The flow of the black mist slowed down after a while, forming densely packed areas all around them. Beibei sent out her sensory perception through the condensing mist, then threw out the bells randomly at some of the areas from which she felt more threat.
As soon as the bell hit the wall of fast condensing black mist, they split in half, forming two bells. Then each of them split in half again. This continued till the string of slit up bells had completely surrounded the condensed fog. Then they started spinning around their point at high speed.
A deep golden light shone at the center of each bell, and fine tendrils of light broke through these points, moving towards each of the other bells in the string, forming a crisscross of light streams. As soon as the last string of light touched the last bell, the energy of the bells exploded, and a strong light array formation materialized, completely binding the condensed energy area within itself.
The bells would do no more. They would only control the area till the creature formed from the dark energy inside the area finally managed to break through the formation. It was only meant for giving them enough time to kill the other condensed creatures. The areas she had bound with the bell would have stronger creatures of the dark. They needed to eliminate all other smaller creatures before that, so they could focus wholly on the larger creatures after that.
The mist in the unbound areas started condensing into long rope like forms, hovering in the air.
"Devil's Snare! There are so many of them!"
The biggest problem was that not one of the three had light elemental affinity. They did carry a lot of tools and other traps, but they had to play it by the teeth. Beibei took out a thin and hollow metal casing. The inside of the hollow cavity was filled with Exploding Light Needles. There was a tiny button at the side. She only needed to point the casing and press the button to release a needle. On contact with any dark creature, the light needle would automatically explode.
In her other hand, she had already replaced the three-edged poison dagger with Blue Flame Knife. Kunwa on the other hand had brought out a handful of Lightening Light Balls, whereas Nanate activated the Three Stage Light Rune on his broadsword.
The devil's snares finally moved. Dozens of them shot out at their face at great speed. The three were caught in great quandary, as deflecting these speeding snares, attacking them and keeping to their triangular formation was proving to be difficult.
Nanate had taken up the reign of commands. Other than sword cultivation, he was also specializing in assassin techniques and fighting formations. Seeing that they were about to run into a block, he ordered them to separate and maintain a free flowing triangle. They could move from their point and then return back. As long as the nodes of the triangle was maintained, even if the distance changed, the formation would remain, and thus the Spirit Trackers would not be affected.
Even through the dark fog, they could see the continuous explosion of light, and the burning snares whizzed past their bodies, dissipating into gray smoke before the snares even hit the ground. They realized the actual origin of the gray mist in the Visionless Path, but none of them could spare words to share this realization with each other.
The more snares they burned down, the more snares seemed to materialize around them. Their speed too was gradually increasing. Each was fighting an individual war, trying to find their own tempo of agility, speed and force, so they would not get bogged down by the momentum of the creatures of the dark.
"Look out. The binding on the area left of Kunwa is coming loose! I think it is a Shadow Hellhound."
The Devil's Snares had somewhat lessened in numbers. Nanate had just managed to slice through a bunch of snares which came in rapid succession, when he felt the movement from the corners of his eyes. Hearing his warning, both Kunwa and Beibei spared a glance in the same direction.
"Can both of you finish off the rest of the snares? I'll take on the Hellhound then!"
Beibei didn't even wait for an answer before jumping off towards the loosening binding. She took out a silver disc and activated it using her spirit energy, then tossed it inside the formation. This was a Wind Tornado Fabricator. And true to its words, as soon as the disc hit the ground, a raging whirlpool sprung out of it, swirling around, with its bottom tip firmly planted in the disc.
Beibei activated the blue flame of her knife, then held her knife at slanting position, allowing the tip to penetrate the speeding tornado. Instantly, the wind picked up the blue flame, and the entire whirlwind turned blue, the flames blazing and burning as it sped up more and more around the axis.
The Shadow Hellhound which had just managed to break through the light binding, was trapped inside the whirlwind. It was enraged by the layers of obstacles, the large body thrashing about within the confines of the tornado barrier. The blue flame burned through its outer layers, instantly turning the layers to gray smoke which floated down to the ground then slowly seeped away.
The Hellhound could feel no pain, but still, after losing a layer, it could sense the change in its density, and it retracted itself from the boundary of the tornado. Instead, it opened its jaws wide, opening up a limitless vortex from within, and started sucking loudly, trying to pull in the entire twister inside of its stomach.
Beibei waited for the moment it was distracted by the large tornado entering its mouth, and then she took out a large handful of light exploding needles and inserted them at random within the giant twister. Once the entire whirlwind was sucked into the stomach of the Hellhound, all the flying needles too disappeared with it.
Having completely engulfed the tornado, the Hellhound paused. It slowly turned to look at Beibei, its huge body bending down, as it brought its large head to the level of the girl. Deep red eyes, spewing fire stared into her tiny face, the fires bouncing and reflecting within her dark pupils.
And then the entire, huge body.....exploded. And it didn't explode all at once.
Instead she could see the tiny explosions taking place inside the dark mist body of the creature, one by one, with light and fire bursting out in different parts like a symphony of an uncoordinated orchestra. Beibei paused, unable to shift her eyes from the beauty of these tiny explosions, as they shone out through the cracks and crevices of the dark mist body, till they grew larger and larger, light joining with more light, and finally forming a large chain of light explosions. It tore through the entire body, gnawing, eating, chewing through the black mist, and spitting out whiffs of remnant gray mist which then fell down to the ground level.
By the time the entire hellhound dispersed off to gray mist, the other two were also done with the Devil's Snares.
Looking at each other, they panted and huffed loudly. These creatures were tougher than the shadow creatures. Moreover, they came in unending numbers. They were starting to feel exhausted. Taking a breather before the next lot of attacks came, they quickly swallowed down a handful of pills to recover lost energy and replenish vitality.
"The next lot is coming loose. Do you think they are more of those Hellhounds?"
No idea. Let's wait and check out before we start our attack. Kunwa, stay with Nanate. Remember to keep yourself safe and out of the way at all times. Your task is providing aid. Keep replenishments ready at hand."
The next lot was much larger than the snares. Which also meant they needed to execute more moves to kill. Which meant more energy loss. Three Shadow Hellhounds and two Wailing Ghouls walked out of their trappings, breaking free and attacking the three from all sides.
The pattern continued. Attack/Defend...destroy the creatures of the dark....then take a breathing break before the next lot attacked. They lost count of how many creatures they had burned, hacked, exploded to dust and gray mist.
By the time the umpteenth number of attack had been parried off, the group was feeling their strength at the very edge of failing. Their bodies had turned to automatic modes, they fighting purely based on their pre-fed techniques and prior experiences. Beibei felt it to be very worrying. The largest of the creatures was still waiting for them. She could feel its menacing presence at the end of the lots, the area which held the densest of back mist.
It had yet to make its presence known, and they were already faltering. There were still a few more bound areas to go before they could reach the biggest boss of these creatures! Could they really hold on till the end?!