482 Fright in the Mountain Path, Part One (1/2)
Translated by XephiZ
Edited by Aelryinth
Chen Yi's mother had stayed in the North Burning Valley for some years. Even though her movements were impaired, she had still learned secrets of the place that most Hunters would never have the chance to learn about.
As Chen Yi recalled her mother's description of the terrain, the party arrived in front of a flat-topped hill right in the middle of nowhere. Chen Yi told the party that her mother was active around this hill.
”This flat-topped hill feels really out of place. The entire North Burning Valley is flat without any sign of rising terrain or mountains, and then there's this hill right on the flat ground...” Zhang Xiaohou raised his head, staring at the steep wall of the hill.
It looked more like a volcano, yet unlike most volcanoes, which were wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, the hill was more like a pillar poking into the blue sky.
”Are you sure this place has the Fire Calamity Fruits? Even so, how do we get up there?” asked Mo Fan.
”The inside of this fire pillar is hollow. My mother told me that there's a gap around the bottom of the hill usable as an entrance. Let's try finding the gap, to start with,” said Chen Yi.
Going around the huge fire pillar, the party did find a gap leading into it. In comparison to the size of the hill, it was only a small crack, but to humans, it was like a cave open in the stone, which grew more spacious the further their group ventured deeper into it.
The group could sense the path becoming steeper as they went in deeper. The walls in the cave were like half fire crystal and half rocks, with very smooth surfaces. The group managed to pick up some Soul Seed Pieces along the way. The cave felt like a good place to explore, too. If they looked carefully, they would be able to find one or two Soul Seeds.
The sound of metal clanking suddenly echoed in the completely dark cave. As it was deadly silent a moment ago, the sudden noise felt rather spooky.
The clank did not have the usual crisp ring, but it sounded dull and unpleasant, similar to the sound of someone scratching their nails on the blackboard. The cave was already dark to begin with, thus when the group heard the eerie noise that appeared out of nowhere, they could not help but feel rather nervous.
”I guess I'm not the only one that heard that?” Zhang Xiaohou scanned his surroundings with chattering teeth.
”Any idea what that was?” agreed Zhao Manyan.
”Who cares what it is, let's continue forward. Worrying about it won't help. If it were hiding in the dark, we'll never know what it was,” Mo Fan said indifferently.
Mo Fan had assumed that if the creature had the ability to kill them all, it would have done so straight away, instead of trying to scare them with the noise.
On alert now, everyone quickened their pace. The hill was extremely high, even climbing straight up alone would take a long time, let alone following the path in the cave.
The party did hear the same noise again for a few times, but the creature never appeared, thus everyone simply ignored it.