The voice came from the direction of the water source McGrenn had mentioned before.
The two men ran out of the cave back to back, just in time to see Cromwell sprinting back like a rabid dog.
"Monster… monster… monster took… took Ina away!" Cromwell looked extremely wretched, his luxurious mage robe covered with mud and leaves as he gasped for breath between words.
Lin Li could not help but shake his head seeing this.
This fellow was indeed hopeless. It was no wonder McGrenn had looked displeased when he chased after Ina. If Lin Li had a daughter, he definitely would not want her to associate with a weakling like him, either…
"What monster? Say it clearly!" McGrenn's eyes turned red with anxiety as it concerned his own daughter. He glared feverishly at Cromwell, his eyes void of the distant courtesy he had previously.
"Just… just now… just now, when I went with Ina to fetch water, a monster suddenly emerged from the side! It… it… it took Ina…"
"F*ck!" Lin Li dropped a swear and couldn't care less about the weakling anymore. He cast another Hastening Spell on himself and cut through the dense forest with the speed of wind.
Behind the forest was a gentle stream, probably the water source that McGrenn had mentioned. Beside the stream, a water bag lay quietly on the fallen leaves. There was still some water in it, gurgling out onto the ground.
Lin Li bent down and picked up the water bag. He put it by his ear and gave it a shake, promptly realizing it was still half full.
"They shouldn't be too far away!"
Then, he took a look at the footprints on the ground, which were all in a jumble. There were footprints of all sorts—big, small, deep, shallow. The small ones should have been left by Ina and Cromwell, but the big footprints made Lin Li gasp in surprise.
"Leviathan Gorilla!" Lin Li believed what he saw. These were definitely the footprints of level-eight magical beast, the Leviathan Gorilla. Back when he was living in the mountains, he had seen them once or twice outside Andoine's cabin, only that old man would always make light of them as a couple of little ruffians looking for trouble that were driven away by him.
Andoine could see them as little ruffians, but not Lin Li. Level-eight magical beast was no joking matter. Even in the Sunset Mountains, it was definitely in the middle of the food chain.
But Lin Li heaved a sigh of relief when he identified it as the Leviathan Gorilla.
If it were other magical beasts, Ina would probably be dead by now. It was only when encountering the Leviathan Gorilla that her life was not in danger for the time being. The Leviathan Gorillas were not so keen on killing like other savage magical beasts. Just as Andoine had said, they were just a bunch of troublemakers.
"Ina should've been taken by a Leviathan Gorilla."
"Leviathan Gorilla?"
"An oddity in the Sunset Mountains, a magical beast that is not keen on killing. If I'm right, Ina should be crying now, but she's not in any danger for the time being." Lin Li stared at the cluttered footprints on the ground and added softly, "From the looks of the footprints, there should be only one Gorilla."
McGrenn was slightly relieved to hear that the situation was not as bad as he had imagined.
The two men paid heed to Cromwell no more as they began their search by following the footprints along the stream.
Lin Li had guessed it right. Still far away, the two men heard Ina crying.
The cries came from a dense forest. From afar, the trees in the dense forest seemed to be particularly tall and the leaves seemed to be of utmost luxuriance. Between the tall trees were bestrewn tenacious rattans, joined together to form what looked like a giant net.
Lin Li had heard Andoine mention that this was the unique way of construction for the Leviathan Gorillas. They used the rattans to weave a giant net, which would cover wherever their territory expanded. To the Leviathan Gorilla, this giant net was both its nest and its most powerful weapon. With it, the Leviathan Gorilla could do many things that other high-level magical beasts could not.
The long-legged beauty who was caught was currently being trapped in the giant net.
"Go away! You monster… stay away from me!" Ina was struggling desperately in between her cries.
The two men rushed forward upon hearing her.
As soon as they were under the tree, they saw Ina being tied up in the giant net. The rattan was entwined in several layers, like a Chinese rice dumpling. The Leviathan Gorilla, which had somehow gotten a paintbrush from somewhere, was drawing circles on Ina's face as it made weird gaggling sounds of laughter.
"F*ck!" Lin Li suddenly got a sense of what a freak this Leviathan Gorilla was. As a magical beast, it had caught a human not to tear or chew her apart, but to draw circles on her face with a brush. How was that not a freak?
"Ina!" They were father and daughter after all; McGrenn was as anxious as ever watching Ina wailing from under the tree.
He was so anxious he had forgotten there was a level-eight magical beast on the tree.
"Father, be careful!" The long-legged beauty's shout had yet to settle when Lin Li heard a deafening sound followed by a muffled thud. McGrenn, who was just calling out his daughter's name, was knocked unconscious by a coconut that fell from the sky before he could avoid it.
"Kakakaka!" The Leviathan Gorilla was greatly excited seeing the coconut fall onto the human. It cackled as it hopped around, and it even wiggled its bottom at the two men.
"…" With McGrenn's experience as a lesson, Lin Li hurried to hide behind a tree in case that darned gorilla made another sneak attack with the coconut again.
Just as he was about to lean behind the tree, he suddenly felt himself being lifted off the ground; the next moment, his whole body was upside down.
"Damn!" Lin Li had not expected there to be a hidden rattan underneath the tree where he was hiding. One end of the rattan was tied into a slipknot, while the other was in the hands of the Leviathan Gorilla. It only took the darned gorilla one pull and Lin Li was caught.
But Lin Li reacted fast as well. He was ascending in the air at full speed, yet he was exceptionally calm. There wasn't any recitation of spell; with only a peculiar hand gesture, the sound of a wind blade piercing the air was heard.
He had managed to cut off the insidious rattan with the wind blade spell. At the same time, he cast another Feather Fall Spell on himself, and with that, Lin Li escaped from the trap at last. But what followed was another coconut volley.
Who knew where the darned gorilla got the coconuts from—at least hundreds of them came smashing down in a mess.
Lin Li was racked by the barrage.
The Leviathan Gorilla was a real level-eight magical beast. A smash with a coconut thrown from its hand had knocked out even a warrior like McGrenn, not to mention Lin Li who was in no sense strong.
Lin Li felt as if he was being shot by a cannonball every time a coconut landed on his body.
It was just too rough. The coconuts smashed down one after another, such that Lin Li could not even hold his head up.
There were some opportunities in between for Lin Li to fight back, be it that two shots of wind blade or a few shots of icicles. But all these spells had mostly landed on the tough rattan.
The Leviathan Gorilla controlled the giant net like it was a flexible arm. Most of the spells were actually blocked in the midst of twists and turns.
Even if there were one or two spells that had gotten through the giant web and hit the Leviathan Gorilla, it was difficult to do any real damage to it.
The resistance ability of a level-eight magical beast was poles apart from that of a Manticore. For Lin Li, the effects of these spells would only provoke the Leviathan Gorilla's rage, causing it to smash the coconuts on him a little harder.
Those numerous shots of wind blades and icicles would probably exhaust the mana of another mage. Only a freak with a serious abnormality of mental strength like Lin Li could persist under the rain of coconuts.
However, even Lin Li was starting to lose heart in this situation.