The wraith in bird form ended up having a longer mission than we believed, even after dark he continued to watch the road, if i didn't know that a wraith doesn't have a very large memory capacity i would think the little bird would stay in the trees until dawn, which would be a horrible thing.
But after another two hours waiting for him, the little bird started to move over the shadows created by the moonlight that illuminates that night, when he started to move away from the road we were already mounted on the drakes, but this time our formation was not of arrow as it would be normal and yes of double row.
I guided the entire team with Raven by my side to both protect the front of the formation and in case it is necessary to hide it in an emergency situation, the layer of shadows that only drakes create is strong, but it is far from being as strong as the one that Raven can create to cover both of us.
This is also another reason for the double queue formation, a shadow element mage could hide the team even if we are observed from several different angles, but Raven could only hide the entire team from those in front of us, which at this very moment it's a wraith and maybe a few more guards in the future as we should be heading towards the red sparrow's hideout.
The wraith traveled through the night in a zigzag trajectory but luckily it wasn't too difficult to follow him as he may not have had enough energy to keep making a very wide path, but it was still enough to annoy some team members. since we had to do the same move as the wraith, both Raven and I didn't want to risk being seen by the wraith so following him perfectly became necessary.
Our chase lasted a few hours, but even focused on the wraith I didn't lose track of the route we were taking and to my surprise it was quite a long trip. The wraith's speed that started out small compared to a level two beast ended up being increased to almost the speed we would see in a level four magic beast.
The drakes are almost traveling at their maximum speed and this is pretty high since they were being physically strengthened because it was night, I believe if I had been on foot, I wouldn't have been able to follow the wraith for so long. Maybe I could follow a trail of mana left by him but after an hour I wouldn't be able to keep his speed up, looks like this wraith was well modified by the red sparrow, this little thing has more stamina than we expected.
But as his energy is not that great, I believe that the improvement he should have must be linked to his efficiency to spend his mana and elemental energy, which is good for prolonged fights, but the impact on direct combat is not that great. I hope the red sparrow isn't as good at other types of mods, because if their undead get an improvement or modification in combat power as big as this wraith has, we're going to have a tough fight.
During the trip Raven took the map of this region where there were markings of villages and human settlements, but she didn't find anything close to our position. According to the map the place was nowhere near us and I could see that the wraith's existence was coming to an end, the energy in his body was starting to wane to the point that he soon began to have trouble keeping it together.
Without your necromancer to replenish the death element that serves as a kind of core for the wraith's energy body it will collapse, but considering his speed not one of the points marked on Raven's map can be the wraith's hideout. red sparrow. Does this mean he didn't set up his camp in a city and is still in the process of creating a base or he decided to create his base in mine out of the blue, the latter alternative is pretty unlikely as he wouldn't be able to keep his undead fed for several months.
But unable to do anything I continued to lead the drake down the wraith's route, but just when I noticed that his body was getting unstable, I saw something that made me realize that I was completely wrong before when I thought the red sparrow was out of good shape. base.
In front of us is a small settlement, there are around five large structures and some small fences. Very few people should have been living here before, given the size of the settlement it would be possible for three or four families to live here before the red sparrow killed them all.
The bastard really knows how to choose, the chances of him finding a settlement so small that it hasn't been registered by the kingdom is really slim unless he has a good source of information. Like someone who should have registered the settlement but didn't, in order to sell the information to people who would be interested in knowing about these poor helpless victims.
"Stop. Let's head back now, we can't risk being seen by a few more wraith hiding in the trees around this ghost village. We go to the rock formation we passed some time ago; it would be far enough away to keep the drakes hidden."
Following Raven's whispered orders we made our way to the rocks in a short amount of time, upon reaching there the entire group began to arm themselves for war.
It seems like everyone is excited to kill the undead and capture a necromancer, as well as the two death element warriors that serve the necromancer, I doubt Raven wants them alive.
"You don't need to prepare yourself with enthusiasm, I'm going to need a head start of about forty minutes so that Lobo and I can recognition the village, I want to know exactly what we're going to face and the more living beings that are near the ghost village the greater it will be the red sparrow's chance to discover our presence."
"I don't want to miss the chance to capture such a rare bird, this bastard can help us find out if any more birds are interested in joining the war and if we discover the identity of the rest of the birds in his group would be a great achievement for us."
Following Raven, the two of us re-approached the ghost village, the cover of Raven's shadow element causing us to disappear into the dark vegetation.
"Now it's your turn to shine, but try not to shine too much. In the end it would be really bad if the necromancer saw you."
"Relax, are you going to accompany me or am I going to walk around the perimeter of the village by myself?"
"I go with you, we mustn't let our guard down, Wolf, don't you remember when I taught you about the undead who love to ambush the living. There may not be a lake here, but petrified or black zombies could easily be lurking around the perimeter in the village ready to attack a scout alone, with me by your side that won't happen."
"Okay, try to stay close."
I started walking around the village studying everything that comes into my field of vision, and the closer I get to the village the more I find out about what and who is 'living' in it.
Even though it seems a bit hidden by the death energy that permeates almost every building in the village, I can see the core of the red sparrow, he really is a relatively new mage as his orange core is in the early stage and doesn't appear at all. ready to move on to the next stage, but I can't be so sure because of the distance between the two of us and the fact that he has a kind of divine energy within his core.
A red cross releases a red energy that has nothing to do with the fire element, it is a dark scarlet red and not as light as the fire element usually is within the core of a warrior or mage. This divine power is quite different from what I've seen before and it doesn't seem to have a direct relationship with the element of death, it seems the god the red sparrow worships isn't such a common choice for a necromancer.
But leaving the scarred core of the red sparrow aside, I focused on the two warriors and undead I can see in the village. The two warriors are in the buildings furthest from the building that the red sparrow is in, it looks like they are focused on guarding the village rather than serving as company or assistants for the red sparrow.
This will make it a lot easier for us, Raven wanted them separated so she wouldn't have to worry about them interfering with her fight with the red sparrow and not allow them to unite against the other members of our team who were tasked with taking care of the elemental warriors. death that aren't that strong, both have green cores in the final stage, but their combat power might end up not being that different from an orange core warrior.
It's almost impossible that they haven't undergone body modifications that allow for warped battle power, I wouldn't be surprised if these guards ended up being suicide fighters for the red sparrow.
Unlike the red sparrow I couldn't see anything different in the warriors' cores, their aura looks normal, their only element doesn't even have a different color on it and I don't see any kind of mark or totem inside their cores. It seems these warriors have normal cores, but their bodies are far from normal.
When I first heard that certain death element warriors modify their bodies in a similar way, I can't say exactly what was done with their bodies, but I'm sure it was drastic, warriors shouldn't have mana inside their bodies, especially within your organs.