Chapter 79 – Fire Lance
Translated by Sunyancai
When Shao Xuan came down from that tree, he was immediately surrounded by the others, for all of them had heard Ta’s words.
“Is this the seedling of the Green Thief?” Tuo had sparkling eyes, and stared still at the young bud in Shao Xuan’s hand, which was smaller than his finger.
“Is that eatable?”
Keke pushed the others in front of him away. As he was about to reach out his hands to take that young bud from Shao Xuan, he was stopped by Ta, who blocked him with his arm.
“Let me have a look at it.” Said Ta.
Seeing that Ta was here, Shao Xuan passed the bean-sprout-like young bud to him. As for Keke’s earlier question about whether it was eatable…Shao Xuan guessed that the answer might be positive.
It did not feel particularly special when you held it in your hands, but Ta assumed that it was the seedling of the Green Thief.
“How did you know that there was this seedling there, Ah-Xuan? Did you see anything earlier?” asked Ta.
They just witnessed Shao Xuan walking straight towards that tree as if he knew it was there. Then he climbed up the tree and pulled the seedling out directly.
“Earlier?” Shao Xuan rubbed his head, and acted as if he was recalling hard, “Someone might have told me that there’s something over there earlier. So I went for it.”
“But you looked back then, what did you see?” Ta stared at Shao Xuan’s eyes as he asked.
Shao Xuan did not try to avoid Ta’s sight, but continued, “I felt that someone was calling my name, so I looked back.”
Calling your name?
Who called you?
The ancestors?
Almost all of them were thinking the same thing.
“Aside from this one, are there any other similar seedlings?” asked Ta again.
Shao Xuan frowned a little, looking bewildered as well as embarrassed.
“You should just think about it calmly.” Ta said gently.
Shao Xuan lowered his head, as if trying very hard to search his memories. But in fact, he was only faking it. The vision of the Green Thieves had already disappeared, but he had a vague impression about which trees had the seedlings in them.
If it was old Ke who was asking, Shao Xuan would have given a detailed explanation. However, it was Ta, so Shao Xuan did not plan to tell the truth. Since everybody assumed that he was blessed by the ancestors, he decided to let the ancestors take all the credits, so as to save himself from finding more excuses.
After thinking for about two minutes, Shao Xuan pointed at some trees nearby.
Ta paid no more attention to other things, but hastened to command the warriors to go search in the trees that Shao Xuan had pointed out. Now everything besides this had to be put aside, the Green Thief became the top priority. Although a lot of things on the animal skin roll had not been found, a Green Thief would be more than enough to make up for that. It could even outdo all of them combined. Although those young seedlings needed to be confirmed, it was completely worth it to search for them.
Not all the trees that pointed out by Shao Xuan had seedlings, but warriors were very careful when searching all the trees. They were almost searching it inch by inch.
Shao Xuan could not tell the exact location of the other buds, for he had only paid extra attention to the one, so he only knew the precise location of that bud.
“Hey, I’ve found one!!” Ah-Suo shouted out cheerfully. He would very much like to swallow the seedling he had at hand immediately. In fact, he would totally have done that, if Ta wasn’t staring at him.
Seeing those circumstances, Ta gave Shao Xuan the strip-shaped stone box with the headless Green Thief inside, and said, “You keep this for now, while I go and search as well. Just wait here. Do not wander around.”
“Alright, got it.”
Shao Xuan took the stone box, and rested leaning against a tree. The reason why he could see the visions should be because of the other special ability in his body. In the past, it warned him of the dangers that were about to occur. But now, he seemed to be able to see something that happened in the past. However, Shao Xuan could not control it at his will yet.
As he was resting, Shao Xuan suddenly looked at the ground beneath his feet. Something was trying to come out from below.
But the others were absolutely unaware of the coming danger. Probably because all them were in the trees and had no connection to the ground, so none of them had noticed the thing approaching fast beneath.
“Something is coming!” Shao Xuan shouted.
Almost at the same time that Shao Xuan finished his words, fiery-red vines drilled out from the earth.
Luckily, Shao Xuan had a quick reaction. He leaped high as he shouted out the warning, and he leaped higher with the help of the trees nearby.
“It’s the Fire Lance!”
“Run, Ah-Xuan, run!”
The others quickly withdrew from the trees.
“Careless!” Ta pulled out a stone axe from his waist and tossed it towards the vine.
Crack!
It was the sound of stone chopping on a piece of wood.
The bloody-red vine that came after Shao Xuan was as thick as an adult’s arm, but it got chopped down into two pieces by the axe. Blood-like liquid poured out and sprinkled on the ground.
However, it had only dislocated the Fire Lance’s tip, and the “bleeding” vine was still chasing after Shao Xuan. What’s more, there were more than ten vines drilling out from the ground. According to Shao Xuan’s estimation, at least fifty vines had drilled out in the air, aside from those thin and short ones. No one knew how many more of them were still hiding beneath the earth.
When the warriors had withdrawn, Shao Xuan’s pressure decreased. His ability was still quite limited, so there was no chance that he could take the tough attacks from those tough vines.
Even though they were merely vines, they were totally different from the red vines that Shao Xuan had seen earlier. The ones Shao Xuan had seen could only sweep away the prey, and they were much less aggressive. However, the one that they were dealing with now was much fiercer. They stabbed directly as if they were spears.
The tree that Shao Xuan leant on for resting earlier had already been stabbed through at least three times. And all of that happened in the blink of an eye.
It was the Fire Lance. The tips of the vines were as sharp as spearheads, while the tiny hair-like extrusions on its body would dance like fire while moving. It deserved the name, one hundred percent.
Every single hair-like extrusions on the vines were used for absorbing. They could absorb a plant’s liquid, as well as the fresh blood of humans.
The experienced warriors, who had hunted a long time in this green land, were all familiar with this plant, so Ta and the others knew well enough how they should be handled.
When Shao Xuan was dodging the attacks, he paid extra attention on Ta’s moves. There was much to learn under such circumstances, especially from those experienced old warriors. He needed to take the chance.
As for the experienced old hunters, although they might lack the fit movements or fancy actions, every single move of theirs was quite prominent. All of the moves were acquired during hundreds or even thousands of tough fights. Sometimes, their conditioned reflexes could be much faster than their thoughts. It was almost an absolutely instinctive reaction, but it was a simple and practical killing move.
All the warriors soon withdrew and entered combat status. Promptly they began to cooperate with each other, their fighting power surged. They had a momentum that could almost beat the Fire Lance. Every warrior had his own weapon. Constantly, they swept their arms, and struck those Fire Lance with the weapons in their hands. All their strength went through the weapons and was hammered down on the vines. The attacks were fluent and kept hitting on the vines in waves.
If any one of them had a small lagg, or made a slight mistake, they would risk losing their momentum. They had to rely on the momentum, even if they were not fighting with a ferocious beast.
It all happened in a short period of time, and the ground was dyed red.
The danger was about to pass, but “banging” sounds emerged from underground.
It turned out that the other vines underneath had drilled out as well, while the part that was above the ground had grown twice as large. It seemed that the Fire Lance was about to put up a desperate fight.
More to Shao Xuan’s misery, most of the newly drilled-out vines were coming after him.
“Move away, Ah-Xuan!” Ta shouted over at him.
However, right after his shout, Ta found that the running away Shao Xuan, turned around and was heading back!!
Ta was so furious that he almost spat out some blood seeing that. What the hell? You were clearly told to run farther, but now you headed back? What’s your plan? To drag the team’s feet?! Did you feel that it was not sticky enough over here?!
Normally, Ta wouldn’t choose to continue the tangled fight with the Fire Lance. Instead, he would probably take the team away from it. However, there were many Green Thief seedlings nearby, the things that he was not willing to give up. Clearly, the other warriors all shared his opinion, and none of them had any intention to withdraw. They were nearly crazy in the combat. It was understandable, for it was never easy to encounter the seedlings of Green Thieves, but they were disturbed by the Fire Lance. What’s worse, the Fire Lance had destroyed many trees nearby, which made the search for seedlings even more difficult. And, oh yes, some boy was putting himself in the middle of chaos, on purpose!
Great fury flashed in Ta’s eyes. He suddenly stamped his feet, and stepped on a very thick vine. The plant beneath his feet immediately got scattered as if were attacked by some very heavy thing. Earlier there were some hair-like extrusions tangling around Ta’s feet. Now they were all broken in the blink of an eye. Ta grasped the stone axe, and repeatedly chopped. Sounds of cracking resounded, as if many pieces of cloth were torn apart in the air, and many pieces of hard-wood were chopped apart at the same time.
At the same time when he chopped, Ta moved quickly towards Shao Xuan’s direction. He wanted to kick Shao Xuan out of this mess immediately. The one he hated most was someone who stalled the team.
However, only two steps closer to Shao Xuan, Ta found that there was a similar giant Fire Lance chasing after Shao Xuan. The newly drilled-out vines were running after Shao Xuan like spears filled with a lust for killing. They were coming this way.
No wonder the lad chose to run backwards.