The Beasts Invade (3)

The mission commenced as soon as the moon was visible. The scouts always avoided searching at night because shadows became more violent at this time, but they had to prioritize how well they could stay hidden.

Their orders were to make it to Silver City where the chimera lord slept, and obtain as much information as possible without alerting the beast, so fighting their way there wasn't an option to begin with. To complete this mission, they would have to take advantage of the shadows' short detection range and to ensure success, the teams relied on the moon hunting dogs' innate bloodline ability.

Every moon hunting dog howled at the moon, and in response, the moon's silver light rained down, granting them a starry cloak that spread to the other three members of their team. This ability was known as 'moonstalk', and would isolate each team's sounds and presences while also boosting the speed of all members. Usually it would make it harder for them to communicate, but the three-eyed monkeys could use telepathy so that wasn't a problem.

In triangular formations with the three-eyed monkeys sitting on the iron pandas at the lead, and the scarlet tigers and moon hunting dogs behind them, the five teams entered the wasteland. As there would be hopefully no need for their strength, the two high beast teams stayed behind the beast spirit teams.

The teams quickly dashed through the outer edge of the shadows' territory and soon made it to where the Earth Realm-level shadows stayed. Although they wanted to reach Silver City as quickly as possible, it was imperative that they keep encounters to a minimum so they slightly lowered their speeds. Unfortunately, some shadows couldn't be avoided at night.

As an iron panda beast spirit stomped down with its front paw, it immediately picked up on the strange texture of the ground, but all it could do was warn the rest. What should have been solid land morphed into a giant turtle with grotesque blinking eyes all over its shell. This was the most troublesome ability of these creatures that was only active at night. As their name suggested, they could rest as literal shadows which couldn't be detected unless touched. Due to this ability, it was very unlikely for them to avoid every encounter, but luckily shadows above Earth Realm-level couldn't completely morph into two-dimensional form.

Against this multi-eyed turtle shadow, the three beast spirit teams made a stand. It was still too soon for the high beast teams to take action, but they were confident that the beast spirit teams could handle it.

Firstly, the three-eyed monkeys summoned fire lances and threw them at its shell eyes. A blink was enough to block most, but a few managed to scorch its eyes into messy holes. The shadow felt no pain, but it was irked by the damage so it aggressively made the next move. Parts of its shell morphed into spikes and all of them were aimed at the beasts. It was at this time that the scarlet tigers lunged at the multi-eyed turtle and pierced its head with their sharp fangs. The turtle was forced to cancel its attack and tried to shake them off, but then the iron pandas pounded on the ground in unison, summoning metal chains that wrapped around the turtle and strapped it down. Once it was immobile, the scarlet tigers worked to rip apart its head and limbs and then crushed the three hearts that they found. This was the type of teamwork that even humans had to admire, but this was only to be expected from any properly trained team under the silver tiger great beast.

After a minute of rest, the teams were back on their journey. It was unknown whether their focus on their feet had helped, but they only encountered one other shadow by the time they reached the territory of the Sky Realm-level shadows. On the bright side this meant that there was a lower chance of facing another shadow unexpectedly, but it also meant that a single mistake could lead to their annihilation. Now that they were at this crucial point of the journey, the high beasts teams took the lead.

There was still a bit of distance before they reached the city, but it would be impossible for them to make the round trip under the cover of night, so they went towards a resting spot that had been discovered. Behind a small hill of dirt was the entrance to a cave that went into the ground. The five teams entered the cave, with the last team concealing the entrance once more. At the end of the cave was a wide space where all of them could lie down with room to spare. Nature energy was still absent from their environment, but they had ensured to keep their energy consumption on the low side and they had bigger reserves than humans so all of them had enough energy to complete the mission. There was nothing for them to do once the sun rose, so the teams took turns sleeping and keeping watch.

Around this time, Shui had finished negotiating with Ragley and secured a promise for complete shadow heart pills in the future. He had to leave a large down payment since he would going to Ashen Star City and wouldn't be back for a while, but fortunately he had earned money from the assassins that had come after Emily, so he was able to take out a few thousand high-quality spirit gems. Unfortunately, this left his wallet in a desolate condition, but he figured it would have to do for now. To ensure Ragley's safety, Shui designed and made a couple array flags and gave them to him to protect his residence. This was another expense that made him sigh, but he tried to ignore it.

Currently, he was on his way to Rinto City where Yur's little sister and Gus' mom were so that he could leave a message for Yur. He could speak with Lily through a Talk talisman, but it also took energy to receive the message so that wasn't suited for long conversations. There was still a need to inform her of a few crucial details, but he would leave the rest in the message.

As he thought of Rinto City, Shui remembered the girl he met in Cyrus after completing the trials of the Primordial Library. He couldn't imagine how she would feel about seeing him again, but he planned on at least checking up on her and Jade.

There was someone else he wanted to visit before leaving to Ashen Star City, but based on the information he had, she was too far. It had been about half a year since they last saw each other, which wasn't rare in their relationship, but it still left him a bit lonely.