"Sit back and watch the show..." Blake said as he jumped into the air and propelled himself with a mini flame burst.
Immediately he landed on a branch, Blake activated lightning reinforcement and dashed towards the closest sklade at a blinding speed.
Swish!
With Blake's speed spiked, it was difficult for the sklade to keep up with Blake's movement and before it could make any movements Blake had already gone past it and its head had dropped to the floor.
Without slowing down, Blake maneuvered through the treetops dispatching the hidden sklades with finesse and minimal effort.
On the ground, Castiel who was tasked with dealing with four sklades didn't move an inch out of his original position. He cast darkbringer to cloak the ethereal tendrils of the dark siphon spell and immediately the four reptiles lunged at them, multiple tendrils caught them in mid-air.
Skkrrr! Skkrrr!
The sklades screamed in pain as they tried to claw their way out of the tendrils' grip, but almost instantly their movements became sluggish until they couldn't even move a muscle.
Within seconds of capturing them, the sklades had turned to skeletal corpses with only a thin layer of skin tightly hugging their hollow bones and on seeing that there was nothing left for him to drain, Castiel threw away the corpses.
"Done..." Castiel said with an indifferent expression as he turned to Brian.
"Same here..." Brian said after he had hardened the earth beneath them, preventing them from burrowing before making meter thick spikes to erupt in those holes, instantly killing the sklades.
"Something doesn't feel right about this place..." Blake said as he landed on the floor and sheathed his blade.
"Why do you say so?" Tessie asked in a worried tone. Among all those in her age group, Blake was the strongest person she knew and if something could bother him it meant the situation was serious.
"I don't know… It's just a feeling." Blake said with a stern look as he looked around.
On seeing the look on Blake's face, both Brian and Castiel knew something was up. So they quickly used their system to scan 50 meters around them.
(AN: remember before the system was awakened, it was able to detect the concealed space, meaning all default systems have detection abilities but of course their range and detection capabilities are lower than the awakened system.)
'They aren't much, what is he worried about?' Brian and Castiel couldn't help but ask when their scan only picked up a few beasts.
Unknown to them beyond their range were groups of beasts, both prey and predators.
'From the start, I knew something was off.' Blake sighed when the system gave back a report. 'I just hope this doesn't imply the presence of another berserk King rank beast.'
[Evolution of knight rank beasts into King rank is way harder than you think. If it turns out to be it, then that means you are cursed.] The system said.
The system's words made Blake afraid because his paranoia was telling him that there was a higher chance that this was the doing of a berserk King rank beast now that the system had mentioned it. Also, Instructor Zirrack was nowhere close to them.
"From here onwards we need to be as stealthy as possible. So, we have to use concealment potions." Blake's sudden announcement shocked everyone.
"What's going on?" Brian asked with furrowed brows.
"Just trust me." He didn't know what to say. Even if he told them the truth, he won't be able to explain how his sensory range was so large without involving the system.
"If you say so…" Both Brian and Castiel took out a deep blue-colored bottle and gulped its contents without asking questions.
They knew that Blake wasn't willing to speak because of Tessie and their 'hidden guest', so they decided to act now and ask questions later. As for Tessie, she hesitated before she finally took out the concealment potion and downed its content.
The effect of the concealment potion wasn't to turn them invisible but to completely hide their presence. The concealment potion cloaks their mana emission and it also affects the excretory organs by changing the scent of the waste products that came out of the human body.
(AN: so in essence, you breathe, sweat, saliva, and sh*t smells nice and inconspicuous ;). Is it only me that has funny thoughts about this?)
…
'Using a concealment potion because of a few sklades? Either he is overreacting or he has noticed something which I haven't.' Arnold who was at a 'safe' distance from the party couldn't help but comment when he saw their action.
'I guess he was overreacting…' After scanning the area with the sensory skills on the level of a mid hero level cultivator, Arnold was only able to see the same number of beasts Brian and Castiel had counted. So he quickly concluded and went after the party when they began moving.
…
With the help of the concealment potion and the system's navigation the group maneuvered their way past a lot of beasts, but the closer they got to the Bulian hills the more beasts they encountered and their number was increasing at an alarming rate.
"The concentration of beast in this area is more than double the usual. Something is wrong and I don't think it would be a great idea to move forward." Brian said.
After they killed the sklades, the odd feeling in their hearts about the mission kept on increasing the closer they came to Bulian hills, but Brian was the first to voice this thought.
"Sorry, but I have no say in the matter. It's all up to our hirer to decide." Blake said looking at Tessie.
After moments of thinking, Tessie finally spoke up. "Not to sound selfish, but we are almost at the foot of the hills and since we have gotten so far, I say we should finish it."
'That was what I didn't what to hear, but what can I say…' Blake inwardly shook his head because these were the usual words spoken when teens were about to enter a hunted house or make a bad decision.
