“This is only the periphery of the lands of Darkness, and yet just being here is uncomfortable. Even the air feels noxious. I can’t imagine what they’ve turned their innermost territories into.” Lunaris whispered.

The group huddled together and were speaking in whispers. The stealth Denmac cast over them made them very hard to detect, it would be hard to notice them even if you were standing right next to them.

But they still had to try to minimize their presence. They weren’t even walking since they worried that the steps would be too loud, or that some demon would sense the vibrations that their footsteps made. They chose to ride on a floating carpet instead, a very slow but silent mode of transportation.

“So you’re telling me this isn’t even as bad as it gets?” James asked.

This place already gave him the creeps. It was hard to breathe, there was very little light, and there were eerie sounds coming from all directions. That much he could deal with though, the real problem was the ridiculous number of demons and monsters skulking around.

James suddenly became a lot more grateful that Denmac was here.

He had been wondering why they didn’t just get a fighter for a mercenary. Lunaris was the support, he thought that maybe they shouldn’t have two people supporting with just two people fighting.

But if not for the stealth, they would have been fighting hordes of demons every time they wanted to move a even foot deeper into these lands. Suddenly, Denmac’s presence became much more valuable than any fighter, since it spared them from having to stop to fight some monster every minute.

“Yep, it gets much worse.” Helios answered. “I can’t speak from experience because very few people are able to even remote view or divine inside those accursed places from afar, and it’s even harder to actually enter them. But from the few powerful mages that did succeed and survived to tell the tale, apparently one can’t even exist in those places without being immensely powerful. And I mean that literally, if your level isn’t high enough, just existing there would kill you instantly. Case in point, you can feel how noxious the air is even here, far away from any lands fully corrupted by the Darkness.”

“Luckily, that doesn’t concern us. If my guess is right, the reason these neophyte agents are even spending time around here is that they physically can’t enter the darker lands yet.” Lunaris added. “So we won’t have to venture anywhere way above our levels. Still, even the enemies within these lands are already very powerful, not to be taken lightly.”

“We shouldn’t take the neophytes lightly either.” Helios added. “Worse, they might not even be the worst threat. Who knows who they’ll have with them? They can’t go to the darkest lands, but that doesn’t mean those from the darkest lands can’t come with them. There could be actual agents there, acting as leaders of some sorts. We can only hope that we won’t encounter several of them.” Even while whispering, his anger could be felt. Among the many things he hated the agents for, he was still angry about them cursing James.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” James tried to infuse some optimism into the gloomy atmosphere. “You guys didn’t even dampen your levels this time around, so we’re much stronger as a group. I’ll get slightly less xp overall, but that’s nothing compared to the power boost we get. We’ll definitely kick their asses with you being undampened.”

“I like that spirit, brother. We shouldn’t overestimate ourselves either, but we certainly aren’t to be trifled with. I can promise I’ll crush at least a few of their skulls though.” Helios replied with a sadistic grin. When it came to agents, he had no empathy.

Neither of them truly felt overly optimistic, they knew they had to be very careful in this fight. These were specialized mage killers. Actual murderers trained to deal with powerful mages, not some half-witted monster.

But they were both thirsty for agent blood, and they had trust in their own abilities and each other. It would probably a lot of pain and sacrifice, but they had faith that they’d succeed eventually.

The group had been slowly floating on the carpet for a while. Huddled together, being as quiet as possible. Denmac was focused hard on scanning for any possible leads, looking dead asleep.

“There is Darkness magic everywhere in here, is it even possible to even find any trace of those agents?” James asked.

“You’re partially right.” Denmac answered. “There’s Darkness all around us, it’s suffocating. It’s even blinding to any attempt to divine, all I see is a haze of Darkness. But that’s exactly why we’re in luck. Among all this Darkness, any traces of a normal human being and their magic would stand out like a necromancer at a baptism.” He grinned.

“In other words, if the mages that were killed put up enough of a fight to leave just a tiny trace of their magic on the agents, then he can use that to lock his divining attempts onto the agents.” Lunaris clarified for James, with noticeable sorrow in her eyes. She was thinking about the many mages that must’ve died at the hands of these monsters. Worse yet, it wasn’t even an important enough case for the army to deal with it. Even during this so-called stalemate, innocent mages were losing their lives daily. Helios’s eyes turned fiery from anger at the thought of it, the flames betraying his emotions.

As careful and prepared as the group was, they were still basically just floating aimlessly. They spent hours floating around, with Denmac trying to divine any clues, with the rest of them watching their surroundings like hawks. But they still hadn’t found anything.

And the farther away they went from their point of entry to the lands of Darkness, the bigger was the area they had to cover. Even just the periphery of the lands of Darkness was the size of several countries. The Darkness had taken over a third of planet after all.

“I must admit, these bastards are really good at stealth after all.” Helios said in frustration. “They must’ve known that if anybody were to search for them, they would start somewhere near the village. So they put extra effort into wiping any tracks around that area.”

“I too thought that we’d have found at least a little something by now.” Denmac replied. “But they couldn’t have kept up absolute stealth forever. At a certain point, they must’ve let their guard down. The problem is that we have no idea where that point could be, or if we’re even in the right area. They could’ve gone in an entirely different direction. We’re essentially searching for a needle in a haystack.”

“There is something we can do though, isn’t there?” Lunaris asked.

“I think I know what you’re thinking.” Denmac answered. “But that would be very dangerous. We are under stealth for a reason, and that would announce our location to anything in the area. Plus, we’re in these corrupted lands, that can have an unpredictable effect on such precise and fragile magic.”

“What, what is it?” Helios and James asked simultaneously. They were brilliant in their own ways, but they weren’t nearly as knowledgeable as Lunaris.

“I can amplify his search radius.” Lunaris replied. “Right now it’s like we’re looking for the needle by inspecting one stalk of hay at a time. But if I assist him and amplify his skill, we can scan many miles around us at once.”

“Yes, but that would attract every demon within that radius towards us. We’ll have hundreds of demons rushing at us, hankering to rip us apart.” Denmac added.

“Do we have any other options?” James asked.

“Other than to keep scouring the haystack, one stalk of hay at a time, no.” Denmac answered.

“Let’s do it.” Helios exclaimed. “Hundreds of demons is nothing to us, right James?”

“That’s right, brother!” James answered immediately. Now was not the time for hesitation. Lives were at stake, they had to be real men and do what needed to be done. “We’ll kill every last one of them, then we’ll make demon stew!”

The two hotheads then bumped their heads and started beating their chests like gorillas, pumped to finally see some action. Luckily, there weren’t any enemies around to catch them off guard, because they weren’t being stealthy at all.

The group then floated for a while until they found a position where they wouldn’t be completely surrounded when the hordes of demons came at them. They found a small mountain surrounded by a sea of enormous trees taller than buildings, which would give them quite an advantage for guerrilla warfare against many enemies.

Lunaris started pouring her mana into Denmac. In the meantime, Helios was sharpening his sword, and James was pouring mana into his Mana Devouring Necklace as fast as he could regenerate it. Thankfully, his mana regeneration rate had increased quite a lot because of his complete neglect to train any other attributes.

Lunaris put her hands on Denmac’s back and closed her eyes, going into a state of deep focus.

“Here it goes. Get ready cause the demons will feel this right away.” Denmac declared.

A wave of mana exploded out from Denmac. Usually, most divination skills wouldn’t have any visual effect, but Lunaris had poured so much mana into Denmac that the search skill had been even a lot powerful than expected.

Lunaris felt weak and dizzy, to the point she almost fell over. Against her wishes, the spell had absorbed more mana than she was willing to part with. It was like it had been violently sucked out of her. Her whole body felt exhausted and damaged, every single mana channel was aching.

“Uhh … that’s not good. That’ll definitely cover a much larger area than I expected.” Denmac said, for once not looking sleepy at all.