Book 03, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts Read online

  “And this Velocidragon’s scales and meat really is thick. Even at my maximum size, I couldn’t bite through him.” Bebe sighed. “But I’m confident that if we kept on at it, I, Bebe, could’ve bled him to death. This Velocidragon was pretty sly though. It kept on moving about and never let me bite it on the same location twice.”

  Linley secretly laughed.

  There was a huge gap between the sixth rank and the seventh rank, in terms of combat ability as well as other factors. Most likely, that Velocidragon’s intelligence was not much less than a human being’s. How could it possibly allow the little Shadowmouse to bite it in the same place twice?

  No matter how thick the scales and flesh of the Velocidragon were, it couldn’t withstand being bitten by Bebe multiple times. This Velocidragon most likely also realized that he wouldn’t gain any benefit from continuing to fight, which was why it fled.

  “Bebe, want to give a magical beast of the eighth rank a go?” Linley mentally teased.

  Bebe’s little eyes suddenly turned round as the moon. “Boss, don’t mess with me like that. Dealing with that magical beast of the seventh rank was exhausting enough. I hear that magical beasts of the eighth rank are ten times as powerful as magical beasts of the seventh rank. Even if their movement speeds aren’t as high as mine, most likely their attack speeds are higher.”

  Movement speed and combat attack speeds were two different speeds.

  For example, the Velocidragon was perhaps much slower in terms of movement speed, but its tail was able to attack at an astonishing speed. Although some larger magical beasts appeared to be slow and clumsy, when they really started to fight, they were as fast as lightning!

  After all, if they were mighty enough to be described as a magical beast of the eighth rank, they definitely would overmatch a magical beast of the seventh rank.

  “Heh, looks like you know when to be humble after all.” Linley chuckled while stroking Bebe’s little head. “Alright, my clothes should be dry by now as well. Let’s go take a rest on top of the tree, then eat some food. After a while, we’ll continue onwards.” As he spoke, Linley leapt up seven or eight meters onto a branch, and then he continued to lightly jump up, before leisurely coming to a rest at about twenty or thirty meters above the ground.

  *

  Book 3, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts – Chapter 19, The Black Dagger (part 1)

  The fifty first day in the mountain ranges.

  “Do all of these killers think that I’m easy meat?” Linley glanced at the corpse of the female assassin, dressed in black. This woman only was a warrior of the fifth rank. Assisted by his magic, Linley was able to kill her by himself.

  Doehring Cowart laughed. “Anyone who sees you will be able to tell that you are just a kid, a stupid kid who doesn’t know how high the heaven is or how deep the earth is, a kid that dares wander these mountains alone. Why wouldn’t they want to get an easy kill like you?”

  Linley felt helpless.

  He was still just fifteen. Despite having the physical size of a fully grown man, his face still betrayed his youth.

  “This woman wounded me as she died. It’s not a big deal that I have another scar, but she ruined my clothes as well. Now I only have one set of clothes remaining.” Seeing the giant, gaping hole in his clothes, Linley didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

  Linley had managed to acquire several sets of clothes from attempted assassins, but he had lost even more, here in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts.

  “Boss, the magicite cores in this person’s bag are worth a couple thousand gold coins. Can a set of clothes be worth that much?” Bebe immediately argued.

  Hearing these words, Linley laughed.

  After having spent well over a month in these mountains, the scars on his body had grown more and more plentiful, but so too had the number of magicite cores in his backpack.

  “Forget it. From now on, I’m going naked from the waist up. I’ll save my last set of clothes for when I go back. No one will see me anyhow, here in these mountains.” Linley determinedly tossed aside the ruined set of clothes, going bare-chested. His black dagger in hand, he marched onwards.

  During this period of time, this black dagger had provided quite a bit of assistance to Linley.

  After walking for a while, Linley began to casually murmur the words to a spell. After a short moment, a gust of wind began to swirl around the area, with Linley at the center. This was the Windscout spell once again. In an area with a diameter of 300 meters centered on Linley, nothing could escape Linley’s attention.

  Generally speaking, after walking for an extended period of time, Linley would be cautious and cast the Windscout spell. After walking for a while, Linley once again cast the Windscout spell.

  “Ah, a group of people? Why are those people hiding on top of that tree?” Linley felt curious.

  At this moment, about a hundred meters south of Linley, around ten or so people were hiding on top of an enormous old tree, with a girth so wide that seven people had to link hands to surround it. Curious, Linley couldn’t help but quietly sneak closer.

  Slowly, carefully, Linley crept into a patch of tall, thick grass, from whence he had a vantage point to peer at the ten people on the tree.

  Those ten or so people were all wearing black clothes, and each of them had a black dagger sheathed at their waists.

  “Black dagger?” Linley’s gaze fixed upon one black dagger in particular.

  In terms of both shape and coloration, it was identical to the one in Linley’s hands. In addition, the ten or so people hiding on top of the tree gave Linley a similar, sinister feeling, very much like when Linley encountered that first assassin.

  “The same black clothes, and the same black dagger, and… ” Linley noticed that the backs of all of these men were bulging slightly.

  Linley couldn’t help but think back to that first assassin, who had his backpack tightly strapped to his back, beneath his clothes. It was only because Bebe had ripped the assassin’s clothes open that they had discovered the backpack.

  “They belong to the same organization.” Even an idiot would come to this conclusion.

  Linley’s heartbeat involuntarily began to speed up. At this point in time, the people hiding on the tree were talking in a low tone.

  “Why haven’t #18 and #7 come back yet?” One of the black-garbed men said unhappily.

  “Possibly dead.” Another black-garbed man said coldly.

  “Watch the time. We’ll wait until night falls. If they aren’t back by nightfall, then regardless of whether or not they are still alive, they will be considered to have failed.” Another black-garbed man said coldly. Hearing his words, the other black-garbed men fell silent.

  Hidden within the grass below, Linley could guess that the person who had just spoke was the leader of this group of black-garbed men. He felt secretly startled. “The person who tried to kill me originally was a warrior of the sixth rank, specializing in the darkness-style. Most likely, their leader is even stronger.”

  Linley immediately moved to retreat, but after just taking a few steps back…

  The leader suddenly frowned and swerved, staring directly at Linley.

  “Swish!”

  A black blur shot out at Linley at high speed, shocking Linley. He realized, “I’ve been exposed!” He immediately utilized the wind-style Supersonic speed, and at the highest speed he could muster, fled deeper in the forest.

  As far as Linley was concerned, the deeper one went into the mountains, the more dangerous it was. The opponent, upon seeing him run into the deep, dangerous mountains, might hesitate and refrain from chasing him. Linley had already made up his mind that after going a bit deeper in, he would change directions and leave.

  Seeing the black backpack on Linley’s back and the black dagger in his hands, the expression on the face of the leader of the group changed.

  “#2, deal with him.” The black-garbed leader ordered.

  The higher the rankin
g number was, the stronger one was. The leader had already been able to accurately gauge Linley’s strength from Linley’s movements just then.

  “Yes, lord.” One of the black-garbed men immediately jumped down from the tree, and began to pursue Linley with astonishing speed. But because Linley had a significant head start, and was quite far from him to begin with, the two of them started off at a 70 meter distance.

  But this black-garbed man really was very fast, seemingly a bit faster than even the first assassin.

  “What astonishing speed.” Linley agilely made his way into the mountains, sometimes crawling, sometimes jumping.

  But from behind, the black-garbed man continued to coldly pursue, and the distance between the two continued to shrink. 60 meters. 50 meters. 40 meters. 30 meters. The longer Linley fled, the closer the pursuing assassin got.

  10 meters. 9 meters. 8 meters. 7 meters!

  Apparently terrified out of his wits, Linley headed directly for the deepest parts of the mountains.

  “Wind-style magus?” The black-garbed man could tell that Linley was being aided by wind magic. “Even aided by wind-magic, he’s so slow. Looks like he’s a warrior of the fourth rank, at most the peak of the fourth rank.” Totally confident in his ability to kill Linley, the black-garbed man continued to draw closer.

  On the surface, Linley seemed terrified, but in reality, he was quite calm and steady.

  “We’ve run a few kilometers. Those ten assassins shouldn’t be able to see us from here.” A cold look suddenly flashed through the fleeing Linley’s eyes, and at the same time, the little Shadowmouse, Bebe, which had been crouched over, ‘terrified’ on Linley’s shoulders, suddenly moved.

  Whoosh!

  The little Shadowmouse suddenly expanded in size before the assassin’s eyes, and in the blink of an eye reached him. The assassin could clearly see the little Shadowmouse’s fiercely sharp teeth…

  *

  Book 3, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts – Chapter 20, The Black Dagger (part 2)

  The dark-robed man, just five or six meters away from Linley, had considered the dark Shadowmouse beneath notice, but upon seeing Bebe’s amazing speed, his cold face showed an expression of astonishment. “What is this speed?!” The dark-robed man hurriedly waved his dagger to block.

  Clearly, this dark-robed man was somewhat stronger than the original assassin. At least when facing Bebe, he had the presence of mind and speed to wield his dagger.

  “Swish!” Bebe swung his sharp claws fiercely.

  “Clang!”

  As Bebe’s claws slammed into the assassin’s dagger, the black dagger exploded into fragments, while Bebe’s claws, undamaged, immediately slashed violently against the dark-robed man’s head, directly shattering it. The man died on the spot.

  “The gap between the sixth rank and the seventh rank really is enormous.” Seeing this, Linley couldn’t help but sigh.

  Bebe was a terrifying Shadowmouse who could even force the mighty Velocidragon, a magical beast of the seventh rank, to flee. Based on the power of Bebe’s sharp claws and sharp fangs, killing a warrior of the sixth rank was as easy as eating rice.

  “Rip!” Linley ran over to the corpse and tore the dark-garbed man’s clothes apart, immediately grabbing the hidden backpack. Without doing anything else, he immediately turned and fled northwards. Gusts of winds arose around his legs, and he began moving with such grace and agility that he left almost no trail in his wake.

  After a while, a second group of dark-garbed men finally arrived. Seeing the injury on #2’s head, all of them frowned.

  “A magical beast?” The images of many different magical beasts suddenly began to swim about in the mind of a dark-garbed man. “A Blue Shadowmouse of the sixth rank? Or a Violet Shadowmouse of the seventh rank? Or a Gold Stoneater Rat of the seventh rank?” This fierce but tiny claw mark must have been left by a rodent-type magical beast.

  In the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, some people believed that the most terrifying possibility was encountering a magical beast of the eighth or ninth ranks. Others believed that it was encountering a terrifying swarm of pack-type magical beasts. But in the heart of the dark-garbed man, the most terrifying possibility was encountering a Stoneater Rat swarm or a Shadowmouse swarm.

  The Stoneater Rat had formidable defense, sharp teeth, and sharp claws.

  The Shadowmouse had high speed, sharp teeth, and sharp claws.

  If a swarm of thousands or tens of thousands of Shadowmice or Stoneater Rats attacked, even an army might be totally devoured, much less the ten of them.

  “We’re going back now!” Without hesitating in the slightest, the dark-garbed leader issued his order.

  … …

  Amidst towering mountains and ridges, Linley continued to run, winding his way atop of a mountain peak. After having run over a hundred kilometers at once, Linley believed that his pursuers would no longer be able to catch him.

  “Boss, hurry up and open the backpack and see what’s inside!” Bebe immediately urged.

  Linley’s heart was filled with anticipation as well. The more powerful an opponent was, the more magicite cores he should have in his backpack. That original assassin had left behind 15,000 gold coins worth of magicite cores and magicite gems. How much would this second assassin, who had been addressed as #2, have on him?

  He opened the backpack.

  “Two more sets of clean clothes.” Linley glanced at the clothes in the backpack, then withdrew two bulging pouches from within the backpack. This “#2” had been in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts for a month longer and was a bit stronger than the original assassin, so logically speaking…

  Seeing how many magicite cores these pouches contained, Linley couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath.

  “So many? And most of them are magicite cores of the fifth rank. There’s plenty of magicite cores of the sixth rank as well.” After having seen so many magicite cores, Linley was now capable of recognizing the general rank of a magicite core at a glance. Linley immediately began to do a careful accounting of the cores.

  “9 magicite cores of the sixth rank. 56 magicite cores of the fifth rank. 12 magicite cores of the fourth rank. Seven magicite gems. The total value, all together, would be roughly… .20,000 gold coins. Adding this to the 50,000 gold coins worth that I already have, means that I should now hold at least 70,000 gold coins worth of magicite on me.” After tabulating his total wealth, Linley couldn’t help but take a deep breath.

  70,000 gold coins!

  If he placed this prodigious sum in front of his father, his father would most likely be stupefied.

  Over the course of the 51 days he had spent in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, that assassin’s organization alone had ‘donated’ 35,000 gold coins to him. The other attempted killers he had run into had ‘donated’ a further 30,000 gold coins, while he himself had killed enough magical beasts to earn 5000 gold coins worth of cores as well.

  Doehring Cowart appeared from within the Coiling Dragon ring, laughing as he watched the look on Linley’s face.

  “I finally understood why so many people in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts like to try and kill other humans. After spending a full month working so hard, I only earned a few thousand gold coins, but when I killed someone else, I gained the fruits of their two months of labor.” Linley placed the two pouches into his own backpack, then tossed the extra backpack into the grass.

  “Of these 70,000 gold coins worth of magicite, only 5000 came from me killing magical beasts. The rest all came from assassins and killers.” Linley shook his head and sighed.

  Doehring Cowart stroked his white beard while chuckling. “Looks like your youth actually helped you. If you looked just a bit more mature and experienced, there probably wouldn’t have been so many killers trying their luck against you.”

  “Hehe.” Linley couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Grandpa Doehring, just now, based on the words being exchanged by the people in that s
quad, it seems like they were on a training mission here in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts?” Linley was rather curious.

  Doehring Cowart smiled faintly. “Linley, every single one of the major powers of the Yulan continent has to have its own base of martial power in order to maintain its strength. But martial power has to be trained and cultivated. Many of the larger powers will often send groups of its subordinates out to the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts to train.”

  Linley nodded.

  “Linley, this continent has many powerful organizations which you don’t have a clue about. To be honest… even I don’t know about them. In the past five thousand years, all of the powers which existed in the era of the Pouant Empire have most likely collapsed.” Doehring Cowart said self-deprecatingly.

  Linley didn’t ask too much. At this moment, Linley felt enormous pressure. The Yulan continent was far more complicated than he had imagined.

  After organizing his possessions, Linley put on a shirt before continuing on his way. Making his way agilely through the mountain forests, sometimes skipping over fallen rocks, sometimes crawling over fallen trees, Linley pressed onwards. But after Linley crossed a particularly large mountain… .

  He saw that this mountain was hundreds of kilometers long. There were many trees here. Standing at the peak of the mountain, Linley could tell that there was a distance of hundreds of kilometers from here to the next peak, if he wanted to directly fly across the gap.

  “What a bizarre canyon.”

  Linley noticed that the canyon walls of these two mountain’s cliffs drew closer and closer to each other at the edges. Linley immediately began to jog down from the mountain peak. The farther down he jogged, the closer the canyon walls appeared to be. After jogging for five or six kilometers, the gap between the two mountains was only a meter across. One could cross it with a single step.

  “It’s like this on this side. What is it like on the other side? The same?”