Chapter 64: The Possibility of Flight?

Speechless, Baichuan let out a sigh and looked at the sky — it was already nearly dusk.

He had been on the move all day, so it looked like he'd have to stop for the night before making further plans.

Still, he might be able to pick up some of the local specialty poisons here.

He glanced around — in just a few short minutes, several poisonous creatures had already crawled past him — and thought silently to himself.

Come to think of it, in all the time since he'd come to this world, aside from relying on his own venom at the very beginning, he seemed to have hardly used his poison at all.

Of course, that had something to do with the fact that his current venom couldn't keep up with the speed at which he hunted.

Admittedly, the Eye King's venom was very potent, and there was a lot of it.

In this world without modern medicine, ordinary people and ordinary animals who encountered it basically had no chance of survival — it was truly a hundred deaths with barely a slim chance of life.

But the trouble was, the enemies he faced were no ordinary ones — they couldn't wait for the venom to take effect, or he didn't dare attack with his mouth.

Because compared to that little gain from venom, keeping his head — that vital spot — safe was more important.

Even with his Regeneration ability, he didn't dare gamble with his own head.

Better safe than sorry — what if someone beat him into a brain-concussed idiot?

Outside of combat, when he was just hunting, waiting for the venom to take effect took longer than just going in and swiping with his claws.

But now, he might be able to upgrade the potency of his venom here — it was possible.

Baichuan stared at the damp ground, thinking silently to himself.

……

At night, after briefly turning back into the deep-water river area to swallow a few fish, Baichuan once again entered this stretch of swampy dense forest.

He'd already drifted this far; turning all the way back was unrealistic, so since that was the case, he could only keep pressing forward.

The reason he'd turned back to hunt was that, with night having fallen, he still didn't know the situation in this area — where he could get enough food.

Rather than risk searching in the dark, wasting time and energy, it was better to go back to his familiar old environment and eat his fill.

Of course, that was only one of the reasons — the most important reason was—

The river channel ahead of him was packed with crocodiles!

Yes, a shallow river channel was crammed full of crocodiles. If it were just one or two, that would be fine, but looking over, there was a huge pile of them.

Even though he was now strong enough to easily slaughter a single crocodile, he still didn't dare face that many at once.

Under these circumstances, he thought it over — better to follow his heart, no need for conflict.

Now that he was full, it was time to find a place to rest.

Baichuan surveyed his surroundings and found that, in this swampy dense forest, the trees were safer and the environment drier.

For his own comfort, he decided not to stay on the ground.

With his mind made up, he moved a short distance away from the river channel and climbed up a particularly thick tree. Then, with his snake body, he coiled himself nimbly around a branch and slowly faded into invisibility in the air.

For the foreseeable future, he figured he'd have to travel overland. He'd enter that river channel as little as possible, to avoid attracting a whole swarm of crocodiles.

No way around it — one snake can't fight a whole pack of crocodiles!

……

Late at night, the bright moon hung high, sprinkling scattered moonlight over this stretch of dark swampy dense forest.

Suddenly, a rustling sound jolted Baichuan awake.

Instinctively, he arched the front half of his body into an attack-ready stance before looking over.

It turned out to be just a few crocodiles passing by. Baichuan had just been about to relax, when he suddenly froze.

Wait — crocodiles, passing by?

Is that something crocodiles can do?

At that moment, Baichuan's sleep-hazed mind snapped wide awake.

The eagle-like eyes on his snake head, receiving the signal from their host, began constantly adjusting focal length and focus.

Using the faint moonlight of the night, in an instant Baichuan could clearly see the true form of those passing figures in the distance.

Standing on two legs, with strange large-surface things bound to their feet, their bodies covered front and back in dark-green hard armor like a crocodile's, they moved with swift, flying steps across the swamp.

In an instant, Baichuan understood what these were!

Humans!

After understanding, Baichuan's second reaction was: are they perhaps here to chase me?

Had he already been tracked down by these humans?

No, that couldn't be right.

The moment this thought arose, Baichuan dismissed it. If he really had been tracked down by these humans, then what would have appeared here wouldn't be just a few humans hurrying past in the distance.

It would have been a large group of people surrounding him.

He looked carefully into the distance — judging by their figures, they seemed to have come from somewhere farther away, not from his direction.

Most likely they were here for something else.

After all, when he took the Ice Silkworm, he had never revealed his true face the entire time, and the only person who had seen him afterward — Zhang Dadan — had been killed.

And Zhang Dadan had no backing; no one would seek revenge for him.

Besides, even if they wanted revenge, they'd have to find him first — and there wasn't enough Time for that.

So what exactly was going on?

Could the humans of this world already be this powerful? Powerful enough that even a place as desolate and rarely visited as this swamp was full of people?

How is it that humans can be encountered anywhere?

Baichuan felt a wave of speechlessness. He realized he couldn't just run blindly — if he didn't find out what was going on, he was afraid he'd run all the way into the ocean and still run into humans.

Thinking of this, he came straight down from the tree and headed toward the traces those few humans had left.

Along the way, he carefully and cautiously followed the traces those humans had left, advancing slowly. Fortunately, as a snake, his sense of smell was already extremely keen, and after countless evolutions—

Now, as long as he memorized the scent, he could easily track any target within several kilometers.

Under these circumstances, he finally arrived at a valley deep within a dense forest at daybreak.

Stone walls rose steeply on all sides here, forming a treasure-gathering basin, with only the front side having an opening for entry and exit.

Trees grew lush and verdant atop the stone walls, with various towering old trees intertwining with one another, making the upper reaches extraordinarily steep — not the sort of place a human could climb.

In the valley, various tree-houses and suspended buildings hung in mid-air like the plump fruits on a fruit tree.

And at the very bottom, behind the direction of the largest cluster of buildings, lay a massive deep pool, whose waters looked dark and bone-chilling from afar.

Such a scene, at a single glance, could not help but make one sigh: what a fine stronghold, easy to defend and hard to attack.

Baichuan saw this and finally understood why he had encountered humans.

It turned out that, stumbling along once more, he had arrived near a human settlement…

Just as Baichuan was carefully surveying the area, a caravan of people carrying bulging luggage came into view from afar below.

And not long after this caravan appeared, a strange large bird… no, that wasn't a large bird — sharp-eyed Baichuan immediately saw clearly what was actually flying toward them!

It was a person! A human the size of a human toddler, or perhaps it would be better to call him a dwarf.

Because although his build was like that of a human toddler, his face looked exceptionally old and mature. From his arms extended a pair of bat-like wings, enormously broad, which also connected to his waist and gradually tapered off below his thighs.

(End of this chapter)