There was not much time for discussion. As soon as Eiwin split up the groups, they all went their separate ways.

As Red’s group approached Gustav’s bodyguards, they noticed their situation was getting worse. Whatever wounds were inflicted on the large man, they seemed to have done more damage than was readily apparent, as his movement started to slow down.

Rog frowned. “Something’s wrong with him.”

“Maybe poison.” Red suggested.

“Quite possible.” The hunter nodded. “All the more reason not to get scratched by that bird.”

Narcha grunted. “That’s our priority, then.”

The woman took a bottle of pills from her pouch before swallowing one of them. Red recognized it as one of the remaining empowerment pills they acquired from the imperials in the trial.

Narcha looked over at Red and Rog. “Deal with the bird. I’ll help that buffoon out so he doesn’t get killed.”

Red hesitated, but before he could say anything, Narcha was already running to the battlefield. Her approach didn’t go unnoticed by the combatants.

The wolf she was charging towards in particular growled at having its fight interrupted. It didn’t dare to underestimate Narcha, though, even if she wasn’t in the Lesser Ring Realm.

It swiped one of its sharp claws at the woman, his paw emitting a faint, white mist. It looked as if the attack was about to connect, but suddenly Narcha spun on her feet, twirling out of the way with incredible speed and dodging the attack. Then, using the motion of her spin, she brought her saber around to slash against the wolf’s body.

The creature didn’t have the time to dodge, or perhaps it didn’t care to. The saber clashed against the monster’s white fur, causing an explosion of snow mist and ice shards. Still, the wolf barely stumbled on its feet, and the woman’s attack was shrugged off with no visible injuries.

The wolf turned around and tried to snap its jaws closed around Narcha, but the woman had already twirled away.

“It has a protective ice sheet around its body!” The large body guard warned Narcha.

The woman gritted her teeth in annoyance and focused on dodging the wolf’s attacks. She was pressed into the defensive very quickly, as this wolf seemed both faster and smarted than the bear from earlier, but under the effects of the pill, she managed to hold her own.

This allowed the large man some room to breathe as he swallowed something under his wooden mask. Red felt his fluctuation stabilize somewhat, and soon enough, the man was charging back towards the wolf.

The monster growled in annoyance at this two pronged attack, but a wounded Lesser Ring Realm cultivator and a powerful mortal were barely enough to keep the creature at bay. Upon seeing this, the female bodyguard focused back on her own target.

Red was relieved, as the situation seemed to be stabilized. Yet he knew Narcha’s empowerment wouldn’t last for long, and there was still another creature on the battlefield they had to deal with.

The pressure on him increased when his companion was simply staring at him, awaiting orders.

He looked over at Rog in confusion. “Why haven’t you shot the wolves?”

Rog shook his head. “I feel confident in piercing the wolf if I try, but I’m storing that one shot for the target that really matters.”

Red remembered the technique the hunter used against the bandits six months ago in the forest.

The boy was willing to believe Rog in this matter. He looked up at the sky. “Do you feel confident in shooting the bird?”

“Not at all.” Rog shook his head again. “It’s too fast. By the time I can spot it, aim, and shoot it, it will already be gone.”

Red frowned. “Do you have any more talismans?”

The hunter nodded. “Only a shield, but even if I had something else, it wouldn’t work.”

The boy knew he was speaking the truth. One of the downsides of a talisman was that they needed at least a few seconds to be activated. How could he aim that effectively when their target appeared and disappeared from sight in a split second?

This was not to mention that they were running out of offensive talismans. Red himself only had one of them remaining, and he would rather save it for when it could be most useful.

Such being the case, what other venues were available to them to deal with this bird?

‘I need to think quickly. I don’t know when it’s going to strike again.’

“If you knew when it was going to appear, could you hit it?” Red asked.

Rog hesitated. “If I knew when it was going to appear and where it was going to appear… Then yes, I could hit it.”

The boy frowned. He could figure out when the bird was going to appear by his crimson sense, but as for where it would appear? It moved too quickly for Red to make these calculations and assumptions on the fly.

“Who do you think the bird is going to strike next?” Red asked.

Rog frowned in thought. “If it was a common monster, it would probably try to finish off its first weakened target…”

“Yet, you seem skeptical.” Red noticed the man’s expression.

“What is happening here goes against my knowledge of monsters. I can’t guarantee anything.”

Indeed, it was hard to predict the behavior of these animals. If they were indeed being controlled by someone, could that someone give them very specific orders? Could they make it so this monster went against its natural instincts?

Red didn’t know, but an idea started to form in his head.

“We can force it to attack someone.” Red looked over at Rog.

“How?” The hunter looked skeptical.

The boy hesitated. “… Get away from me.”

Rog raised his eyebrows in surprise, catching onto Red’s plan. “This seems a bit risky.”

Red stared at him. “You said you could hit it, didn’t you?”

The hunter nodded. “I suppose I did.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry.” Red waved him off. “Go stand by the side and make sure you don’t miss.”

Rog gave him a deep look but offered no protest. He hurried off to the side, positioning himself almost fifty meters away from the boy with his bow at the ready.

Red looked over at Narcha and the wolves. He noticed the woman was having more trouble keeping up with the monster as a sheet of ice formed around her armor and the large bodyguard was having trouble dealing any damage to the creature. They didn’t have much longer, and this was certainly the best time to attack.

Red grabbed onto a talisman inside his pouch, his last offensive spell. What he was about to do was risky, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

The boy took his talisman out and pointed it at the wolves in the middle of combat.

Then, in a very deliberate manner, Red started to chant the incantations and scratch at the activation line in the talisman. The slip began to glow, as strong Spiritual Energy emanated from the boy’s hands.

This, of course, caught the attention of everyone in his vicinity, wolves and bodyguards included. Such was the nature of such talismans and spells, in general, conflagrations of energy that would have a hard time to go by unnoticed at such a distance.

For a moment, the combatants stared at Red in wonder and surprise. The wolves were quick to notice the talisman seemed to be pointed at them and growled in wariness.

Then, just as the talisman seemed about to go off, Red felt it. A fluctuation suddenly appeared above him, diving towards the boy at an incredible speed.

“Now!”

This was the only word Red managed to get out before the bird was almost upon him. He heard the sound of an arrow being released before the creature even appeared.

It whooshed over his head.

‘Too early.’

The next instant, the figure of the bird materialized out of the darkness above his head, its talons reaching for the boy. Yet, he didn’t panic.

Another sound, fainter this time.

Something hit the creature in midair, throwing its body off course. It crashed in the ground just by Red’s side, its momentum making it slide almost ten meters across the floor before coming to a stop.

It wasn’t dead, though, and it struggled to get up. Only now did the boy manage to lay eyes on its true appearance.

This bird monster resembled an owl, its dark feathers making its figure hard to discern even with the boy’s night vision. Even its beak was completely pitch black. It wasn’t big for a monster in the Lesser Ring Realm, roughly the size of an adult man, but its wingspan reached well over five meters. The only thing that broke the monotonous dark colors of the creature was its glowing silver eyes and the arrow the stuck out of its side.

Indeed, Rog hadn’t disappointed. If one arrow wasn’t enough, the hunter would shoot as many as he needed in quick succession so that one of them would hit.

It was something the boy had only seen Rog use a handful of times and which exhausted his body very quickly. Yet, in this situation, it had worked perfectly to their advantage.

Red wasn’t about to take any chances either.

He turned around and pointed his talisman at the monster, trying to finish his incantation. The bird seemed to notice what was about to happen, and it let out a screeching sound.

Suddenly, a wave of darkness flew out of its body, covering Red in an instant. The boy’s vision was covered by absolute darkness and he found himself unable to see anything.

Whatever kind of monster this was, it seemed capable of manipulating darkness as if it was a tangible element. It was a wondrous and terrifying ability.

However, Red didn’t panic. This wasn’t the first time the boy had to act completely blind.

Through his crimson sense, he felt the creature move around, trying to flank him. Yet, before it could get close to him, the boy turned around in a hurry and pointed his talisman at the monster’s fluctuation, finishing his incantation.

He felt a wave of energy explode in front of him, pushing his body back slightly. Then, a few seconds later, Red felt the darkness surrounding him retreat as he recovered his vision.

What greeted his eyes was the dying owl monster, impaled to the ground by a large rock spear conjured out of Earth Spiritual Energy. The creature struggled, trying to get itself free, to no avail.

A few seconds later, its movements started to weaken. Red felt the monster’s fluctuation disappear as it finally died.

The boy sighed in relief. In the end, his plan had worked perfectly.

“Red, watch out!”

Narcha’s voice came from behind him.

Red turned around in a hurry, only to see two enormous wolves charging at him with maddened gazes.