Chapter 339 - The Demons are the First to Benefit (1/2)

Chapter 339: The Demons are the First to Benefit Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

After a period of rushed travel, Link’s group made their way over for more than 40 miles.

Here, there was a drastic change in the mountain’s geography. There were rocks everywhere while the trees and vegetation lessened. The view was wide, and there were fewer places to hide.

This was both a pro and a con.

Here, Skinorse whispered, “The red monkeys disappeared. It appears that we’ve left their blockade.”

Link let out a breath of relief. He’d been fully focused while traveling down the mountain path earlier. Every time a red monkey discovered their traces, he would kill it at once and make sure it would be executed flawlessly. This really did use up some energy.

He looked at Melinda on Nana’s back and asked, “How’s the wound on your leg?”

“It’s alright. It doesn’t really hurt anymore.” Melinda looked at Link with wide eyes filled with reverence.

This reassured Link. He glanced at the black cat. It was pretty obedient—probably because it tasted some benefits at the Crystal Blue Lake. Now, it hid inside Nana’s shirt with only a head peeking out.

Seeing that Link was looking at it, it narrowed its emerald eyes and meowed as if saying, Jealous? Well, that sucks because this is my personal seat.

Its appearance made the others really want to beat it up. At least, Skinorse had glanced at it many times already. It seemed that he was about to yank the cat out from Nana’s collar and jump in himself.

Link didn’t have time to bother with it. He turned to Skinorse and said, “How much farther away is Orida?”

Skinorse was very familiar with the North. Hearing the question, he composed himself and looked down at his watch. Then he looked at the sun, took out a triangular thing, measured the angle, and came up with a calculation. “I think there are around 700 more miles. If we continue forward, we’ll pass through the southern corner of the Black Forest after 400 miles.”

“We can’t go into the Black Forest. How about this? We’ll take a detour south, and after we get to a safer place, I’ll summon a Storm Eagle. The spell can help us fly around 60 miles.”

The Storm Eagle consumed a great amount of Mana. Link now had a maximum of 18,500 Mana Points, but this could only last for five minutes. The Storm Eagle’s top speed was around 1500 feet per second, so they could fly 60 miles in five minutes. He still had to save some Mana so while this spell looked cool, it wasn’t that useful.

Skinorse had no objections, of course. Crossing through the Hengduan Mountain Range was honestly too dangerous. One mishap could have them end up surrounded by high-level demons. It was like flirting with death.

Everyone turned and started going south.

After around half an hour, a gorge appeared up ahead. It was extremely narrow; the narrowest place wasn’t even 15 feet wide. From the distance, it seemed to be entirely closed up. The walls on either side were very steep; on average, they were more than 2500 feet high. If one stood in the gorge and looked up, one could only see a sliver of the sky.

It was very windy in the gorge. Perhaps the wind passed through some unique rock formation because they kept hearing cries and it was hair-rising.

Melinda curled up on Nana’s back in fear and explained softly, “This is the Wailing Gorge. It’s more than 30 miles long and contains many branches and caves. It’s like a maze once you enter it, and it’s really easy to get lost.”

Skinorse had heard of the Wailing Gorge before. “This gorge has many legends,” he said. “Legend says that there’s a horrifying secret hidden here. Someone had buried countless treasures but put an evil curse on each one. Anyone who tried to get the treasure died. Apparently, one thousand years ago, the last emperor of the Goldweed Dynasty retreated into the Wailing Gorge with his last army and never came back out…Anyway, it’s really dangerous.”

Link knew a lot of information about the gorge as well, but they were from the past game. In the game, there were at least ten storyline quests, both big and small, hidden in each fork inside the gorge. Many parts were still off-limit to players even later in the game.

This was a mysterious gorge filled with unknown danger.

After thinking, Link asked Melinda, “Is there a way to bypass it?” Unless there was no other way, he didn’t want to pass through the creepy place.

“I don’t know.” Melinda shook her head. “We’ve only ever flown past with our airships.”

“What if we pass from the walls on the side?” Skinorse suggested.

“That might work…wait, probably not. Look there!” Link pointed to the sky behind them.

Skinorse and Melinda turned around to see many blurry black dots appear in the sky. Counting quickly, there was more than 100. Without a doubt, the demons must have caught up.

“I can feel that these demons are really powerful and there are too many of them. We’re not their match so we can’t go on top. We have to enter the gorge!” Link said.

The gorge was narrow, and the walls on either side effectively blocked the enemies’ vision. It could greatly decrease the aerial threat.

Faced with more than a hundred high-level demons, this was their only choice.

“They sped up. They probably saw us.” Skinorse’s voice was a bit panicked.