Chapter 341: The Burrow XV
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A month later.
The passageways within the burrows were much narrower.
After passing through tens of relatively smaller burrows, Grimm and Alxa who had just traveled through the burrow passageway of the unending world waved their hands to signal the rest of the group to stop.
Since the Wolfspider had greatly reduced the population of the Snowthread Worms, the burrows that they’ve gone through this past month had been smaller in size. The group had not encountered any powerful creatures in the past month.
The Thousand-eyed Carcinus’s started scratching its shell, which was covered by some brown hairs on its back, with its giant pincer. It produced a continuous scraping sound when its dead skin cells were brushed away.
Alxa took out her crystal ball and said in a deep voice, “The Slumberfishes that live in the Slumberfish Burrow are capable of emitting the Slumbering Echoes. They feed mainly on Snowthread Worms but their attacks are weak. Still, Black Isotta had made this a restricted area. Hunting of the Slumberfish is banned here.”
Grimm projected the image of the Slumberfish with his crystal ball.
The creature which has been named ‘Slumberfish’ by Black Isotta looked similar to a deep ocean fish in the Sorcerer World. Its hideous, huge mouth made up half of its head. Its dense set of teeth helps it when chewing off the protective scales of the Snowthread Worms.
There was a lantern-like organ hanging off its head. It was capable of emitting the Slumbering Echo as well as light, which was rarely found in the Burrow. Snowthread Worms were attracted to the light before being eaten up.
They could fly freely in the cold regions of the Burrows. But once they came into a hot region, not only would they cease to fly, even their very survival would become a problem. There were some unique parts within their internal organs that have evolved to the point where they could not withstand the hot climate.
“Caw? Why should we protect these vile creatures? They don’t even look tasty!”
The Myna kept mumbling.
“You know nothing but eat! Look at how fat you’ve become! What a disgrace to the bird race.”
Leafie the parrot chided it sternly.
The Myna turned around abruptly and burst into laughter. “Caw! Caw! I thought you said you were gonna leave me alone! Why are you talking now? Caw! Caw! Myna only knows how to eat, what are you gonna do about it, caw, caw, caw…”
But Grimm whispered to Myna, “That may not be the case though. Master Peranos’s bonito fish…”
On the other side, after the rest of the group heard that Black Isotta had listed the place as a restricted area and banned the hunting of the Slumberfish, they couldn’t help but think that Black Isotta must’ve found something of value in the fish.
The group nodded in agreement. They would not dare to defy Black Isotta’s will.
Grimm nodded as well. He spoke in a deep voice, “The Slumberfishes are gentle creatures. As long as we don’t provoke them, they would not normally attack. Still, for safety reasons, we must make sure that our elemental lights are enough for the whole journey. They fear creatures that have brighter lights than them. The lights are effective in diffusing the Slumbering Echoes. The fish would go away on their own.”
“Understood.”
The group reached an understanding. Grimm took a glance at Alxa. The old sorceress held her magical staff high and signaled the group to proceed.
And so, the group of people on top of the Thousand-eyed Carcinus lit up a huge area with the elemental lights. They proceeded slowly into the arid-looking territory, which had lots of Slumberfish flying around outside their lights.
Occasionally, there were sounds of Snowthread Worms slithering by before fading away.
It took them fifteen hourglasses.
After the group had passed through the burrow of the Slumberfish, they came to a relatively narrow passageway in the Burrows that had obviously been excavated by someone else.
There were signs of drill tracks in the tunnel that had a diameter of over seventy-meters.
Somehow, it made Grimm thought about the collapsing space around Black Isotta.
Perhaps Black Isotta walked through here and in his path, opened up what was originally a much narrower tunnel?
In more than a month that followed, the group had passed through the Tumorhead Burrow, the Giant Nightscorpion Burrow, the Needleshroom Bee Burrow, and six other smaller unnamed burrows. After coming through the path to the core of the Burrow world that was opened up by the Black Isotta, the group finally reached the last burrow of the Snowthread burrow: the Ancient Harmonic Bullfrogs Burrow.
The burrow of the Ancient Harmonic Bullfrogs wasn’t exactly small. Most of the adult bullfrogs were Level 2 creatures while a few of them actually had the power of a Level 3 creature. Black Isotta sent in a huge army of Bright Sorcerers and it took them exactly two months to clear them out due to their close proximity to the Snowthread Burrow.
It was hard to find a real Ancient Harmonics Bullfrog in the burrow nowadays.
They were either killed off by the Bright Sorcerer legions or sealed into metal cages and taken into the void fortress, becoming one of many other soul slaves that were captured in the demon-hunting expedition.
Come to think about it, Grimm felt rather puzzled.
Going from experience, a Stigmata Sorcerer would normally establish his own system of rule after conquering the world through demon-hunting expeditions. From there onward, they would continue to pillage and extract resources from the world.
Black Isotta was a different case.
Grimm could guess from the Myna’s words that the old sorcerer, who had survived since ancient times until today, seemed adamant in placing all of the worlds’ resources into his own sphere of influence.
But what comes next, selling the world to the Holy Tower Institute?
“Heehee, since we’re quite near to our destination, the Snowthread Burrow, there’s no need to rush. Let’s go around this burrow and see if we can find anything.”
Old sorceress Alxa chuckled with a “hee hee” voice.
There were moments of boredom and moments of excitement in their rush through the Burrows in the past few months. For the many demon-hunting sorcerers, they truly felt how mysterious and how wide the Burrows were.
The creatures of this world have really evolved their sound wave capabilities to its peak.
Any Demon-Hunter Sorcerer that wishes to study the sound wave sorcery would certainly take their knowledge to the next level in this world.
Out of the tens of thousands of tunnels leading into the core of the Snowthread Burrow, this was merely a really normal path carved out by Black Isotta and his army of Bright Sorcerers.
Therefore, one could imagine how rich the Burrows truly were.
Not only has this world exceeded the Shadow World; it could even be compared to the boundless territories of the Sorcerer World.
A world as diverse as this had yet to evolve a World Lord of their own; this was something that Grimm could not believe.
The group slowly dispersed. They were collecting anything that they felt had value in their usual manners.
Although the ancient harmonics bullfrogs were nearly extinct in this burrow, there still seemed to have quite a number of ancient tadpoles and unique insects in the biosphere.