"Huff… Huff.. Who? Who is it? Show yourselves!!" said a person in white attire with a wing emblem on his back.
The person looks haggard and vigilant towards the surroundings. Despite his power that reached fourth grade, he couldn't help but feel anxious. '
Not long ago, he and a few of his colleagues tried to hunt and subdue the monster along the perimeter that seemed to become wilder.
There are even a few higher up from the fifth-grade dispatch in case it is the attack of a high-grade monster. Still, this is just a baseless rumor.
Since this place is near the Ancestral Ruin, not many monsters dare to come near it, especially the higher grade one. Nobody knows the reason, but Ancestral Ruin is famous for being a monster-free area from a long time ago.
Because of this, it is still relatively safe to camp in this area. Only a few stranded lower-grade monsters dare to come near this place.
However, not in everyone's mind, a person sabotages and ambushes their hunting team. While everyone is focusing on fighting the monster, the person ambushes the team and kills them one by one stealthily.
Currently, in this desolate area under the burning scorching sun, the person in white attire is trying to run away but keeps getting ambushed by a strange deadly attack. He only managed to survive because of a life-saving item that could protect him against high-grade attacks.
After the strange deadly attack, unable to kill him, he knows that someone or something is ambushing them. While he tried to tell the others, all his colleagues were attacked by the black spike coming from their shadow.
As for the other fourth-grade combatant in his team is getting shot by the same strange deadly attack he got. This leaves him alone, facing the third-grade monster in front of him.
After a fierce battle and using all his resources, such as the item rune and another life-saving item, he finally managed to kill the monster.
However, he also did not get out without injury. During the last attack, the strange deadly attack ambushed him again and managed to injure his leg.
Because of this, he couldn't retreat to the camp. Furthermore, the ambusher is very cautious and slowly chipping away at his stamina under the scorching sun. Unlike the others, the ambusher is not directly killing him.
Under the hot scorching sun, the man finally collapses on the desert sand. Right now, he realizes that he cannot come back alive. The moment he decided to end his struggle, A firebolt hit his head and knocked him out.
After that, Angus, under his invisibility cloak, approached the man carefully. Sealing the man's mana with the special handcuff and casting another sleeping spell, Angus brings him to the stone forest, his current hideout.
'Fiuuh… As expected of a Fourth-grade combatant, their tenacity is different from others. Well, it doesn't matter since now I have a good source of information.' thought Angus.
Arriving at the stone forest, Angus decides to remove all his prisoner clothes and items on his body.
'Since he has a mana barrier that could hold [Snipe Shot], he must not be an ordinary person in his village. There will be a searching team that will be dispatched not long after this to search him.' thought Angus.
Then, Angus tells Draven to scatter the item far away from this location. He also did not forget to tell Draven to place the item near the monster to make it harder for the pursuer. Using this method, he has more time until he collects all the information from his prisoner.
"Let's see.. It's been a while since I interrogated someone. Hope my skill is not getting too rusty." said Angus as he woke up his prisoner.
Waking up the prisoner, the man immediately recognized Angus's face. But, As soon as he looks into Angus's eyes, he feels a chill run deep into his heart. He feels in front of the strongest predator.
Looking at the man's condition, Angus decides to continue the interrogation while releasing a sharp killing intent to his mind.
"What's your name?" asked Angus in a cold tone.
"S-Sulta.." replied the man while getting an uncontrolled tremor.
"Alright, I will ask a few questions. I hope you answer me truthfully. Understood?" said Angus while releasing a killing intent to Sulta's mind.
"Hiii… Y-Yes.. I will answer it. I will answer it." replied Sulta hurriedly.
After a long interrogation session, Angus decides to let Draven bring the disabled Sulta to the nearby monster while he prepares to infiltrate the enemy camp.
According to Sulta, he is coming from the Sky Wing Village. Their village sent half of their high-grade combatant for this joint attack which is around thirty people. They also sent dozens of few low-grade combatants to get experience in this kind of battle.
Two fifth-grade combatants lead this force temporarily while their village leader still in the ancestral ruin observes the Sur village movement.
Sulta didn't know the other village's fighting force, but it should be the same as them since this is only a temporary alliance, and the other village still didn't trust each other. So, they are still on guard from one with the others and dared not to send full force in this operation.
For the sake of smoothing the ambush plan with the low casualty, the other villages also decide to hire a few enchanters to cast a big camouflage barrier around their camp. Because of this, the enchanters are forced to stay in the camp to maintain the barrier.
Such a big barrier that covers a large place needs a tremendous effort for them to maintain. This is the majority reason why they couldn't check their rune trap in person and send another patrol team.
He also found that Sulta was the son of the fifth-grade commanding person from the Sky Wing Village. Like Angus predicted, they would immediately send a search team for him in case he was gone.
Under those circumstances, a few other fifth-grade combatants might also leave the camp to search for their missing people.
'Since I already hunted around forty people of the fourth-grade combatant. These will greatly affect their fighting force and need the fifth-grade combatant to come to investigate it.'
'It means there will be fewer people in the camp, which is a good time to infiltrate.' thought Angus inwardly.
After Draven comes back to his shadow, Angus immediately departs towards the other village's camp. He also meets a few teams with the fifth-grade combatant as their leader searching around the area during the way.
Angus ignores them and continues towards the camp under his invisible cloak. After a few hours of running, he arrived at the opponent camp hidden under the invisible barrier.
He decided to wait and didn't enter the invisible barrier directly. Soon, a patrolling guard wearing black clothes comes out from the barrier to check the rune trap. According to Sulta, they will send a team to check the runes every few hours.
'The black clothes indicated that they come from the Infernal village. Well, it doesn't matter as long as I can infiltrate with them. Draven, shadow mode.' said Angus telepathically.
Then, Angus's body was fully enveloped in black shadow. He silently approaches one of the patrol teams and enters their shadow without being noticed.
While inside the shadow, Angus feels like being inside the water and can't move his body properly. Angus didn't panic about his current situation and kept observing the patrol team.
According to the conversation between the patrol team, there is news about a few missing hunting groups that force the few fifth-grade leaders to investigate the matter.
After patrolling and checking that none of the runes is triggered, they come back to the camp. For the people besides the Sur clan, they will have a hard time in this scorching desert.
Entering the barrier, the patrol team immediately feels rejuvenated since the air inside the barrier is not dry and hot like the outside.
After entering the barrier under the patrolling team's shadow, Angus decides to get out from their shadow while under the invisible cloak. Then, he immediately uses [Great Mana Echolocation] and locates everything in the camp.
After a while, he got the general layout of their camp. Basically, each village has its own camp separating from the others. Angus also found a group of enchanters trying to maintain the barrier in the middle of the camp.
After thinking for a while, Angus decides to approach each village's food supply. Inside this camp, there must be a place to cook and prepare the food even if the ingredient is kept hidden under the space storage.
Eventually, Angus managed to find the food supply area. He didn't hesitate to take out a green-colored liquid inside the bottle from his space storage. This is a unique poison that he got from Gilford.
Knowing that Angus decides to infiltrate their camp, Gilford decides to give Angus some poison made of the Plague Worm they killed before.
Unlike usual poison, this poison will not be immediately active and kill its consumer. This poison is similar to the disease pathogen. They will spread first before killing their host.
