High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 2067: Chapter 288: The 10th Hunting Team

The radiating spell lights, short cries, the low roar of dragons, occasionally mixed with the sound of trees crashing down, seemed like cold water splashing on hot oil, suddenly making this narrow silent place quite lively.

Sorcerers wearing raven masks raised their law books, casting chaos spells, stun spells, soft leg curses, binding spells, etc., one after another as spells rained down like raindrops on the mutated Green Qiu.

However, the big dragon had no intention of surrendering with bound claws, shaking its head and swinging its tail, it roared and spewed out beams of light akin to sharp swords, along with bursts of magic-filled green aura. Those green glows seemed like a stroke of light, yet upon falling, they were like giant axes and iron hammers, splattering dirt and toppling trees as branches bent across the open ground.

Even so, the Green Qiu still found itself in dire straits under the combined assault of four sorcerers, darting left and right, unable to escape, with its range of movement decreasing step by step, like an insect caught in a spider’s web, struggling more only to appear weaker.

Inside the barrier.

The young sorcerers of the Fringe Hunting Team dared not move an inch. Apart from gripping their law books tightly and holding their breath, they didn’t even dare to initiate the most basic battle array, lest their slightest movement would attract the collective attention of those peculiar sorcerers and the Green Qiu.

Indeed, peculiar sorcerers.

This was what Nicholas termed those sorcerers wearing raven masks in his heart.

As the last team to leave the First Hall, Nicholas clearly remembered that before the Fringe Hunting Team, there had not been any team dressed in black robes and wearing raven masks.

This indicated that these ’Ravens’ were not the hunters participating in this hunting competition.

But can non-hunters enter this hunting ground?

The warlock tensely contemplated various possibilities while silently signaling to his companions — should their barrier be unfortunately hit by a ’stray spell’ and reveal their location, they must not foolishly remain standing, but rather escape immediately.

After all, they were facing several sorcerers with dragon hunting abilities.

Dragons have always been synonymous with powerful magical creatures, and every adult dragon possesses magic power not inferior to top registered sorcerers. Coupled with their mighty bodies and sharp claws and fangs, they ultimately become terrifying monsters. Even a hunting team composed entirely of registered sorcerers wouldn’t easily provoke such a monster without any preparation.

And now, mere meters away, four ’Ravens’ were reducing the mutated Green Qiu to almost no ability to retaliate.

Mutated magical creatures are often stronger than their original versions. This is common knowledge, and just from the earlier scene where the green aura effortlessly subdued the Horned Camel Beast, Nicholas had reason to suspect that this Green Qiu possessed combat power beyond the registered wizard level.

Especially when considering that the Green Qiu was developing in the direction of being ’large’, the implications were even more intriguing.

”Hurry up!”

A sudden voice sounded outside the battlefield. Though the voice was not loud, it resounded clearly in every sorcerer’s ear: ”...Today the school is holding a hunting competition, and this area has been included in the range of the field... the commotion is too big, it’s likely to attract trouble.”

Nicholas looked in the direction of the voice, unsurprisingly, it was another sorcerer wearing a raven mask. Perhaps due to the position, this time, the warlock clearly saw a small number attached to the mask of the sorcerer — zero three.

Five ’Ravens’, enough to form a complete hunting team.

Following this clue, looking back at the four sorcerers fighting the Green Qiu, sure enough, Nicholas also noticed numbers on the masks of the other Ravens: zero seven, eleven, thirteen, nineteen.

This was absolutely not an ordinary hunting team.

They should belong to a certain hidden sorcerer organization, likely composed of sorcerers from the school, Nicholas made a very reasonable assumption, and moreover, the number of people in this organization should not be less than nineteen, four-fifths of which would be twenty members at least.

Twenty sorcerers with strong magic power are indeed quite a lot.

One must know that the First University, with its four colleges across four grades, has only a little over two thousand registered students in total. Twenty people amount to one percent, while whether the students with registered wizard level abilities exceed five percent is still debatable; most of them didn’t boldly show their faces today, thus it’s impossible for them to be here wearing raven masks in the depths of Silent Forest at this time.

A more plausible possibility is that these sorcerers in front of us include school researchers besides students, even possibly external sorcerers.

Roar!!

The mournful cry of the Green Qiu interrupted the thoughts of the Fringe Hunting Team Leader. Clearing his mind, he looked, the battle in the forest had already ended. The mutated Green Qiu had been bound into a bunch by thorny vines shimmering with metallic luster, muzzled, eyes covered with a skin shade, snake’s tail drooped at a strange angle on the ground, implying more than one broken bone inside.

”Eleven, thirteen, nineteen, take it back to the laboratory.” The sorcerer numbered zero three ordered unhurriedly: ”A Green Qiu growing this large is rare... enough to endure the new phase of transformation.”

Three Ravens dragged the big dragon away, silently disappearing into the depths of the forest.

Laboratory, transformation.

Nicholas grasped two more words — this implied that this organization was very likely conducting illegal magical experiments. Regular magical experiments don’t require such covert methods to capture subjects in Silent Forest, the test subjects in the school laboratories are uniformly provided by the School Works Committee.

”Zero Seven,” the sorcerer numbered zero three looked towards the last Raven, casually throwing over something shiny: ”Check out this little guy.”

Nicholas narrowed his eyes, carefully sizing up that object — could it be a firefly?

The fireflies they previously released as pathfinders?

The warlock’s face changed dramatically.

”Triangular Battle Array!” The Fringe Hunting Team Leader instinctively shouted out the Fringe Hunt’s most familiar defensive battle array, positioning Iseni, himself, and Liu Fei Fei outside, with Carmen and Lin Yan inside, spreading out the formation.

Almost at the same time.

”Amidst the four directions, clearly visible!”

”There is passage for the wind, it cuts and cleaves!”

The two remaining ’Ravens’ in the clearing raised their law books simultaneously, one unleashing a Powerful Detection Curse, and the other released a wave of Wind Blades full of aggression.

A faint-white circle of light suddenly brightened centering around Raven number zero seven, then expanding towards all directions, swiftly sweeping past the stealth barrier of the Fringe Hunting Team.

Bang!

The barrier emitted a very subtle breaking sound, like a gentle breeze, Nicholas could even feel his hair flutter under this detect spell, then gradually fall back down.

Immediately after, hundreds of Wind Blades poured down like raindrops, whistling as they focused and landed on the exposed Fringe Hunting Team, like hail hitting a glass window, the sound of cracks continuous.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The previously released triple ’Section The South Mountain’ withstood the onslaught of stormy attacks it could support no longer than ten seconds before the piled mountain shadows shattered massively, collapsing by sequence.