Yasenia's group moved at an extremely high speed toward the central pillar. Andrea asked, "Do we not check who was fighting over there?"
Yasenia shook her head. "There is no need. This is area 8, and from what I've investigated, there are no real allies that we know of here."
Andrea nodded in understanding.
Kali pondered. "When do we engage in combat, Yasenia?"
"As I said before, our objective is to reach the fifth floor in the top 1024. Therefore, we must avoid fighting as much as possible."
With that in mind, they continued moving through the unending swamp, taking detours to avoid confrontations and ignoring battles occurring all around.
However, avoiding it forever was naturally not possible.
After one and a half days of constant running, they finally reached a point close enough to the central pillar when they were unable to continue to avoid trouble.
Cecile commented. "We've been quick, but many of the paths leading forward are guarded. It is impossible to move stealthily without using Valeria's [Ethereal Blossom]-level stealth."
Yasenia remembered. 'That plant was one of Valeria's strongest summons, right? A perfect assassin or something like that?' Remembering the grayish doll-like body, Yasenia chuckled. 'It is quite a cute thing at a glance.'
While thinking so, Yasenia felt a strange energy wave phasing through her body, and her pupils thinned.
With immediate reactions, Yasenia ordered. "Follow me. There are five people in the southeast direction that have used some sort of scanning feature. Let's engage before they realize."
With her words, Andrea, Cecile, and Kali instantly covered themselves in strengthening auras and shot right behind Yasenia.
Eira followed a few hundred meters behind, with her hand on the pommel of her sword.
On the other side of the energy pulse, one bear man asked. "Leader, won't this energy pulse startle people?"
The leader, another bear man, shook his head. "How could it be? Wasn't it faint even here? As it spreads, it becomes even more unnoticeable. Only perverted people would be able to sense something as light as this in an environment full of many other energy signals."
That same one asked. "What do we do until we get the signal back, leader? Sect Master placed you at the lead, so we'll follow your orders."
The bear man leader with a hulking stature nodded. "Let's first wait. We've already made a pact with the Nine Sect to fight them if we see them."
A bear woman in the group snorted. "I didn't expect them to have something like this. How do you think they had it ready?"
The leader shrugged. "They've been at odds for a while. It is normal for the strongest Assassin Sect to-."
Suddenly, his pupils shrunk, and he hastily threw a palm strike toward his back. "[Adamium Paw Collapse]!"
His skin and bones hardened like metal as his body spun, gathering momentum.
When he completely turned, he finally saw what was coming his way.
It was an extremely powerful black arrow surrounded by a tempestuous silver blizzard.
BOOM!
His palm and the arrow collided in a massive explosion. The [Moon Freezing Catastrophe] skill acted after the collision, creating a monstrous hurricane of Spatial, Wind, and Moon energies that swallowed the five people.
The tempestuous disaster that the skill called upon tried to shred their bodies into pieces as even the space around them seemed about to collapse.
Still, they were talented Mid-Level Epoch Cores. There was no way that a single attack could defeat them.
"GRAAAH!"
With a wrathful shout, the five bearkin exploded with energy, blasting the powerful hurricane into pieces.
Their bodies had some light injuries but nothing too noticeable.
The leader who blocked the attack felt a tingling on his paw. Looking at his hand, he saw a hole with blood dripping. Then, he shouted. "Be careful! They have an archer! We need to get their location before anything else."
Right after his words, the sky lit up with a silver light as hundreds of silver meteors rained on them.
Still, the five people weren't pushovers. Each of them used their preferred weapons to release as many attacks and block everything with ease. The falling silver meteors were unable to reach closer than 200 meters from them as they used their limited ranged skills to parry all of them.
However, while they were looking up, they missed what was happening below their feet.
With the sound of water bursting upward, colossal roots soared to the sky, connecting the high ceiling and the ground.
The bear man leader and his group became alert. The bear woman asked with a tense face. "What are those? Do you know anything like that? Plant manipulation should not be this strong!"
The leader commented as he looked around. "They seem to be surrounding us. I have a bad feeling about this. Let's leave the encirclement quickly!"
Hurriedly moving outside the encirclement created by the ten roots, they looked around attentively, searching for threats.
Still, as they moved, two people appeared in front of them, landing elegantly in the water before them.
One of them was an absolutely gorgeous dragon woman wearing a long, ethereal dress and holding a sword that was almost bigger than herself.
The other was a tall knight wearing draconic black armor that had red veins glowing because of the magma circulating inside.
The knight held another giant weapon, a two-handed halberd modified to have a massive ax edge and a relatively shorter pole. At a glance, the weapon reached around two and a half meters long.
However, admiring was one thing. Stopping their actions was another.
The five mid-level Epoch Cores shot forward with the intention of trampling on them. The leader shouted. "You are too confident! [Adamium Bear Charge]!""
The five bearkin used the same skill, their muscles swelling as their bodies shot forward like unstoppable meteors.
As they charged, those two moved while the sky lit up like before in another random direction, as if a silver sun had manifested.
However, ignoring that, their eyes were locked on the two people blocking their way.
Faster than their charge, the several arrows weren't aimed at all of them, but one of the weaker-looking bearkin.
That bearkin felt danger and was forced to stop his charge while turning around to face the curving arrows that were falling at him like guided projectiles. 'Don't underestimate me!'
"[Adamium Bear Body]!"
As soon as he stopped and swung his pole arm weapon in the direction of the falling arrows, the powerful attack arrived.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
His body moved extremely quickly, sending powerful attacks in the direction of the arrows and blasting them apart. However, each time an arrow landed on his weapon, he felt his hands getting numb. 'Heavy!'
Meanwhile, the bear man leader was forced to make a choice. When he saw one of his people stopping, he could either order the others to stop or continue their initial plan while placing his trust in the straggler.
The world around him was slowed down as his mind spun, but ultimately, he chose to ignore it and continue forward. "Charge!"
With his words, the other three bearkin that were about to hesitate about their next step became determined and stomped the ground, firmly landing against the land below the water and pushing against the ground, creating four massive surges of water as if four bombs had exploded.
The dragon woman with the giant sword moved it upward, silver radiance exploding in a sphere around her, while the armored woman struck her halberd downward, creating a massive wave of molten-red substance that rose like a tsunami and threatened to swallow them.
However, as body cultivators, attacks that relied on environmental factors like heat, cold, etc., didn't affect them as much, thanks to their ridiculously enhanced bodies.
So, while covering their bodies in strengthening auras, the four of them rushed forward toward the wave, slamming onto it like a massive boulder would if thrown from a high altitude into a lake.
BANG!
The extraordinarily viscous material that composed that giant molten wave struggled to remain connected as four holes were created from where the four powerful bearkin burst through.
Even with a helmet on, the bearkin leader could see the surprise in the armored being. His body hurt from severe burn wounds, but they couldn't pierce through. He smiled wildly. 'Now it's time to trample you two!'
Still, before they could reach them, the dragon woman's skill was released.
As the dragoness swung her giant sword downward and pierced it on the ground, a massive silver dome resembling the Full Moon in the sky ballooned outward.
The bear-man leader was as decisive as before and roared. "Destroy it!"
Their charge skill had become weakened after breaking through the wave, but it was more than enough to trample whatever defensive skill the dragon woman deployed. 'If the sources are correct, her effective combat strengths should be around an average mid-level Epoch Core. You can't resist four of us smashing at once!'
They had realized who they were fighting the seconds they saw the ridiculously gorgeous dragon woman. After all, there wasn't a second creature like her in the current Distancia.
The synonym for the most beautiful dragon woman had eventually been firmly associated with the Astral Sky Sect Master, Yasenia Dravory.
With a powerful shout, the four bear men impacted against the dome.
BOOM!
The silver dome bent as if made out of rubber, with several cracks appearing around it. However, to the four bearkin surprises, it withstood their combined attacks.
Looking inside, they saw the calm golden eyes of the dragon woman looking at them with chilling calmness. Her voice, as enticing as her looks, echoed around with deterring might.
"Unleash them."
The four bearkin, dazed for a fraction of a second, felt their spines chilling and hastily looked around.
The ten pillars of vines and roots wriggled as if they were alive.
At some point, the bearkin missed a few large fruits that were strewn all over its structure.
Those fruits exploded from the roots to the top, releasing a whitish-blue smog that began covering everything.
The bear man leader's pupils shrunk, feeling danger from that strange mist.
Moreover, that wasn't all. Those roots opened in several places and slowly withered, summoning hundreds of creatures that dropped like a plague.
In the few seconds that they stopped to defend themselves from whatever was coming out of those giant pillars, the five versus five had changed into an environmentally disadvantaged five versus an army.
Moreover, among all the leafy beings, a group made of 100 dryads stood out the most. They were all clad in different garments, some attires looking heavy and solid while others looked agile and lithe. Above all, they were orderly, and their eyes showed a hint of intelligence.
Still, the bearkin didn't feel as much danger from them. 'That was not the thing that made my spine feel a chill. While they are strong, they are not unmanageable…'
And soon, the answer came.
In the middle of every plant creature, one of them floated upward.
An enchanting, green-skinned, three-meter-tall woman wearing an open floral dress and holding a staff with a golden orb on top looked down on them with her indifferent green eyes.
The bearkin leader shouted as he raised his weapon and turned to look at the dragon woman and the armored woman. "Quickly deal with these two before that one comes over! Don't hold anything back!"
The dragon woman's lips arched as a deep, bloody red color slowly spread through her golden irises.
"Try it."