Bear School Astartes

Chapter 390: 390. Shadow of Yan’an

”You don’t get along well with your alliance leader? No... you just don’t want me to interact with him much.”

Lann followed behind Henrik, speaking belatedly.

The Old Hunter didn’t refute this and instead nodded candidly.

”It’s just like what I said to you in the small chapel, you shouldn’t get involved with the complex factions of Yan’an. Although I agree with Walter’s hunting philosophy and have had many good collaborations with him, he’s an outsider like you...”

Henrik spoke while vigilantly scanning the surroundings.

”But this isn’t about whether he’s a good partner; he’s a stubborn person who will share his hunting philosophy with any Hunter he meets for the first time and hopes they will join the alliance. You ultimately need to leave this muddy pit of Yan’an, so it’s best not to get entangled with these matters.”

Henrik hurriedly pulled Lann away from Walter’s presence, his care approaching that of watching over an inexperienced junior.

Worried he’d get involved with trouble, worried he’d take a wrong path, worried he’d get stuck...

Though Lann is confident in himself, he accepts this goodwill.

”Did you just say Walter is also an outsider? Indeed, that outfit looks like that of a big city’s Sheriff.”

The young man brushes aside the bushes in front of him, speaking as he walks.

”Not a Sheriff, it’s the Constabulary.” The Old Hunter corrected Lann’s verbal mistake.

”It’s said that he and his colleagues came to Yan’an to chase a beast, but in the end were eaten by the beast, while he survived and ate the beast himself. Such tales are a favorite of the Yan Nan People. Outsiders, brutal and biased, cannot understand Yan’an. Hence, they place themselves in danger. Listen, isn’t that gratifying?”

Henrik couldn’t help but speak with a mocking tone when telling this story.

He wasn’t mocking Walter, but rather the Yan Nan People.

Lann pouted, ”Alright, seems you weren’t wrong when you spoke to me on the first night I arrived. The jokes Yan Nan People enjoy are all in this vein.”

On the night Lann first used [Ignite] to cause the Molotov to burst into flames and set the whole house ablaze, Henrik teased him.

Saying his rashness today would become the Yan Nan People’s new topic of discussion.

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The latter part of the Forbidden Forest became the domain of snakes.

Here, the snakes were frighteningly dense.

On the first night Lann arrived at Yan’an, he was chased by snakes outside the city. Though he escaped quickly, the sight of those massive snakes rolling as they crawled remained vivid in his memory.

And in the latter part of the Forbidden Forest, such tangled masses of snakes had even become commonplace.

There were also even larger snake masses that seemed to be formed by ancient snakes.

Within such a mass, often the body of a single snake was thicker than a person.

The loose, old scales even had patches of fungi growing on them, as well as parasite eggs.

Seeing their bodies triggered Lann’s growing sensitivity towards aesthetics, making him slightly nauseous.

”They’re so ugly...”

The young man murmured softly.

The Old Hunter adeptly walked ahead, bypassing one snake mass after another, and found the correct path.

There used to be alliance Hunters living in this woodland, a pair of brothers who raised snakes, making Henrik quite familiar with the terrain.

Upon hearing the young man’s remark, the Old Hunter retorted sharply.

”Where in this world are there beasts that aren’t ugly?”

The hostility Yan’an Hunters felt towards beasts was deeply ingrained.

However, Lann often witnessed in nature, those wild yet naturally beautiful beasts.

Such scenes were likely unimaginable to Yan’an Hunters?

After bypassing large areas of snakes, Henrik led Lann to an old-looking square.

This was one of the rare stone surfaces in the Forbidden Forest.

Large stones paved the square’s floor, with moss and vines climbing over the stone surface and pillars.

Upon reaching here, Lann clearly felt Henrik seemingly breathe a sigh of relief beneath his mask.

”The hardest part is over. Honestly, even I dislike coming to the Forbidden Forest, because the paths in the forest are hard to find, and the trees and stones look identical.”

Henrik said as he led the way to the gate on the other side of the square, turning to speak to Lann.

A trek in the Forbidden Forest was quite bothersome even for an Old Hunter like him.

Fortunately, once they opened this gate, they’d enter Byron Vis territory.

That academic hall, although isolated from Yan’an for a long time, even an old veteran like him almost forgot.

But in thought, it should still be where people are eager for knowledge, where professors are wise and courteous...

Recalling his last visit to Byron Vis, Henrik’s eyes inevitably showed a nostalgic expression.

However, closely following him, Lann’s eyes suddenly narrowed into thin lines!

In his perspective, as Henrik passed through the shadow cast by the stone pillar, a blade of a katana suddenly emerged from the inconspicuous shadow born of the moonlight!

Dark, elusive... a katana blade made of shadows!

The blade just about to stab into the Old Hunter’s back as he turned to speak!

”[Alder]!”

”Bang!”

Under the Old Hunter’s astonished gaze, Lann’s palm emitted a cold white magical glow, and then the physical impact brought by Chaos Magic Power directly struck Henrik, knocking him flying!

The sound of the blade piercing flesh and the spraying of blood almost coincided with the Magic Seal’s impact.

But Henrik, having been knocked away and repositioned, now only had the blade cut into his outer arm, leaving blood.

Lann couldn’t be certain if the enemy was the type with an incorporeal body, only materializing when attacking. As shadows appeared ethereal, they didn’t seem affected by simple physical attacks.

To be safe, he targeted Henrik with the Alder’s Rune.

The Old Hunter was pushed by the impact of the Rune, rolling backward on the ground, then bracing himself to stop.

His abundant experience and skilled techniques made him instantly aware of the current situation.

His Hunter’s Pistol was aimed at the ’thing’ that attacked him the moment he stopped.

The Old Hunter deliberately waited for a moment before finally firing a shot, causing a misty black fog to explode on the shadow.

”Not an incorporeal body, physical attacks are effective at all times!”

Henrik calmly reported enemy information to Lann.

He not only adjusted his combat stance instantly following the roll, but he also understood why Lann pushed him instead of the enemy.

And he immediately launched a probing attack, achieving results.

After saying this, the Old Hunter, now in battle mode, narrowed his eyes beneath the triangle hat and mask.

Without looking back, he instantly used the Yan Nan Hunter’s signature flash displacement.

Less than half a second later, a fiery Fireball shot through the afterimage left by Henrik’s beige coat, hitting the stone floor.

Two more shadow-like figures stepped out from the shadows of distant stone pillars.