Chapter 227: The Rat-Slaying Squad

When Rod arrived at the hospital treehouse, Amy was already sitting up on the bed.

Having been bedridden for about a month, she was even thinner than before, her muscle mass completely gone.

Except for her green skin, she looked entirely like a slightly taller woman.

Yet the powerful spiritual energy surging from her body already signaled that she was a Seventh-Rank Warrior.

Seeing Rod, Amy let out a couple of goofy giggles.

"Master, Amy is hungry~"

Her voice was hoarse and somewhat muffled, due to not having spoken for so long.

Rod reached out to pat her head, but seeing Amy instinctively lift her hand to pull down his pants, he quickly held her back.

"Tally, go make something delicious."

"Eh—"

The succubus was somewhat reluctant, but since the Master had spoken, she could only comply.

"I'll help too."

Miss Xiao Ke, the enthusiastic half-deer who had come along, offered.

In these past days, she had made little progress learning to cook, but she was quite skilled at making desserts.

The two left the hospital.

They brushed past Kali, who was slowly approaching.

The elf came over and cast several diagnostic spells on Amy.

"The situation is not bad, but even with the 【Life-Sustaining Nutrition】 formation, she is still in a state of malnutrition. Her spiritual accumulation has indeed reached the early stage of the Seventh Rank, though it is not very stable."

Hearing this, Amy proudly declared, "Seventh Rank! Amy is so awesome!"

Rod couldn't help but laugh in disbelief: "Awesome, awesome."

"Let's have a one-on-one duel, Master! This time Amy will definitely win!"

Note, the one-on-one mentioned here.

Is a genuine duel, not the kind of one-on-one in that regard.

Rod naturally understood what she meant.

"Wait until you've rested for a few days. Look how thin you are; I'm afraid one punch from me could knock you out."

At that moment, Kali interjected: "I'm afraid that won't be necessary."

"What?"

"Promotion to the Seventh Rank must follow certain complete steps. It is very rare to advance ranks while recovering from injury and in a coma. I think she possesses the Orcish innate spiritual technique 【Fight to Survive】. After replenishing her nutrition, taking her for appropriate combat would be the best recovery process."

Rod knew this spiritual technique.

It was mentioned in 【Research on Innate Spiritual Techniques of Other Races】.

Even among the group of Orc Warriors, 【Fight to Survive】 is a relatively rare skill.

It allows Orcs to continuously strengthen their spiritual energy during combat; every near-death experience can cause an Orc's power to rise significantly.

The standard skill of protagonists in hot-blooded adventure stories who are as unkillable as cockroaches.

"Hey—"

The Banshee, Chris, floated in through the wall, looking displeased. "Didn't we say we were going to exterminate the rat-people? They change their nest every single night. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to find them?"

"How strong are they?"

"Most are trash of the Third or Fourth Rank; a few can reach the Fifth or Sixth Rank."

Hearing this, Rod turned to Kali and said with a smile, "See, just as I finished speaking, a good opportunity to grind monsters has appeared."

The elf, with a sour face, reminded them: "Pay attention to the intensity. She has just recovered from a serious illness and is only suitable for appropriate combat. I'll go with you all."

"You don't need to worry; I have my limits."

"No one is worried about you two; I just don't want to set up the 【Life-Sustaining Nutrition】 formation for her again."

Tally and Miss Xiao Ke were very quick with their hands and feet.

In less than half an hour, a large platter of meat and sweet cakes was placed on Amy's table.

The female Orc devoured everything like a whirlwind, chewing all the food into her stomach in just ten minutes.

Thus.

The Rat-Slaying Squad, composed of Rod, Tally, Chris, Kali, and Amy, set off.

Given that the journey was not short, the elf produced a small sky-sail she had newly crafted in these past days.

The five of them were a bit cramped, but it didn't matter.

The sky-sail slowly rose into the air.

On the ground, Little Little Bangde, seeing this scene, made a fuss wanting to go up and play, but Miss Xiao Ke, with an equally envious look, held him down and scolded him in a low voice.

Feeling the cool breeze of the sky, Rod couldn't help but feel excited.

He had experienced leaping into the air and gliding down to the ground many times, but he had never yet had the chance to try truly soaring through the sky.

The forest and Shi Ying Town gradually grew smaller, and the distant Twilight Hills revealed a deep blue wilderness in the night.

In the far north, the towering main city district of Coral Bay could be vaguely seen.

Unexpectedly, the Banshee Chris was somewhat afraid.

She kept her eyes tightly shut, curled up on the ground, and firmly grabbed the hem of Rod's pants with one hand.

Kali explained: "The appearance of the undead is closely related to the negative energy emanating from the ground. Once they reach the sky far from the ground, they will experience a stress response, even for undead races that have awakened intelligence."

"Is there such a saying?"

"Of course. Many intelligent races have such an innate fear. For example, besides sunlight, vampires are extremely afraid of the ocean and dare not cross the sea even in the wild."

Rod was momentarily stunned as well.

In his previous life on Earth, he had heard plenty of stories about vampires.

Fearing silver, the sun, garlic, and crosses was all standard fare, but this was the first time he'd heard they were afraid of the sea.

Seeing his utterly baffled look, the elf snickered mockingly:

"Vampires' origins go far further back than the humans of your current era. It's said that during the Third Era's flood that destroyed the world, they survived by luck, and that's how they ended up with this deep-rooted fear of seawater."

The Sky Sail's speed wasn't particularly fast, nor did it fly especially high — it moved along slowly, after all, it was carrying quite a few people.

After passing over Shi Ying Town, they reached the mining district to the south.

It didn't land, continuing southward.

Until the buildings of Coral Bay could no longer be seen, and they had even left the Wind Wall Forest far behind.

The Sky Sail crossed over a ring of small hills.

In the gradually strengthening night wind, it had to lower its already modest altitude.

Winter was coming, and the sandstorms blowing inland from the Death Desert were beginning to show their first signs.

Under the glow of the night, a thin veil of sand drifted through the sky, refusing to disperse.

Rod recalled that yesterday's Snow Hill Evening News had mentioned the volcanoes of the Twilight Mountains were still erupting continuously.

The disaster of volcanic ash had already begun, with tens of thousands of people in the surrounding area starting to evacuate.

He'd heard the Magic Control Union had dispatched several experts, but so far there hadn't been much effect.

Half an hour later.

The Sky Sail arrived above a river.

This was called the Hansen River.

It originated here, wound past Shi Ying Town, cut through the Dusk Hills, and then flowed into the Montes Sea where Coral Bay lay.

What was interesting was that a magical disaster incident had once occurred here.

When Rod was looking through records at the Magic Control Union, he came across an entry named the 【Aberrant Shahua Fishman Case】.

Shahua fishmen were a race that normally lived in the sea.

But over twenty years ago, they had traveled from the Montes Sea up along the Hansen River, swimming against the current all the way here, carving out territory and killing countless lives.

Etheron back then was no pushover.

Rolling in money, it had directly sent seven legendary mages over.

After one round of legendary spells scouring the ground, they instantly fell in line.

Later investigations found that this entire batch of fishmen had all developed a strange mutation, suddenly becoming unable to tolerate seawater.

That was why they'd had no choice but to leave the sea and come here to survive.

However, the Magic Control Union hadn't taken direct part in this disaster — these were all records it had collected.

Even after reading through everything, Rod still didn't fully understand.

"Ah!!!"

Just as he was thinking, a scream rose from below the Sky Sail.

He looked down.

It was unmistakably a group of blue- and green-skinned Shahua fishmen, weapons in hand, surrounding someone.

(End of this chapter)