Chapter 656: Strange Footprints

**Chapter 651: Strange Footprints**

"A ten-person team, and three are already dead or injured. Is this common in previous years?"

"No, no, it was very rare in previous years," a teammate replied. "The Grass Sea Hunt has been going on for hundreds of years, and every type of Danube Beast has a specific hunting strategy, although new variations occasionally appear. Typically, our small team can handle five or six at a time without much trouble. And—" He paused, "When encountering a beast horde, multiple teams also cooperate."

Although the competing teams in the Freyd Realm are rivals, intelligent creatures know how to adapt. When under great survival pressure or when it's profitable, occasional cooperation is not out of the question.

He Lingchuan sighed helplessly, "So, you just give up when you encounter a beast tide?"

"We usually avoid them," his teammate shook his head. "We're not foolish. If the beast horde is too large, we try to stay as far away as possible."

"Throughout all these years of the Grass Sea Hunt, the greatest threat to us has actually been the air in the Freyd Realm," he gave a wry smile. "Over the years, most deaths have been due to suffocation. Some suffocated in their sleep, others were unable to obtain a Breath Pearl and choked to death."

"This..." Indeed, sleeping in the Freyd Realm is a huge problem. Who could possibly change their Breath Pearl every fifteen minutes while asleep? This all requires teamwork: some sleep while others stand guard.

He Lingchuan pointed at the low hill and asked them, "So, what about the situation we're seeing now?"

The teammates exchanged glances. One person said, "Beast tides can occasionally go berserk and chase people." After all, this is another world. Even though Beiga has been cultivating it skillfully for hundreds of years, unforeseen events cannot be completely ruled out.

"For what reason?"

"The lead beast might go mad, or something might be driving the beast horde from behind."

As the teammate spoke, he drew his knife and began digging for levitation stones. There were too many beast carcasses here; more than half hadn't been processed by hunters yet. For everyone, this was a treasure trove.

A Danube Beast, as large as a giant ox, yielded a levitation stone the size of a cantaloupe. The teammate scraped off the surface mucus, grinning from ear to ear, "This piece is worth at least three ranks!" Easy gains were always sweet.

When all competing teams returned to the human realm, they were required to sell the obtained levitation stones to the authorities. The authorities purchased them at a uniform price, with a purple levitation stone the size of a goose egg serving as the standard unit, referred to as one rank. Levitation stones were like the outer skin of Danube Beasts; the more powerful the beast, the lighter the color of its stone.

He Lingchuan glanced at the levitation stone; it was an irregularly shaped cylinder, light purple, and completely transparent. Danube Beasts used levitation stones to counteract gravity; otherwise, they couldn't grow to such immense sizes.

As the teammate was cutting up the beast carcass, He Lingchuan suddenly noticed the sand by his feet move, as if sinking. "Watch out!" He instinctively reached out, grabbed the man's shoulder, and yanked him backward.

No sooner had the teammate been pulled up than a "shua la" sound erupted from underground, and a whirlworm suddenly shot out! Its body was thicker than a large tire. Although it had no legs, the force with which it sprang out was not weak at all. Forty feet of its sixty-foot-long body emerged directly, and its mouth opened to its widest extent. Had the teammate remained in place, he likely would have been swallowed whole!

In that instant, He Lingchuan clearly saw its snout. This creature had ten rows of fine, spirally arranged teeth extending from its mouth all the way down its digestive tract. With a single twist of its body, the flesh of any bitten prey would be evenly sliced and separated by the serrated teeth, then sent directly into its belly! It was literally a direct path to the stomach. When its mouth was open, the outermost fine teeth protruded outwards; when closed, they retracted inwards, making it almost impossible for captured prey to escape.

This was He Lingchuan's first time taking action in the Freyd Realm, and he ultimately misjudged the strength and speed needed; his grab was far less timely than usual. Furthermore, his teammate no longer weighed a mere hundred pounds, but five hundred pounds or more. As a result, the whirlworm didn't swallow the entire person, but it tilted its head and bit his leg!

The man let out a loud "Ah!", his calf immediately feeling the gentle contact of the whirlworm's serrated teeth. Once gripped by this creature, it was very difficult to get free.

He Lingchuan drew Fusheng with a backhand motion and swung his blade. The cold glint of the blade flashed through the air, and the whirlworm's head was sliced in half. Green fluid splattered.

The cutting sensation was also far from clean, truly like slicing a tire—both hard and tough. Presumably, creatures in the Freyd Realm feed on minerals and mud, so their flesh is naturally not soft.

He Lingchuan activated his protective vital energy shield; otherwise, the acidic fluid would have splattered onto his face and corroded it.

The whirlworm shrieked in pain, and suddenly two more small pits appeared in the sand. Two more whirlworms emerged, lunging directly at the group.

He Lingchuan, quick-witted and agile, immediately threw the injured man onto a nearby large rock. These monsters could lurk beneath the sand, but surely not beneath solid rock?

One whirlworm shot towards him. When it emerged from underground to ambush, it truly resembled a spring, fast and steady. However, He Lingchuan was already prepared. With a Swallow Return dodge, he was already twenty feet away.

Combat was the fastest way to adapt to the local gravity. He still felt heavy in his limbs, but he was no longer as disoriented as he had been at first. The most remarkable thing was that Fusheng felt weightless in his hand, even more agile than his own arm. In the Freyd Realm, it performed wonderfully.

Before He Lingchuan could fully regain his footing, he fired a sleeve arrow with a backhand flick. The short arrow flew slightly slower than it would in the human realm, likely because the arrow shaft had become heavier and no longer matched the carefully calibrated parameters originally set by Li Qingge. But this didn't matter; the arrowhead still plunged deeply into the whirlworm's body.

It was about to pounce on another Chiyan man, when He Lingchuan, gripping his spider silk rope, pulled it off course and swung it like a windmill towards the third whirlworm. The two monsters collided and writhed on the ground for a while.

The other two teammates also rushed forward, their blades raining down blows. All three monsters were injured, so they hissed and burrowed into a hole in the ground.

He Lingchuan turned his head and saw a few more whirlworms nearby, but they didn't approach him. The ones that fled left behind several large circular holes in the ground, but the surrounding sand slid down, slowly filling the pits.

As the injured man recovered from his fright, the teammates quickly went to stop the bleeding, remove the venom, and bandage him. "Be careful not to let joy turn to sorrow," He Lingchuan shook his head. "Didn't you say whirlworms don't care for human flesh?"

"It was probably protecting its food, thinking I was going to steal it. These things have no brains." As his wound was disinfected, the man hissed in pain. "But a whirlworm this big is very rare."

"Rare?" He Lingchuan said with a self-deprecating laugh, "Am I just incredibly lucky?"

"Perhaps there are simply too many beast carcasses here, attracting even the worm kings and generals," another person said. "If a worm king comes, this place won't be safe to stay."

"How big is a worm king?"

The person pointed at the pit and said, "At least three to five times its size. Ordinary weapons can't even scratch its hide."

He Lingchuan changed his Breath Pearl, observed the hill for a while, and then suddenly jumped to the ground. "I was just standing here, but the whirlworms behind me didn't come closer. Why?"

These worms were clearly from the same nest, yet they seemed to cooperate and watch out for each other. However, while he stood there, the whirlworms behind him simply wouldn't approach, actually showing hesitation. His teammates, naturally, couldn't answer his question.

He Lingchuan observed for a moment, then pointed at some footprints on the ground, "What kind of Danube Beast made these?" The footprints were in rows, each as large as He Lingchuan's palm. Their owner should have been a quadrupedal creature, but the prints were shallow at the front and deep at the back, and each had three parallel toes. This indicated that the creature's center of gravity was towards its rear, allowing it to at least semi-erect itself. Furthermore, there were drag marks behind the footprints, possibly from a tail?

He Lingchuan didn't know enough about Danube Beasts; these few footprints alone didn't reveal anything problematic. However, beside the footprints were two corpses, both frozen solid into large blocks of ice. One was a Danube Beast, the other a human.

He Lingchuan tapped them twice with the flat of his blade; they rang with a solid sound, clearly frozen solid from inside out. There was no ice or snow on the ground nearby, so the two unfortunate victims could only have been attacked by some kind of supernatural ability or spell—or innate talent.

All three came over to look, then shook their heads, indicating they didn't recognize them. But as He Lingchuan looked at the two corpses, an idea struck him:

"Are there many types of Danube Beasts that can use ice-based supernatural abilities?"

"I've only heard of Frost Silver Beasts."

"I haven't heard of any other Danube Beasts specializing in such abilities either."

At this, He Lingchuan's interest was piqued. His teammate immediately added, "But we can't be sure these two were killed by a Frost Silver Beast. That monster is too rare and only lives on cold, high mountains."

Upon entering the Freyd Realm, the surface temperature was already in the negative teens (Celsius). Every time one spoke, white mist would emerge from their mouth. He Lingchuan gazed at the distant high mountains; it was hard to imagine how low the temperature might be up there.

For Frost Silver Beasts with their innate cold abilities, mountaintops were indeed ideal habitats. It was no wonder that few people had hunted Frost Pellets over the years. Aside from the difficulty of killing a Frost Silver Beast, just climbing the high mountains was a deadly challenge.

Under these gravitational conditions, visitors from the human realm already had abnormal heart rates and blood pressure, struggling even to walk. Having to climb dangerous peaks and risk their lives for added difficulty—wasn't that just asking for trouble? Moreover, could the density of Danube Beasts on the high mountains be greater than below?

In fact, before entering the Freyd Realm, he had purchased quite a few light body talismans, which were also among the essential supplies for hunters over the years. However, ordinary light body talismans could only counteract half the gravity and lasted at most for half an hour; while specialized light body talismans developed for the Freyd Realm's unique conditions, which completely counteracted gravity, would only be effective for a few dozen breaths at most. And neither was cheap. Therefore, most hunters rarely used such talismans unless it was an emergency.

He Lingchuan walked southwest with his team, asking about the appearance of the Frost Silver Beast. Unfortunately, everyone had heard of the Frost Silver Beast's formidable reputation but had never actually seen one.

"The mountaintops are pretty much forbidden zones, and besides, we don't wish to encounter a Frost Silver Beast."

He Lingchuan pointed ahead and said, "But it seems to have followed the beast tide southwest."

If it truly was a Frost Silver Beast, why would it abandon the safety of the high mountains and come down to the surface? No one present could answer this question.

The injured man's calf had two spiral cuts, but the wounds weren't deep. He Lingchuan took a two-wheeled cart from his storage ring for the man to sit in, and another teammate pushed him. Under these gravitational conditions, blood would pool in the legs, making it even more inadvisable for an injured person to walk. Fortunately, the wound was treated promptly, and the medicinal pills were effective; such superficial wounds would largely heal within half an hour at most. Otherwise, He Lingchuan would have had someone push him straight back to the human realm.