The cave collapsed with a thunderous roar, but a high-pitched bellow rang out even louder than the surrounding crash.
Before the ceiling stones could completely crush down, a swift orange-yellow figure darted through the ruins and began racing toward the passage Glenn and Hermione had reinforced at an incredible speed.
It was the large Zouwu that had been trapped under the collapsed stone pillars. Glenn, Hermione, and the little Zouwu had finally used the pulley system to move the restricting pillars just before the entire space collapsed, freeing the large Zouwu.
Before either could react, the large Zouwu scooped them up one by one, tossing them onto its back while grabbing the little Zouwu in its mouth. It began running wildly, instantly escaping the collapse zone.
"In the Kingdom of Lin, there is a precious beast, large as a tiger, with all five colors complete, its tail longer than its body, called Zouwu—riding it, one can travel a thousand li in a day."
Even unable to use the magic within their bodies at this moment, the Zouwu's running speed was still astonishing. Glenn and Hermione, riding on the large Zouwu's back, felt their bodies subjected to tremendous acceleration and had to immediately lie flat against the Zouwu, gripping its fur tightly to avoid being thrown off during its sprint.
In the blink of an eye, they reached Glenn's reinforced passage and continued charging upward.
Seconds later, Glenn's group reached the boundary of the magical prohibition. He could sense that the range of the anti-magic influence from the blood sacrifice had shrunk once again.
Magic began surging within his body, and cells nourished by magical power started celebrating, but Glenn had no time to savor the familiar sensation returning to his body.
Because the large Zouwu, now able to access its internal spiritual power, began exerting its true abilities.
Strange sounds began echoing. The surrounding space started distorting. Blue-black ripples instantly enveloped the space around them, obscuring Glenn and Hermione's vision while rapidly rotating around them as their center, retreating backward.
The next moment, Hermione opened her eyes. The sudden blinding sunlight made the girl instinctively squint—they had already reached the surface.
"Screeeech—"
The large Zouwu, having traversed space to reach the ground, stopped its rapid movement and extended its four claws to scrape the ground, using this to brake its motion. They slid nearly ten meters across the ground before finally coming to a halt, demonstrating the Zouwu's incredible speed.
"Wow, the books say the Zouwu clan has the power to distort time and space, crossing dimensions, and their normal running speed can cover over a thousand li in a day... truly lives up to its reputation!"
Hermione lifted her head from the Zouwu's soft fur, her small face flushed red, looking particularly excited. Although the Zouwu's space-crossing ability was somewhat similar to Apparition and spatial compression techniques, in principle, Zouwus could achieve such spatial traversal purely through speed supplemented by simple spiritual power, without even being restricted by spatial limitation magic.
From this perspective, the Zouwus' abilities were far more impressive than long-distance teleportation magic!
"Oh, right, you were trapped under those stone pillars—you must be injured! We need to treat you immediately!"
Hermione reached up to stroke the Zouwu's smooth fur. When she touched a spot with congealed blood, the girl suddenly realized it was likely injured. She immediately dismounted, sliding down the Zouwu's side to the ground with her wand already in hand, casting healing spells while searching for possible injuries on the Zouwu's body.
But Hermione soon felt puzzled.
"Huh, how strange—there's so much blood on the large Zouwu, but I can't find even a single wound?"
Hermione carefully cleaned the blood clots from the Zouwu's matted fur and parted the hair, but found no traces of any injuries.
Dust, dirt, stone chips, blood stains—there were plenty of these things on the large Zouwu's surface, making the big fellow quite dirty, but miraculously, Hermione couldn't find even a microscopic scratch on its body.
"The other magical creatures that escaped from the underground space also have no injuries."
Glenn also slid down from the large Zouwu, but he seemed not to have heard Hermione's words, apparently lost in thought about something.
Hermione noticed Glenn's unusual behavior and waved her small hand in front of him.
"Glenn, what's wrong?"
Glenn looked up but said nothing. After a moment, he finally continued Hermione's earlier conversation:
"The other magical creatures that escaped from the underground space also have no injuries."
"Someone treated them, and this treatment method... is very impressive. Fast-acting, effective, leaving not even a trace. Without this, the blood stains on their bodies would be inexplicable."
"Someone treated them? But who could it be? Surely not the dark wizards?"
Hermione fired off three questions in succession, frowning slightly. Under those circumstances, she couldn't believe the dark wizards who had been harming magical creatures would suddenly have a change of heart and kindly treat the injured creatures.
Glenn shook his head. He didn't have many thoughts about this point either, though he did have one theory.
But before he could share his thoughts with Hermione, sounds came from their side.
"Don't worry, those are the magical creatures."
Glenn patted Hermione's shoulder, helping the girl's extremely tense nerves relax somewhat. Her right hand, which had instinctively shot up and begun gathering magic, dropped back to her waist.
The tall, lush wild grass began rustling softly, swaying as heads poked out one by one—the magical creatures Hermione had freed from their cages.
Upon seeing Hermione, the creatures excitedly howled and ran forward, coming to where Glenn and Hermione stood, then very deliberately positioned themselves on Hermione's side, staying far from Glenn.
Glenn: ...
Fine, he was used to it.
"Let me count... one, two, three, four... looks like everyone's safe and sound—wonderful!"
Hermione extended her finger to count the magical creatures present. When they'd separated from Feng Lian, Hermione had already memorized how many creatures should have reached the surface.
Her goal was not to leave behind any adorable magical creature, and now this goal had clearly been achieved.
All the magical creatures Hermione had encountered in the underground caves had safely evacuated to the surface!
Congratulations all around.
However, Glenn and Hermione couldn't relax just yet.
Because at another location, a battle was still waiting for their participation.
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