"Raaawr" A blond woman with puffy cheeks and a scar running down her face roared, her sword flashing in the sunlight, as she swung it at the two-headed hound. The blade struck the creature's steel-like fur with a metallic clang, but it left no mark. "This damn thing, Garret, little help here!"

A man with overgrown black hair glanced toward the yells, "spent all your mana already, ey? Keke." He chuckled, killing a massive four-legged creature without a head before throwing his spear into the hound. The spear turned into a bolt of lightning before it hit the creature with thunder reverberating through the battlefield, completely evaporating its head, spraying blue blood all over the woman. She glanced in the direction of the spear's lancer, but the man was already standing right next to her.

"You really need to learn how to manage it better, you know." He scolded with a forcibly high-pitched voice, his blue eyes and smile shining with satisfaction.

She rolled her eyes. Her continuous fixing of his air and nagging lectures about armor cleaning made this a long time coming. "Oh, shut up." She hit him on the shoulder as he was pulling the spear out of the beast. "There were way too many beasts to conserve any, easy for you to say when you have such large amounts to pull from."

The blood on the woman already started turning into vapor, making her smell like a combination of a sea fish and a fart from someone that ate a lot of sauerkraut that day.

A man took a slight step back. "Oh, come on, look at this." He gestured to the field in front of them. Hundreds of dead beasts were lying dead, their limbs perfectly cut off, their organs sawed out, their bodies burnt, their hearts pierced. They were murdered in a variety of different ways, but those four were clearly the most consistent. "Boss, that captain, and the soldier woman are doing most of the work."

"Eh, baby boss has been at it too, it seems." The smell continued to spread from her, but she didn't seem bothered by it.

"The point is that you could hardly fight enough beasts for your mana pools to be depleted," Garret continued, but distantly, as he already sought his next victim, mostly to get away. "You were just careless."

"Twenty-two, by the way." She exclaimed.

The man stopped, frowning as he was forced to keep the conversation going. "Seventeen."

"Pfft, and you got the balls to scold me." She cackled at his words, almost crying out of laughter, "At this rate, you won't even get into the top six."

"We are not here to play games, Aveline. You can do that with Tristan and that girl that pretends not to like him." The man tried to seem serious to skip over the conversation, but the smelly woman already had him figured out. He was not leaving till the vapor was gone.

"Seems it will be a chilly night for you, brrrr." The woman rubbed her arms as if warming herself up.

"Ha?" Garret stared, puzzlingly. The smell slowly leaving, now already barrable.

"No blanket for you, no sir, those are for winners," Aveline said all upright, with her back straight and arms plastered to her body, but her chin facing the sky.

He squinted his eyes. "Is that how it is?" His smirk grew before he took a step forward and disappeared, leaving a trail of lightning in his path. In almost an instant, two other beasts were dead.

Aveline put the hand on her hips along with a little chuckle escaping her lips. She kept staring into empty space before placing her hand above her eyes, blocking the already annoying sun. Scanning the battlefield, she looked around, a bunch of people fighting beasts, most of them teaming up at this point as they were running empty, just like her. Still, they were a bit tougher than beasts. Not to mention the open fields gave them the calculated advantage, as their archers had a significantly easier job than at the start of the battle that happened in the woods, past the river downhill. Slowly but surely, those soldiers, alongside mercenaries, were overwhelming the beasts, and with little to no injuries. Though, certainly, the most credit went to those four, that savage captain of the soldiers and three sword masters. Aveline's eyes landed on a woman, dual-wielding medium-length swords that continued to burn one beast after the other, the space around her full of raging flames creating an inferno, solid forty beast corpses lay in her vicinity.

"Pwwwwwhht Pwwoooh!" She whistled. "That lady is going crazy. Maybe we should have asked her to join in on the fun. The boss could've finally lost one." She muffled to herself before continuing her search.

"Now, where are they... oh!" she squeaked as she saw a young man with long white hair coated in water armor and a girl next to him who continued to turn his attacks into ice. She rhythmically hopped towards them, "Hey, you two!"

"Oh, Aveline," she got to them just as they finished off the beast in front of them. "How many?" The girl hurriedly asked.

Aveline put on a confident grin, raising a finger in the air. "Twenty-two."

"Damn it, I'm at twenty." The girl cursed under her breath, but audible enough for the other two to hear her.

"And you, Tristan?" Aveline glanced toward the young man with a bit of worry in her eyes.

"I think I'm at fifteen," he said.

The girl next to him looked at him all wide-eyed. "What, only fifteen?"

"You've been stealing all my kills." He answers in a monotone voice.

"Oh, yeah, kiki!" The girl hit herself on the head, cackling.

Aveline looked at the two for a second before shaking her head, "I'm out of mana though, so I doubt I will get much mo…"

Before she could finish the sentence, a massive beast came down on them, trying to trap them between its jaws, but just as it closed in, a lightning spear pierced through its eye and came out on the other side. The next moment, a man materialized above the beast's body, surrounded by sparks.

"That's twenty-two." He looked down at the group, his roughed-up hair dancing as the air bounced it around. "I think I'm done for the day."

The scarred woman smirked, squinting her eyes. "Is that so?"

"Yeah, I'm beat. I think I will sit the rest of this one out." He stretched his hands before falling from the beast, rolling onto the grassy soil and placing his hands behind his head.

"Well, I guess that's it for me too then, you two can…" She wanted to place her arms around the two, but her hands touched only air as the pair disappeared.

The battle in the plains continued, as beast after beast fell, their blood spraying over the grass, painting it blue for a moment before it starts evaporating, making everything around it smell horrible for a minute or so.

On one side of the battlefield, a man continued to tear open the bellies of the beasts, sawing into them like a madman, but interestingly enough his movements looked quite graceful as he danced around, each time a beast came close to getting him he would teleport to the exact spot he was a second earlier and then his movements would become like that of a wild animal, the organs of over thirty beasts spilled in his path.

On the other side, two men were fighting in perfect unison. One kept cutting off the limbs of every beast he came across before making a deep cut on their neck, making them bleed out. The other, younger out of the two, was a lot more simple in his approach, stabbing each in the heart. The strength he showcased was unbefitting for someone of his small stature. They collected a total of around eighty bodies this way, slowly exterminating all the beasts in the vicinity.

Out of the blue, a piercing scream of agony echoed through the field coming from the direction of the river. A peculiar, monstrous creature engaged in a fierce battle with four soldiers, the air thick with the unmistakable stench of decay, its aura oozing with death. Amidst the chaos, a soldier cried out in pain, his leg twisted in a gruesome angle. The beast tried to finish the job; the man had already given up on life, closing his eyes awaiting his end only to be rescued by a powerful sound wave from his fellow comrade at the very last second.

"What are you doing?!" The man that fired the sound wave shouted at the one on the ground, "Don't just take it laying down, damn it!"

After a second, the beast decided to attack again, swinging its claws at the man in front of it, but making a split-second decision, the man kept protecting his friend, creating a shield that looked like a barrier made of sound. The beast's paw smacked the shield, the clash creating a loud shriek that almost destroyed the man's eardrums. He barely stayed on his feet, shaking from the impact.

"Damn it, what the hell is this thing, my barrier should be perfect at distributing the force, but somehow, it almost brought me to my knees," his mind raced, analyzing the situation, "not to mention that thing is protecting something, that little thing ran off to the woods just as this guy appeared and when I tried to attack it, this guy jumped right in front of it." He braced himself for another hit, the beast swinging savagely. He withstood one more attack. However, the beast kept going, attacking for the third time. The force of the impact sent him flying a fair distance away.

The beast was ready to pounce on him before the other two soldiers near them distracted it, attacking the beast from the back. One quickly created small shackles out of the earth around its feet as the other one reinforced his sword with some type of pant before he shot it out, the grassy sword stretching and injuring the beast.

The beats let out another roar as it freed itself from the shackles around its feet and launched for the two soldiers, but just as it seemed like they were about to die, a water spear pierced through the beast's heart. The plainly looking boy with white hair walking up to it raised his sword before slashing down, cutting the beast in half.

The soldiers stared at the corpse as their jaws nearly touched the ground.

"That's twenty-one…" He murmured before turning back and jumping back into battle.

"Wait, sir mercenary." One soldier yelled, "There was another beast that ran into the woods!" But the young man has already left.

And after a few minutes, loud cheers started filling the air as the battle had ended. All the beasts have been slain effectively by this group combined from a small troop of Qahfuer Empire's soldiers and a mercenary band from the western continent that migrated here recently.

A big man with a beard and a turban on his head walked up to his steed and jumped up with no issue. "Good job everyone!" He garnered everyone's attention. "Take five minutes to recuperate, get as much mana back as you can, and then we will continue forward." He laid out a plan before going towards the woman with two swords on her back and her face covered. "Make sure to burn as many corpses as possible."

"In Captain's glory!" She answered, but beneath her cloth, her brows were wrinkling as she rubbed her thumb against her palm.

Hooves clattered against the ground, echoing through the giant crack in the mountain. The sound became louder and louder as a group of armored figures could finally gaze through the opening in the mountain. The wind blew through it with surprising strength, ruffling the shadowsteeds' sleek black manes and causing soldiers' cloaks to billow around them.

As they got to the mouth of the mountain, the animal in the front suddenly rose on its hind legs and started whinnying, throwing the man that was riding it.

"Captain!" the group screamed, as a few of them rushed to help him stand up.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." He stood back up with a groan. "What the hell was that?!" Turning around, he noticed all the shadowsteeds stopped and were refusing to go forward. Even the mexidracon that mercenary leader was riding on refused to take another step.

"Tariq?" a female voice interrupted his thoughts. "What now?"

"What else? We leave a few people to take care of the mounts, and the rest of us continue forward."

Her eyes widened. "You still want to continue?"

"Draya..." He looked at her with an annoyed expression. "We've been over this. That village down there produces twenty percent of the empire's food supplies. You really think we can just leave?"

"But we've already killed all the beasts near the village and look, no beasts are running at us here. Is it necessary to continue?"

"Both of us know they came from here. It is only a matter of time before it happens again. We need to figure out why they are running out of the dungeons." He stopped for a second, inspecting her as she shyly stared towards the ground. "And what even has you so scared?"

Draya opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but stopped quickly, her gaze returning to the ground. "It's just... a feeling," she mumbled.

Tariq did not know how to answer that. It sounded quite stupid to him, but Draya was his vice-captain for a reason. He did consider listening to her for a second but threw away that thought quickly, readying to give his order to the whole crew...

"We could spend the night here, you know." A deep male voice sounded behind him, along with heavy footsteps. The smell of alcohol and sweat hit Captain Tariq's enormous nose. "Look, the sun is slowly setting. Might as well take our time." The bearded, blue-eyed man pointed towards the sun, its rays traveling through the narrow path, dying them a beautiful red color. The three shielded their eyes from the sun to glance at the canyon. Mountain walls on both sides were full of moss. Now and then, there was a hole, whether on the ground or way up in the air. The ones on the ground seemed dark and deep, but the ones higher up were surrounded by plant life, giving off a comfortable, homey feeling. A powerful gust of wind hits them, swirling their clothes around.

"We need to get rid of this issue as soon as possible." The captain argued back. "We would only waste our time."

"Come on, macuahuitl man, what beast will get out when we are at the entrance? Little rest will benefit everyone."

"What if they surprise us at night? Attack in a sizeable group."

"What then? You're treating them as if they're capable of planning an attack, but they're just beasts; their fleeing means they fear something. Worst-case scenario, we can let them pass through and then hunt them down one by one. As you said, we are here to get rid of the reason behind their fear, are we not?" He gives the captain a long stare, getting no response besides his avoiding eyes. "You are too hasty, too hasty, tsk, tsk." He shakes his finger in an act of disapproval and takes two steps forward.

Tariq stared at him. Truth be told, he had respect for this man. He was his senior as the leader of a troop, though he was a mercenary from a different continent with different beliefs. There was no doubt that he was a good leader. Though, something else also helped, and that was the man's large beard. Tariq found it hard to take other men from the mercenary band seriously as none of them had beards. In the Qahfuer Empire, and in the whole southern continent for that matter, man's beard was their pride, especially so for warriors. In fact, cutting the man's beard off completely was seen as one of the highest punishments in the empire. Reserved for high treason and an attempt on Qahhar's life. A man's beard would be shaved off before different creams and potions would be spread around his face, preventing his beard from growing ever again. So seeing men such as them just walking around completely shaved was quite a shock.

"OKAY, EVERYONE!" The mercenary clapped twice, asking for attention. "We will camp here tonight! Prepare your campfires and take out those drinks!" 

The loud cheers stop him from saying anything further at which both leaders cannot help but laugh, their joyous reaction getting a chuckle from, till now, trembling Draya.

Their cheers rumbled through the entire mountain and the forest, down the hill. However, all the animals stayed completely silent, staying surprisingly close to one another and trembling the entire time.

Tariq signaled towards them with his head before taking a sip of his drink. "What's with them?"

"Probably the same thing that's happening to the beasts." Blue-eyed man observed, before taking a big, messy bite of his food.

"I saw nothing like this before. They are scared to death," Draya added.

A brief silence followed before everybody turned towards the fourth person sitting at the fire. A young man with messy short hair looked surprised and started staring at them, changing the person he was focusing on per moment, not understanding what they wanted... a sigh followed.

"You are embarrassing me, kid." The blue-eyed man shook his head.

"But boss…"

"No, no, it is what it is. I guess I will have to look for your replacement. You can leave."

He looked at the man with wide eyes before getting up and starting to walk off slowly with his head staring at the floor before he heard loud laughs behind him.

"Hahahahhahah, ah, kid, calm down. What damn guy could I even pick instead of you? Sit the hell down," the boss gave him one more chuckle before turning back to the other two.

Draya inspected the man for a few seconds. "So, Bran, why exactly did you decide to leave the western continent? Your crew seems quite competent, and aren't there quite a few more jobs to do there? Even the mercenary guilds are the most frequent in the West, no?"

Bran scratched himself on the back of the head. "Yeeeah, not really. Nations of the Blue Sea don't really get into wars anymore. It's just a political squabble while the nations west of the mountain range have all but disappeared. It's just the Kaira Empire and Primum Omo Empire that are significant forces left now, battling for supremacy, and neither of them hires mercenaries. They actually pride themselves on it. Certainly, nations in the lower islands do still get into fights over resources, but that's a little far from the Great Jungle." He motioned his head towards the animals.

"Ah, yes, your dinosaur," Draya squeaked excitedly, "Tariq mentioned it is a mexidracon, but I have to say that I never saw a creature such as this. It's so beautiful…"

"Yeah, yeah, and although he is from a dragon species, he is really just a big goofball. Ahahahahha! Surprisingly strong, though." Bran gave her another chuckle.

The group continued their conversation for some time. The entire camp was filled with the smell of burnt meat; someone left it on the fire too long, and it clashed horribly with the smell of sweaty men and alcohol. Dull cracking sounds were coming from every campfire as the soldiers and mercenaries sang and danced together in the middle of the camp before all of them fell to sleep one by one. Only a few soldiers stayed awake, guarding the camp and comforting the animals, who didn't stop shaking the entire night.

The morning sun came, but it was awfully quiet. Considering all the glacifidus bird dens along higher parts of the mountain walls, they have expected to hear their signature morning creek.

"Even they ran away?" Tariq sounded concerned, facing the massive crack in the mountain. "Get ready, we are going in twenty minutes!" He brushed it off quickly and picked up his macuahuitl. "Team four will stay here."

Bran was looking over, preparing his slightly corroded armor. "Rowan!" As soon as he called, the young man with the messy hair appeared in front of him.

"Yes, boss?"

"Tell Aveline, Garret, Tristan, and…" He stopped for a second looking around, seeing a young girl giggling at one of Tristan's terrible jokes, "Eira, yeah, let it be the four of them to stay behind."

"Four of them?" Rowan furrowed his brows, "but didn't Captain Tiraq already leave enough people behind…"

"Yap." Bran cut in, patting him on the shoulder before simply walking off, adjusting his longsword on his waist.

Soon enough a group of around sixty people stood at the entrance of the mountain path, two people standing in front of the crowd, one with a turban on his head and wearing lamellar armor, a weapon with obsidian saws stuck to the wood by his side. The other was wearing a rusty chain mail and a longsword on his waist.

"Attention!" yelled the captain. "These four are the adventurers we've hider." He presented the four by moving slightly out of their way. "We will rely on their dungeon expertise moving forward, also, leader of team three…" He made an offering gesture towards the man having a scimitar and wearing plated armor that stood first to the right in the third row. He shook his hand and lowered his head slightly. "Your expertise in both ki and magic sensing will be of great help, so you will travel in the front." Tariq straightened up a bit, "and finally! Our air magicians from squad two will set a trap beneath the glacifidus dens so that our vice-leader can check up on the birds."

"In captain's glory," screamed the lady with carrying two yatagans on her back. She easily had the most extravagant armor there, huge and bulky, blue in color, with gold lines over it and pictures engraved through every piece. Similar to the captain, she also wore no helmet, simply covering her entire face with a thin piece of cloth.

"Is she even able to see anything with that?" questioned some of the mercenaries standing close by.

Soon enough, the entire group followed her scream, "In captain's glory!"

On the side, Bran couldn't help but laugh through the entire ordeal. Having come to the Qahfuer Empire just a month prior and this being his first time seeing them give proper orders, this was not what he was expecting in the slightest. Each move Tariq made was so flashy, and he yelled so abnormally loud, not to mention their salutes.

Bran himself had no further orders to give. He already told his troops all they needed to know, and besides, many of them had been working together since they were kids. They know each other better than they know themselves.

Two leaders started walking through the mountain path. Leader of the squad three was in the middle, following a step behind them. Behind him were the four adventurers, Draya and Rowan. Everybody else followed slowly behind.

Mercenaries adapted more to how the soldiers were moving. That's what they were good at, after all. An equal amount of mercenaries joined every team in this march.

The winds were quite strong, making it hard to move forward as is, but now and then there would come a terrifyingly strong gust of wing that everybody needed to brace for if they didn't want to be blown away.

All glacifidus bird nests were way too high at this point to attempt to get in, so they moved forward.

"All dungeons in this area seem to be abandoned." Team three leader began, "I don't think there is anything inside. Even if there is, it would be some small beasts that would hardly be worth the trouble." He concluded, touching the wall of the canyon.

Tariq stroked his beard, slowly. "Hmmm, well, maybe these were previously cleared out; they are pretty close to the path entrance."

"I don't think they were, the dungeons here are mostly left alone, also I was told nothing of any dungeons being cleared," Draya informed him, only making him more puzzled.

"Well, considering how close it is to the entrance, it could be that these are the beasts that ran away, probably taking the chance when they could." Bran got into the conversation.

"There aren't any markings indicating that though…" Tariq mentioned, "Well, I guess that is the only possible explanation." He faltered, hoping there would be more answers deeper in the mountain.

They walked for a bit more, getting to the intersection, the path splitting into two. They thought of talking out which path to take when they heard a cracking sound. The entire troop stopped and observed everything around them.

Suddenly, a loud sound of the rock breaking reverberated through the whole path. An enormous boulder fell behind the group, trapping them in this canyon.