Gulping in front of the master tier who had yet to kill them, he stopped making it wait and thought up a quick summary of their condition quickly. Also trying to figure out a way to trick it into leaving immediately.
The grey-furred beast in question was some sort of cross between a fox and wolf, given a long body with a far more pointed head. The thick sheet of fur appeared more like an artwork, all brushed towards one direction as though naturally flowing towards its tail which stood out amongst the bushy body.
The tail’s fur appeared sharper for one, but the body part itself was large and flat. A large bone on the end also made the appendage more of a bludgeon, while the sharp, almost metallic, hairs could cut through their bodies with ease.
Something about the master tier beast, its species named vamox by the Nexus, appeared both artistic yet frightening at the same time. Keeping all their minds running at top speed to find a way to survive.
“W– We are here because our ship was destroyed while crossing the wall. We wanted to reach the elven continent, but without a boat, we needed magic… And I was too weak to use the spells we needed.” Any sense of superiority or control escaped from Icy in mere moments as his eyes couldn’t even meet the beast. His divinity did nothing to help here, and his mana was far too weak.
“What monster is that child?” The question caught him by surprise. Clearly, something about Raccelline left this master weary… Perhaps that could be their way out of this?
“She’s no monster. Her family name is Manus. Yes, the true ones, but you may know her as the divine child.” A jolt passed down the master tier’s back instantly, and Icy relaxed immensely, knowing that the idea worked to some degree.
“Then what are you? That strange heart and body?”
“A dragon with a strange mutation. Is there something wrong with one of my kind following such a child?” He tightened his gaze and forced himself to stare at the beast, but closed his eyes not even a moment later and turned to look at Raccelline. The whole group stood in complete silence, more than understanding that whether they lived or died depended on this conversation.
More importantly, the master tier beast no longer showed grave aggression but rather some internal conflict with peeled eyes. Its gaze focused on Raccelline and finally said, “Prove your identity. You say you follow her, and yet such a family sends the princess off without a true protector?”
He smiled. Mana within him moved into the belt, which now barely fit around his belly and pulled out a single object. A small statue of a carefree warrior.
The beast stepped back, immediately noting the powerful forces within the statue. The previous internal conflict grew to distress for a moment but then returned to calm. Icy put away the statue before causing any issues and said, “Things are not safe in her home, and that Sage wishes to avoid appearing in case it causes her trouble. We are just making a raft and leaving in a few days, then we can pretend neither of us ever met.”
He learnt a fair bit about bartering and de-escalation while talking to the group, and one important thing was to always offer an alternative up front that seemed satisfactory for both groups. In most cases, that simply meant no one getting harmed.
And all it did here was further reinforce the idea that a Sage would come to save them if things turned south, figuratively.
“No. I can allow you to leave, but not until you pay back all the beasts you killed in that time. You all seem competent, so you will help with a matter today and then leave after making your raft.” A foreboding sense filled Icy, but he didn’t make that visible. A nod agreed to the master tier’s demands, but first, he needed to know what such a thing was. “The humans attacking have drawn over almost all the island’s beasts, and us two lords decided to send weaker subordinates with them. That leaves us both with limited defences of just a small circle of elite gold tiers.”
“I mean no offence, but there is no world in which we even scratch a master tier.” Icy replied tactfully but feared the opponent would take offence anyway.
“So mistaken you are. I will hold him off, you will work with my beasts to eliminate his. After which, we tactfully retreat.” Betrayal was out of the question as the master tier knew that a Sage appearing meant its death without a doubt. Overall, it was a highly risky situation, but one somewhat likely to work.
Besides, with the humans appearing up north, it was only a matter of time until they either successfully defended their position or searched the island’s beach. Unless the master tiers interfered, overpowering those arrays would take some hours, giving more humans time to set up and defend.
However, that defence incurred great losses. But also thinned out the already bulging population of gold tiers on this island, making it a boon for the lords with too many unintelligent beasts walking about. Today was likely the only day in this whole offensive where either lord presented minimal defences. If there was no attack now, it might be years until an opportunity arose.
“We accept. Please give us a short while to rest and prepare before the battle though.” He not only had to explain the situation to the team but let them all equip their armour and have Mala cast Intermediate true spells on the whole group.
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His Auric spirit also needed a small refill of aura, which might have been a problem prior to its transformation. In the past, it took almost an hour just to absorb a single dose of the stuff, but now consumed the same amount in a few minutes. Adding on the fact that the sack producing and storing it also grew considerably, he needed very little time to reach peak state once more.
The master tier agreed and led them back to the jungle. Whilst they ran, Icy briefly explained the situation. In case the beast secretly knew Baranot as well, he pretended that their job of protecting Raccelline was an obvious fact they all knew. The dragon swayed its tail such that the tip wrote out a simpler word in Draconic, ‘act’ to be exact. They sorted out a similar system of communication long ago for situations just like this. While none of the group could speak or use Draconic, learning to read a few words was far from hard.
But it was rarely used as he so often had Soul Links already in place.
With everyone caught up, they travelled deep into the jungle for the very first time. Normally, the group never moved more than a kilometre into the 6 kilometre wide island. This avoided all the more dangerous places as well as the Node trees, along with the mana gatherer trees. Naturally, they opted to stay as far away as possible from the mithril tiers they expected to see on the island…
Except as they followed this master tier vamox, it quickly became apparent that there simply weren’t any here! However, none dared ask what happened to them. Like in the Evelard range, they may have tried to overthrow their ruler to gain more autonomy in their own lives. Or perhaps the lords felt threatened and killed them all regardless, forcing any intelligent beasts who neared mithril tier to run away to another island for safety.
It also wasn’t any of the group’s responsibilities to care about this fact. A single island in the calm belt deserved so much attention from the world at large? Obviously not!
Unfortunately, that same lack of mithril tiers also meant a greater chance for the humans to settle down on the island even faster. With enough wizards here, they would start killing beasts far faster… Or if they sent a few Mithril ranks of their own, it would be a breeze to clear up the battlefield.
Just five minutes after running out to the ocean in hopes it seemed like too much trouble for their opponent to follow, they already followed said opponent to a point in the jungle. It wasn’t a node tree as they expected, but rather a strange ravine just northwest of where they usually stayed on the south coast. This ravine had clearly been expanded to make entry and exit easier.
It soon turned into a cave though, and the vamox led them through a surprisingly complex pathway of tunnels below the island. Finally, they stopped in a large cave with walls strewn in multi-coloured crystals and stalactites which glowed brightly, keeping the cave illuminated for all the beasts inside.
“They will join us in this matter. The beast and their wizard will enhance you all with spells, their priest will try to heal you, but his mana is limited,” said the vamox in Beasten. Icy quickly translated it for the group, and they rested up momentarily.
Clearly, everyone would be leaving soon, and so he began casting some support spells with Mala. While he learned a handful of Intermediate true spells in all those months, it’d hardly been a focus of his. But a couple support spells were absolutely on the table, the ones he cast primarily raised the target’s general speed, and another raised their reaction time.
The former was actually just a modified form of Slipstream Dynamism, simply called Full Slipstream, which stopped it from only providing a forward acting momentum, to instead applying in any direction the target moved in. Meanwhile, the second spell was called Mind Boost, a simple name that fit what it did. At 68 and 74 words, respectively, the two Intermediate true spells both required around 10% of his MP per beast. He never bothered to compress the spells though, making it take a while to cover the whole cave of gold tiers.
With 40 beasts here, he got to 29 of them. Mala took care of the rest, but they both swallowed a mana restorative afterwards. Even with his ridiculous speed, dropping all the way down to 20% MP several times isn’t a great sensation.
Finally, their group also received a set of spells, and they were ready to set off.
The support spells only lasted for two hours. In fact, Mala’s were a bit shorter as her overall magic power boost was smaller than his.
As it only took a few minutes to first escape the caves, Icy realised that of the many networks, several of them likely led to the surface. He based that guess on the fact that they emerged in the jungle from an ordinary-looking sloped hole in the ground. No one stopped to think though. All seven of them wanted to finish this and leave the calm belt before having a meeting with those humans.
Clearly, the vamox already knew where his opponent resided, as at no point did he have to slow down and check locations. Not too long after, Icy saw the ground slope downwards like a huge bowl existed at this point in the jungle. But no massive empty patches existed anywhere on this island!
But the answer appeared at the same time. They saw how a layer of earth actually formed a lip here, effectively covering this bowl with a lid of greenery. However, the weight of such a thing must have been so great that it might as well be a floating island. From what they all saw, this somewhat flat plane of dirt and stone was only attached to any other material on its northern side. This meant, of the full perimeter, only a quarter of it was structurally supported by the island!
And indeed, as they continued downwards beneath the ‘lid’, he saw numerous crystals with purple and pale blue glows coat its underside.
While not nearly strong enough to literally raise the chunk of land into the air, this section remained stable and floated right above their heads even with minimal support. An incredible natural phenomenon, but none had time to admire it as the empty space below this floating mass only contained one other group.
The other lord and 40 gold tiers… They picked the right choice. The vomax clearly had the upper hand in this fight due to his greater numbers.
And after the spells to improve the agility and reactions of their side, it would be an easy thing to get in and out. The whole thing was extraordinarily rushed, with no one really able to get ready for the upcoming battle. Lacking the luxury of time though, if they could get this done right now and have a raft built before tomorrow morning, then so be it.
Anything was better than having to face those natives.