Zhen Jin and Zi Di moved through the dense jungle.
Overhead, the canopy grew thicker, almost obscuring the sky.
The air was extremely hot and humid.
The trees and vines were entangled all around, if one were not careful, they would trip.
The ground was soft when stepped on because of the fallen leaves.
Zi Di stepped forward: “It’s nearby.”
Zhen Jin looked around slightly, he knew what she meant. This was the area where she and the others fled for their lives from.
According to Zi Di’s story, when the evil wolf chased them, in order to stall for time, the last three guards stayed here and tried their best to hold off the wolf to give Zi Di and the comatose Zhen Jin the opportunity to survive.
After walking a few dozen steps around a stout big tree, the two saw a corpse.
In the bushes, there were two more bodies about ten steps away that exuded a bloody smell.
Their eyes were wide open and their faces still remained frightened and furious.
Zi Di couldn’t help but hold her breath as she stood frozen in place. Zhen Jin took a few tense steps and leaned over to investigate.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, like an arrow fired from a crossbow, a thick black and red shadow flashed from the corpse and aimed towards Zhen Jin’s face.
Zhen Jin’s hair flew and as his pupils shrunk to the size of a needle as he reached out.
Immediately, the shadow was grasped!
“Hiss!”
The shadow that was grabbed by the head by Zhen Jin and its appearance was revealed to be a strange looking snake.
Its scales were black and it's head was bright red. From its head all the way to its tail was a distinct crimson streak.
On the snake’s sides it had thorns as numerous as the legs of a centipede.
“This is a bronze level magic beast!” Zhen Jin revealed a nervous expression as he felt the life level of the snake.
“Ahh, be careful!” Everything had happened too quickly and Zi Di had only just reacted.
“That is a blood streaked snake and it is extremely venomous. It’s venom is so severe that it would only take a few breaths to kill!” Zi Di quickly said, “moreover, its thorns allow it to penetrate leather armor!”
As soon as she finished speaking, the blood streaked snake counterattacked.
Its body twisted and wrapped around Zhen Jin’s arm and a hundred thorns dug deeply into the teenager’s arm.
Blood flowed out and Zhen Jin got hit by a pang of pain.
Simultaneously, Zhen Jin felt his arm being squeezed by a great force, crushing his flesh into paste and making his bones groan.
His fingers moved quickly and attempted to strangle the snake. However, the snake’s bones were too tough and its scales too smooth.
Zhen Jin grunted and slammed the snake’s head on the ground. With his other hand he quickly drew his dagger, raised it high, and stabbed.
The dagger seemed to have penetrated the head and nailed the snake onto the ground.
The snake countered and its thorns dug in by another inch, making Zhen Jin’s arm even bloodier.
But after a few breaths, the snake’s body stopped moving.
Although it no longer kept crushing his arm, the thorns were still stuck in the teenager’s skin.
Zhen Jin gritted his teeth and retrieved his dagger. After retreating from the carcass, he began to pull out the thorns.
Zi Di quickly took out some medicinal powder from her pouch and sprinkled a layer on Zhen Jin’s arm injury. Then she drew a white bandage and quickly wrapped it around his arm.
The wound was deep but Zhen Jin’s constitution was very strong. Soon, the blood stopped due to the medicine.
Zhen Jin felt a clear and sour sensation mixed with pain transmitted from the wound to his mind.
“What kind of medicine is this? How is it so effective? Does this island not prohibit the use of magic and battle qi?“ Zhen Jin was curious about the immediate effect of the medicine.
“This is a herbal medicine from the frozen land’s barbarian tribes. This is not a magic potion but simply uses the power of herbs.” Zi Di explained.
Magic potions were created by pharmacists by successfully incorporating magical ingredients and stabilizing their magic power. Because potions had magic power, they often worked quickly and effectively.
Zi Di looked at Zhen Jin’s wound with red eyes and a sense of shame and guilt: “Fortunately the thorns did not have venom! Sorry my lord, I have hurt you. I should have warned you sooner.”
Zhen Jin looked at the girl behaving like this with pity and shook his head, relieved: “This is not your fault.”
After crossing the river, they entered the forest, staying alert to their surroundings. Even when communicating, it was very limited to avoid distractions.
However, the blood streaked snake was extremely fast when it leapt out of the corpse and even Zhen Jin did not anticipate it.
“Even a snake on this island is so weird and sinister.” Zhen Jin returned to where he was before and used his dagger to pick up the snake’s head and cut its body apart.
“If only I could use battle qi, I would not have gotten injured.” Zhen Jin sighed.
Regardless of wthether he had silver level or even only iron level battle qi, as long as the qi defense activated, the thorns would have had a hard time piercing his arm.
Zhen Jin observed the snake’s innards and saw its stomach had a lot of undigested food.
The young knight’s eyes flashed: “It seems this snake likes devouring prey and lives a bloodthirsty life. No wonder it flew out of the corpse.”
“Strange.” After searching twice, Zhen Jin felt doubtful. “Where is this magic beast’s crystal core?”
Magic beasts were able to absorb the natural elements and create their own magic. This magic power would over time accumulate to form a magic crystal that was the magic beast’s crystal core!
Magic beasts that had just been born lacked a crystal core. An adolescent magic beast’s crystal core was very small, and all adult magic beasts had a crystal core.
This blood streaked snake was no newborn, yet it did not have a crystal core. This confused Zhen Jin.
Zi Di explained: “On this island there are many strange magic beasts. Although their life aura is very strong, they do not have a magic crystal. The search and rescue team killed some magic beasts before, but did not find any magic crystals in their bodies. Probably because of this, none of the magic beasts showed any proto-magic spells.”
“It turned out to be like this.” Zhen Jin realized.
Although the value of a magic beast’s crystal core was not small, if the reason why these magic beasts could not use proto-magic spells was because they lacked magic crystals, then the advantages outweighed the disadvantages for Zhen Jin and Zi Di.
Zhen Jin thought about the battle between the green vines and the huge turtle he had witnessed before.
"Although the giant turtle had lava flowing from it, there was no magic fluctuation. It was not using proto-magic spells by utilizing its magic power, it was only its biological nature."
This was not surprising.
Some dragon beast species' mouths had a poison gland or a special sulfur pouch that when exhaled could create poison breath or fire breath.
This was not a proto-magic spell, rather a biological ability of the lifeform.
After settling the blood streaked snake, Zhen Jin went to examine the corpses again.
On the ground, the two guards lay dead.
One had a fatal injury where the entire neck was almost bitten off. Only the posterior neck remained connected. The other body was even worse off, the entire head was violently crushed with cerebral fluids and blood blended together pouring out.
These were fatal wounds.
These two people’s stomachs are decayed. No doubt these injuries were caused by the venomous snake.
Zhen Jin's expression became austere, he stood up and looked around.
He carefully discovered that the surrounding bushes had been severely trampled.
In the eyes of ordinary people, the scene was chaotic. But Zhen Jin was able to effortlessly distinguish which tracks were caused by people and which were by the evil wolf.
Using these traces in front of him, he was able to visualize a path.
The teenager’s eyes narrowed and his gaze followed the visualised path, gradually looking to the distance.
But soon, the bushes and the dense forest blocked his vision.
Zhen Jin started walking forwards, taking ten steps and walking out of the bushes, turning to a big tree.
Then, a rare clearing within the forest was in front of his eyes.
Zi Di followed Zhen Jin into the clearing.
Zhen Jin looked down at his feet and found footprints in the clearing.
This was because the forest floor was filled with many rotten leaves. Heavy rain resulted in these rotten leaves being very moist and damp.
Therefore, the heavier the person, the deeper the footprints formed which often created puddles.
The space between footprints in the clearing was very far apart, showing that the owner of the footprints, being the guards, were rushing.
Zhen Jin contemplated attentively and quietly speculated: "These two guards saw that this clearing did not block their sight and decided that this was the best place to fight the evil wolf."
His mind seemed to have replayed this scene.
"But when they stayed here, they suddenly found that the evil wolf ran back into the bushes. It seemed to bypass the guards to go after Zi Di."
"So the two guards then hastily rushed back and gave up this advantageous location into the bushes to attempt to pursue and block the evil wolf."
"In the bushes, the two guards ran with one in front of the other when the wolf suddenly turned around quickly, jumped up and directly bit through one of the guards’ head."
"Then, it rushed the guard at the rear and bit his throat!"
Zhen Jin speculated using the bodies and various clues.
A chill propagated from deep within his heart to his entire being.
The blue furred evil wolf had a brutal and ferocious temperament, yet it was still so cunning. It seemed to be able to understand people's hearts, adopting a combination of lures and composite counterattacks. Its tactics were implemented neatly and precisely, allowing it to successfully and quickly hunt down the two guards.
During the whole process, it also took advantage of the terrain and the mindset of the guards to protect their master.
Even when it turned around to attack, it was still very strategic in delivering a fatal blow.
To the one without a helmet, it directly crushed his head with its fangs.
To the one that wore a helmet, it bit his throat.
The strength of the two guards did not even reach iron, but they were both bronze. Although not a rival of a silver level magic beast, they could have at least managed to inflict some injuries to the wolf.
However, even when the guards sacrificed their lives, they could not make the wolf suffer the consequences.
Zhen Jin sighed to Zi Di behind him: “This blue furred evil wolf is sure to have silver level strength!”
The traces of the battle were the best proof that the evil wolf’s bite force and jumping power were obviously silver level.
Zhen Jin sighed with emotion: “The most terrifying part is it has shocking intelligence utterly surpassing any ordinary magic beast. Especially in its ability to use tactics, it is almost comparable to humans!”
"Generally speaking, wolves are pack hunters and use group tactics. Lone wolves driven away from the pack are either old, weak, sick, or disabled."
"Fierce tigers will hide and sneak, slowly approaching their prey then suddenly exert their full strength to kill them in one blow."
"Before, when the evil wolf was chasing us, it was obviously unusual.The tactics it used were more insidious and fiercer than a tiger."
"It was a fluke that we were able to eliminate it earlier!"
Zi Di nodded in deep thought, her face uncontrollably paling by several magnitudes: “I even suspected that the evil wolf had a human soul! The first time we encountered the evil wolf was when the team was attacked from behind by it.”
“It obviously had the ability to kill us but only dragged away the guard, such that we would rush to his rescue.”
“Our formation was in disarray, and it took advantage of that.”
“In the first battle, although we injured it severely, three guards died.”
“Of course we were very angry for incurring heavy losses. But in the end, the evil wolf was a silver level magic beast and it had long disappeared. After discussing, we decided to carry on looking for you, milord, and temporarily gave up our vengeance against the evil wolf.”
“Many of us thought that the injured evil wolf would be eaten by the other beasts of the forest. Even if it were still alive, it should have been too injured by our attacks such that it would not dare to provoke us.”
“But the truth later proved to us that we were wrong.”
“So terribly wrong!”
“The second time the evil wolf appeared was six days later. Its injuries were mostly healed and it directly raided our campsite that evening.”
“It held a beehive in its mouth and threw it into our camp, then it immediately retreated.”
“Subsequently, a swarm of fire-poison bees assaulted the camp. The poisonous bees were not afraid of fire and contained a strong fiery poison. We eventually repelled the poisonous bees, but four guards got stung and were severely injured, resulting in them falling into a coma.”
“Their bodies were hot all over and I used every conceivable method I could think of, but I could not lower their temperature. Later that night, they died.”
“After that, our team suffered repeated attacks by the evil wolf. It became our grim reaper, a nightmare that we could not escape from…”
When Zi Di spoke this, her arms were shivering slightly, with considerable fear still lingering in her heart.
Zhen Jin looked at his crying fiance and thought, 'Ah, she is so helpless.'
The young knight couldn’t help but take a few steps forward to reach out and embrace Zi Di in his chest.
The girl’s delicate body shook like a frightened rabbit that had returned to its warm nest. Soon, her emotions stabilized in Zhen Jin’s embrace.
Zhen Jin lightly patted her back and lowered his head to see the girl’s face, who gradually shied.
“I understand your feelings.” Zhen Jin softly said, “Right now, I am with you. Unless I fall, I will always protect you and prevent magic beasts from hurting you.”
“Lord Zhen Jin!” Zi Di's eyes revealed tenderness.
The two carried on cleaning the battlefield.
Of the two dead guards, one man wore leather armor, however, it was already in tatters. The other was wearing an iron helmet and chainmail.
Zhen Jin first took the iron gauntlet and replaced the leather gauntlet he was wearing that had been pierced by the snake’s thorns.
Subsequently, he took the iron helmet and chainmail and donned it on himself.
A sense of security suddenly emerged.
Equipment could, to an extent, bridge the gap in life levels.
For example, the blue furred evil wolf was unwilling to use its teeth against the head because of the helmet.
As for the iron boots, because they did not fit the Zhen Jin’s feet, the youngster abandoned them.
Apart from the protective equipment, there were also weapons.
One guard used a longsword while the other used a scimitar.
The longsword’s blade was damaged but the scimitar was in good condition.
Zhen Jin first held the scimitar in his hands and after swinging it for a while, he slightly frowned.
He put down the scimitar and picked up the longsword again.
Just when he was about to swing the blade, suddenly a memory emerged in the youngster’s mind.
Author’s note
Yesterday, the new official group was closed, please don't add groups for now. Old fans know that reports and criticism have always been with us. This was the case six or seven years ago. Anyway, the road ahead will never lack thorns and grindstones. Without resistance, how can it be called a journey? Tonight, I will discuss this with management, and I will bubble up in the original group. I'm sorry, I can't reply to private chats one by one. One's energy is too limited. But everyone's encouragement and comfort, I can see it and remember it in my heart. Thank you! !
Notes
Well this marks the first time I have ever translated a chapter ever. It took me like 6 hours to do and I spent most of the time looking through Chinese dictionaries and Google translate to try to figure out what was being said. The most hilarious part was that I realized that mtl default translates Zhin into Pin since Pin is a synonym of needle making me assume our dear MC is actually Pin Jin instead of Zhen Jin. I always thought Pin Jin kinda sounded stupid... As I suspected, my Chinese is limited to mostly ordering food. The reason I did it was because I thought it would help me expand my miniscule chinese vernacular and also I have way too much time in quarantine at this time. Please don’t judge me too harshly Chibi and Sky.
Will I do more of these? idk maybe this shit takes forever.