novelnext Chapter 104 Prophecy
Chapter 104 Prophecy
Chapter 104 Prophecy
The team continued their journey through the increasingly dense and secluded Loran Forest.
The dense forest is filled with towering ancient trees that block out the sun, intertwined vines like a net, and the ground is covered with a thick layer of humus that has accumulated for countless years.
The usual paths have long since disappeared, and even the most experienced hunters can easily lose their way here.
However, their guide was not a map or the sun, but something more mysterious, or more precisely, the vague "sensory" of Pastor Melissa that was intermittent but always pointed in a clear direction.
"This way." Melissa stopped in front of a seemingly indistinguishable forest clearing, closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, then pointed her slender finger to the left at a dense forest entwined with strange gray-white vines, her tone carrying uncertainty yet a strange certainty.
Finally unable to contain his curiosity, Xia Lin used his longsword to push aside the drooping vines that were getting in the way, and asked, "Melissa, may I ask you something? What exactly is this feeling you're experiencing? Is it some kind of special tracking spell?"
He knew that priests could cast spells such as "find objects" or "detect evil," but those spells usually had a limited range and required a specific target, unlike Melissa, who seemed to have an invisible compass in her mind.
Moreover, the latter's ability seems to rely more on some kind of strange sense.
If possible, and if the other party doesn't mind open-sourcing this amazing ability, he wouldn't mind trying to learn it. After all, if "Gaode Map" could be pre-installed, it would be like having a god's-eye view, which would be incredibly tempting for adventurers deep in unfamiliar forests.
Melissa took a slight breath; the trek through the forest was not easy for her.
She explained, "It's not entirely standard divine magic. During my studies at the temple, I dabbled in some aspects of 'divination.'"
She carefully chose her words, seemingly considering how to describe this esoteric thing to a non-caster. "You know, it's not like healing or blessing spells that have fixed incantations and gestures to activate."
It's more like—a passive reception, a fleeting glimpse of future possibilities, of hidden connections. Sometimes it's a blurry fragment of a picture, sometimes a powerful intuition or warning.
The orc Garu, carrying an axe, added in a gruff voice, "This thing is really weird, uh, I mean, really rare! Not just anyone can learn it, it depends on the mood of the gods, right, Kyle?"
The dragonborn wanderer Kyle nodded slightly, clearly having also tried to master this ability: "That's right. The learning of divination relies heavily on some innate talent, or rather, a resonance with some higher being."
Neither Garu nor I possess that aptitude. But Melissa is different; her intuition has helped us avoid deadly traps and troublesome monsters on numerous past missions.
So when she said she sensed it was in this direction, we chose to believe her.
His tone was calm, yet it revealed absolute trust in his companion's abilities.
No wonder Garu and Kyle never objected whenever they needed to change direction; they simply adjusted their formation silently.
Xia Lin listened with increasing interest: "Passive reception? Can't it be used actively?"
"Honestly, most of the time it's not possible. And not every danger can be foreseen in advance," Melissa shook her head, a hint of helplessness on her face. "It's like—an uncontrollable dream, or a glimmer of light occasionally cast by a god."
I can only try to understand those fragments that suddenly appear in my perception.
"While exploring an ancient site, we suddenly saw a collapsed passage ahead, which allowed us to avoid the danger in time."
Is it really that magical? It's a bit like the flashback memories in the movie "Final Destination" from my past life.
Judging from this description, divination doesn't seem like the kind of spells that ordinary spellcasters can reliably cast through complex formulas and magical constructions. Instead, it seems more like a random "revelation" or "warning" originating from gods or fate itself.
The former relies on years of accumulated knowledge and diligent practice, while the latter is more like a rare and precious "gift of talent".
Woody's voice rang in Xia Lin's mind from his shoulder, with its usual tone as if it knew many secrets: "The field of divination is very deep. It involves spacetime branches, causal entanglements—all sorts of messy things."
As for the difficulty of learning it, well, it's not something you can achieve just by burying your head in hard work.
It requires the caster to possess a special soul wavelength, or to be favored by certain beings.
Perception is fundamental, but high perception alone is not enough; compatibility is also crucial. Frankly, this is a field that gives many learned monks a headache.
But everything has two sides; prophecy can also be seen as a blessing from the gods or a curse from the devil.
Xia Lin nodded to himself. It seemed that his unremarkable perception attribute of 5 points and his lack of any signs of "divine favor" basically meant that he was out of luck for this kind of high-level divination technique.
He's better at "extracting" terms from actual corpses; let's leave that kind of mysterious stuff to professionals like Melissa.
As they whispered among themselves, they followed Melissa's elusive yet unwavering senses, struggling through the seemingly pathless dense forest.
But Melissa's words were soon proven true; her "low-budget" prophecy book could not always bring surprises to the team.
At least not this time.
Sudden-
"Rumble—"
Without warning, a dull tremor rippled through the seemingly solid ground beneath my feet! It was as if some enormous creature was churning and churning deep underground!
"Watch out!" Garu, the orc, was the first to shout, and his giant axe instantly appeared in front of him.
Kyle flashed and retreated to the side of an ancient tree, leaning against the trunk, his rapier drawn, as he warily scanned the surrounding ground.
Xia Lin shielded the somewhat panicked Melissa behind him, raised the scale shield in his left hand, and gripped the longsword tightly in his right.
The next moment, the humus ground not far in front of them, to their left and right suddenly exploded! Soil, broken roots and dead leaves flew everywhere!
Three enormous, awe-inspiring creatures burst forth from the ground!
Their bodies resemble a terrifying combination of segmented worms and beetles magnified countless times.
Its body length is close to that of a strong horse, and its dark brown chitinous carapace, covered with slippery mucus and full of wrinkles, gleams with an oily sheen in the dim light.
The front of its body is a terrifying mouth—not just a simple giant mouth, but more accurately, it is composed of four chitinous jaws with serrated edges that open and close continuously, like a high-speed rotating crusher. Inside, you can also see acid sacs contracting and pulsating, ready to be unleashed.
It has no obvious eyes, but the front of its head is covered with sensitive organs that sense vibrations and heat.