"Mars... Mars... wake up"Mars vaguely felt like someone was calling him, but he was way to tired to care and turned around to the other side and tried to fall asleep again
"Mars... wake up... Chloe says... we need to... get going"
"yeah, yeah just give me a few more minutes..."
he tried to fall asleep again but Victoria weren"t as kind to let him and began to push him around with her paws
"wake... up..."
Mars curled into a ball and stubbornly tried to stay asleep
"wake... up now!"
"OUCH! s.h.i.+T, what"s with the claws!?"
seeing as Victoria was so detriment to wake him up Mars finely opened his eyes and got out off bed and remembered that they needed to leave and start the trip to Green river and got a little exited and grabbed his backpack and his sword as he went out of the cave and saw it was a little before midday
"i really did over sleep..."
"your finely up Mars, er wait what happened to your arms!?"
hearing Isabel yelling Mars woke up a little more and looked down at his arms and saw 2 giant
dark blue buries on his arms instantly sending his mind into overwork
"isn"t that were I was grabbed in my dream... how is this even possible?"
as Mars stood in a daze the other elvers also came over, all of them looked at him with concern, especially Chloe but they stayed silent when they noticed Mars was lost in thought
"if it weren"t a dream then what was it... maybe it"s an after effect from when Info deleted my memory... in any case visiting a temple and asking Info should be the fastest way to know for sure"
having decided his cause of action Mars left his daze and saw the concerned looks from the elvers and gave a rea.s.suring smile
"don"t worry about that, while I don"t know for sure it probably has to do with my status as a living G.o.d"
as Mars spoke he activated his [Energy: healing] skill with 20 units of energy on himself, causing the bruises to shrink in size and almost disappear, causing Alvin to give a sigh of relief
"oh... if that"s the case then we won"t ask about it, anyway are you ready to go?"
Mars put down his backpack and cheeked it, it contained a small skin bag with all his magic beast cores, his bed roll and his bone hatched was strapped to the side of the pack
"yeah I have all the things I want to bring with me so I"m ready to go"
"good, then Rex you"re on scout duty, Isabel with me and Chloe bring up the rear with Mars"
"""yes captain"""
"good, then let"s go"
Mars was a little surprised by the sudden professional att.i.tude the elvers showed
"well I guess they are soldiers in the fist place"
as Mars followed after Chloe he turned around and took one last look at cave and clearing he had spent the last 2 months, he had left a lot of perfectly good magic beast meat, skin and bone in the cave but he couldn"t really be bothered with hauling it all the way to Green river
"well I can always come back for the skin and the bones later"
"come on Mars, let"s go"
"yeah I"m coming now"
Mars followed after Chloe into the forest and for a few hours he walked in silence while he observed the ancient forest around him and noticed the trees looked older and taller the further they were moving south, while the sign of life got more plentiful from the sounds of birds singing and the other small animals in the brushes, to the amount of fruits and barriers, and when it was about midday got the impression that he had stepped into a whole different forest an decided to ask Chloe about it
"hey Chloe, is it just me or dose the forest seem different somehow?"
Chloe didn"t answer him right away, only after looking around for half a minute did she speak up in a quiet voice
"that"s because we are nearing the middle off the barrier forest, the magic beasts here are also higher cla.s.ses then at the boarder of the outer forest were the cave is"
"...I see"
Mars silently raised his alertness and refrained asking more questions, while he welcomed higher cla.s.s magic beast he didn"t want to recklessly attract them, while he was half immortal his travel companions wasn"t and while he chould probably kill most of what the forest chould throw at him, he didn"t want to take the risk so he reached down and patted Victoria on the head
"tell me if anything comes to close to avoid"
"okay..."
while Mars"s senses was about as sharp as Victoria"s I he transformed he still trusted more in her then himself, besides he wasn"t able to stay transformed for long periods of time as it placed a mental burden on him, and effected his emotions
"well if it"s something Victoria can"t sense then we probably don"t have a fighting chance anyway..."
Mars gave a shrug and continued following after Chloe for a few more minutes before he noticed Victoria was acting oddly
"what"s wrong Victoria?"
the panther cub certainty was acting a little odd, she seemed fixated on something as her ears twitched slightly while her eyes darted around for a while before her horns flashed
"Mars... there"s prey... over there..."
"so?"
"I think... they think... we"re prey"
"oh is that so... Chloe hold up, Victoria thinks something"s starking us"
chloe stopped and took a whistle made of wood out her pouch and blew it 2 times, when Mars heard it he found the sound very familiar it sounded almost like a bird cry he had been hearing for the last few houres
"well that"s neat"
a few seconds later the rest of the elver that had been walking almost 50 meters in front showed up, and after Rex showed as the last, Alvin spoke up in a hushed voice
"what is it Chloe?"
"Victoria says something"s stalking us"
Alvin put his hand on his chin as he thought for a few seconds
"...in that case let"s avoid, Rex find us a river were we can lose our---"
"why don"t we just kill it instead?"
"...Mars it"s way to risky to flight, we don"t even know what"s after us and we might even atract more magic beast by fighting"
while Mars agreed with Alvin"s logically statement and likely would have agreed with him in his last life, he didn"t want to run for several reasons first he might obtain some high cla.s.s cores but most importantly
"Victoria says that whatever is stalking us thinks we"re prey and that rubs my pride the wrong way"
Alvin was a little taken back by Mars"s arrogant statement but after a few seconds he gave a sigh before he asked
"do you think we can win?"
"sure, Victoria even says that it"s "prey that thinks we"re prey" so there should be no problems even if it"s just the 2 of us"
"in that case we will leave it to you 2... let"s forage a bit in the meantime and then i suppose we can make camp for the night here, Rex see if you can find some water, Chloe your on forage duty and Isabel flatten the terrain a bit"
"""yes captain"""
"good then Mars and Victoria, good hunting"
Mars gave a nod and kneeled down and patted Victoria on the head while he asked her
"can you tell how meany there is?"
"I"m... not sure... but not... a lot?"
"okay then..."
Mars unsheathed his sword while he transformed and after a few seconds when his horns had fully grown he opened his now blood red eyes
"...let"s go"
"okay...follow me"
Victoria set off with Mars after her and gradually speed up until they both ran at full speed though the forest for about a minute before Victoria slowed down and began to lower her body a little as she moved forwarded
"is it those?"
Mars also began to sense the "prey" they were hunting and after moving somewhat stealthily for about 2 minutes Victoria jumped up into a tree and entered her shadow, Mars also jumped into a tree and slowed his breath, hiding his presence until a few minutes later a pack off about 20 black wolfs pa.s.sed by underneath were Mars and Victoria was hiding, and after a few seconds Mars"s skill activated when he looked at the biggest wolf in the pack that was about 3 meters tall
greater shadow wolf
male
cla.s.s: 6
a dangerous magic beast, not only because of it high individual combat power but also because of it"s ability to command other shadow wolf"s in combat
"this might be a challenge... but as long as we take out the commander it should be fine, let"s do this Victoria"