novelBurial Grounds (IV)
| ← Ch.057 | Ch.059 → |
Editor: Kitty
Feng YuLan was standing closer to the monster, so he could see the monster in front of him clearly.
This thing...... It used to be...... a woman.
Her hair was very long, so long that it dragged on the floor. Her appearance was beyond recognition. Some flesh still hung on half of her face while the bones of the other half were exposed. Her eyes were dark hollows; it was unknown how long her eyeballs had been gone. She giggled, as if she was laughing at Feng YuLan.
Her torso looked as if it was pieced together from assorted body parts. One of her arms was long while the other was short. There were some cloth strips hanging on her body that may have been clothes in the past. She walked with a limp and at a slow speed. What was amazing was that only the sound of her footsteps could be heard when she walked. She hunched over and crawled as if she was some kind of reptile, lying on the ground and slowly approaching Feng YuLan.
Feng YuLan was unable to maintain his calm. He felt a little restless, so he took a deep breath and started to recite the spell. This was the only offensive spell that he knew at the moment, and it seemed more like an area of control spell used in certain games?
The monster crawled closer towards him. At first, it seemed to be alert, but very soon, it could not bear it. She felt neither Luo Jian's existence nor his killing intent. In front of her eyes, there was only Ah Lan, her delicious food. She approached Feng YuLan without hesitation. When she sped up, Luo Jian, hidden in the dark behind Feng YuLan, fiercely charged ahead, and at the same time, the monster jumped onto Ah Lan! At this critical moment, Feng YuLan finished reciting the spell, spread his right hand as he aimed at the monster, and in a neither loud nor soft voice recited: "Enhance gravity!"
All of a sudden, at that moment, the monster, which was originally light, was easily pulled down by the strong gravity that assaulted her! She sprawled on the ground with a thump and could not get up for a second or two! In these one or two seconds, Luo Jian jumped up and leaped over Feng YuLan. In passing, he also stepped on Ah Lan's shoulder to give himself a bit more of a boost and jump directly onto the monster. The sharp, short knife stabbed into the monster's head.
The monster twitched twice and stopped moving.
The whole hair-raising process took less than half a minute, but Luo Jian and Feng YuLan's whole bodies were covered in cold sweat. Luo Jian immediately withdrew his knife and jumped down from the monster. With his feet, he pushed the monster's body, which was motionless and seemingly dead. Luo Jian sighed in relief and said to Ah Lan, who was nearby, "This was unexpectedly easy."
"Yeah, I thought I'd at least get hurt or something." Ah Lan had not yet recovered from the incident; his face was still a little pale.
Ah Lan's overly pale look made Luo Jian uneasy, so he went to Ah Lan to try to comfort him. The distance between the two men was five or six steps. However, Luo Jian only took two steps when he suddenly felt a chill from behind him. Almost at the same time, Feng YuLan's face whitened. He stepped forward and shouted, "Behind you, Ah Jian!"
Luo Jian turned his head around immediately and was shocked to find that the monster, which had fallen to the ground, had stood up again. She had a hole in her head, and the bone was cracked open. Her entire head was split in two, with a crack that was a finger wide. A strange smile hung on her mouth, and she didn't make a sound. However, she had already rushed right in front of Luo Jian!
At that moment, Luo Jian could not react in time at all, so he was directly knocked down by the monster. The long and short claws were thrust deep in the flesh of Luo Jian's shoulders. When he fell to the ground, Luo Jian opened his eyes wide and saw that the monster had opened her mouth widely towards him. She had a pair of sharp teeth, akin to a beast. It seemed that she also wanted to bite a hole in Luo Jian's head.
Luo Jian wanted to move, get out, and fight back. However, the monster's strength was shocking, and he was unable to struggle under its strength. Thus, he could only look at the monster in horror as she moved closer to him. At that moment, Luo Jian felt that he might die here.
But he did not. In the next second, Feng YuLan had already rushed over. He grabbed Luo Jian's neck, dragged him into his bosom, and punched the monster's chin with another fist. As he was not strong, he was naturally unable to send the monster flying, but the monster's hatred turned toward him. The monster abandoned the fatty meat under her body and angrily grabbed Feng YuLan with one claw!
However, Ah Lan seemed to feel no fear. He found and used his grimoire to block the attack! Just as the tip of the monster's claw touched the cover of the grimoire, the book suddenly glowed, and a transparent, shiny, semicircular shield appeared! And this shield was tremendously strong! It actually caused the monster to bounce away directly! The monster seemed to be swept by the wind and rolled five or six meters away! It fell into the darkness far away.
Feng YuLan did not dare to delay, so he pulled Luo Jian up, turned around, and ran. Stumbling, they ran faster and faster as if the monster was still chasing after them. However, Luo Jian and his friend were also very clear that no matter how long they ran, they could not run out of the tunnel.
After running for a while, they felt that they could not move anymore. The two people finally stopped and fell to the ground to gasp for breath. Both of them were badly shaken and unable to speak for a while. After a while, Luo Jian raised his head to speak to Feng YuLan: "That's a good move you used there; what was it?"
"That...... can only be used once." Feng YuLan heaved twice. He regretfully felt for his weapon. It seemed that the grimoire could not float in the air anymore. It could only be held by Feng YuLan."My weapon seems to be able to accumulate power and block a fatal injury for the master, but it will take four or five days to recover after that."
Luo Jian could not help but look at his dagger."Could mine do that?"
"I don't know. You have to explore that yourself." Feng YuLan was not in a good mood and kept his head down. After a while, he raised his head suddenly and looked at Luo Jian. He rushed forward to grab his arm: "Are you hurt? Let me see."
The monster's sharp claws had scratched Luo Jian's shoulders, and they were now badly mutilated. However, Luo Jian was not in pain; he just felt the wound was a bit numb. However, he noticed that Feng YuLan's right hand was also badly wounded. He frowned worriedly: "How did you also get an injury on your hand?"
"When I punched the monster with my fists...... Her teeth were so sharp that my hand was scratched."
Luo Jian's frown deepened, and he grabbed Feng YuLan's wrist to see his injury. Since he was only scratched, the wound was not deep. However, the hurt area was very large. Half of the skin on the back of his hand had been scraped off, and he had lost quite a lot of blood. There were also some black marks around the wound. Luo Jian suddenly thought of something, and he was somewhat frightened. He raised his head to ask Ah Lan, "Ah Lan, does the wound hurt?"
When Feng YuLan was asked that question, he was stunned, and he looked at his hand before shaking his head: "It's not very painful. Just a bit numb..."
As they spoke, the two people were stupefied at almost the same moment. They raised their heads to look at each other, and at that moment, they tacitly agreed, "It's numbing! It's poison!"
"What should I do? My treatment seems to have no effect!" Ah Lan panicked! He immediately cast the primary healing spell for Luo Jian, but it only helped to slowly stop the wound from bleeding while the poison kept spreading. When he ripped off Luo Jian's clothes, he saw that his shoulder had a big black patch, and it was starting to spread through his blood vessels into the rest of his body.
Luo Jian seemed to be a little dazed. He had a blank expression on his face and did not speak. He simply sat against the wall and appeared to be in a trance. The poison seemed to be spreading rapidly because of their frenzied running moments ago. Feng YuLan was anxious. He did not know what kind of poison it was, but it would definitely kill Luo Jian!
Feng YuLan kept flipping through the pages of the grimoire in a hurry and asked continuously, "Tell me, tell me! Is there an antidote spell! Do you have it!"
A few big words appeared on the grimoire:
[There is, but you won't be able to comprehend it now!]
"Even if I can't comprehend it, I have to!" Feng YuLan took a glance at Luo Jian. He was scared to find that Luo Jian had closed his eyes at some point. The black patch had spread to his chest and was approaching his heart.
"No! Tell me the spell! Tell me the spell now!" Ah Lan felt so anxious that he jumped to his feet. He held the grimoire and moved to Luo Jian's side. He pushed him hard: "Ah Jian! Wake up! Don't sleep! Once you fall asleep, you can never wake up again!"
A long and complex spell appeared on the grimoire. The long string of words made people dizzy just from looking at it. Normally, Ah Lan would never learn such a complex spell, but he could not afford to care about that at the moment. He placed his hand on Luo Jian's shoulder and read one word at a time. He forced himself to calm down and to properly pronounce every syllable. To use magic is to use the power of words. The more accurate the pronunciation and the stronger the will of the user, the better the effect of the spell would be.
But Feng YuLan had overestimated himself. No matter how many times he recited the spell, even if he was dizzy from the spell consuming a lot of his mental energy, the poison kept spreading, and the black patches on Luo Jian were still expanding. Although the speed had slightly decelerated, no matter how much it had slowed down, the cast spell was still useless.
"How can it not work?!" Feng YuLan did not understand. He questioned his grimoire, and it could only give him an answer faithfully.
[This is a high-level spell. At your current caliber, you are unable to use it. At best, it can only slow down the spread of the poison. ]
[Nevermind this; you need to check out your own situation!]
"My situation?" Feng YuLan was stunned for a while. He looked down at his injured right hand. He was so worried that he did not realize it, but the poison in his hand was also spreading at a very fast speed! Now, it had spread to the shoulder, and his entire right arm was black!
Feng YuLan suddenly felt a little dizzy and faint. His limbs were weak, and he suddenly fell to the ground. He did not know that his expression was just like Luo Jian's: a little lifeless with vacant eyes.
But the pages of his grimoire were still flipping:
[Wake up! Use the spell on yourself! All auxiliary spells are twice as effective when cast on yourself in comparison to others!]
"Ah......" Feng YuLan also understood this, but in fact, it was not much better even if it was twice as strong, right? It would just make the poison spread slower. Nevertheless, the desire to live willed Feng YuLan to not give up.
He lay on the ground and slowly reached his hand out. However, just as he was reaching for his grimoire to touch it, when he was halfway there, he couldn't move any more and could hardly make a sound. His vision was blurry, and he could only utter one last sentence: "It's truly...... truly a bad situation..."
In the dark tunnel, two people were motionless. One was sitting against the wall and the other was lying on the ground. After a minute, the terrible poison had spread through their entire bodies. At this moment, Luo Jian's arm moved...... Ah no, it should be said that the snake around his arm moved.
The snake was quite fascinating. Ever since the stalker had given it to Luo Jian, it had always stayed wrapped around his wrist and refused to unwind itself. No matter how the snake ate, slept, bathed, or went to the bathroom, it remained small. It was very thin and long and couldn't be seen where it looped around his wrist when he covered it with his sleeves.
At first, Luo Jian felt that he should give it something to eat. Later, he found that it would not eat anything. Instead, from time to time, it would bite his arm, and it felt like it was sucking his blood. The snake usually did not move. No matter how he tossed or turned the snake around, it would not move. It closed its eyes as if it was hibernating.
But at this time, it moved. When both Luo Jian and Feng YuLan were unconscious, the small, thin, and long snake with black and white stripes crawled out. First, it climbed up Luo Jian's arm and moved to his shoulder, and after that, it circled around Luo Jian's neck as it spit out its forked tongue. It opened its mouth wide, exposing its two sharp teeth, and bit down on Luo Jian's neck fiercely.
After a while, the black poison that had spread all over Luo Jian's body quickly disappeared. However, at that moment, Luo Jian was not yet awake, so the little snake squirmed down from Luo Jian and slithered to Feng YuLan's side. It wrapped around his neck as well and, like with Luo Jian, it bit his neck.
After biting them, the snake crawled away contentedly with its stomach bulging as if it was full. It even seemed to burp. After eating its fill, it went up onto Luo Jian's arm, circled around him again, and fell asleep.
T/N: Kitty & I would be bringing you guys an extra chapter per week in addition to 2 chapters/week. (We'd have 3 chapters a week in total now!)
For now, chapters will be released on Fri, Sat & Sun!
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