Chapter 266: Twin Rivers of Oddity (3k)
“If Senior Sister wants to go down, follow me closely… there might be some unknown danger below.”
With a light tap on the frost soil, she lifted off the ground, a blood-red long sword surging from her feet. Su Jiu glanced back at Senior Sister Du who was following, then like a diver, turned into a stream of light and plunged straight down…
Weaving through the ravine, ice crystals grew like wild branches. However, Su Jiu and her companion were not hindered at all, directly using brute force to smash through the ice branches and leaves. With a “shrieking” sound, they slid smoothly downwards like graceful swallows, dodging countless streams of light of different colors around them.
“Isn’t she also a mid-rank Battle General? Why is she always a step ahead of me?”
Discovering that she was always five to six body lengths behind Su Jiu, the frosty figure behind Su Jiu frowned and accelerated. After about ten breaths, Senior Sister Du frowned, looking at Su Jiu’s back, whom she could never catch up to but never fell behind. After a moment of silence, she asked, “Where should we go now?”
“To the end of the river below, I need something there…”
Without pausing, Su Jiu’s gaze swept over the long ice river below. She picked up the palm-sized remnant map again, and after carefully scanning it, continued to sweep towards the southern end.
The journey was unobstructed. Coupled with their speed, in just a dozen breaths, the two had gradually penetrated deep into Yunbai Ravine. At this moment, the surrounding frost was becoming increasingly dense, and they had reached a deeper part of the ravine.
“Coldstream Crow?”
Occasionally, white figures flitted past. Su Jiu’s body paused slightly. Not far in front of them, to the left, darted a strange bird resembling a carrion crow, with blue feathers, a long tail, and red pupils. The strange bird exuded the aura of an Initial Stage Battle General and was extremely fast. Behind it were five to six streams of light, the adventurers or hunters from before.
“You wait for me here. I can’t possibly refuse this bounty that’s delivered to my doorstep – Cloud Piercer!”
With a light smile at the still-confused Senior Sister Du behind her, Su Jiu’s body flashed, leaving a black afterimage. A pale white light slid between her fingers. In just two breaths, she appeared behind the Coldstream Crow. Her fingers, like a dancer rinsing silk, scooped and pinched, firmly grasping the Coldstream Crow’s neck. A gentle tap, and the Coldstream Crow fainted.
“Still twelve short…”
With a light smile, she used her knee to lift a storage bag. A snow-white ball sprang out. Su Jiu cupped her other hand slightly, preparing to collect it.
“Yellow-haired brat, put it down quickly! This is not something you can obtain!”
A deep voice sounded. The previous streams of light also stopped. They were two teams, one in red combat uniforms and the other alternating between ink and white combat uniforms.
The speaker was a bearded man wearing a gray knitted hat. He was the leader of the red combat hunting team. Seeing that Su Jiu was not far from the strange bird, he rushed over immediately. However, he didn’t expect her to have already captured the Coldstream Crow, so he immediately roared, “Throw the frost ball in your hand to me, or don’t blame me for being impolite!”
“Whoever gets this ownerless item first claims it… Moreover, with your highest level just reaching mid-rank Battle General, you probably can’t catch up even if you chase for half a day?”
Casually collecting the Coldstream Crow with the White Snowball, Su Jiu turned around and looked. Her gaze swept calmly, her delicate eyebrows raised, and she said indifferently.
Senior Sister Du behind Su Jiu also arrived late. She looked at the six people opposite them. Her gaze swept over the ink-white team, and she noticed their leader was just lowering his head as if contemplating something. Her gaze then shifted, and she snorted coldly at the bearded man, saying:
“This Coldstream Crow was obtained by my friend first. Why do you demand she hand it over? Or are you saying that in the wilderness, you don’t take my identity as a Dragon Hunter seriously?!”
Su Jiu looked at her with surprise, then put the White Snowball back into the storage bag. Unlike ordinary frost balls, the White Snowball could also capture monsters of other attributes. After doing so, she said softly, “Thank you…”
Although she didn’t need her to intervene, it was questionable whether she could withstand even one sword strike from the six of them if they fought. However, when someone helped, she would remember it.
“You guys… damn it, you’re really unlucky!”
The bearded man’s face immediately flushed red. His face turned dark red, as if Zhang Fei was feeling shy. Just as he was about to lose his temper, his gaze fell on Senior Sister Du’s black scale armor, and his eyes darkened. He waved his sleeve and turned his head away.
When Su Jiu saw that the bearded man did not continue to pursue, she flashed and continued to sweep downwards.
The man in the knitted hat was also about to leave, but his gaze fell on his rival who was still standing there in a daze. His thick eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he stopped, asking with some confusion, “What are you still looking at? Judging by her aura, that Dragon Hunter should be a veteran mid-rank Battle General. With your team’s strength, it’s probably difficult to take them down.”
“Take them down?”
After Su Jiu and her companion completely disappeared, the leader in ink-white clothes slowly turned his head. His face was covered in sweat, and even his pupils were slightly dilated. His eyelids twitched, and he said with lingering fear, “We six just walked through the gates of hell. Do you know who that black-skirted girl was just now?”
“Who? She’s just a Dragon Hunter. There’s no need to make such a fuss. Mu Hou, I’ve known you for so many years, I didn’t expect you to be so timid.” The man in the knitted hat rolled his eyes, clearly mistaking the black-skirted girl the other person was referring to as Senior Sister Du, and laughed heartily, “Even if that Dragon Hunter woman really attacked us, there are only two of them, and we might not be afraid of her.”
“Dragon Hunter? You… have you misunderstood something? I just saw that frost ball, and then I remembered. Beside that Dragon Hunter, the black-skirted girl is the Battle King level expert who recently drove away the Lin Family Patriarch and forcibly bought the frost ball.” The leader in ink-white clothes slowly uttered the last five words, then looked at the stiff-eyed man in the knitted hat with a hint of amusement.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t make a move… otherwise, we might all be corpses by now.”
…
The deeper they went, the vast expanse of snow mist was filled with various kinds of monsters. From time to time, ice-attribute monsters with fierce auras would charge out of the snow mist, roaring at Su Jiu and the approaching duo.
Occasionally, some Coldstream Crows would fly directly towards them, but they all ended up being captured as spoils by Su Jiu with a chuckle. Other monsters with lower bloodlines were deterred by the dense blood aura emanating from Su Jiu.
However, it was not entirely like this. Although the mountain ravine looked small, it was extremely vast below, densely populated with all sorts of ice-attribute monsters, including some with terrifying strength. As they went deeper, the strength of these monsters actually became greater and greater.
In the whistling wind, as the two rushed towards the end of the ice river, there were basically no other people in sight. Some monsters began to ignore Su Jiu’s aura suppression and aggressively charged at them. Just as those monsters approached, Senior Sister Du behind them hurriedly summoned her long sword and reminded Su Jiu:
“Be careful—these are Snow Wolf Beasts, extremely ferocious and skilled in combat. Those that dare to come up are all mid-rank Battle Generals. Moreover, this is a land of frost and snow, so they have a special domain bonus. It’s not easy for holders of other bloodlines to fight… Hold on, I’m coming!”
“Heh heh, just a few little puppies, I can handle them casually… Senior Sister just needs to ensure her own safety.”
Looking at the attacking phantoms, Su Jiu smiled indifferently. Her fingernails subtly lengthened, and the orchid pattern on the back of her hand seeped with blood-red light. With a wave of her hand, a powerful blood-colored ribbon streaked across the sky like thunder.
Immediately, Senior Sister Du heard a muffled thud. The snow-white wolfdogs, which were as large as motorcycles, exploded into a sky full of fresh blood, splattering downwards…
“The Big Sister of Senior Feng is so strong. Her true strength should have reached High-rank Battle General, right?”
Looking at the blood mist filling the sky ahead, her heart suddenly skipped a beat. She slowly lowered her ice sword and looked at the black figure in front. She noticed that after killing the snow wolves, crow feathers seemed to be floating from her skirt hem. She rubbed her eyes, only to find nothing…
“Senior Sister, hurry and follow me… It’s very dangerous here, and if you’re too far away, I can’t look after you!” As Su Jiu’s voice sounded, Senior Sister Du quickly reacted and charged in like a blue beam of light.
As they flew rapidly, all sorts of ferocious monsters rushed forward one after another. There was even a High-rank Battle General level monster, but still, no monster could survive under those slender and fair white hands.
Flying all the way, accompanied by blood mist, Su Jiu, like a sharp cone, tore open a passage through the intersection blocked by monsters, making Senior Sister Du behind her look at her with even greater admiration. In her heart, Su Jiu was already treated as a veteran High-rank Battle General predecessor.
After this almost unruly charge lasted for nearly an hour, Su Jiu’s flying speed finally began to slow down.
Sensing the other party’s deceleration, Senior Sister Du glanced ahead and was surprised to find that there was no longer any frost mist ahead, but rather two rivers forked like snake tongues. The two rivers were about five to six meters apart. Both were emitting mist, but one was emitting hot mist, and the other was emitting frosty mist…
Gently landing, she took out the map again. Su Jiu quietly looked at the white lines drawn on it and found that it was specifically divided by special white lines. Her gaze swept over the two rivers, and she thought to herself, “This is it… But who drew this map? Why didn’t the cartographer go and retrieve the War God level corpse himself?”
As she thought this, she scanned her surroundings and found that apart from being bare, there were only scattered small shrubs growing beside the hot water river. She then pondered:
“Looking around, I’ve seen everything there is to see, and there’s no sign of the so-called Flame Phoenix Sparrow…”
Just as Su Jiu was contemplating, countless crimson figures darted out from the cracks in the opposite cliff. Their target was the forked hot water river.
