Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
To the north of the Fertile Plains.
Since leaving Neverwinter, Lightning and Maggie had continued their flight for close to ten straight days.
They patrolled across the plains cruising over hundreds of kilometers at an “economic speed,” where their magic power recovered through the night able to sustain a day’s use. The two only dropped to the ground when they needed to camp or hunt.
The current Exploration Group had entered a new phase; although they held the latest maps provided by the Union, the centuries of vicissitudes that constituted desolate paths, dried canals, abandoned cities that were overwhelmed with weed and shrub, made them useless to locate road signs. The only things that guided them directionally were the stars in the sky and the large ridge of the continent in the distance.
And at such a distance, the Sigil of Listening no longer broadcast messages, leaving the bird and the girl alone in the vast lands. The sense of desolation and solitude was a large barrier to adventuring, and without the company of her trusted companion Maggie, Lightning did not know if she could persist for long.
The purpose of the journey was clear—to confirm the location and route of the demons’ new Deity of Gods, as well as “illuminate” the plains beyond Taquila.
Even so, looking for a floating island in the vast lands was not an easy mission. To lessen the exhaustion of the vein, the enemy’s city would not be flying at a high height, and might possibly be clinging close to the ground. This way, the Deity of Gods would resemble any small mountain from a distance, and they had to get up close to verify the target through Red Mist, provided that the weather permitted it.
So as to avoid brushing past the Deity of Gods, Lightning chose to fly in broken paths with the edge being the ridge of the continent.
“Grrr…”
Suddenly, the stomach of the gray eagle flying above grumbled.
“You’re hungry again?” Lightning looked up.
“Owh.” Maggie nodded.
“But you didn’t even move much, how are you hungrier than me so much earlier?”
“Because I’ve been staring at the ground, aooo!” She leaned over and rubbed Lightning on the cheeks. “The eyes and brains are connected, and according to the book, using the brain is most exhausting, owh!”
Wait a minute, that’s not what was written in Theoretical Foundations of Natural Science… The paragraph clearly stated that even while stationary, the brain’s energy consumption remains the highest out of all the organs in the body, that doesn’t mean that a moving person isn’t using their brains.
But the itch on her cheeks prevented Lightning from flying properly, leaving her no choice but to slow down and head towards the ground. From the color of the sky, they were only able to fly for another half hour at most, so stopping earlier to rest was not an issue. Additionally, they had few jerkies left on hand, thus making use of the additional time to restock was not a bad idea.
Of course, the most important thing was her being unable to refuse the adorable Maggie.
“Same rules; you hunt and I’ll make the fire. Use the Sigil of Listening for contact in the case of any emergencies, understand?”
“Got it, owh!”
Before her voice trailed off, Maggie was already up in the air in the form of a Devilbeast.
Without a choice, Lightning looked for shelter and prepared dinner. With Roland’s technological advancements, flints, fire wool and torches, tools that were needed for adventuring were replaced by compact and intricate products. For example, the windproof matches that was the size of half a palm, the single-use torchlights, as well as the multi-functional knife that every member of the Exploration Group adored…
All of these items could be stored in a pocket, and because of that, the majority of space in her bag were replaced with all sorts of spices and condiments. If they had time, they were even able to produce a full table of dishes. There were times that even Lightning remained unclear whether or not she was better at adventuring or had a talent towards being a gourmet.
It was most probably related to Maggie becoming hungry so often.
What followed proceeded in a systematic structure—Maggie quickly brought a bison back and used her sharp talons to slice it into pieces. Lightning chose the best parts, and either smoked or baked them in mud. The two had repeated the process countless times and their coordination had become smooth and natural. By the time the fire had died out, they were not only full but had restock their haversack of jerkies. It was as though everything had been reset to the moment before they set off. The only difference was their progress, and maybe their objective for the trip.
Any little bit of a guilty conscience was quickly replaced with food coma.
After laying out the Sigil of Screaming, Lightning burrowed into the sleeping bag with Maggie and quickly fell asleep.
The next morning, when she opened her eyes in reverie, she surprisingly discovered an additional shadow that loomed in the distance.
Lightning rubbed her eyes in confusion—the land was a flat plain the day before and they had verified the surrounding topography, it was impossible for them to have missed out the small hill.
After spending a few good minutes in her drowsy reverie, she held her breath and took a good look again. This time, she was taken aback. Through the thin morning mist, the hilltop was unexpectedly flat, completely unlike any natural landform. The shocking thing was that it actually became larger in a few short minutes, which meant that the shadow was approaching them.
Lightning knew what the moving “Hill” on the Fertile Plains was.
She shook Maggie up in disbelief. “Peck me once.”
“Coo.” The latter raised her forefingers and poked Lightning on the forehead—
The pain immediately cleared up her mind.
It was no hallucination.
Right at this moment, a gust of wind swept past the two and sent Maggie’s long, white hair fluttering.
Along with the wind came a thin mist.
In that instant, the shadow revealed its true form—on the triangular black mountain form stood a gigantic pyramid structure formed completely of Blackstone; its sheer size and bulk difficult to fathom. If the old Deity of Gods’ center was the demon city, then this pyramid itself was able to hold the entire city on it.
This “form” was most probably the reason for the lack of Red Mist.
One large and one smaller inverted awls made the floating island look extremely oppressive. Compared to the first Deity of Gods that had the resemblance of a mountain range, the new Deity of Gods looked completely unnatural. Be it the structured exterior or the symmetrical form, the entire structure manifested the power of the demons.
Who would have thought that the second Deity of Gods they were looking for had appeared right before them.
Without even packing their sleeping gear, Lightning pulled Maggie and soared into the sky.
After the continuous ascension, the sight behind the demon city gradually revealed itself.
Numerous densely-packed black dots rushed forth on the plains like a turbulent wave, amongst which were countless alternating red lines, forming a cloth that devoured everything in its path with the black dots. Lightning gulped. If the black dots were all demons, their numbers were more than the human population of the Four Kingdoms combined!
It was without a doubt the enemy’s main force in motion!
