Chapter 270: Footprints
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Gao Peng squinted his eyes, jumped down from the rooftop of the first floor, wiped the dust off of his clothes, and called his nearby familiars. “Dumby, Stripey, Flamy, Goldie! Come here.”
Flamy was needed when Gao Peng had to travel a long distance. Dumby was the strongest familiar on Gao Peng’s team. Stripey acted as a mount when traveling and a tank during battles. Goldie was somewhat limited in its abilities, but as long as it tried its best, it could also do very well.
As for Da Zi….
It saw Gao Peng leaving with the other familiars. Only it and Silly had been left behind.
Da Zi protested and kept rolling around in front of Gao Peng like a spoiled child. “Not fair! Not fair!”
Gao Peng knelt down and held down the restless Da Zi. “Are you as strong as Dumby?”
Da Zi was momentarily stunned, then it silently shook its head.
“Can you fly as fast as Flamy?” Da Zi shook its head again.
“Can you withstand beatings like Stripey?” Da Zi was about to cry.
“I’ll take you along on the condition that you defeat Goldie.”
Da Zi glanced at Goldie, who was about to evolve to a Muscular Adamantine Duck. Da Zi dropped its head sorrowfully.
Gao Peng sighed, tried to calm Da Zi down, and said, “This is why you must remain at home and train further…”
Looking at Da Zi’s back, Gao Peng murmured, “That was really too close.”
…
Half an hour later, Gao Peng arrived at the North Road exit of Yuzhou City.
The exit led to the outskirts of Yuzhou City. It was a straight road that led to the mountains. However, the road was collapsed ten feet in. If one were to try to drive through it, they would fall into a bottomless gorge.
The gorge was dozens of feet wide, and several thick trunks were placed on the broken part of the road to serve as a suspension bridge. There were still a small number of people who walked through this road. Most of them were leaving for the mountains, and they usually came from the smaller roads that connected to the North Road.
Looking down on it from above, it looked like a tree that had been chopped off at the trunk and fallen to the ground. Countless branches extended from the broken body of the tree in all directions, connecting the millions of mountains together.
Outside the North Road exit stood a huge monster quietly, attracting the attention of all the travelers there.
Its huge scale dominated the scene. All of the other familiars who passed by the Horrifying Murderous Female Spider would slow down and shiver in fear.
“Lucky guy, this must be a Lord-tier familiar,” said a soldier on the barrier who worked for the military in front of the North Road in amazement. He was stationed there every day, so he had seen his fair share of familiars. It wasn’t even the first time he had seen a Lord-tier familiar.
However, no matter how many times he saw a Lord-tier familiar, he would still always be extremely envious.
Although the Horrifying Murderous Female Spider wasn’t releasing its Lord-tier aura, its huge size and the terrifying atmosphere it created were more than enough for the soldier to come to the conclusion that it was a Lord-tier familiar.
Although not all Lord-tier familiars were large, large familiars were usually Lord-tier familiars. This was because when a monster’s body was large, it would inevitably contain an extremely terrifying power. Their huge bodies were like big killing machines!
Sitting on the back of the Horrifying Murderous Female Spider, Huang Ya saw Gao Peng coming out from the exit of the North Road. He stood up and said, “Master Gao, you arrived.”
The Horrifying Murderous Female Spider spit a large number of spiderwebs onto the floor. The spiderweb solidified, forming a slide leading from the mouth of the Horrifying Murderous Female Spider to the ground.
Huang Ya jumped onto the spiderweb and slid down.
When Huang Ya landed, the Horrifying Murderous Female Spider closed its mouth and immediately, the spiderweb was sucked back into its mouth like a bunch of noodles.
“Let’s go look for a friend.” Gao Peng sat on Stripey, and Huang Ya also returned to the back of the female spider before both of them rushed into the forest. One was riding on a big spider, and the other on a smaller spider.
“Is the small spider the son of the big spider?”
“I’m guessing so.”
“But one is silver, while the other one is black.”
“Do you know anything about how genetics work?”
There were sounds of discussions behind them.
Gao Peng’s facial expression was unchanged.
The mountain road was very steep. Fortunately, they were riding on spiders. It was convenient for spiders to move around the mountains, as the spiders’ slender legs could easily pass through the trees. The mountainous terrain didn’t affect the speed of the female spider.
On the contrary, Stripey’s relatively smaller size meant he had to move slower on the same terrain.
They passed through a river, the sounds of the stream sounding closer to them. The winding stream passed through the mountain, and the surrounding scenery changed rapidly. This stream looks familiar… Before Gao Peng could think further, a Giant Leech suddenly appeared from the bottom!
The dark body of the Giant Leech was translucent in the water, but the part exposed to the air was pure black. The silvery leg of a spider swung through the air, like a knife slashing through it.
The Giant Leech was instantly cut into two pieces and fell into the water.
Then Gao Peng remembered. He had passed by this stream before. A type of strange leech monster that could turn invisible when they were in water inhabited this stream.
It seemed that the act of Horrifying Murderous Female Spider had severely shocked the other Giant Leeches. They all felt intimidated, and thus, the rest of the Giant Leech monsters hid in the stream and looked on as Gao Peng and his team left.
It was only after Gao Peng had traveled a great distance that they floated up from the bottom of the water, gulping for breath.
After moving forward for two hours, Gao Peng stopped.
“This is the area where that Mountain Spirit lives.”
The area was deep in the mountains, where the forest’s vegetation was dense and thick. Stout trees were pulled up from the depths of the earth. The dense canopy covered the clouds above, forming large shadows on the ground.
Gao Peng found a high ground to survey the area. He was certain that the Mountain Spirit could be easily found, because the Mountain Spirit’s characteristics and its huge size were extremely recognizable.
Nevertheless, after numerous thorough searches, he still couldn’t find the Mountain Spirit. He only found traces of footprints left behind by it.
Strips of soil were dug out of the ground, and some of the roots that were set in the soil were exposed.
There had been heavy rain the evening before. The holes left by the Mountain Spirit were still full of rainwater. A few dead leaves were swirling, floating quietly above the surface of the rainwater.
Gao Peng frowned. Then suddenly, without any reason, he thought of the Golden Hands.
The Mountain Spirits are relatively lazy, and by right, they wouldn’t move without valid reason.
Recently, the Golden Hands just happened to come to this forest. Is there any correlation between these two facts?
“We need to catch them,” Gao Peng said. He paused and said to Flamy, “Flamy, I want you to fly into the sky. Alert us if you find any traces of Mountain Spirits or human activities.”
“Old Huang, we should take the narrow road and not walk out in the open.”