up Frost Jellyfish with its claw back to its master as if it was about to present him with the gift.
“Holy Mother!”
The myna felt something was wrong the moment it touched the Frost Jellyfish. It warped into the dimensional gap as it let out a scream.
A loud explosion followed. Huge spikes of ice flew in every direction.
The Frost Jellyfish self-destructed!
At the same time, all the Frost Jellyfish that were emitting faint glows of light within a hundred-meters’ range shrank as well. The demon-hunters’ expressions turned pale.
Grimm was quick to react as he shouted loudly, “Stay away from the Frost Jellyfish!”
The demon-hunting sorcerers who were about to collect their specimens were in shock and flew back hurriedly. Although the impact from the explosion set off by the Myna wasn’t that powerful, but that was from a tiny Frost Jellyfish.
There were countless huge Frost Jellyfish in the sky.
After a full half hourglass, the Frost Jellyfish returned back to their normal forms from their balled-up posture. Grimm breathed a sigh of relief. Beneath his Mask of Truth, his elemental eyes lit up. He said in a deep voice, “Thousand-eyed Carcinus, fly up slowly and look for an entranceway above. Don’t disturb these... umm... these explosive Frost Jellyfishes.”
Grimm named the jellyfish that could self-destruct the explosive Frost Jellyfish.
“Understood, Master Grimm.”
The Thousand-eyed Carcinus matched the speed of the escaping Frost Jellyfishes and flew up slowly. The Frost Jellyfishes glided away and caused no threat. This made the tense group of sorcerers breathed a sigh of relief.
There was a dimensional distortion on top of Grimm’s shoulder. The Myna made its appearance.
“Wu...master, these guys self-destruct, let’s not eat them.”
Leafie the parrot scoffed in disdain. “Hmph, if you hadn’t provoked them, why would they self-destruct? You only know how to get into trouble and drag Demon-Hunter Grimm with you.”
Grimm said nothing. He ordered the Thousand-eyed Carcinus to get them through the Frost Jellyfishes as they searched for a possible entrance on top of the boulder ceiling.
But since the Frost Jellyfishes were too slow to move away, the search wasn’t effective.
After five hourglasses.
At an entranceway that was around sixty meters in width, Grimm quietly shook his head and said, “Let’s keep searching.”
A week later.
After giving up on two other relatively narrow entranceway, Grimm and the team finally found a huge entranceway that spanned two hundred meters.
“Look there!”
The Myna pointed at a direction where a thirty-meter huge explosive Frost Jellyfish appeared behind thousands of other light-emitting Frost Jellyfish.
The group drew a breath of cold air!
If that monster of a creature were to self-destruct...
After some pondering, Grimm said in a deep voice,” You guys stay here, I’ll go and collect a few specimens and give the burrow a name.”
As he finished his words, a layer of ice crystal emerged from Grimm’s body slowly. He blinked and froze up a twenty-centimeter Frost Jellyfish before it was able to shrink and self-destruct into a huge ice cube.
He quietly breathed a sigh of relief. He then spoke softly into the crystal ball, “The Frost Jellyfish Burrow.”
Grimm and the team continued on their journey on the Thousand-eyed Carcinus after that. They went toward the next burrow...
Two months later.
“Master, are they mating? That’s disgusting!”
The Myna was perched on top of Grimm’s shoulder. The group was looking down from the top of the Thousand-eyed Carcinus. There were hundreds of Frost Pythons that were tens of meters in length warped together like a huge snowball as they rolled continuously.
Grimm calmly explained,” This is merely a part of the evolutionary principle of the world’s creatures, a phenomenon of the boundless, arcane truth of the world.”
These Frost Pythons were extremely powerful, the hardness of their scales were absolutely astounding. They were highly ferocious.
Because they had been living in the burrow for a long time, the Frost Python did not have the ability to fly, yet they’ve evolved to be able to climb perfectly.
But it seemed like it was the mating season for these Frost Pythons. Grimm’s team was able to get away from the Frost Python’s likely ambush.
historical
With the elemental lights, Grimm looked into the distance. There were still a few Frost Pythons that had wrapped into balls within the range of his elemental lights in the burrow.
Grimm spoke into the crystal ball in a deep voice. “The Frostscale Python Burrow.”
The team continued their journey upward with the Thousand-eyed Carcinus.
Six months later.
It was a small space. The area wasn’t very wide, and the ecosystem was very simple.
Grimm merely made some notes in his crystal ball. He didn’t even give it a name.
In recent months, the burrows they’ve been to merely grew weaker. With the Thousand-eyed Carcinus at their side, Grimm and his team were the apex of these burrows’ food chain. No creature in the burrows could present any threat toward the team, and thus their mission went on smoothly.
However, it wasn’t like their search down into the heart of the Burrow World from the Superficial Tundra.
In each passageway that contained the Acraepoid remains, there would be a most secure path. What the Demon-hunting Sorcerers needed to do was to find the largest entryways in each of the burrows.
However, the only entryway at this unnamed burrow was slightly disturbing to the group of Demon-hunting Sorcerers present.
Not even sixty-meters wide?