The boys have finally confirmed that Jones passed through this forest about two months back. But because there was a devastating battle against the mysterious party that took him away, the beasts of the forest dared not venture too close, and the clues to his whereabouts still remain hidden in this place.

To find out more about what happened and more importantly, which direction Jones could’ve gone, they had to search the entire place. Since it coincides with their mission, they tracked through the foliage towards the closet Black Wind’s den. Like before, Jim scattered the weakening dust ahead of them as the Greys brought them upon their target. Tommy, their vanguard, crashed into the Black Wind wolf pack that were guarding their den. His charge was like a battering ram sending them scattering and yelping in pain.

The situation had reversed, and now the hunters found themselves hunted. It was a feeling very foreign to them as the lords of this forest, and it took them a while before their scattered members could regroup and retaliate. While the omega and stigma wolves were fighting, the betas howled longingly for help. They couldn’t help but tremble when they looked at their alpha whimpering on the ground after it was run over by Tommy.

“Reinforcements are coming, we need to retreat now,” Alan yelled in the heat of battle. While Kairos is the brains of their operation, Alan serves well as the group’s battle coordinator with his quick reaction and wide-area observation skills. Listening to his warnings will never be wrong.

Kairos quickly made a decision, “Edward and Jim pick off the easy targets. Everyone else first priority on the alpha. We are going to hammer down their numbers before their help arrives!”

The stunned alpha that Tommy took out was the male, but there is an alpha female in this pack as well. Unfortunately, it lasted no more than mere seconds under Jim’s blades. After making short work of the two vicious leaders of the pack, the rest of the wolves became much more subdued. The Greys that were fighting alongside the boys quickly killed the Black Wind betas and surrounded the rest. Desperate, the beasts growled menacingly until Tommy charged in and with a single fist that started a small hurricane, he scattered the wolves’ battle formation and set them running. Arrows with uncanny accuracy flew out swiftly and struck the Black Winds on the small of their necks one after another, ensuring that none survived. The archer is, of course, Edward, and standing guard next to him is Alan.

While Edward is a pacifist, that doesn’t mean he will stay his hand when it comes to killing. In fact, the more dangerous the environment one survives in, the less freedom one has to be lenient. The entire battle lasted a short ten minutes, then Kairos asked them to retreat. He had been busy scanning the area with his Soul Perception to ensure their safety. Once reinforcements are near, they could pull back to safety.

But at this moment, an unexpected thing happened.

Like a dark stormy cloud, a colony of screeching bats swooped down at them from all directions. Their beating wings and furry black bodies covered the entire area and blocked off their sight. These flying rodents have somehow remained undetected by their Soul Perception.

Tommy asked in aghast, “How did they just appear?!”

“I’m not sure. I can’t move again,” Edward sighed but otherwise shown no panic.

This time, though all of them activated their Ki Barriers faster than before, they were still struck by the sonic blasts. A single shriek from a Hellbringer Bat is a mere irritant, but when combined with a dozen or more such disturbing cries it is enough to cause a cultivator’s vision to double and their heads spinning, or even death.

Jim: “There’s not enough time to seal off our ears!”

Alan shouted in a moment of inspiration, “Tommy! Use your secret arts!!”

Granted, Kairos could use the Bagua array once again, but the previous experience had taught him that the cost will drain him beyond what he could spare. The aura around Tommy disappeared, and immediately, an overpowering stillness spread across everything around. Even the littlest blades of grass and petals of flowers have stopped waving. The air itself became oppressively heavy, and just like before, an unnatural calmness seemed to wrap around them.

Spirits of nature dwelth within me.

I am the harbinger of the thunderous night, of the cold winds and of the frozen north.

Restrain my fists that cannot be contained by time and space, lest all mortals perish by my wrath.

Lay waste to all creations for I am the West Autumn, Byakko!!

The tattoo of a tiger reappeared on his right shoulder, its eyes slowly opened, revealing the beautiful white irises that glowed. As if the king of beasts appeared, all the creatures nearby stopped their movements. If they could stop breathing forever, they would. After all, they could swear that a mighty predator is staring at them now.

The demonic bats silenced their sonic waves, and everyone felt a weight lifted off their backs. Everyone had speculated that Tommy’s Secret Art has a unique property that lets it restrain any form of energy around him, but just the beast king’s presence proved enough. However, his technique is only beginning. The three elements of nature, Frost, Lightning and Wind enveloped the area, and it started snowing in this green forest in an area only around Tommy. It turned into a thunderous blizzard with untold strength, blowing fearsome gusts at the wolves that threatened to lift them into the air and hurl them away. In the middle, only Tommy stood unperturbed, but on second look, his figure appeared to be distorted as though time and space are warped around him; fractured.

The elements lashed out at the bats violently, causing patches of flying rodents to crush to the ground in his wrath. They shrieked frighteningly unable to understand this freak weather they had never experienced before. Those that managed to lift themselves into the air were bewildered that the blizzard started to shrink in size. And when the snowstorm becomes smaller, its ferocity increased inversely, dragging the bats towards the source of the storm - Tommy. In panic and despair, these fear-provoking creatures seemed so tiny and helpless as they struggled futilely against the squall. The winds, snow, and lightning, ripped them apart. Yet the tempest continued to drag these creatures over until all of them are contained compactly around him.

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Kairos, Alan, Edward, and Jim stood close by entirely unhindered. They looked at the isolated snowstorm gather into a tiny ball then slowly vanished like a snuffed out candlelight. Its contents turned into dust.

However, before they could get a breather, the entire place darkened completely with an eerie silence.

The boys felt their hairs stand on ends while the Greys whimpered or bared their fangs.

They could see nothing, but there is something in the air that unnerves them all.

*Drip Drip Drip*

The only sounds they could hear are each other’s breath and the constant drop of liquid. They know without looking that it wasn’t water, but fresh blood spluttered on the nearby leaves.

Suddenly, beady blood-red eyes surrounded them. The wolves snarled, half in fright half in a frenzy, and the boys sucked in a deep breath. Then, the Black Crows descended upon them like an overlarge blanket, their feathers rained down, slicing apart flesh and bones with uncanny sharpness, while their razor beaks aimed for their eyes and ears precisely like surgical knives.

The cawing of crows and metal screeching against talons

Instantly the five boys and the Grey Wolves were in a pinch. If there were enough ants, even an elephant could be taken down, much less these F ranked beasts attacking them.

Kairos yelled urgently, “Jim, the Scattering Petals Technique… Use it!”

“Umm. Okay!”

Against the countless attacks from all sides, they had their hands full from defending, but this also provided the perfect stage for Jim to test out his new technique.

Jim tossed a bunch of spare daggers he retrieved from his time-space ring high up into the air. The gleaming metals sparkled beautifully almost weightlessly for a moment, then they rained down on the crows with frightening speed. The birds dodged quickly using their incredible instincts. However, the daggers’ flight paths were eccentric and had an uncanny ability to pierce through every crow precisely through their eyes. Blood washed the nearby trees and the surviving creatures dispersed in fright.

This is the same killing move that his grandfather, Fait Hope used on Kairos. When executed by Jim, it lost the fierceness in the strikes, but instead, he has shown fantastic control while handling so many daggers.

Of course, given his position in the family, he did not inherit the skill from his family but from someone closer to him than his own blood kin. Kairos had somehow managed to remember the move in detail, despite losing a gross amount of blood from being struck by it. He pieced together the way to execute the move with a single glance, then taught it to Jim from memory. This technique is powerful against numerous enemies, and even more potent against a single foe. Having experienced it first-hand, Kairos know exactly how terrifying it is for so many daggers to home in on one person.

After taking so many lives, the knives flew back towards Jim and was collected in his hand. He flashed Kairos a confident grin, as though celebrating the success of using it the first time in an actual battle. However, his smile soon froze, and his eyes widened.

Above them, a gigantic hideous bat and a great silver crow swooped down. The bat caught Tommy off-guard with a shattering blast of sonic wave and sent him flying backwards. At the same time, the silver crow strewn its dagger-like feathers at the boys with blurring speed.

Tommy fell in a heap, blood pouring out of every orifice from his face. The feathers fluttered towards him, whistling in the air. The others frantically stood before him, but the silver crow swooped down, gripping Jim by his shoulders and lifted him into the air with a great flap of its wings.

Eight massive talons sunk into his shoulders, driving deep into his flesh. If not because he is wearing the thousand-year undying silk armour under his clothes that granted him some form of resistance against being skewered, he would have already turned into Jim-kebab.

This is one of the armour they got from the trade fair, and Jim is now fervently thanking Alucard who sold them to Kairos. As the bird carried him away, Edward slowly removed his bow from his shoulder with one hand, as his other deftly deflected the blade-feathers still raining down on them with his wrist blade. He held the bow steadily in the direction where the crow is taking his friend, then an arrow seemed to magically materialise in his hand.

“Upon its tip carries my frozen will. Its shaft made of lightning. Its feathers guided by wind!”

A powerful shot from a shortened incantation of his Secret Art broke through the sound barrier and pierced right into the back of the great crow, exiting from the other side of its majestic body.

It fell heavily to the ground, with Jim bouncing off its soft chest. The boy immediately scurried away when his feet touched the ground, as the giant bird is stunned immobile by the shock.

Then the unthinkable happened.

It was a terrible wound that broke its spine and ruptured many internal organs, but the great silver crow picked itself up as if nothing happened and shook off the pain.

*CAW*

By its command, hundreds of crows flew out from the trees and went to their king. They dashed into its body, through the wound opened by the arrow. Each bird that touched the crow king turned into blood that was quickly absorbed, then its injury healed visibly as it glared angrily at the boys.

“Magic!” the boys exclaimed at once.

While all this is happening, the bat avoided their detection like an invisible phantom, latched itself into Tommy and tried to bite his neck. Fortunately, at the last moment, he turned his head and avoided the attack.

Still dazed from the shockwave, it took him everything to dodge, and that movement already caused his internal bleeding to worsen. It didn’t matter that he had sealed off his sense of hearing, the sonic blast was a physical attack that easily went through most defences.

Having its bite avoided, the demonic bat screeched in frustration – a sonic blast no weaker than the one before - and point-blank at Tommy’s face. By the time his friends reacted, it is already too late for them to do anything.

*ROOOOOOUUUUUUHHH!*

Just as everyone was prepared to see a gory scene, a petrifying roar escaped from within Tommy’s robes and dispelled the bat’s shriek with ease.

It was just in the nick of time. The brothers ran over and quickly rip the beast off him, and immediately, Kairos sliced its wing with one great stroke from his Swallow even as the rest prepared to follow up with their own attacks.

A tiny head popped out from Tommy’s clothes and glared at the bat. Giving it a hiss, a small white kitten looked, for all its worth, about to pounce on the king of flying rodents. The previously frightening bat whimpered, giving a wretched cry as it leapt into the air.

That small creature… the Black Bat King smelled the scent of death from it. A natural enemy!

Ignoring the pain, it decisively burned its demonic heart’s blood and forcefully patched its wings to glide away. It paid a terrible cost, but in the face of that white predator, it instinctively felt that no price is too great for escape.

A little distance away, the silver crow - leader of the birds – gave a great flap and flew back into the safety of the sky. It also sensed the danger and made use of the chaos to get away. Moreover, its mission is already completed.

The wolves have arrived.