High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1835: Chapter 56: Like a Cat

——Like a cat, take your faith and start an adventure of your own. If you can spend your life on it, it is considered happiness.

Zheng Qing curled up inside the protective ball woven from vines. As they passed through the stormy cumulus cloud layer, Haruki Murakami’s words suddenly appeared in his mind.

Of course, he would never admit that he remembered this quote only when he saw Jiang Yu’s back through the gaps in the vines.

With the protection of the blue snake, the entire process of the Absolution Hunting Team passing through the clouds became swift and boring—without the interference of the Thunder Beast and the surrounding lightning, the young wizards inside the vine ball felt nothing but a bit of turbulence. The whole journey could almost be described as ’tranquil’.

So much so that when the vine ball burst out of the cloud layer and the surroundings suddenly brightened, Zheng Qing was slightly disoriented.

”Stop the Binding Spell!”

”Restart the flying curse!”

”Be quick!”

Xiao Xiao’s distorted voice came to his ears, perhaps due to magic interference. Zheng Qing shivered all over, and rudely tore off the page with the Binding Spell from the law book, breaking its effect.

Although this caused him to experience slight magic backlash again, compared to the consequences of being unable to lift the Binding Spell immediately, it was negligible. After all, they were falling from a height of ten thousand meters, and although the cumulus cloud layer varied in thickness, they were less than three thousand meters from the ground by now.

The force of gravity and acceleration was something Zheng Qing, who learned physics in high school, could instinctively sense as a huge danger. Not to mention the rapidly approaching ground, like a silent and hard anvil.

The young student dared to bet that if he hit that anvil, he would end up as a splattered mess that would sink three or five feet into the ground, impossible to scrape up.

”Mayfly’s wings, delicate garments!”

Zheng Qing clutched the law book, struggling to mobilize the magic within him, while shouting loudly. Without magic support and under the tear of the fierce wind, the vine ball around him was decomposing rapidly, with turbulent air rushing through the growing gaps, making it difficult for the warlock to breathe.

Pop!

A thick, short vine hit Zheng Qing’s face hard, driven by the airflow, causing him much pain. Zheng Qing felt his cheek swelling rapidly.

This made him secretly grateful.

If that broken vine had come a few seconds earlier, he wouldn’t have been able to recite the flying curse smoothly even once.

Fortunately, he had already completed the guidance for the flying curse, and even more luckily, this time, he managed to use it smoothly just by reciting it once.

As the main framework of the vine ball struggled and finally shattered under the fierce wind, a familiar layer of pale red envelope surged from his fingertips, chest, and soles, rapidly covering his entire body like a layer of flickering flames.

At the same time, two pairs of large, translucent wings began to vibrate vigorously once more.

The buzzing sound was particularly pleasant.

Magic is always so wondrous.

One second they were plummeting, and the next, due to the mayfly wings, the warlock felt light as a feather, drifting in the high air.

He looked around, up, down, left, right; the team that had formed a line had already scattered during the fall. The nearest figure was now a barely visible dot to him.

”Not proper...”

Zheng Qing tried to contact his companions through ’Upper and Lower Frequency’, but as soon as he spoke, it was like he had a walnut in his mouth. The sound was so garbled even he couldn’t understand it, and his cheek throbbed painfully again.

The warlock immediately thought of the vine that had whipped his face earlier.

He sucked in a breath of cold air, instinctively touching his grey cloth bag, only to reveal a bitter smile. He hadn’t brought any finished magic potions or talismans for this trial, so it seemed his face would have to hurt for a while longer.

”Hey, hey!”

”Can you all hear me?”

”It’s Xiao Xiao, I’ve stabilized in the air... Is everyone safe?”

Xiao Xiao’s calm voice came through the noise in his ears, slightly unclear: ”There’s an unusual magic turbulence at low altitude, causing slight interference with communication, but it doesn’t affect the flying curse... Everyone report in!”

”The Elder’s OK!”

”Fatty’s fine.”

”Xiao Meng and I are safe too.”

”So am I!” Zheng Qing bit his tongue, trying to speak normally. It didn’t go well. After a few seconds of silence in the communication stream, everyone started chattering:

”Did Mr. Zha get his face swollen by the wind? Why does his voice sound so weird?” Fatty asked curiously.

”I thought people with big faces wouldn’t care about a little wind and rain.” Zhang Ji Xin immediately quipped.

”You never know... What if it wasn’t the wind, but he got struck by lightning?” Fatty seemed intrigued, speaking quickly:

”... I saw it clearly up front; all those lightning bolts rushed to the back.”

”Tsk tsk... That’s why you shouldn’t be Mr. Zha; you end up getting struck by lightning.”

”Exactly, it’s embarrassing; I didn’t even get struck by lightning!” Li Meng suddenly chimed in.

Hearing the nonsense around him, Zheng Qing was flustered and almost lost control, his wings tilted, sending him flying dozens of meters sideways and breaking into a cold sweat. The pain on his face seemed to lessen.

”Everyone quiet down!” Xiao Xiao’s somewhat helpless voice rang out again: ”Don’t scatter, gather around me... See the flashing yellow light?”

Zheng Qing stopped and looked around, soon spotting a rapidly flashing yellow light below on his left, like a signal light on the road.

Simultaneously, several streams of light were converging towards that yellow light from all directions. Without much need for words, Zheng Qing redirected his magic and flapped his wings, turning into a stream of light himself, heading towards the yellow light.

Moments later, the Absolution Hunting Team regathered mid-air.

They were now less than a thousand meters from the ground, clearly able to see the landscape below, which was slightly desolate yet exuding a primitive aura.

Perhaps due to being at high altitude, the ground vegetation appeared especially low and sparse, the land tawny, with gray and red ravines intersecting it like the cracked skin of a giant’s face.

The team had regrouped, but Zheng Qing had no mind to deal with the chatterboxes now.

They had larger problems to tackle.

”You’re such a jinx!”

Zheng Qing, holding his swollen cheek, glared at Li Meng, inciting the little witch’s anger as she tried to rush at the warlock, but she couldn’t even touch the hem of his robe thanks to Jiang Yu’s restraint.