Chapter 352: Travels

Day 28

I followed the river for a while and battled with a Diamond Eyed Leatherback. I lured it onto the sand and tore a huge chunk out of its side, but then it retreated into the water and I nearly got caught by it’s friend waiting to the side. Or at least that’s how it seemed, the other croc could have just been there to steal some of whatever the first one caught. I just know that as soon as I dove into the water I saw a half dozen of them swimming towards me. One of them was actually within arm’s reach, but it actually turned towards the injured croc and away from me. After I left the river, there was a disturbance in the water and the one I’d injured was torn apart by the others.

I decided not to get back into the river.

After following the river for a few hours, I ran into some land predators. The very unusual 36 Clawed Wolf, packs of them preying upon herds of Twin Hoofed Bison. I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of strange environmental factor there was here that made the beasts all have so many claws and hooves. I was thinking about it from an evolutionary standpoint, but then I remembered this world may not operate in that manner. Survival of the strongest, not the fittest, seemed to rule in this world. That said, it was also very possible there was some odd treasure or resource that rapidly mutated their feet more than their bodies. I felt the urge to go and look for the source, but then a few birds in formation flew over me and started circling.

I had to abandon following the river bank in order to avoid a few packs of 36 Clawed Wolves, but I tried to move in a similar direction. After the plains, I vaguely recalled that there should be a broken mountain range that led into a set of cliffs and canyons that bordered a small sea. The river wound through the canyon area branching into dozens of small ocean coves.

Day 33

They caught up to me in the canyon zone. The rocks were too hard for the Warp Worm to tunnel through quickly, and they used the birds to keep track of where I was going. Somehow the rivers got extremely shallow and muddy. They were filled with some sort of flatworm, very similar to the Bloodsucking Flatworm. Just like the ones I ran into long ago when I was trying to escape from being trapped in the Lang Clan mine, except these were far more powerful. It was like a mud river full of level 30 plus leeches, except these leeches required poisoning yourself or bathing in extreme cold and minor surgery to remove.

Dreadful.

On the plus side, the Horde behind me also didn’t dare use the river so they could only follow behind me on a small footpath. I clashed with them and used my Web Bracer to steal one of their Arrow Wall shields. I took a few injuries in the process, but with the shield it made their Stumblebow harassment pretty ineffective. They chased me for three days straight without food or rest. They kept rotating to stay fresh, but it took everything I had to just stay on the trail without stumbling into the river. Thankfully, there was a flash flood and the river level rose rapidly.

We all climbed the canyon wall and carved out caves to wait for the water level to lower again. I nearly swallowed a whole bison before passing out, but when I woke I heard them digging and had to do the same with the Warp Worm. When they reached my cave I had already climbed to the top of the canyon and bought some more distance on the cliffs.

Day 40

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I finally made it to the sea, and saw why they didn’t seem all that worried about me reaching it. Red Tide. It was something I’d heard before, but didn’t know anything about. The waters of the sea were a deep red color, like a sea of blood. The red water crashed up against the cliffs beneath him, the muddy river water flowed into the red sea and created quite an ugly reddish brown color.

I didn’t dare to just leap off a cliff into the sea so I followed the cliffs towards a column of smoke in the distance. I used the Human Seal and quickly donned a cloak and hood, hiding my missing arm and eye. I could get my missing parts back if I used the Chrysalis technique, but that took months to years to complete and I was pretty sure they’d catch me if I tried to hide for a week, let alone months. The best I could do was to cover up and change my eye, skin, and hair color.

As I thought, the smoke turned out to be a human settlement. Crazy enough, even this town, Ruby Cliffs, had my wanted signs posted. I carefully asked around, using Windscreen to block my conversations from eavesdroppers, and used some gold to make friends with a local ‘fisherman’. The man, An Sanjiu, knew about the bounty on me, but he was a belligerent old fellow. For a thousand gold coins, he snuck me onto his fishing boat and out onto the sea. He told me the red color of the sea was caused by an overabundance of algae. They were always in such heavy concentration that fish couldn’t survive in this sea, and shellfish and mollusks they fished for in the area were only valuable for cultivators.

The algae carried a special sort of energy that would kill regular people who ate them, but could be harnessed by Chefs for cultivators to take advantage of. Amazingly, the fishing town couldn’t even fish for its own food. Instead they were entirely supported by outside food sources and all that they harvested was sold to the nearby Sects.

Day 44

It took a few days to cross that Red Sea. I had him take me to one of the nearest ports because if I was out on the water too long I figured they’d know exactly where I was heading and cut me off. An Sanjiu bought me some more supplies and I left before he could get greedy and turn me in.

I didn’t pass through the second port town to keep from being spotted. Instead I left the sea a few miles out, using Cosmic Traction to disembark to a very rough place. It seemed like a spot they could never be waiting for me at. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Only a few hours after leaving the ship I was attacked again. The Jade Horde waited for me to enter a valley and then blocked off both exits. Even so, it seemed I had moved too fast as neither Wu Chang nor Whitestaff were there. Instead they just harassed me from afar with nets and crossbow bolts for hours.

I didn’t have enough insects to help me push through their lines this time and when they used Formation Armor to form a wall I didn’t have any good methods to push through. When I tried to use the Warp Worm to dig a secret escape tunnel, three of Whitestaff’s disciples tapped their staves to the ground and the Warp Worm was knocked dizzy. I had to call it back. It was even worse when I tried to use my Twin Soul to punch through.

While traveling I would send it out at night to hunt weaker Demonic Beasts and Spirit Animals. The more soul energy I could collect the stronger my Twin Soul could be, and I really needed more backup. It had already recovered to its peak before the betrayal, but I had underestimated Whitestaff’s disciples. One of them, a woman with sharp eyes, lashed out with lightning speed before the Twin Soul had even neared her. Her staff flew out like a javelin and stabbed into the ground where I was hiding it.

Her staff crumbled to dust, but so did my Twin Soul. I used the Blue Icesilver to form armor and get through the backlash of its loss. Afterwards, I thickened the armor and had to use brute force to break through the blockade. With the Sovereign Stone and Icesilver armor I scaled the valley walls and weakened the rock enough to smash through.

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