Chapter 15: Blood Essence Wolfsbane
The next morning, Ziyun was feeling much better after a good night's rest. They decided to leave the cave and try to find a different route back to Glory City just in case the Dark Guild were waiting in ambush on the path that they had originally used from the city to the ruins. When they reached the edge of the mountain from the canyon, they had to make a decision on whether to try to climb over it and take a more direct route back home, or if they should walk around it instead.
The first option was more strenuous and risky because they had to traverse through rocky terrain and steep cliffs with no guarantees of a safe path. However, the second option was unpredictable because who knew how far it would take to find a way around the mountain? What if the mountain extended for a hundred miles before a route to get around it appeared? They had not thought to purchase a map of the area from adventurers who had explored the region previously.
They decided to take the more direct route because at worst, even if they encountered an impassable section, they could double back and find their way back to the common mountain path. If they tried going around the mountain, they could get lost far from the original route, making it harder and more time-consuming to retrace their steps. They braced themselves for a grueling trek ahead and set off.
It was fortunate that Ziyun had packed special ropes made out of Icy Snow Spider Demon silk and a grappling hook. Xiao Ning'Er's eyes lit up when her friend took it out. "This is good stuff, Ziyun! It's good to be the City Lord's daughter," she said with a wink as she examined the durable and lightweight ropes. Soon after they starting hiking uphill for around 300 meters, they encountered a steep cliff 50 meters high, so these ropes were put to use almost immediately.
With a little bit of difficulty, they managed to ascend the rocky cliff, finding a ledge leading to a narrow path ahead, only around one meter wide and flanked by rocky walls. Seeing no other obvious way, they started to go through this narrow trail. At certain sections, they had to turn sideways to squeeze through and as they went deeper and deeper, the light progressively got dimmer as well.
Finally, after making their way along this route for a few hours, they came to a dead end. They would either have to go backwards or to scale the steep walls on either side of the narrow channel which looked like it went upwards at least a hundred meters. As she looked skywards, searching for the best way to climb up, she saw a unique plant growing out near the top of one side of the wall.
There were three beautiful purple flowers sitting in the middle of a bunch of veined leaves, and in the middle of each flower, there were small, pulpy berries the colour of vivid red. The plant seemed to brim with energy as a faint purplish aura radiated from the flower petals. She frowned as she tried to recall where she had seen it before.
"It's Blood Essence Wolfsbane, now I remember!" she said out loud as Ziyun looked up towards where she was pointing. "The flower petals are highly toxic and the berries contain a berserk energy, which cannot be consumed."
Then a realisation hit her like thunder in her mind, 'I forgot, I may be able to find a use for it! But this rare plant will usually be protected by a powerful demon beast which can make use of the energy contained within it.'
She turned to Ziyun, "I'm planning to try to harvest the plant at the top. We have to make our way up anyway, but it's likely to be protected by a dangerous demon beast. So please be careful."
They decided to backtrack around 200 meters before ascending so that they didn't alarm whatever demon beast might be around the precious plant, finding that it was even easier to climb here than the initial cliff they scaled because there were two opposing surfaces to brace themselves on. They carefully made they way upwards until they reached the top, putting on their Cloaks of Misdirection before proceeding.
There, they saw a pocket of lush greenery around two to three miles wide that had naturally formed on this uncommon section of flat ground. As they approached the Blood Essence Wolfsbane, they still had not seen a demon beast yet but they remained alert as they drew closer. Once they were about 30 meters away, Xiao Ning'Er suddenly saw two red eyes gleam for a moment in a tree next to the plant they were looking to harvest.
She silently signalled for Ziyun to stop as she spread out her senses to try to perceive what lay ahead. After awhile, she could make out a large snake-like beast wrapped around a thick branch, well-hidden by the shade provided by the leaves around it. The unblinking scarlet eyes continued to watch in their direction, observing what their next actions would be. Although it was affected by the cloaks they wore, its natural ability of heat vision allowed it to still clearly perceive the humans that dared to disturb it.
Xiao Ning'Er could make out a knobbly head with two sharp horns on either side as the wind blew and some faint light filtered through the rustling leaves. It was a Draconic Jade Serpent! She hadn't expected to see such a savage demon beast so close to Glory City. It was a large snake-type beast the colour of green jade from top to bottom, covered in thick scales with high defensive strength and possessing formidable poison in its fangs which would induce sleep in a short amount of time. The most powerful ones could reach gold rank at adult age!
She paused, reconsidering whether she wanted to take on such a treacherous opponent with a distant linkage to a dragon bloodline, especially with Ziyun to protect at her side. Before she could make up her mind, the snake shot out of the tree at blinding speed like a coiled spring that had been suddenly released. For a demon beast of this class, the distance of 30 meters could be covered in just an instant.
"Watch out!" she screamed to Ziyun as she sprung to the side with instinctive reflexes that she had built up over years of facing life and death conditions. Unfortunately, Ziyun had not as a 13 year old girl and stood frozen as the terrifying beast flew at her with incredible force. Fortunately, the serpent tried to sink its fangs into her torso area, only to find that its teeth were blocked by an impenetrable, viscous material.
By this time, Xiao Ning'Er had already rolled to her feet, crouched in readiness to act. In the moment before the beast disengaged from Ziyun's armour, she had fired off her crossbow and even before the arrow hit its target, she was already following the arrow's direction with an explosive dash, holding a deadly-looking sword in her hand.
The serpent saw the arrow coming and lowered its head, trusting its tough horned cranium to deflect the weapon. The arrow glanced off its head with a ringing sound, not even leaving a scratch but the beast suddenly felt a numbing sensation spread through its entire body. Xiao Ning'Er had nimbly charged the arrow with a Stun Talisman before releasing it from the crossbow, and the serpent suddenly felt sluggish as it shook its head to try to clear the disoriented feeling.
She would not give it the chance as she began to hammer her sword against its body with a frenzied rhythm to try to cause as much damage as she could before it recovered. She only had a few more seconds at most. The serpent tried resolutely to respond but its movement was always one step behind the sword's furious barrage. Wounds began to form across its body and blood starting pouring out when suddenly, it whipped around at lightning speed and sank its fangs into Xiao Ning'Er's right arm.
She howled in pain and jumped backwards as hard as her feet could push off the ground. The serpent had recovered from the Stun Talisman. She looked down at her arm as the area around the fang marks started to turn an ugly greenish tinge. She would not have much time left to finish this fight.
At this point, Ziyun who had been staying out of the fight, not wanting to get in the way of her friend's berserk attacks, suddenly threw a few ropes attached to grappling hooks around the serpent's body, tangling it up as much as she could.
The Draconic Jade Serpent hissed in rage, its body covered with wounds, and in addition, its movement was now hindered by the Icy Snow Spider Demon silk ropes. It had not even bothered to consider this other opponent, sensing that she was much weaker. As it turned itsattention to Ziyun and strained against the ropes to get rid of this new target, Xiao Ning'Er could tell that the silk ropes were at their limit and about to snap.
She would only have one chance.
She jumped up as high as she could, pulling out the gold-ranked dagger, Black Death, from her interspatial ring along with a Launch Talisman. Then, with unbelievable speed, she threw the sleek dagger at a downwards angle towards the serpent with tremendous force, propelled by the wind power of the activated talisman.
Before the beast could react or even notice the danger, the weapon had burst through the middle of its armoured forehead in an explosion of blood and gore. It slowly turned to gaze at her with its malicious ruby-red eyes one last time before its entire body slumped to the ground, writhing in the final moments that it could draw its laboured breath.
Xiao Ning'Er stumbled to the ground as Ziyun rushed over in panic. "Ning'Er! Oh no...you got bitten." Ziyun stuttered out as she quickly took out bandages and ointment from her interspatial ring.
"Ziyun, help me to sit up. Hurry..." Xiao Ning'Er whispered with an urgent voice as she felt a drowsiness begin to overwhelm her consciousness. Although Ziyun didn't understand why, she did as her friend asked.
Immediately, Xiao Ning'Er began to activate the technique of the Purifying Art of Sacred Lightning, breathing with the tempo she had practiced so many times in the past and activating her soul force. She began to feel the purifying effects course through her bloodstream, clearing her head of any sleepiness. Then, she channeled some lightning energy from her soul realm into her fingers, covering them with a sharp, white aura and a low hum of electrical static could be heard in the air.
She gritted her teeth as she placed her fingers onto her wound and channeled the sacred technique in order to refine and purify the poison in her arm. She felt the berserk energy flow into into her body through the wound accompanied by the usual excruciating pain. This time, however, she was more prepared because the previous time she had used this technique, she had not even reached bronze rank yet, and now she was at silver rank.
As she felt the last of the poison break down in her body, she turned to find Ziyun staring at her, completely speechless.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
AerynSun
AerynSun Tomorrow is the scheduled timeline for the Phenomenal Author Evolution contest to finally start writing our chapters.
I'll be splitting my time between this novel and my other one, and so the regularity of updates here may drop off a bit.
Please be gracious! Hope you enjoy this chapter. :)
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