Chapter 174 Entering the Lair

The fight against the stronger stealthy cheetah had been an extremely close one and he had won just by a hair’s breadth. If it had not made too many sounds while switching its target from the foreign races to him, Dilan wouldn’t have heard it.

At the same time, it would have been near impossible for him to protect them to label himself as their savior, their knight in the white shining armor!

But the final result was still quite satisfying. The six hunters from the foreign races might be holding their weapons tightly for now but they didn’t dare to attack him.

In a short instant, Dilan had used up 20 Units of Mana. As such, he activated [Bearer of Pain] to instantly regain the entire mana he had used up.

Following that, Dilan grit his teeth before he activated [Regeneration] making use of five units of mana.

He quickly regained his composure and felt the soothing sensation of his body regenerating at a fast pace.

Dilan threw a short glance at the vigilant Lion-men and Hawk-men before turning to the stealthy cheetah’s corpses.

With swift movements, their Essence crystals landed in his hand. They crumbled a moment later as Dilan absorbed the Essence within.

[Two <Bronze> Essences of Tier-1 Level 9/13 Snowwhite Isolation Cheetahs have been absorbed→ +0.4 Agility, +0.6 Mana]

Dilan was not surprised that he still didn’t level up so he turned back to the hunters of the two foreign races. The Blazing Serpentine Blade was tightly packed and stored in the Penta Item Pouch in the meantime._-.

Once again, his bloody and blood-thirsty presence had been replaced with a calm and gentle aura.

This sudden change was somewhat frightening to the six hunters of the foreign races as every single strand of their fur stood up on its end.

They looked at each other in uncertainty, only for one of the Hawk-men to lower their guard.

It approached Dilan, who was still smiling faintly.

‘In the worst case, I will activate the last use of [Gale] and run away!’

Even if he was stronger than the six hunters of the foreign races, Dilan didn’t want to aggravate the first foreign race he encountered and leave a bad impression of himself before getting to know more about them.

That was why he could remain calm as the Hawk-men approached him. In the end, the Hawk-men stood less than two meters in front of him before they began to make several weird gestures.

Dilan didn’t understand them at all, but he could sense the Hawk-men’s gratitude.

The tension in the surrounding eased a little and the other hunters made similar gestures after they thought about it for a while.

‘Looks like they know how to repay kindness with kindness. I guess this hand gesture is their way of saying <Thank you for saving us>?’

Dilan was not sure what to do so he instinctively bowed lightly, thinking that this was easier to understand than anything else.

Seeing Dilan bowing faintly, the other hunters stored their weapons once again. Almost in unison, they pointed at the corpses of the Snowwhite Isolation cheetahs before pointing towards the Sun temple.

“You guys want me to follow you to the Sun temple?” Dilan asked before realizing that they couldn’t understand him.

Thus, Dilan pointed at the corpses and replicated a walking motion with his fingers before also pointing at the Sun temple.

The hunters nodded their heads vigorously, which Dilan took as a sign to pick up the corpses.

Afterward, he made his way toward the Sun temple while trying to ignore his wildly beating heart.

‘Am I really entering the town of foreign races right now…maybe even their temple?’

Dilan was excited but that was not something he should openly let others notice.

He wanted to act as if he was used to dealing with foreign races so that they would show him more respect.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to keep his senses in an orderly manner as he entered the town.

Numerous, small, tall, skinny, bulky, old, and young members of the two foreign races entered his sight.

They looked at him in vigilance and kept looking at him intently until he left their sight.

Even the six hunters next to him were still not fully unguarded while walking next to Dilan.

But that was perfectly normal because Dilan was not able to keep his calm either.

He expected a surprise attack to happen at any moment because Dilan was unable to trust the foreign races completely.

In the end, Dilan made a big gamble by entering the Sun temple’s proximity where he saw numerous Lion-men and Hawk-men that were as strong as the hunters.

His interest in the small town and the Sun temple was quite high. That was why he could quickly tell that there were only around 1000 Lion-men in addition to fewer than 500 Hawk-men.

That was a lot less than Dilan had expected but more than he had seen from far away.

Walking along with the six hunters he heard the incomprehensible and ancient-sounding language both foreign races spoke.

He tried to understand something but it was way too difficult. But even if it was impossible for him to understand them, Dilan’s gut feeling told him that the Lion-men and Hawk-men around were speaking about him.

This was only obvious, and it hinted to Dilan that it was rare to see a human in their town, or that they might have never seen a human, to begin with!

The language barrier between them made things quite difficult, even more so when he noticed that hostile stares were directed at him.

Dilan was currently making his way toward the top of the Sun temple. It looked like he was approaching the cone-shaped structure on top of the temple.

It was uncertain what he was supposed to do up there but Dilan could tell that it was something great for the foreign races.

‘They’re probably jealous of me because it is a great honor to go up there?’

Of course, this was only Dilan’s assumption and didn’t necessarily mean that it was the truth.

Thus, he kept his guard up until he entered the cone-shaped building.

As he neared the miniature sun he found the temperature to become unbearable and it was only thanks to his high Health stat, his great physical condition, and the Stone Skin special trait that he was still able to stay on his feet.

He was sweating profusely, and could barely take note of what the hunters were doing.

There was a huge sacrificial podium in the center of the cone-shaped building on which the huntress placed their prey one after another.

Yet, what Dilan noticed only later was that the huge mutated Bison corpses disappeared not long after they had been put on the sacrificial podium.

They turned into countless sparks, which were then pulled toward the faint, almost inconspicuous suctioning force that emerged from the top of the cone-shaped-building.

Dilan looked up, and could instantly see numerous dozens of ancient-looking inscriptions on the ceiling.

The inscriptions spiraled around the tiny opening one could barely perceive in the center of the ceiling.

The sparks that were once the monster corpses were pulled through the small opening and were nourishing the miniature sun.

‘Amazing!’

Dilan had almost shouted out in his excitement before putting down the corpses of the two cheetahs on the sacrificial podium.

[Corpses of two Snowwhite Isolation Cheetahs(No Essence Crystal) will be sacrificed to the Fragment of Sun God Valgard’s Divinity, execute the task?]