"Whoosh!"
The motorcycle soared diagonally upward. Several seconds later, the blood tide surged forward like a mountain flood, but could only pour into the downward-sloping small valley, having to fill it completely before continuing to flow down the mountain.
This bought Glenn and Hermione roughly three seconds of positional advantage.
The time airborne was brief. Glenn pressed the front wheel down with no intention of slowing, and after several seconds of flight, the motorcycle landed again, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"The distance we've gained... barely sufficient."
Glenn checked the apocalyptic scene behind them through the rearview mirror, silently calculating the distance between them and the blood torrent.
The motorcycle beneath them had reached peak speed, its internal machinery operating at maximum capacity. Glenn had always been thorough in his work, especially with important items that might affect the success or failure of certain endeavors—he would put tremendous effort into perfecting such objects to achieve the best results he could manage.
Even so, facing such harsh conditions, the motorcycle Glenn had created—alchemically enhanced, reinforced, and modified—was still emitting creaking sounds under the strain.
This was all normal and within Glenn's expectations.
Based on his judgment of their current position's distance from the secret realm's edge and the terrain, this motorcycle was sufficient to get them out of the secret realm.
Observing and collecting information had always been Glenn's strength. Especially when arriving at unfamiliar places, subconsciously gathering various environmental information had become his habit.
He had completely memorized the mountain path they had taken coming here, including the terrain within a one-kilometer radius centered on himself. Even though they had been transported to other areas by the dark wizards' teleportation magic midway, when they later returned to the temporary camp, Glenn had used his memory and judgment to systematically fill in all the environmental information that had been interrupted, continuing to memorize everything until they reached Lin Yu's side.
In other words, Glenn knew exactly what direction he and Hermione should take and what terrain they should traverse.
From the broad direction—where it was relatively flat with sparse trees—down to every protruding stone on the ground, every depression, every patch of slippery moss and mud, all of it unfolded like a three-dimensional map in Glenn's mind.
Details determined success or failure. If Glenn hadn't remembered these seemingly insignificant pieces of surrounding information, he and Hermione might have already crashed and died when the motorcycle hit some small protrusion or when the tires slipped.
The motorcycle raced along incredibly smoothly because Glenn hadn't pressed the brakes even once.
To outsiders, this might seem like a heart-stopping, desperate gamble in the face of dire circumstances, but in Glenn's mind, this wasn't a gamble at all.
It was simply a task proceeding step by step according to plan.
Without one hundred percent confidence, Glenn wouldn't choose such a plan, especially when the person involved in his plan wasn't just himself.
Gambling couldn't win every time, so Glenn never gambled.
The surrounding scenery continued to retreat rapidly as Glenn and Hermione pressed forward.
However, the upcoming route couldn't continue straight ahead.
In the distance, there was no longer an open road, but a dense forest.
"So this is as far as it goes... farther than I imagined."
The moment Glenn had unleashed the Obscurus, after the blood giant no longer had any devouring force to contend with it, all the magical power in the secret realm had been completely absorbed by it.
Without magical power, Lin Yu and the others no longer had the ability to quickly clear surface vegetation to open a path for Glenn, so the task Glenn had assigned them could only go this far.
The remaining journey would depend solely on Glenn and Hermione.
"Hermione, lean left."
Glenn's right hand gripped the handlebar tightly as he began controlling the front wheel, simultaneously instructing Hermione to help tilt both their bodies to the left.
They needed to change direction.
Hermione immediately followed Glenn's instructions perfectly, shifting their center of gravity to exactly where Glenn wanted it. The motorcycle no longer headed straight down but veered diagonally away from the original road.
"Swish!"
At a certain moment, Glenn swung the front wheel. The motorcycle beneath them cut diagonally across the road surface and took flight once again due to a small slope on the road.
The surface vegetation around them had increased, which would significantly increase the difficulty of Glenn and Hermione's passage through the forest. However, this also provided some obstruction to the blood torrent surging behind them. Overall, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks.
Because Glenn had no intention of reducing speed to take forest paths, he had chosen the relatively flat streambed.
The bike descended, landing perfectly where Glenn had anticipated. The wheels landed on the valley wall of the U-shaped valley, following the direction extending downstream.
At this moment, the tire friction was sufficient to support the entire bike along with Glenn and Hermione as they rode along the sloping valley wall.
The streambed where the wheels had landed happened to be where the channel began curving toward the left front, so Glenn and Hermione successfully changed their direction of travel.
However, changing direction also meant the blood torrent that had been following behind them had drawn one step closer.
They still maintained a safe distance, though.
But if such situations occurred several more times, whether this safe distance could be maintained was questionable.
So Glenn would avoid such situations as much as possible.
The act of changing direction could only be slight adjustments. Selecting an area with relatively sparse trees, Glenn drove the motorcycle out of the streambed and plunged headfirst into the forest.
What came next would be the most difficult operation. Glenn had to keep his nerves constantly taut, avoiding all trees and various obstacles blocking their path through swaying the bike and fine-tuning the front wheel.
This was also the ultimate test of the coordination between him and Hermione, though Glenn wasn't worried about this at all.
But just as they began shifting their center of gravity to dodge left and right, an unexpected situation suddenly occurred.
"ROAR!"
A familiar roar came from the forest to their right, accompanied by the sound of a large beast running through the jungle.
"Glenn! This is..."
Hermione, who had remained almost completely silent since getting on the bike, couldn't help but cry out in surprise upon hearing that sound.
Hermione also remembered this sound and its owner.
"It's that Zouwu!"
An orange-yellow figure leaped through the emerald green undergrowth to the motorcycle's side, running alongside Glenn and Hermione.
The Zouwu that the two young ones had once helped was now coming to help them.
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