335 Chapter 335: Den of Dragons

Fortunately for us, the next three days went on without any incident.

It was already past the halfway point for us in terms of the deadline, since this was nearing the end of the eighth day. Fortunately, we were approaching the last portion of our journey. As long as we cleared this path, we would reach Olympus City before we knew it.

"This is the Den of Dragons, huh?" Craig murmured as he glanced down from the ridge we were currently trekking on. The valley laid out before us was one that seemed made entirely out of ice. Coniferous trees still grew there, their green leaves barely visible under the heavy snow, but other than that the valley was almost completely white. Dark shadows often teasingly emerged on the edge of our vision, but they always seemed to dart out of our sight when we tried to lock onto them. What troubled us were the immense size of those shadows, and despite their massive bulk, the speed and grace with which they avoided our gaze.

"It looks…scary," Sheila whispered, hugging herself to prevent a shiver.

"Yeah," Lily agreed. She glanced at the rest of us. "We shouldn't go down there."

"I have no intention of trekking through the Den of Dragons," Harrison assured them. "Even though it'll take us some extra time, I recommend that we take the long way around. We're going to skirt over the edge of the Den…"

He conjured a holographic map and displayed a blue path that was evidently the long way around. However, it skirted across the circumference of the red zone that was designated as the Den of Dragons, and as such allowed us to avoid the dangerous valley for the most part.

"To be honest, I would love to put more distance between our route and the Den of Dragons, but there's no alternative path. This is the only route toward Olympus City."

The ridge that circled the Den of Dragon was located atop a ring of mountains. The only other way forward was to climb the mountains, which…to be honest, was not going to work. It would take us too long, perhaps weeks, if we climbed up and down the mountains surrounding the valley. We might as well just forfeit.

"If only the rules allowed us to ride Richard's flying Constellation spirits and just soar above the mountains, eh?" Dong Fang Yue Chu shot me a grin. I shook my head and shrugged.

"That would be unfair to the other competitors," Theodore pointed out seriously. "Imagine if we could just fly there. Then all those teams with summoners who have flying Soul Beasts, such as Lilith Porter, would automatically qualify without facing any obstacles or hardship that the other teams have to face. It's…just luck, and not an actual victory."

"Thankfully the summoners are still allowed to summon flying Soul Beasts or whatever Soul Beasts to help with other things…like scouting, battling, reconnaissance, and driving away the monsters in the wild." Cody was considering the uses of my Constellation spirits thoughtfully. He was our lead scout, but my flock of Corvus had assisted him tremendously.

"In any case, we should mentally prepare ourselves for the journey ahead." Harrison straightened up as he stared up the ridge. "Besides the enormous number of monsters inhabiting the mountains – and I'm not even including the dragons within the Den yet – the extreme weather conditions will stretch us to our limits. Make sure you have your winter gear and whatever stuff you need. This is certainly not going to be a walk in the park."

"Yeah," I agreed with a sigh. "With temperatures that can go below negative thirty degrees Celsius…guys, make sure you guys watch out for frostbite and hypothermia."

"I'll take care of frostbite or any injuries," Pearl spoke up with a raise of her hand.

"You should take care of yourself first," Bu Fan reminded her. "You're our healer. If something happens to you, we're all screwed."

"That's right," Harrison agreed as he folded his arms. "Try not to get separated from each other. That dense fog is going to reduce our visibility to zero. Especially you, Cody, don't get out of range when you're scouting ahead. Richard, we're going to have to rely on your crows."

"Roger that."

"I'll stay as close as possible," Cody consented at the same time, but it was clear he wasn't going to abandon his duty.

"All right…everyone ready? Let's go."

And thus, our group began to march into the ridge overlooking the Den of Dragons. The further we progressed along the thick ridge, the heavier the snow grew. And the colder it got.

"Ugh…this…" Theodore grimaced as he tried to wade through the snow.

"It's so cold!" Yue Chu complained. Lily nodded and clung toward him, trying to generate as much heat as possible.

"I guess we should just cast some fire spells to warm ourselves up," Bu Fan suggested as he raised his hand and ignited a huge flame. The snow somewhat abated around us, but it still wasn't enough to disperse the curling fog.

"At this rate, we might not make it in time," Craig muttered as he slogged through the thick snow, wincing when his boots sank all the way in.

"We just need to endure until we reach the end of the valley," Sheila reminded him. "Another two or three days of trekking through this, and we should reach the main road leading toward Olympus City."

"Do you think they'll ask us to go to Aurora City from there?" Cody asked, keeping one step ahead of us, but he found himself buffeted by snow. "Ugh…I can't see a thing!"

"Yeah," I grumbled. Even with my hi-tech glasses, I couldn't see anything either. Not even with infrared vision, or the myriad of sensors built into my glasses. Above, my flock of Corvus was trying to fly above the mountains, but all they spotted was a constant swirling dense mist that had settled across the ridge and valley, obscuring everything in white. "The damned fog is blocking everything. Even my Corvus can't see anything either!"

"Huff…" Sheila rubbed her gloved hands together, looking pretty miserable. Her breath came out in thick clouds. "I can't stand this any longer…"

"Pull yourselves together." Harrison was doing his best to sound encouraging. "We just need to endure this for the next two or three days. The faster we move, the earlier we can get out of this cold place."

"Hang on. I have an idea." Pearl was staring at the flames in Bu Fan's hand – as well as Yue Chu, who had followed the Demon King's example and ignited his own handful of fire – and thinking deeply. She then smiled and raised both of her hands. "Everyone, please gather together."

"Hmm?" All of us turned to look at her. She gestured impatiently.

"Hurry!"

"Right…" Harrison nodded, and we all clustered closer together. Whispering an incantation, Pearl then conjured a shimmering sphere of blue light that shrouded us.

Immediately the cold fell away. The snow melted and dissipated harmlessly against the thin, transparent but blue-tinted barrier, no longer burying us in sludges. Even the ground became easier to walk on, probably because we were practically gliding across the snow within Pearl's boundary.

"Oh! That's one way of using defensive enchantments!" Harrison's eyes widened, and he nodded, impressed. "Thank you, Pearl!"

"No problem." Pearl smiled, even though it was clear that she was going to have to spend quite a bit of mana to maintain the barrier. "This is the least I can do for the team, given how I lack combat ability."

"Your healing spells have helped us a lot," Bu Fan reminded her. "I would say you're the most important member of our team."

"Without you guys, I wouldn't be able to survive. All of you are equally important." She glanced ahead, where Cody had forged further front after warming up a little within her barrier. "Without Cody, or Richard, we wouldn't know where we are going. And without you guys fighting off the Assassins, any other team would have been annihilated. Never mind the Assassins, we wouldn't be able to survive the onslaught from monsters."

I stayed silent and allowed everyone to flatter each other, my mind drifting elsewhere. I was still using Corvus's eyes to look out for anything in front. It was so difficult to see anything in this thick fog, but if Cody was doing it, then I couldn't complain. The guy had left the comfort of Pearl's barrier to scout ahead in such extreme cold and poor visibility. At least I got to enjoy the warmth and relative safety within Pearl's barrier, relying instead on my Constellation spirits to do the scouting for me. I had one Corvus keep his eyes on Cody, just to ensure his safety and to make sure he didn't get lost or separated from the group.

"Hmm?"

However, it was one of my other Corvus that spotted something huge and immense coming through the snow. Cody also caught sight of it too, and he stopped for a moment.

"Captain," he reported to Harrison using a spell. Not only did he communicate verbally, he also fired off a warning signal using magic. "There's something ahead, and it looks big. Really, really big."

"I don't like this," Harrison muttered. "Maybe it's a dragon. Cody, return to our position, now."

"I'll keep an eye on it for a bit longer…to make sure it's not heading in our direction."

"Actually, it is…no, they are heading in our direction." My Corvus had descended slightly to get a better view on what was approaching. When I saw what it was, my blood turned cold. "It's an entire horde of monsters!"

"Damn it!" Harrison cursed, one of the few rare times I heard him do that. "Get back here, Cody! That's an order!"

"Roger that!" Cody leaped up and began sprinting back toward the rest of the group. As for us, we began looking around. Even though the ridge was relatively wide, there wasn't any space for us to take cover from an entire pack of stampeding monsters.

"Oh boy…what the hell is that?" Craig demanded as he felt the ground shake beneath his feet. Sheila was quicker on the uptake.

"An earthquake?"

"No, worse." Theodore looked grim. "A stampede from a monster horde."

"That's right!" Harrison snapped, looking around for any shelter. We could jump off the ridge we were in, but that meant we would fall right into the Den of Dragons. And truth be told, most of us would rather face an entire bestial horde than encounter a dragon. A single dragon had the power to wipe out a pack of rank D monsters on its own.

Fortunately, while I was staring at the Den of Dragons, Harrison was looking in the complete opposite.

"Guys! Over there! Get to the cliff!"

As fortune would have it, there was a sheer cliff standing to the side of the ridge we were traversing. And no, this wasn't Battle Frenzy, so there were conveniently no vines that happened to be hanging over the face of the cliff. Especially not in this weather – they would have been buried by the snow, and such plants wouldn't have survived in the cold, unlike coniferous trees.

Luckily, I was around, and I understood Harrison's intention.

"Cygnus! Aquila! Pegasus!"

It took me two minutes to summon all three Constellation spirits, and it was cutting it dangerously close. The monsters that were approaching us would be upon our position in another minute. Or thirty seconds. Even as we ran toward the cliff (that was less than a hundred meters away), that was the most agonizing two minutes that passed in my life. The tension rose along with the tremors caused by the stampeding monstrous horde.

"Get on!"

"Thanks, Richard!"

My friends scrambled upon my Constellation spirits in twos and threes, with Theodore, Harrison and Pearl climbing onto Aquila, Bu Fan, Yue Chu and Lily embarking upon Cygnus, and Craig and Sheila riding on Pegasus. My winged Constellation spirits immediately launched themselves into the air and deposited them atop the cliff.

"Hey! Richard! What are you doing?! Get up here too!" Yue Chu bellowed when he noticed that I was still standing on the ground. I shook my head, and instead directed Cygnus to dive downward once he deposited his passengers. But when Yue Chu saw that I still hadn't jumped on the swan's back, he waved frantically. "You want to get squashed by the monsters or something?!"

"I'm waiting for Cody to return!" I snapped. "Don't worry about me!"

I could see the cloud of snow and dust being kicked up in the distance, caused by none other than the stampeding horde. Magnifying the vision on my glasses, I spotted Cody sprinting at the head of them, perspiration running down his face as he pushed himself to his limits.

"Time to go, Cygnus!"

I hopped onto my swan and had him fly over to Cody. Throwing myself to the edge, I reached out with my hand.

"Cody! Grab my hand!"

"Gotcha, Vice-Captain!"

Despite his predicament, Cody still managed a grin. He kicked off the ground and propelled himself high into the air while stretching his hand forward. I just managed to grab his wrist and pulled him aboard Cygnus.

A few seconds later, the horde stampeded past below us, almost catching us in their cloud of snow and dust that was being kicked up by their rampage.

"Stupid brutes," I growled, but Cygnus somehow soared back to the cliff where the others were waiting. Both Cody and I hopped off, the former still panting as he struggled to catch his breath. Even when buffed by physical reinforcement spells, he was still not immune to exhaustion.

"Thanks for hauling my ass out of the fire," he told me.

"No problem."

"Whoever said that summoners are useless clearly are out of touch in reality," Pearl murmured, staring at me in amazement. She shook her head. "If they're broadcasting the qualifiers throughout the Federation, people's perception of summoners will change a lot!"

"It's just that their testing method was inadequate in the past." Harrison shook his head as he patted my shoulder. "They emphasized too much on one-on-one duels and the ranking system, rigidly sticking to it while ignoring teamwork and other aspects. It took the ministry of education too long to realize that such ranking systems don't translate well into reality, just like game-like levels in LitRPG stories and cultivation stages in xianxia stories! Ranks, levels and cultivation stages aren't absolute, and they should not be used to measure someone's strength or determine the outcome of a match between two mages!"

As if to voice their agreement, the stampeding monsters howled thunderously from below.