The group continued forward for only a little time until a commotion happened up at the front of the group. Sofie was brought back from her earlier thoughts and tried to see what was going on but could not see anything with the fire lizards in front of her blocking the view. The only thing she could see was a few flashes of bright light from time to time followed by the sound of a beast that sounded awfully similar to the fire bat before it died.

"W-what is happening at the front?" Sofie asked nervously as she looked towards the direction of the commotion, while her hand unconsciously moved to the hem of Ling Yue's clothes and started pulling it gently.

"No need to worry, elder sun is most likely just fighting off some fire bats that tried to attack the front of the group." Ling Yue answered with no motivation as the commotion in the distance soon died down and the line of fire lizards began moving forward once again.

Sofie kept peeking to the sides of the tunnel and soon saw signs of battle on the tunnel walls, it looked like a great fire had erupted burning the walls, ceiling and floor of the tunnel completely.

Looking around a little more, Sofie saw the corpses of the supposed fire bats or what little was left of them. Their bodies were already burned beyond recognition with their wings being almost completely burned off.

Sofie felt a little bad as she looked at the supposedly ma.s.sacre that happened a little while ago, she was no stranger to the death of animals and demon beasts after seeing the villagers killing animals for food and fight demon beasts to defend the little village. Sofie had even seen a kind old granny from the village twist the neck of a poor little chicken while giving her a kind smile when she was 4 years old. Though Sofie never talked to the granny after that incident…

The ma.s.sacre that had happened in front of her on the other hand, was a little too much.

Burrowing her face in Ling Yue's clothes, Sofie suddenly detected a faint scent drifting through the air. The scent gave of a comfortable smell and reminded Sofie of well roasted chicken wings she got back at home.

Without noticing, Sofie had already lifted her head up high in the air and started sniffing around for the location of the 'well roasted chicken wings'.

*****

Ling Yue looked at Sofie and quickly displayed a weird expression. Ignoring the little girl's antiques, Ling Yue turned to look at the other new disciples and saw most of them looking at the scene of dead fire bats in fear and awe, some of the smaller children hid in the clothes of the senior brothers and sisters like Sofie did earlier.

Ling Yue felt that the fear and awe was a normal reaction, so she turned and stared directly at Sofie.

What in the world was happening in that little mind? Why are you looking around like someone is eating delicious food in front of you without giving you any? Why did you start drooling all of a sudden?

Ling Yue felt something was wrong with the little girl's head as she looked at the salvia slowly dripping down on her formerly clean sect robe.

*****

Sofie was lost in her search for the 'roasted chicken wings' as a hand reached towards her mouth with something that looked like a piece of cloth. Soon someone started wiping away the salvia that had started to drip down from the corner of her mouth.

"So, what are you looking for? Are you feeling hungry?" Ling Yue's gentle voice came from behind and Sofie could feel herself start sweating slightly.

"N-no, I-I just thought I picked up the scent of someone roasting chicken wings, so I thought… Maybe they would share with me…?" Sofie looked slightly ashamed while confessing to Ling Yue, whose expression turned even weirder after hearing what Sofie said.

"Sofie… I think the scent of 'roasted chicken' is coming from the fire bats… Elder sun did roast them quite well and I heard they taste like chicken…" Ling Yue said with a somewhat amused smile starting to form at the corner of her lips.

Sofie was momentarily shocked by what Ling Yue said, but soon regained herself before pa.s.sionately asking Ling Yue in her most serious voice. "Do the fire bats really taste like chicken?"

Ling Yue was taken aback by the question and saw the pa.s.sionate eyes of Sofie clearly asking her whether fire bats tasted like chicken with all the seriousness she could muster.

"Yeah, they really do taste just like chicken, I have even tried some of them before. Personally, I think they taste even better than normal chickens!" Ling Yue answered happily with a smile on her lips.

Sofie felt excited while thinking of something even better than roasted chicken wings, so she soon found herself looking at the roasted fire bats with a different kind of look in her eyes. No fear, no awe or anything similar to those emotions were present in her eyes. Only an undisguised attractive delicacy was present in her eyes as she greedily looked at the fire bats that were burned completely black by elder sun earlier.

"What about I let you taste some roasted fire bat when we get to the sect?" Ling Yue could not bear to see such a young girl look at a bunch of fire bats clearly burned black, like she was about to jump off the fire lizard at any moment and take a bite of one of the burned fire bats, so she decided to turn her attention away from the corpse of the poor fire bats.

"Really!?" Like she foresaw the future filled with roasted fire bat wings, Sofie turned around and looked up at Ling Yue, her big blue eyes staring directly at into hers.

"Yeah, really!" Ling Yue rea.s.sured her with a smile, as Sofie relaxed and leaned back. Ignoring the burned fire bats laying on the ground.

*****

The journey in the tunnel did not have any other surprises and continued without any further problems.

Sofie could see the light in the distance growing brighter and brighter with the pa.s.sing of time and soon enough, she found herself finally outside of the tunnel.

Looking around while inspecting her surrounding, Sofie saw a bright red world appear in front of her eyes. The tunnel came out from the side of a mountain and there was a road in front of it leading towards what looked like a giant city in all sorts of different colours.

The city was still far away, but Sofie could already imagine it was way beyond anything she had ever seen before in her life.

"That is the scorching sun city, it is also where the scorching sun sect is located." Ling Yue explained with a smile of her lips as she guessed what was on Sofie's mind, while looking proudly at the city in the distance.