Chapter 290: Retreat, Sulfur and Boundless Darkness

The painful and shrill scream made the two people on the field instantly alert.

The specially made longsword refracted light under the sunlight overhead. Xia Nan stared in the direction the sound came from, his pitch-black and profound eyes seeming to be able to pass through those dense shrub branches and leaves to see the scenery behind them.

"There is more than one Shihua Xiyi?"

Judging that the sound came from near the lizard's lair and suspecting it was caused by another Shihua Xiyi, he asked Adeline beside him.

"Impossible!" The woman, covered in grass clippings and mud spots and looking somewhat disheveled, answered with absolute certainty.

"This kind of creature is originally a solitary animal; except for a few breeding periods, it rarely has long-term contact and activities with its own kind."

"And we have been squatting outside its lair for many days, and there is absolutely no sign of other adult Shihua Xiyi."

"The only possibility..." Adeline's tone suddenly became hesitant, "there are a few of its cubs being raised in the cave."

Speaking of this, the look of certainty that was originally on her face couldn't help but change.

After all, having observed for so many days, they did indeed discover that this Shihua Xiyi's appetite was unusual; it often needed to go out to hunt, and its sleep time was relatively small.

Originally, they thought it was a common difference between individuals, but thinking about it this way, it really could be a Shihua Xiyi that was in the cub-rearing period.

Xia Nan was noncommittal about Adeline's guess.

He pondered the pros and cons in his heart, and after a moment, he nodded slightly:

"Stay alert, let's go over and take a look."

The two were not far from the Shihua Xiyi's lair.

They didn't need to find the way; just following the traces left by the behemoth on the ground, after only a few minutes, they returned to the clearing with a speed that was deliberately slowed down to be alert to the surroundings.

The air was dead silent.

There were only the drag marks left by the lizard's bloated belly when it moved just now on the ground, with no traces of battle remaining.

The improved perception attribute took effect silently.

His not-so-profound knowledge might not be enough for Xia Nan to analyze any precise and detailed intelligence from those suspicious clues.

But he could still judge the most basic and direct details.

"Someone has been here."

Carrying the longsword, Xia Nan pointed to a certain intermittent footprint on the ground to the side, extending from the depths of the dense forest into the cave.

"I'll go in front, you help me with tactical attacks." Without the slightest hesitation, Adeline took the initiative to speak.

She certainly knew in her heart that if she didn't bring it up, given their relationship, Xia Nan would never let her open the path forward.

But after all, they were in the middle of a mission, and the other party's strength far exceeded her own; if they encountered danger, her being at the very front could provide Xia Nan with sufficient reaction time.

What's more, she had just been saved by the other party; if she had to shrink to the back even when entering the cave... that was not Adeline's character.

Xia Nan didn't answer this, just while putting away the two-handed longsword and switching to a wooden sword more suitable for narrow environments.

He glanced at the two single-handed hammers in Adeline's hands.

"You go to the back."

Compared to Adeline, whose two hands were completely occupied and had no extra defensive equipment.

His wooden sword could be held with one hand, and the freed left hand could be used to fully manipulate 【Ghost Scale Disk Guard】.

From the perspective of maximizing efficiency, he, who possessed stronger physical fitness and reaction ability, and whose equipment and combat techniques were leading in all aspects, was the most suitable to walk in front.

Without refuting, Adeline's expression paused, she nodded heavily, and followed behind him.

The two entered the cave.

Dead silent.

The air only echoed with the subtle light sounds of leather boots rubbing against the mud and stone ground and the collision of armor plates and chains.

Xia Nan held a shield in one hand and a sword in the other, carefully moving forward.

Adeline followed closely behind, leaving enough space for the teammate in front to perform actions, while also conscientiously fulfilling her duty of guarding the rear, alert to possible dangers in front and behind.

The cave was much shallower than imagined.

Even at their turtle-like speed to be alert to danger, they reached the bottom in a few minutes.

The narrow passage suddenly opened up, turning into a huge space filled with thick blood and stench.

Thanks to the glowing bacterial moss growing on the surface of the surrounding stone walls, it was not pitch black, barely counting as some light source.

For Xia Nan, it was enough to see clearly.

The first thing that came into view was naturally the grayish-white stones of various shapes that almost covered the entire cave floor.

It looked like there was no difference from those in the Gray Valley, but if observed carefully, one could clearly discover:

These large or small, broken and shattered stones all possessed peculiar shapes distinct from natural creations.

An arm with a sleeve, a foot wearing a shoe, half a face with wide-open eyes, or even a single-handed axe made entirely of stone...

Clearly, these were all unlucky prey that couldn't withstand the "Petrifying Gaze."

Dead as dead could be.

Just thinking about observing carefully to see if he could discover anything.

A voice with an unexpected tone suddenly came to his ears.

"Morrison!?"

He saw Adeline with some surprise on her face, looking at a figure sitting quietly in the shadows in a corner against the wall, motionless.

Carefully stepping forward, the full picture of the figure also appeared in Xia Nan's line of sight.

A burly, middle-aged man with a shiny bald head.

Looking at his attire, he should also be an adventurer.

He was also dead, but compared to the other scattered limbs in the cave that had been completely petrified and smashed, this man's corpse was relatively well-preserved, and there were no traces of petrification on his body.

The fatal wound... was a penetrating wound near the left side of his chest that had destroyed his entire heart, vaguely allowing one to see the stone wall behind.

At the edge of the wound, slight scorch marks could be captured.

Around the corpse, besides the extremely thick bloody stench, there was also a faint mixture of strange sulfurous scorched stench.

His brows furrowed subconsciously, Xia Nan asked Adeline beside him:

"This person... do you know him?"

"He was my previous teammate." Adeline's gaze was fixed on the corpse in front, with no sorrow on her face, just appearing somewhat nervous.

"To complete the promotion mission, the association temporarily assigned me two veteran adventurers who had also just obtained professional levels not long ago; he was one of them."

"Just now, the Shihua Xiyi went crazy and launched an attack on us; the other teammate should have already died, and he and I scattered and ran."

"But the target the Shihua Xiyi chose later was me, so he should have already run away."

"Yet right now, he is here..."

Halfway through her words, Adeline suddenly caught a glimpse of a few clusters of strange mushrooms growing in the corner of the stone wall behind the corpse, grayish-white like rock, with fish-scale-like grid patterns on the surface.

"Gray Paste Scale Fungus?"

"It seems this guy took advantage of the Shihua Xiyi going out to chase me, made a big circle, and wanted to pick the fungus that was the mission target."

"But it seems he encountered some other danger and finally died in the cave."

Xia Nan pondered, bending down to observe the corpse in front of him carefully.

There was residual warmth on the body surface, the muscles were relaxed and had not yet developed rigor mortis, and even the blood had not completely solidified, slowly seeping out from the wound.

Clearly, the bald, burly man had just died not long ago.

"In this way, it corresponds to the scream just now." ===== CHAPTER 291 =====