Chapter 100: Two People Cooperate
On the second night, Xilutiya sat on a rock by the campfire, flipping the roasted fish on a wooden stick with her hand, sprinkling a little salt grains and spices, the golden-brown fish meat emitting waves of fragrance.
Beside the fire, there were also a few strings of dried roasted mushrooms, equally enticing in smell.
She took down the cooked fish, placed it on a temporarily cut wooden board, Xilutiya blew on it, tasted it in small bites, then ate some roasted mushrooms, feeling it was even better than the dinner Lining usually prepared.
Probably because it was relatively novel, actually Lining’s cooking skills were still very good, just the cuisine she excelled in was different from what Xilutiya preferred.
In the afternoon, Xilutiya, aside from catching fish in spare moments, was searching for decisive poisons.
She had some gains, for example, she found several kinds of poisonous herbs and tree sap, but their toxicity wasn’t strong, and even if she wanted to process and refine them, she currently lacked tools.
In the end, Xilutiya had to change her approach, searching instead for special mushrooms that weren’t fatal but would cause hallucinations, and the few white-spotted red-capped mushrooms in the basket at her feet were today’s harvest.
【Pleated Skirt Fly Agaric】（Nightmare）: Highly toxic mushroom that has not yet condensed a complete Nature, causes severe nausea, abdominal pain, chills, hallucinations, dizziness upon accidental ingestion.
If stimulated with the Flower Blooming Technique to release the toxic spores within, it could probably cause a reaction in that two-headed Ogre, but this mushroom was wild after all, without a complete condensed Nature, and stimulating it would exhaust the contained Nature power in just a few minutes.
Turning these mushrooms into poison could probably briefly reduce that Ogre’s strength by 1-2 tenths.
At that time, she could then pluck the ‘Fire Cloud Orchid’ from the lantern, turning it into a violent fireball explosion to injure and weaken the opponent.
Unfortunately, the opponent had a high-temperature and high-heat resistant outer skin, otherwise fully catalyzing the ‘Fire Cloud Orchid’ could heavily wound it.
After these layers of weakening, even if she couldn’t kill that two-headed Ogre, she could take the Blood Strange Flower from the cliff while the opponent was weak, completing the task.
……
On the third morning, Xilutiya, having rested well for a night, set off again in full condition.
Mike and Komiya and the others prepared to send Jie Luo down the mountain to leave.
“Lei, why are you here?” Midway, the four encountered the tall Lei, who was carrying the Ogre’s bone club, with an Ogre’s head wrapped in cloth at his waist.
“I, defeated an Ogre, preparing to go back.” He touched his head, his body had some bruised scars but they weren’t serious.
“You actually took down an Ogre by yourself?” Komiya and the other two were surprised.
“Ogre dumb, I smart.” Lei gripped the bone club, proudly patting his chest.
“Suddenly thought that Lei’s combat style is similar to the Ogre’s, but in terms of technique and awareness, after so much practice time, he’s definitely stronger than the Ogre, and without the huge power gap, the Ogre’s crude martial skill shortcomings are exposed.” Karen analyzed.
The four gathered together, sending Jie Luo down to the halfway point of the mountain, further down was relatively safe sparse forest.
“This is fine, Mike.” Jie Luo’s condition today was about the same as usual, he patted Mike’s shoulder.
“You haven’t killed a First Order opponent yet, if there’s a chance, you can try with friends.”
“But, if you encounter danger, don’t clash head-on, leave early.” In Jie Luo’s view, though Ogres were dangerous, with so many strong companions around Mike, it shouldn’t be a big problem.
“No problem, big bro.” Seeing Jie Luo like this, Mike was quite happy, because the familiar Brother Jieluo had returned.
“I’ll go find you after my assessment, then we celebrate together.”
“Celebrate…” Jie Luo shook his head.
“No need, I’m preparing to leave Jiaoshi City, go to other places.”
“Big bro…” Mike was about to persuade him a bit, but seeing the other’s dejected eyes, the words he had ready stopped.
“That’s it, Mike, you have your own things to do, no need to learn from me.” After speaking, Jie Luo walked down the mountain, not looking back.
After bidding farewell to Jie Luo, the four began discussing the direction after this assessment.
“Do we head straight back, or continue looking for Blood Strange Flower.” Karen inquired of the others.
“Assessment time is three days, latest return to the foot of the mountain by noon tomorrow counts as complete.”
“Let’s vote.” Mike thought for a moment, not wanting his decision to influence others.
So the four wrote their ideas on slips of paper, then gathered together.
Three votes in favor of continuing exploration, one vote in favor of returning to the starting point.
“Hey, everyone’s so ambitious huh.” Komiya curiously looked at the others, she was the only one who voted to return.
“But if you’re all going, then I’ll follow too, otherwise it’d be too lacking in loyalty.” After saying that, she touched the ‘dough’ beside her.
After deciding on the next action, the four set off again, and with close cooperation, they quickly devised a new route, heading to the deep forest not yet explored before.
……
In the afternoon, Iona arrived at the bottom of the cliff, and also spotted the distant two-headed Ogre.
She quickly assessed their strengths, finding she couldn’t defeat the opponent before her, so she stopped, pondering countermeasures.
At this time, Xilutiya also approached with footwork, coming again from one side of the mountain slope, with several small wooden tubes in the basket in her hand, containing prepared hallucinogenic poison.
The two soon noticed each other, and reached a consensus through eye communication, approaching each other.
“You seem to have some idea.” Iona noticed the things in Xilutiya’s hand.
“Correct, but win rate isn’t high.” Xilutiya shook her head, killing that two-headed Ogre was indeed difficult for her, but escaping would be relatively easy.
“I have one more thing here, should be able to help.” Iona took out a slender golden needle from the pouch at her waist.
【Golden Needle】（First Order·Blazing Sun）: Long needle crafted from golden material, after infusing Blazing Sun Nature, the needle tip erupts with extremely high burning temperature, can pierce most creatures’ outer skin defenses.
After negotiating, the two decided to team up against that two-headed Ogre.
An hour later, Iona initiated the attack first, leaping down from the treetop, and before the two-headed Ogre could react, she fully thrust the ‘golden needle’ in her hand into its back.
Under the stimulation of Blazing Sun Nature, this golden needle pierced the thick tough outer skin like a red-hot branding iron, poking a bloody hole in the Ogre’s back.
Under attack, the enraged two-headed Ogre picked up the weapon at hand, striking back fiercely, Iona at this time relied on bee-like agile footwork to dodge the attack, then left the opponent’s side again.
Facing the fleeing Iona, the two-headed Ogre chased with big strides, it even picked up a stone from beside it, smashing toward the leaping Iona, making the golden-haired girl’s figure pause, her face turning pale.
Although the stone didn’t make Iona spit blood, it also caused no light internal injury.
At this time Xilutiya leaped silently again from the treetop, the fluorescent green longsword aimed at the previously pierced wound, stabbing precisely again, bringing up black-red bloodstains.
Stabbed again, the Ogre felt the wound go numb, body trembling, a chill rising from the soles of its feet.
Poisonous, it immediately reacted, ignoring the distant fleeing Iona, rapidly twisting its waist, turning to smash back.
Not anticipating the seemingly burly Ogre to be so agile and swift, Xilutiya’s dodge didn’t fully evade, instead letting the Ogre grab the sword blade she was blocking with.
The fluorescent green sword blade bent in that rough stone-like palm, while the blade’s sharp edge only left a white mark on the palm.
To avoid being dragged down and grabbed by the sword blade, Xilutiya had to abandon the Tree Jade Spirit Sword, kicking off with her feet to leap away, dodging the Ogre’s second sweeping attack.
Failing to grab this agile black-haired maiden twice made the Ogre furious to the extreme, one of the two heads on its shoulders roared ferociously, the spreading sound waves making Xilutiya’s heart race wildly, as if pulled by an invisible hand, bringing intense pain.
The Breathing Technique cycle was temporarily interrupted by the Ogre’s 【Deterrent Aura】, and the extremely quick-reacting Ogre swung again, determined to grab this frail maiden.
In utmost crisis, Xilutiya’s waist lantern opened, several tiny flower stamen sparks flew out, exploding into huge fireballs in the air.
The scorching fire wave submerged the Ogre’s vision, flames burning its eyeballs, making it painfully retreat a few steps, avoiding the oncoming fire wave.
With this opening, Xilutiya finally broke free, leaving the two-headed Ogre’s attack range.
The battle continued, while the Ogre was briefly blinded, Iona seized the chance, stabbing the sword blade in her hand again into the wound left by the golden needle.
Brilliant Blazing Sun erupted, like molten lava-hot power coursing through Iona’s veins and stimulating, finally pouring into the longsword in her hand, making its golden sword glow prominent, expanding the originally narrow wound several times.
The Ogre’s dripping blood spurted from above Iona’s head, dyeing her originally golden hair red.
