" Where did you go?" the senior sister asked the moment Sofie returned. The senior sister just went to talk with some of her friends for a minute or two, but the moment she came back Sofie had disappeared to who knows where. The senior sister panicked and could not find her at all, it was only after one of her junior brothers asked her what was wrong, that she found out Sofie was together with elder sun. After finding out that Sofie was with elder sun could she finally calm down and decided to wait for her to return.Sofie saw the worry on the senior sisters face and honestly told her where she went. The senior sister also calmed down even more after finding out nothing happened to her.
Apparently, a new disciple had once wandered off from the group of seniors in another fire cave and had disappeared, it was only a few years later that a skeleton was discovered in the same fire cave that the new disciple disappeared in. The one who discovered it was and elder of the sect and he confirmed that the skeleton was only a few years old, it was later confirmed that it was a demon beast by the name of lava worm that ate anything it could from the skeleton.
Fire worms were not like fire bats and were small and weak, they mostly feasted on corpses and ate anything they could find. According to her senior sister, they were a group of scavengers that almost never fought but ate whatever was left behind.
This did not mean that they were harmless, as they mostly moved in giant groups of thousands.
Hearing what her senior sister said, Sofie who had earlier calmed down started feeling her face grow pale as she looked fearful towards the tunnel leading towards the scorching sun sect.
"Ah, you don"t need to worry. We have elder sun with us, so we do not have to worry even if a group of aggressive fire worms show up!" The senior saw Sofie growing pale and tried to cheer her up a little.
Sofie remembered that elder sun was strong and was even at the second major realm, but she could not really imagine elder sun fighting off thousands of fire worms at once… Seeing the senior sister full of confidence, Sofie decided to trust her and calmed down again.
*****
Soon the last few minutes of the break pa.s.sed, most of the disciples used this time to return to the fire lizards.
"The break time is up, we will be moving into the tunnel and towards the sect now. Let"s hope we are lucky and don"t stumble into a nest of fire bats on the way. Well, head out!" Elder sun called from up front and the group of disciples slowly made their way into the tunnel leading towards the scorching sun sect.
Sofie and the senior sister was in the middle of the group of disciples riding on fire lizard, so they would enter the tunnel a little later than the once in front of them.
"No need to look so nervous, the journey through the tunnel will at most take two hours to complete." The senior sister said kindly to Sofie, whose face unconsciously grew nervous looking at the giant fire lizards entering the tunnel upfront.
Sofie closed her eyes, as they entered the tunnel in front of them.
Time pa.s.sed and nothing happened… Sofie slowly grew a little impatient and opened her eyes to look around the tunnel.
The first thing that fell into her eyes was the fire qi on the ground. It seemed brighter than before and even slightly threatening.
Maybe the fire qi in the tunnel was at a higher level? Or maybe just a better quality of low rank fire qi. Sofie thought to herself as she attentively inspected the fire qi on the ground of the tunnel.
Having inspected the fire qi long enough, Sofie determined that it was indeed of a better quality than the fire qi inside the fire cave, but it also seemed to be more dangerous. Thinking this far, Sofie turned to look up at the ceiling, this was something she soon came to regret.
The ceiling of the tunnel was easily 15 or even 20 meters high, but that was not what Sofie focused on.
A giant creature with a giant pair of wings was sleeping with its head upside down, just above her!
Sofie felt her body grow weak as she franticly started pulling on her senior sister"s clothes.
"Hm? What is it?" The senior sister gave her a questioning look, as she looked at her. Sofie could not say anything at all, so she just pointed towards the giant creature sleeping above them.
"Ah? Yeah, I guess it is quite surprising the first time you see it… huh? That is a fire bat, but you don"t need to worry, as you can see it is sleeping. They are quite hard to wake up and might even sleep for months at a time, so you have no need to worry. I will protect you if it really wakes up!" the senior sister explained to Sofie and even rea.s.sured her that she would protect her.
Sofie cast a judging gaze towards the senior sister, then the giant fire bat hanging down from the ceiling, then the senior sister and the giant fire bat again…
"W…Wait a moment, you don"t think I can beat it?" The senior sister looked towards Sofie with a heartbroken look, but Sofie did not gain a single bit of confidence and instead looked towards the senior sister with some suspicion.
"You really don"t believe me…" The senior sister looked sad and then suddenly turned happy for some reason. Following that, she did something Sofie would never have thought.
"If you really don"t think this senior sister is strong enough to protect you, then just stay here and wait for me to beat up that big bat!" Saying this the senior sister was filled with enthusiasm, as she jumped off the fire lizard.
The people behind also stopped seeing the senior sister jump off her fire lizard and walk out towards a somewhat open s.p.a.ce to the side of the fire lizards.
"W-wait a m-moment! I-I never said anything about fighting the fire bat! P-Please just come back!" Sofie tried to call out to the crazy senior sister, but her voice was either too low to be heard or just ignored by the fired up senior sister.
"Oh, senior sister Ling Yue is going to fight a fire bat!"
"Really? It"s been awhile since I last saw senior sister fight."
"This will be exciting, also a great experience for the new disciples, they would be able to see senior sister Ling Yue"s techniques!"
"True, senior sister Ling Yue"s cultivation has already reached the 2 stage of qi condensation."
"Wait, we are inside a cave… Will she blow up the ceiling and make the tunnel cave in?"
"I-It is senior sister Ling Yue after all…"
"L-let"s move a little further back...!"
"Good idea…"
The other senior disciples talking to each other, as soon as they saw the senior sister jump off the fire lizard. Sofie found out that the senior sister was called Ling Yue through listening to the seniors talking and that she was strong, but the last few sentences was worrying…
*****
Ignoring everyone, Ling Yue made her way to the somewhat open s.p.a.ce in the tunnel. Looking towards the fire lizards, she saw they had all stopped and retreated, someone had even helped move the fire lizard with Sofie on top of it.
Even the fire lizards in the front stopped, with some disciples coming over to watch the show. Soon, almost everyone from the group of new and old disciples had made their way over, apart from elder sun who was on guard up front.
Seeing this, Ling Yue got ready to fight the big fire bat…