Chapter 319: Surficial Tundra VIII
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Grimm felt ecstatic at his own brilliant revelation. He could feel that his future in grasping the knowledge system of the Chimera was infinitely brighter than before.
On the other side…
Suddenly, as if awakened from their deep slumber by the foul stench released from the breakage of the Tree Sac, the tens of thousands of blood-red eyes that hung atop a massive cave flashed open simultaneously.
Shriek, shriek, shriek, shriek…
High-pitched shrieks that echoed through the cavern walls broke the tranquil silence of the cave. Closely following the commotion, a horde of Ice Bats each, half a meter in size spread open their wings and flew at high speed towards the source of the stench like an avalanche.
Grimm effortlessly dodged the pale-red liquid that spurted out from the Tree Sac after he split open the second Tree Sac with a single hand. Patiently, he waited for the liquid to completely drain out before retrieving the Soul Condenser from within.
At the same time, Grimm was deep in thought.
How was he going to go about transplanting and cultivating these weird plants in order to form the merging device of the Elemental Soul? Although the Elemental Soul merging method seemed easy from the surface, there were some technical issues that needed to be dealt with.
The first problem would be the cultivation method of this plant. A specific environment must be created for it to be able to condense and merge the Elemental Soul successfully.
Secondly, if Grimm aimed to use it and merge the souls into a high-level Elemental Soul, then carrying out genetic modifications on these plants will become necessary. The weird tree in front of him only contained a regular, low-level soul and most definitely would not be able to produce a mid to high-level Elemental Soul by itself.
Lastly was the setback of Grimm’s method, which is that it would take a very long time for the process of compressing and merging the Elemental Soul. It would be an impossible task to be able to carry out the process matching the speed of the specialized sorcerers at the Holy Tower.
As the Tree Sac fluid had completely drained out, Grimm picked up the Soul Condenser and stored it into the Dimensional Gap. Just as he was about to fly over to the third tree, he picked up something from his senses, turning his head to face the faraway skies suspiciously.
“This…”
The originally clear, bright skies darkened down as the sound of thousands of wings flapping had come into Grimm’s hearing range. The thundering horde of Ice Bats had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. From afar, it seemed like they had merged into a massive, single entity and looked like an oncoming avalanche.
At this moment, Grimm was like a small boat sailing into a storm at sea. His eyes widened in disbelief as his jaw dropped.
“Is…is this the Soul Harvester of these Soul Condenser trees? Or perhaps its guardian?”
On the other side, Myna was frozen in place as it stood on the Starfall Reconnaissance Craft. The only thing that moved was its beak that uttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me, Lord Myna isn’t in a nightmare is he? So many bats?!”
On Myna’s hate list, the ones in first place were bats, followed by black bats.
Smack, smack, smack!
Myna furiously slapped himself three times in the cheek with his wings. Feeling the very real pain, he was reminded that it wasn’t a nightmare after all. His first instinctive impulse was to yell out as he dove into the Dimensional Gap. Just as he did that, he stopped halfway and hopped back out from the Dimensional Gap and screamed hysterically towards Grimm who was standing far away from the Reconnaissance Craft.
“Oh my god! It’s time to go Young Master! The bats I ate previously had come to take revenge on me! I don’t wanna turn into bat shit!” (Lunaelle: Myna’s shenanigans always tickle me but I laughed for a full minute here.)
Under pressure, thoughts flashed through Grimm’s mind as his teeth gritted hard together.
“Myna, you escape on the craft! Don’t bother about me!”
This kind of scenario… looked like it was plucked straight out from a cheesy romance novel.
As a pair of lovers face the impending disaster that was about to take their lives, one would inevitably sacrifice him or herself in order to buy time for the other lover to escape. What Grimm yelled at Myna was exactly the kind of thing the self-sacrificing person would say to their lover as they parted ways.
And most of the time, the other person would reply stupidly with a cliche “if you stay here, I’ll stay too” sort of line. Then they’ll stick together to face the threat side by side and project a final show of true love.
Though, the reality for Grimm was…
“Okay.”
Myna rode on the Starfall Reconnaissance Craft and fled without even turning back to look at Grimm. There was no cheesy dialogue and he cut straight to the chase. In the blink of an eye, Myna disappeared into the horizon without a single trace.
The sequence of events were polar opposites, and almost made Grimm scream out in disappointment.
Although the situation almost made Grimm laugh in a fit of anger, he still did not pause for any hesitations. The Sabbatic Goat Staff hammered the ground nearby this tree’s roots causing the ground to rumble and quake.
Crack, crack, crack, crack…
Following a few high intensity shockwaves as the staff slammed into the ground consecutively, the rocky surface was turned into a loose pile of stones. Although some parts of the tree’s roots were damaged, it did not faze Grimm as he struck down with an Ice Sword.
Screeeeech, screeeeech, screech…
Even as the torrent of Ice Bats closed in on Grimm’s position, he calmly continued collecting parts of the tree’s roots quickly. Then, he inhaled deeply under the Mask of Truth while he stabilized the rhythm of his intensely pounding heart, just as both his irises gradually turned into a frog-like one.
At that moment, the incoming swarm of Ice Bats slowed almost to a halt in Grimm’s vision.
On the flapping wings of the bats at the forefront of the attack were a pair of claws that were covered in a light blue Frost Energy Orb. The offense power of these Ice Bats varied greatly, ranging from ten to a hundred or more.
The issue here was that there were tens of thousands of these individual Ice Bats!
Their skulls that roughly made up a third of their entire body had their jaws wide open, revealing their dagger-like fangs. Their eyes were glowing ominously a faint shade of red.
“This feeling…Soul Slaves?!”
Grimm could not believe it. These Ice Bats were Soul Slaves?
Then whose Soul Slaves were they?
They couldn’t possibly be a sorcerer’s soul slave since their bodies did not emit a human sorcerer’s aura.
No wonder there were no traces of native creatures of the Burrow World on this mountain range.
Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble…
At that instant, the swarm of Ice Bats had seemingly drowned out Grimm, piling onto him like a small hill of Ice Bats. It was certain that Grimm would get torn to shreds, quartered by the bats into their lunch.
If one were to really get swarmed by this many bats, even some Level-3 great sorcerers would start fearing for their lives, let alone Grimm whose chances were extremely slim.
***
On the other side, in the cabin of the Starfall Reconnaissance Craft.
As the air flashed, Grimm appeared shocked and out of breath. In his hands was a struggling Ice Bat wrapped in the Green Python Thread, both its eyes still locked onto Grimm like a predator on its prey.
“Caw… Young Master, you scared the crap out of me. I thought you were gonna become bat shit for real.”
Myna eyed the Ice Bat in Grimm’s firm grip as he asked, “Tonight’s dinner?”
Ignoring Myna’s question, Grimm held firmly on the still struggling Ice Bat’s neck with one hand as he broke both its wings with his other hand. He then gazed into the Ice Bats eyes.
Grimm’s eyes were the eyes of a sorcerer.
Those eyes were calm, wise, cruel and deep. If a weak creature were to face directly into such a gaze, it would undoubtedly make them feel eternal fear.
This sense of fear was what countless experimental specimens felt as breathed their last breath on the sorcerers’ test bench.
After a moment of observation, Grimm snapped the neck of this Ice Bat with a loud “snap”, after which he took out the Crystal Ball.
Grimm stored the soul of this Ice Bat into the Crystal Ball. Then the Crystal Ball as well as the Ice Bat’s body was tucked away into the Dimensional Gap.
Grimm started murmuring to himself, “I was right, its soul was indeed enslaved by some other creature. As for the tens of thousands of bats from just now, to be able to enslave this many… seems like the work of a World Lord or a Soul Creature that has a four or higher level.”
It really did not occur to Grimm that in the Endless World, there were other creatures from foreign worlds that already discovered the secrets to enslaving a soul.
If so, then this group of creatures would likely develop into a civilized world to challenge the sorcerers. The Sorcerer World must put an end to this potential threat and stop their abilities, or wipe them off the grid completely!
