Maya showed him where she had found the stone and all three of them searched the place in hopes of finding more of them but to no avail.
This was strange as according to what Paul read about the Qi stones,they were usually found near a vein but in this place there was no sign of it.
They decided to walk a bit up the river as there was a chance that this piece was simply bright here by the water.
After walking for about an hour they still saw no sign of the vein or even felt its presence.
Paul decided to use search magic to see what was around them.
He didn't use it previously because it consumed a lot of mana and at his current level it only showed him what's in the radius of around 450 meters but at this distance everything was revealed to him at once.
He didn't find the Qi stone vein but he found the most likely source of the stone as he saw corpses near the river bank right at the edge of his search range.
This one search had cost him one third of his mana reserve but with any luck they would find something useful.
In this world it was normal to take whatever you found on the corpses but the custom was that in exchange for their worldly possessions you had to bury them or burn the bodies.
When they were close to the corpses Paul used the search magic again to be sure that there was no danger in the vicinity as those people were killed by a beast and there were at least a dozen people in the group so whatever killed them was certainly powerful.
The search magic revealed that there were fifteen people in this group all together and some of their corpses were a bit further away as they most likely tried to escape from whatever attacked them.
-Get ready as we don't know what happened here and have your weapons ready.
Paul cautioned the girls and they tightened their grips on the spears he had given them the moment he found the corpses.
They moved slowly,trying to avoid making any noise so as to not attract whatever did this.
They saw the corpses and at the first glance they knew that this wasn't even a battle but a one sided massacre.
The people that died there were dressed like mercenaries,judging from their armor and equipment they were at least a C rank team which wasn't bad for a group this small.
Unfortunately they would have to be at least some people on the second stage of cultivation or even higher for a mercenary group to become a rank C and that meant that whatever killed them was way stronger.
Paul came closer to the corpses to see their wounds and most of them were stabbed by something and it left quite big holes in them,the others looked like they were cut and some of them were even torn in half.
It was a gruesome sight,but this world was full of such sights and even worse and Paul knew that.
When he was checking the corpses he suddenly heard a faint voice.
When he looked at its source it turned out to be a young woman who was somehow still alive but she didn't have long as her wounds were too serious for Paul to heal at his current level.
-Kill me.
The young woman said with difficulty.
Paul came closer to her and asked.
-What happened here? What attacked you?
He wanted to know what kind of beast was capable of wiping out a team like them.
-Dead breeder.
Kill me.
Run.
The woman said with a weak voice.
The information was scarce but this was all he needed to hear.
Paul went pale when he heard the name of the beast that killed them all as this was a terrifying monster and if it decided to come back then there was no way that he or the girls would survive.
He also fulfilled the wish of the woman as he knew why she asked for death and there was no way for him to help her other than killing her right now.
Paul took the dagger from the women's belt and thrusted it with all his might into her skull ending her suffering.
That however was just the beginning of his work as he started to store the corpses into his inventory space.
It turned out that there were twelve mercenaries and three young people that looked like they were from some prominent families judging from their outfits and they were the ones that tried to run away.
Unfortunately they didn't make it very far.
The only one with a good idea was a girl that tried to get into the water as the beast that attacked them couldn't swim but she barely reached the river bank before she was slashed across her back and then pierced like the others.
When he stored the corpses he had given the girls the spears from the mercenaries as they were better than what he could craft,noit that it mattered as if the Dead breeder appeared they would be dead.
-Let's get out of here.
He said to the ladies who were a bit shocked at the sight of the wiped out mercenaries but got over it in a short while.
-Master, what's a Dead breeder?
Mia asked when they were on their way back to their shelter.
-It's a spider that is many times bigger and more powerful than the spirit boar.
Its name comes from the way it lays its eggs as it always puts them inside a corpse or sometimes in a living victim but the result is the same and the bodies are eaten from the inside out when the little Dead breeders hatch.
That is why that woman wanted me to kill her as she knew what was coming and she didn't want to suffer.
Both girls were terrified when they heard the description of the monster that killed those people.
-Master,If there will be small dead breeders hatching from the dead bodies,why did you store them and bring them with us?
Maya asked,with a terrified voice.
-We will burn the bodies and that will kill the eggs as well.
We have to do it because if this many spiders hatched at once then they would spread out looking for their new territories and that would be a catastrophe not only for us as we currently live quite close to that place but for others as well since this kind of beast grows quite fast and once its fully grown its very hard to kill.
Both girls tried to imagine this kind of scenario and went pale when they did.
There would be dozens of giant spiders in this area and they would probably end up as their food or the food for the new spiders.
When they were about one third of the way back Paul stopped and licked his finger to feel the direction of the wind.
They were currently standing in the middle of an open area filled with tall dry grass.
When he confirmed that the wind was blowing in the direction of the place where they found the corpses he fired two fireballs into the tall grass setting it on fire.
-Master,what are you doing?
Mia asked,not understanding why he just started a fire.
-The wind is blowing in the direction of the place where we found the corpses and that means that the beast could sniff us out.
This thing may be a spider but it has an excellent sense of smell,so I set the grass here on fire to mask our scent and destroy any trace that we were even here.
That way we should be safe for now especially since it's a spider and it is afraid of fire.
Paul explained.
He would set this whole part of the forest on fire if he could As he had no wish to meet with a Dead breeder and the best way to keep it away was to burn its habitat which would force it to search for a new territory.
Unfortunately he didn't have enough mana for that and the forest fire could attract unwanted attention so burning this field of grass would have to be enough now.