A group of nineteen people was all rushing fast across a grassy plain, and in the front of the whole group was two people who were distinctly leading them.

As this group was traveling farther down the plains, they all started to notice the decreasing number of humans traversing the plains.

This group was also wearing black cloaks masking their presences, allowing them to have no interruptions while moving. Although it was getting easier to move as they were getting more isolated

This group, of course, was the Great Cloud sect led by Elder Wayne and Elder Michi. They departed as soon as the sun was setting in the evening.

Arriving at night will fit them entirely as they had some distance to cross before arriving at Ashes Mountain.

"Was it just me, or did you guys also sense someone trying to track us?" Kuzumi had to ask while they were traveling, she was sticking close to Kazami, Lun Yuo, and Brenda.

"I felt it too, but whoever it was isn't that remarkably of an issue since we got Heaven Realm cultivators here, and they took no issue with it. And besides, I vaguely sense they were only newly Ruler Transformation cultivations and whoever they gave up some time ago." Lun Yuo answered her while recalling the strange feeling she did felt before.

"Bandits. They would still die." Brenda plainly stated she assured herself.

"Still keep your guard up as of now we don't look like we're from the Great Cloud Sect, we more look like assassins with these cloaks." Kazami reminded them to think of the attempted tracker.

While they were talking abruptly, the two elders in front stopped once they arrived at the border of a colorful forest, making the rest stop.

At the entrance of this forest, it was now completely devoid of any humans besides them, and they all could feel a strange atmosphere coming from the forest.

Elder Wayne turned around to them saying;

"Alright, from here on out, we will be discreet as possible; this is the edge of how far we can go before we could discover by white slaughtering tiger territory. Here on out were going to avoid as many beasts as possible for now."

"Huh? I thought the white slaughtering tiger only stayed up in the mountains?" Muji asked, confused about how this one beast has so much land.

"Yes, but in this forest through scouts and retelling, the tiger seemed to have his goons patrolling the forest and working together with the random beasts that natural lives here. It's why there are no humans here anymore, and we won't see any humans from here on out."

Going in the forest there auras was masked even more, and they ran at a slower pace than before. The leaves on the trees was a weird sight to take in as all of their leaves would differ in color, and even the trees themselves would look different from its ordinary brown color.

There were also spotty colorful bushes and vines, making this whole forest seems like a colorful wonderland. Although the thing that got them all cautious was a general pressure, the woods will emit. The pressure wasn't too bad that it negatively affected them, but it still got them on their toes.

Things were going smoothly for the group while traversing through the forest until they heard,

"Aaagh!"

A fearsome groan was heard and halting the group Elder Wayne went up and sneaked behind a tree seeing a giant vicious-looking white ape with blinding white fur.

"Tch, to think that the tiger would even have Ruler Transformations patrolling in this forest." Going back to the group he started to explain the situation,

"Seems like this forest got stronger than from our latest information told us; at first, we were taking the fastest route possible to get to Ashes Mountains, but now we need to take a detour that can be more dangerous, but we can stay safer this way."

Directing them left, they sneaked down there for a while until they all gazed up a vast lake that had a light mist surrounding it, but on the other side of the lake seemed like a clear path to the mountains.

"This looks very suspicious, isn't there another way Elder Wayne?" Muji asked as the mist was giving not only her a bad omen from it.

All the while Elder Wayne and Elder Michi shared meaningful glances, and Elder Michi started with,

"This mist huh I'm still not sure on the full detail but going ar-"

"Scaww!"

"Shit! No time now, run to the mist immediately!" Elder Wayne shouted to them as an oppressive aura was slowly descending on the forest, and everyone shot forward with their fastest speed making it in the mist before the aura got to them.

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"What in the hell was that noise and that suffocating aura?!" Myla exclaimed as when they heard that beast scream; it was like their eardrums were shattering.

"A night watcher hawk and it's powerful as well. This night-watcher hawk's primary use is to signal out certain types of people if you train and kill whatever it finds." Elder Michi explained to them.

"This is going to be more dangerous than I thought, but hey, why did the aura suddenly stop coming now?" Ju Jia asked because they can't even hear the beast anymore much less feel it's aura.

"It's because of this weird mist, but from our sources, we barely have any information on this mist since every person we sent in died for unknown reasons. Some were near-death and somehow managed to get out of the mist and send info, but it would be short as they, I assume, quickly died anyways. But crucial details we did get was the people who would always die was our Ruler Transformation cultivators. Even when we send in a Heaven Realm person they died, the near-deaths ones told us they were Origin Formation cultivators."

Dawning a grave look, Elder Wayne stated, and now everyone was extremely tense hearing this glooming news as they have gotten stuck in the mist.

"We have no other choice but to move forward now and deal with whatever comes. Kazami, for now, can freeze us a path across? Trying to swim on or walk on it won't buy us any time." Elder Michi assured the group and asked him. Nodding, he went over to the lake and hovered his hand over it.

At least for him, the mist didn't affect him that much and was only weirded out by it.

Soon the whole lake turned into a red ice walkway, making it accessible to walk across.

"Good job Kazami, now everyone proceeds with caution, we will get even more constrained on the power we can use now." Elder Wayne praised him and said. As they were carefully treading the ice, the mist suddenly intensified, making it harder to see through.

"Shit! What with this mist?" Hu Tou cursed out loud, having trouble walking around now. Then Hiles stopped for a second and got the attention of everyone as he felt something.

"Hey, do anyone else feel like a vibration from under us?" Hiles said out loud, and this got everyone to stop and concentrate and felt that slight tremor below them, which now started to pick up more until ten beasts crashed up through the ice in front of them!

These beasts were able to stand on two legs and have two arms, but their appearance was all shark-like, even going so far to have a shark tail. They were also all blue and had weird markings on them. And in their hands were a silver trident.

"Well, would you look at this, 19 fresh, meaty humans came wandering in our park of the forest." The tallest and strongest looking one said while in the center of the shark beasts.

"Finally, fresh meat!! We were fucking starving!!" The shark beasts all started to laugh hard at them and one of the smaller went up to say,"Hey, meat bags! Hit us with your best shot!! We want to play around before eating." These sharks being arrogantly challenged and waiting patiently for the humans to perform for them.

The Great Cloud group were all confused besides the two elders who looked deadly severe now.

"What's with these fuckers? They're acting like we're fat sheep!" Eran said, starting to get pissed off from their attitudes.

"Yea, and they're not even that strong too!" Azus also commented and was ready to smash these sharks as eight of them were only in peak Spirit Formation, one was in the 7th level of Origin Formation, and the last was peak Origin Formation.

"Wait! We've got a little bit of intel on these exotic sharks beings. They're called Blue Obvilion Sharks. If my guess right, then they are the controllers of this mist! I know for sure if we use our power, we'll enter a hopeless situation, and if you guys try to overpower them were dead!"

Such words by Elder Wayne greatly shocks the seventeen as they were starting to understand things are not so simple.

"What do you mean by that, Elder Wayne," Muji asked him not getting her around why these sharks are so dangerous.

"We-"

"Ah, shut up! Do you honestly think we're that arrogant to let you fresh meat stand there and plan! Men split them up and feast to your heart desire!." The strongest one said, and immediately their trident shinned up a bit and the mist in a flash wrapped around the two elders making sure they can't use their powers.

Even if they did try to forcefully break out if they knew it would only spell death.

"Elders!!"

They wanted to help, but they got forced to react when a trident came down, crashing on them. It was only a peak Spirit Formation beast coming at them, but when the trident glowed silver, a heavy pressure affected them and made their movement sluggish when dodging.

'BANG!'

It made a hole in the ice and cracked it all over, but the ice was still standing strong.

The other eight shark beast came rushing at them, their trident all glowing silver, once they were split up and unleashed waves of blue shark Qi forcing all of them to dodge and weave around their attack.

When trying to counter-attack the Qi, they notice all of the shark's attack was as powerful as late-stage Origin Formation attacks, and their attacks got weakened!

Even the Spirit Formation sharks could unleash an attack on par with a late-stage Origin Formation, which considerably shook the group.Not even Kazami could stop the effect of their tridents or the mist. Still, for a second, he activated his divine power feeling more comfortable in it, but unlike before, his energy was draining fast using it now.

But he quickly thought of an idea and sped over to Brenda the closet to him as she was also dodging the shark's relentless attacks.

"Brenda, I'm going to try something, for a second charge a strong attack by activating your bloodline, and when I say go unleash it!" Brenda nodded, her eyes went golden, and a single strand of golden sword Qi came on her hand.

Kazami locked on a peak level Spirit Formation shark, and when it released another blue shark Qi attack, he said;

"Go!"

As told, Brenda unleashed her attack as it quickly sped to the shark, and Kazami, at the same time, activated his divine powers rushing to the shark and matching Brenda attack speed. Simultaneously the attack and Kazami reached the shark momentarily surprising it and,

'BANG!'

He clashed with the glowing trident while the shark beast got forced to using his other hand to negate the Brenda attack scaring his hand in the process.

Smiling he jumped backward while screaming;

"Listen up, everyone. I'll make this extremely quick I know how we can win!."