Grabbing his head, he felt light headed and nauseated. He had been right, they truly had been teleported! In fact, it almost seemed as if they were teleported to another world entirely, Fu Hua was fine but he wasn't, noticing how much pain he was in, she used Fenghuan Down to alleviate his pains.

It worked and he immediately straightened himself. Following that, he began to assess their surroundings. They were on a plain filled with yellowish blades of grass at the moment. It seems to be autumn here right now. There were a few smaller forests scattered here and there on the plains, as well as a few short hills.

He could spot bits of black and yellow by the horizon, which appeared to be a mountain range or something. It was just too far away that he wasn’t able to confirm it.

This place looks more normal than I thought.

Juviel heaved a sigh of relief. He had expected to be teleported into a world where Herrschers and all sorts of monsters ran rampant, but it turned out to be not much different from the world outside.

“Hey, got any clue where we are?”

Fu Hua shook her head, she was just as clueless as him. From what she knew, this wasn't supposed to exist in the first place..

“Where should we head to?”

“We’ll head west! West all the way!”

…

The two of them chatted merrily while heading westward, but all of a sudden, Juviel heard the sharp rustle of the wind. He immediately grabbed Fu Hua's arm and pulled her to the side.

Several yellowish thorns had pierced into the very spot they were standing on earlier. Had they not moved away earlier, the thorns would have penetrated their body, dealing severe damage to them.

“What’s going on?”

Juviel noticed a mouse clicking its teeth in their direction. While it did resemble a rat in terms of appearance, it was massive in size, comparable to a warthog!

“It seems to be a native of this planet, it doesn't seem to be using Honkai Energy, rather it seems to be using a mysterious form of energy.. Interesting, are you going to handle it or should I?”

Juviel thought for a bit upon hearing that and decided to deal with it himself.

“I'll deal with it, it's just a rat anyways. I'm worried that it may cause some scratches on your beautiful skin.”

Fu Hua blushed and looked away in annoyance, he doesn't let go of any opportunities at all!

“Jip jip~ jip jip jip~”

The furious squeaking of the humongous rat sounded. It couldn’t understand how those two could remain calm in its presence and even flirt with one another. It was as if they were treating it to be invisible!

“Fu Hua, this rat seems quite arrogant doesn't it?”

“... I’ve never seen it before, but it doesn’t seem too powerful based on the aura it’s emanating.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

While the rat couldn’t understand what the two were saying, it could still sense the disdain in their eyes. Knowing that it was being looked down upon, it flew into a state of wrath. With loud squeaks, it charged toward the two of them, ready to sink its teeth onto their flesh.

Unfortunately for it, Fu Hua and Juviel were pros amongst pros. As fast as the rat was moving, the two of them were still able to dodge its charge with ease.

“It seems to be at the speed of an olympic athlete.” Based on the rat’s speed and strength, Juviel was able to deduce its rough athletic achievements. If that was all it had, it wouldn’t pose much of a threat to him.

However, what he was concerned about were the thorns that shot out from the ground earlier.

On the other hand, seeing that its charge had failed to work, the rat suddenly stood upright, and its size suddenly expanded by half. Taking a closer look, however, Juviel realised that it was not that its body had expanded but that its fur was standing upright, making it look larger than normal.

“Be careful!” Fu Hua suddenly exclaimed.

Three sharp thorns suddenly shot out from the rat’s body toward Juviel.

“A long-range attack!”

Juviel exclaimed as he dodged the thorns with ease. With his current level of speed, even without resorting to using Fu Hua's skills, he could still easily deal with attacks from world class athletes.

He noticed that there was a clump of fur behind the rat’s head that was yellowish in color as compared to its overall beige fur. The thorns that were just shot out seemed to have come from the clump of yellow fur.

The rat grew even more agitated upon seeing that its attack had missed, so it arched its back and shot out a few more thorns.

Same as before, Juviel dodged the fur, but on top of that, he also whipped out his sword to test the accuracy of his swordsmanship. With a slash of his sword, he successfully deflected some of the thorns.

This is kind of weird though. Why isn’t this fellow attacking Fu Hua at all? Could it be biassed toward good-looking people? I don’t think I pale anywhere in comparison to her though…

The rat continued firing several rounds of thorns, but not a single one of them struck. It belatedly realized that it was outclassed here, so it immediately turned tail and fled.

However, Juviel leaped forward to stop its path. “Hey, don’t go! I haven’t had my fun yet.”

The enraged rat immediately shot out another three more thorns toward Juviel, only for it to be dodged with ease yet again.

So, it tried to flee once more, only to be stopped yet again. Just like that, the process repeated several times, and by the end of it, the rat was left with a huge bald patch behind its head.

The rat looked funny now, so, he continued messing around with the rat, and it didn’t take long for it to turn completely bald. It was only then that Juviel finally decided to end its life.

“... Juviel, can we let it go instead? It’s so pitiful,” asked Fu Hua. The tears brimming in the rat’s eyes had evoked her sympathy.

“Alright.” Of course, Juviel wouldn’t reject such a simple request coming from the dashing Fu Hua, so he waved his hand, gesturing for the rat to get lost. Utterly relieved to be spared, the rat darted off into the forest right away.

“This world doesn’t seem as dangerous as I thought.” Juviel was still worried at first, but after the earlier easy victory he had against the rat, his confidence was now bursting. “Was I being far too cautious?”

Pui pui pui! What in the world am I saying? After watching so many drama serials, I should know better than to raise flags!

Fu Hua shook her head and said, “We’re probably still in the wilderness, where the strength of the living beings tend to be weaker. If we proceed deeper in, we should encounter more troublesome enemies.”

Juviel nodded in response. He was still more worried about how to get out of this place, was there perhaps some sort of goal to clear?

Perhaps a final boss too?

That’s quite likely.. But I have no past experiences to refer from, so anything could happen. Currently we are trapped here, I haven't told her yet, but I should soon.

Hm? Maybe if we head in deeper, the answers may come to light..

It was then he suddenly heard a series of weird rustling noises. He quickly turned his companion and asked, “Hua, did you hear something?”

“I did. You aren't imagining things.” Fu Hua was very serious, prepared to strike at any moment.

Rustle rustle~

The noises sounded again. The two of them turned their heads around warily, only for their faces to warp in horror. They found themselves faced with quite a few Goldenfur Monstrous Rats.

‘Quite a few’ might be a major understatement, for there was a whole army of little beady eyes staring at them. Such a sight was more than enough to induce panic in just about anyone!

“How many of them is this?” Juviel gulped.

“There are definitely at least a few hundred of them. From what I see, their number easily exceeds a thousand.” Fu Hua also felt flustered too. It was normal for a woman to be afraid of such stuff.

One of the Goldenfur Monstrous Rats leaped out and began squeaking to the largest of its kind, its paws pointing toward the two of them. While Juviel and Fu Hua had no idea what it was saying, the indignant tone in the squeaks was more than enough to tell them that it was complaining about something.

“Don’t you think this rat looks a little familiar?” Juviel eyed the bald patch of skin behind the rat’s head as he asked.

“It seems to be the one we met earlier.” Fu Hua was amused.

The largest Goldenfur Monstrous Rat let out a few piercing squeaks, and the rest immediately rose on their back feet.

Realizing that things were going awry, he immediately grabbed Fu Hua's arms and fled.

You must be kidding! If it’s just a couple of thorns, we might still be able to handle it with ease. However, if it’s going to be thousands of them, that’s like facing an arrow rain from an enemy! No matter how I dodge, I would still be porcupined in an instant!

A split moment later, the spot where the two of them were standing earlier was bombarded with thorns. The Goldenfur Monstrous Rats were furious to see that the two of them had dodged their attacks, so they immediately gave chase with enraged squeaks. Like the march of an army, they trampled down everything that stood in their path. From afar, it looked almost as if a tsunami was crashing down on them.

“It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t asked you to spare it, we wouldn’t have ended up in such a position.” said Fu Hua apologetically.

“It’s not your fault. None of us expected things to end up like that,” said Juviel. “Stop talking for now lest I run out of breath.”

The two of them ran off for quite a while, but the pursuing Goldenfur Monstrous Rats showed no signs of letting up at all. While they were unable to catch up, they were still biting persistently onto their tail.

“So.. Are we going to keep running?” asked Fu Hua, who wasn't nervous at all. Afterall, she could just use one of her ultimates to get rid of this army of rats, but she wanted to see the limits of this mysterious man. That was also why she was still running with him.

“…” Juviel.

He was frustrated, but he couldn’t bring himself to blame Fu Hua for this. None of them expected to be faced with such a situation at the very start—or to be more exact, there was probably no one as unlucky as them to encounter this.

Ahh, maybe heading westward isn’t a good idea after all.

Noticing Fu Hua's calm expression, he calmed down as well, “They are bound to give up, right?"

It was not like they had a huge grudge between them. It was not as if he had killed their brethren; all he had done was to make one of the Goldenfur Monstrous Rats go bald. Unless this fellow was the son of the Rat King or something, it didn’t make any sense for them to continue chasing him.

Such a thought was swiftly dispelled from his mind by the end of the second hour. Juviel's heart had completely sunk by then. It was as if the army of rats knew not of exhaustion at all; they continued chasing them with fervor.

“I'm amazed that you are still running without facing much exhaustion!” Fu Hua hadn't even broken a sweat despite running for hours, but she had an abnormal body to begin with.. But what's up with Juviel!?

“I'm pushing myself! There’s a mountain valley ahead. We’ll have more room to maneuver around there!” Juviel's eyes lit up as he caught sight of a mountain valley right ahead of him.

The problem right now was that they were running on a plain, where there was nowhere they could hide at all. If they tried to fight the rats in a place like this, they would just get swamped down in an instant.

However, it was different in the mountain valley. There were all sorts of obstacles, giving them the room to hide and even launch counterattacks. After all, the rats weren’t too powerful individually.

There was just one issue—mountains tended to look deceptively close.

Juviel was initially running with Fu Hua's hand in his, but after a couple times where he nearly tripped due to her hand, he decided to just lift her up and carry her in his arms. It was fortunate that she was small in size compared to him, so it hardly took any strength to carry her.

Being held in a princess carry made Fu Hua's face redden in embarrassment. She had never been so close to a man before. She could only console her again and again that Juviel was just trying to be energy efficient, and that he wasn't forcing himself on her…

Finally, Juviel arrived at the mountain valley.

A chilling cold gale blew his way. His body was still burning hot from all the running he had done, but astonishingly, the gale blew all of the heat away and made him shudder in coldness.

“What’s going on?” Juviel was confused.

However, this wasn’t a good time to be thinking about other matters. He hurriedly scanned his surroundings for good spots where the two of them could hide and recover a bit.

It was then that Fu Hua suddenly exclaimed with a hint of happiness in her voice, “Hm, look! Those rats aren’t following us here.”

Juviel turned his head around, only to see that the Goldenfur Monstrous Rats had stopped just a few meters short of the mountain valley. They were pacing around the perimeter of the mountain valley in frustration, but at the same time, they dared not to come in.

“Is there some sort of terrifying existence in the valley that instills fear in them?” murmured Juviel worriedly.