Monster Hunt: Notes from a Hunter

Chapter 1267 The More Confident You Are, the Luckier You Are
Xianglan ordered his companions to spread out and advance in the direction of the large lava lake to search.

Keeping a certain distance between each other can not only expand the search area and avoid missing important clues, but also reduce the probability of being noticed by monsters.

Xianglan got on all fours and ran through a pile of rubble.

Similar debris is not uncommon in Lava Canyon.

The Grand Canyon has a special geological structure, and the overly intense geological changes during its formation process resulted in relatively thin strata in the area where the Grand Canyon is located.

The huge explosion before the death of the Molten Dragon shattered and cracked the earth's crust within a radius of hundreds of square kilometers. Magma surged to the surface, creating this scorching world.

Two full years had passed since the explosion, and magma was still gushing out from the cracks in the earth's crust, piling up to form masses of semi-solidified lava.

Some of these lava blocks will gradually cool down and form some strangely shaped boulders of different sizes. The large ones may even be piled up into mountains.

Some will be exploded from the inside by the subsequent lava due to various reasons such as shape and lava composition, and blown into rubble.

Xianglan didn't care at first, she just wanted to get through the gravel area as quickly as possible.

After all, this place was bombed once, so it wouldn't be surprising if it was bombed again.

But there was a familiar smell to Pandan, which made it sniff.

It's a bit like the smell of... pork chops, meow?

To be precise, it's the smell of the slime bombs that Pork Chop always carries with him, meow.

Wait, the slime mold bomb uses the same ancient slime mold cat as the one used by the Shattering Dragon?
Xianglan hurriedly stopped and looked back at the pile of rubble.

It always believed in its intuition and luck. Its intuition told it that this pile of rubble was not caused by natural explosion, and luck ruled out other possibilities for it.

So, this must have been done by that Broken Dragon!

This way of judging is too reckless. If the pig was here, it would definitely be scratched a few times first.

But now it is the captain!

"Meow meow meow!" Xianglan meowed loudly, calling her companions who were scattered nearby.

Soon, the mushrooms gathered around Pandan.

Xianglan pointed at the pile of rubble and said, "It was done by the Explosive Dragon."

Its tone was overly confident, like pointing at a red fire dragon and saying that this one was a male. It gave off an air of ignorance as if asking "why" would make one seem very ignorant.

Li Zi and Mangosteen looked at each other, a little hesitant, but did not dare to speak.

Only the studious Mushroom didn't care about these things. With sparkling eyes, he asked, "Teacher Xianglan, how did you know this?"

Xianglan put her hands on her hips and looked up, "There is a smell left over from the explosion of ancient slime molds. Pork Chop uses this kind of slime mold to make explosive bombs. I can often smell this smell."

"I see!" Mushroom sniffed hard, wanting to learn how to distinguish smells like Pandan.

Chestnut and Wild Boar also showed expressions of realization at the same time.

For the Elu in the investigation team, the name "Pork Chop" is particularly convincing.

Although there is no logical connection between the two, they find it credible as long as they hear it is related to pork chops.

In front of the other three cats, Xianglan confidently took out a small and exquisite insect guide cage and said proudly: "The insect guides in here are what Hayata gave to me.

Let me show you the value of the Guide Frogs cultivated by the top hunters, meow!"

As it spoke, it picked up a small piece of gravel with a slight smell of slime mold explosion and put it into the guide insect cage. The guide insect flickered, obviously extracting some kind of scent.

If ordinary gravel is put in, there will be no such reaction.

Xianglan was full of confidence. She waved her paw at the three cats surrounding the insect trap, "Look, meow! The route I chose is absolutely correct, meow! Keep going forward and keep searching, meow!"

The area of ​​the Molten Mountain Canyon cannot naturally be compared with the ancient tree forest covering millions of square kilometers.

In less than one night, the hunting cats searched all the way from the outer area of ​​the Lava Canyon to the core area where the large lava lake was located.

Along the way, they discovered several traces left by the Explosive Dragon.

Most of these traces were discovered by Xianglan. Her sense of smell is more acute than that of ordinary Elu, so it can always find the places where ancient slime molds exploded.

The existence of these explosion traces made the hunter cats more and more certain that this Explosive Dragon had gone mad.

Nature can be a cruel place, especially in a barren area like Molten Canyon where resources are scarce.

Whether it is a large monster or those inconspicuous small animals, they will try their best to conserve their physical strength and energy.

Take the example of the Brachiosaurus, which also appears in volcanic areas.

The aggressiveness of the Boom Dragon is well-known, but even it will not attack mountains or rocks meaninglessly.

Even if one occasionally uses a rock wall to grind one's teeth, one would not destroy a rock that is several times larger than one's body just for the purpose, right?
But this Explosive Crusher will.

Among the traces that Xianglan and the others found, there was not a single living organism dead. Almost all of them were crushed boulders, rock walls, and even large areas of ground.

There is no apparent purpose behind this, it's just brutal and random use of violence.

Xianglan has experienced a lot with Yinbian and his team, but has never found similar habits in any monster.

As for why he used stones and rock walls instead of other creatures to vent his anger.

Xianglan had a bad guess.

Since entering the Molten Canyon at night, they have not found any trace of any large monster.

Not to mention the large monsters, even the small monsters like the Assault Dragon and the Herbivorous Dragon, which should be widely distributed, were not seen.

The largest creature they've found so far is a plate-sized exploding gas frog.

So where did all those volcanic creatures go?

There seems to be only one answer.
Staring at a charred piece of thing on the ground, which seemed to be the remains of some large monster's skull, Xianglan sniffed it and gave a signal again, calling her companions together.

"Lady Xianglan has discovered new traces again, meow?" Li Zi asked with admiration in his eyes.

The wild boar also nodded vigorously, "As expected of you, Master Xianglan. There are so many traces on this road. That Shattering Dragon must have often moved along this route, meow!"

There was a seriousness on Xianglan's face that was rarely seen on other days.

At this point, it no longer cared about saving face, and directly overturned its previous statement of "the best search path":

"It's not that our search route overlaps with the Explosive Dragon's route, meow, that Explosive Dragon has treated the entire Molten Canyon as its own territory, meow.

It patrols its territory non-stop, killing all the creatures it sees.

Even after that, I still felt unsatisfied, so I started destroying rocks everywhere, meow."

"It seems that Teacher Xianglan is saying that the Blasting Dragon may not be near the large lava lake, meow?" Mushroom seemed a little confused, "Then what should we do next, meow?

Continue searching for traces until the guide insect starts to lead meow?"

Xianglan nodded seriously, knocked off a small piece of the charred bone with the cat sword, put it into the insect trap, and said, "That's right, meow, let's continue."

He had only said half of his words when a guide insect, which had extracted the aura from the charred bone, flew out of the insect cage and began to lead the way.

"Ahem."

Xianglan frowned and cleared her throat. "What I mean is, yes, meow! It is indeed nearby, meow. Let's continue forward, and everyone should stay hidden, meow."

(End of this chapter)