They were able to continue several hours across the danger-infested rising and dropping terrains of the second Domain. Learning from their last encounter, they kept their eyes in all directions and even avoided ones that snuck up from in front.
The trained assassins in their regrouped formation with Cronan and Dayrue leading, sent monsters three times their size crashing into the ground without stopping.
The persistent ones that had managed to get back up began to form a messy line as they chased them from a great distance behind. However, the ones that got too tired lagged until they were mercilessly killed and eaten by the smaller red beast that began to grow in size.
They soon reached a long stretch of dark red trees with normal width barks. As they passed through them and moved away from the wide-opened greens, dimness began to form everywhere.
Slender dark red creatures that blended in with the barks jumped out from every angle to attack them by spitting fire from their mouths. They were about their heights but too many to waste their poisons on.
Determined to keep moving they slashed their way through using swords. Dayrue, Cronan, and a rooky Rue used their telekinesis to send the spits of fire right back at them, aiming for their open wounds as the hard coating on their bodies made them fireproof.
They were like ants charging from an ants nest in their numbers. The fire-spitting creatures attacked from everywhere until the assassins had lost track of their path and were too busy to take out their compass.
When the creatures suddenly stopped attacking and darted away in one direction to flee, it caused them to notice several monsters they had met earlier. They had reached up to them to pass through the trees.
"Crap," thought Rue.
With the annoying army of fire-spitters gone they were able to use their compass to get back on track. However, when the ground beneath their feet began to get covered with grey sand, soon the wide-stretching blue waves from an ocean ahead popped from behind the dark red trees. They realized they were at a dead-end.
The large stretch of waters continued on both sides for a great distance. There was no way around it. To cross an ocean and preserve their energy they couldn't swim but instead needed rafts.
They broke into two groups at Cronan's command. While he, Dayrue, and Skinner fought back the creatures, the others would build two rafts for them to cross the great waters. They nodded and began to act on their new orders without hesitation.
While Roshar effortlessly chopped down trees to split the barks into two down their sides, a desperate and rooky Rue used her telekinesis along with pulling to bring the split timbers to Ezra. He positioned them into formation kicking up sand with his hurried feet as he fixed everything together using rope from their load. The rattlers stayed close by watching his every move like a trance.
There was no sight of the fire spitters, and only the red glowing eyes of monsters drawing near began to peek through the dimness of the distant trees along with sharp creeping noises.
Instead of waiting to let them get close enough to damage the rafts from battle, the three assassins charged at them from the left, right, and center with swords in both hands.
The smaller red creature that had ripped from its larger body had also reached. It attacked one of the monsters that could move its skin like a separate organism to reveal its stone-hard bones to break its new enemy's teeth.
Its skin formed a large lump as it moved away from the skeletal frame to wrap around the attacking creature to begin strangling it. It became clear it was unlike the other monsters. It was a collection of bones from decomposed monsters now being controlled by a mollusk skin-type organism.
The two moved in circles knocking down trees as they tackled the other. Skinner used their preoccupied state to attack. He no longer paralyzed using daggers. Now desperate he chopped off entire limbs of the red creature until the other beast bit its head off.
Skinner's sword attacks did not work on the skin manipulating creature. It moved away its skin to let each blow hit its hard skeletal underframe.
It was an impossible situation for him and still not being able to speak he ran off to pursue another target. However, it chased him, while knocking down trees in its way and some fell to crash on top of other monsters.
With Dayrue's sensitive ears she soon saw Skinner running away from the creature. Instantly she knew something was off about that particular creature.
She did not attempt to pursue it using swords. She followed closely behind them until she got sight of a thick barked tree. She threw a dagger to intentionally miss Skinner's head.
She had to imagine the words he was cursing at her as he merely glimpsed back to see her on their tail. Once he glimpsed her, she stopped, took a deep breath, and threw another one to get lodged into the thick tree.
She fixed her mental lock onto it and once Skinner's eyes saw the dagger stuck in the lower parts of the tree that turned invisible, he picked up on her plan and ran towards the invisible section of the bark.
It was one of those rarely done maneuvers which precisely required a beast to be chasing you along with a telekine and stealth energy field master as your cover.
When he reached a foot away from hitting into the tree bark, Dayrue switched her focus from the stealth energy field to telekinesis, lifting Skinner into the air and stopping his movement towards the tree.
The monster only saw his prey vanish suddenly from before him before everything went out into darkness by a head-collision into a hard force it did not see. The tree's large roots ripped from several feet deep underground before they snapped. The large unsupported shoot swayed to one side before it began its fall to crush everything in its path.
Cronan used the opportunity to push several small monsters into its trajectory using his telekinesis to get squished.
Dayrue let go of her hold so Skinner dropped to the ground not too far from the unconscious beast. He then located the head of the creature as a large lump in the skin and with one blow of a sword sliced it off. Dayrue fell to her knees from the stress of the maneuver.
While she was busy delivering her plan, she was unaware of the camouflaging flat creature that snuck up close to her. It attacked from her side. Her left hand got snatched in its mouth and the shock caused her to let go of her sword in the other hand.
Her skin hardening put up a fight to prevent it from detaching her limb. It shook its flat snouted head vigorously from left to right trying to rip the limb from her body. Her legs kicked through the sand as her body got pulled through it by the connected arm.
The armor on her hand broke through and not long did its teeth break a large crack in her hardened skin. She yelled in pain but no one heard her as she was mute.