Even though they didn’t find the shadow eagle, it didn’t mean they had no progress at all. On the contrary, their physical abilities grew by day and they continued their dual Qi cultivation daily, or rather, every night. And not only it kept increasing their Qi reserves in their Dantians, a fact that was against any common sense, but also brought them closer. So close, that one night unconsciously they became intimate.

They didn’t know who made the first move or showed the initiative because they were already in the deep state of bliss they enjoyed every time they practiced the dual cultivation. It was only when the morning the rays of sun woke them up on the meadow near a small, still mountain lake, they realized what happened.

The strange part was that neither of them felt embarrassed or shy. It happened so naturally as if it was only the next step in their cultivation training. In addition they felt closer than ever before and during the following days even stopped talking while understanding each other without words.

During the next weeks they barely let each other go and continued to exchange Qi while holding hands. They felt like in heaven, although on many occasions they were literally above the clouds in the mountains. Neither of them had ever heard or read about anything even remotely close to what they were experiencing and it went far beyond simple ‘being in love’ or ‘attachment to the first love’.

But they were not in a rush and continued to ‘research’ their discoveries only to become more and more amazed by the world that opened before them.

Besides all that, the search for Angel never stopped and now, few months later, they finally felt they were out of options. YunYun felt Nick’s annoyance, but there was nothing she could do, but to lean on him while watching at the waves.

Nick felt as helpless as annoyed and continuously wrecked his brains trying to find out what he had missed. Currently he knew the map of the Northern mountain range better than anyone and there was not a spot he had missed. He knew there was no better region for Angel to hide and there were relatively recent, several months old, sightings of him as well. He trusted Angel to remember the promise they gave each other as well. Then what? What did he miss?

“I just can’t understand!” Nick finally said out loud staring at the dark and cloudy horizon.

“Wanna brainstorm again?” YunYun softly asked.

“Sigh, we have done it so many times already!” Nick sighed, but out of habit continued, “We know we can trust the legendary beasts more than any human, therefore there is no reason to doubt he will wait for me. We know he is somewhere in the Northern mountain range because several people saw him last year and, although few might be false reports, we can trust a couple of those hunters. We know he doesn’t like to eat simple beasts and has to hunt higher ranked ones. What else? We had a deal that I’ll come after ten years, so if he heard our shouts, he should've showed up. And I doubt there is anyone who could harm him, especially after the encounter with the Holy Order.”

“Mhm.” YunYun nodded, “So ten years are up and …”

Before YunYun could complete her sentence, Nick suddenly slapped his forehead, “Damn it! How could I be so stupid!”

When YunYun looked him in the eyes, he explained, “The ten years are not up! He is expecting me at least two years later and probably is either hiding somewhere or just flew off to have some fun!”

They both fell silent.

After a while YunYun asked, “Then what do we do now?”

“I guess we should go back. Olympic games are about to start anyway. All our friends will be there.” Nick said and sighed again.

“Can’t we really find the Holy Order without him? If not alone, we can deal with them with the help of king Maxwell.” YunYun said.

“If it was so easy, he would’ve found them long time ago. They definitely have some emergency escape plans in case they are discovered and will move to another location. We can’t simply run around mount Corbus and shout all day long like we have done for the past months.” Nick said.

Both sighed and continued to stare in the distance. They didn’t want to give up, but there was no reason to stay in the north anymore.

In the distance a large seagull or may be albatross plunged into the dark waters and immediately ascended while carrying a small water snake who kept desperately trying to get free.

“Remember how we fought that rank five snake at the Lochi river?” YunYun reminisced looking at the bird disappearing in the distance.

“Mhm. That was a great fight. Although we didn’t find any snakes like that on this trip, we did get to battle that smelly rank five troll. Either it didn’t want to understand us or didn’t care, but he shouldn’t have kept harassing us. It was an accident we stepped in his cave in the first place. We ...” Suddenly Nick’s expression changed.

“Why the hell did it fly that way?” He asked while furrowing brows.

“What?” YunYun got confused by the sudden change in his voice.

“The albatross! Why would it fly away from the land after catching the pray?” Nick jumped up, “With our sight we can see for dozens of kilometers, even in this weather and there is clearly nothing there! But it flew right into the horizon!”

“So?” YunYun was still confused.

“That was no albatross and that was not a f*cking small water snake! How did we not realize the distance it was at? Hahaha! Let’s go!” He laughed and pulled YunYun down the cliff.

They were crawling up and down steep cliff walls already when they were Qi practitioners, but now, especially with the recent practice, they could easily run on those almost like on horizontal ground.

With Nick loudly laughing and YunYun screaming in excitement, they ran down the cliff, jumped on the waves and ran across the stormy waters away from the coast. Even with their speed they had to run for over an hour until in the far distance they finally saw an island hidden in a thick mist.

After coming closer it tuned out to be a plain steep dark cliff, with no beaches below or any small trees or even bushes on it. And the mist they saw from the distance were the clouds that hid the top.

“Now we know why we couldn’t find him.” Nick said with a wide grin.

YunYun nodded and they both ran up the steep wall while barely keeping back their excitement.

The island, or rather the cliff in the middle of the sea, turned out to be much larger and higher than they expected. They were well above the thick rain clouds when they finally could see the top.

“Should we call him?” YunYun whispered.

“Nah.” Nick shook his head, “I bet he already knows we are here.”

When they finally reached the top, they found themselves on a small plateau, may be twenty five, thirty meters wide. In the middle of it they saw a majestic, beautiful gray eagle in a size of a truck pressing down a large black snake with its claw. Or rather, what was left of that snake – obviously the eagle was still in the middle of the meal.

“Should we come back at the better time?” Nick asked smiling from ear to ear. He spent a long time looking for this old friend and now his persistence was finally rewarded.

Angel snorted and with a flap of his wing what was left of the snake flew off the cliff.

“I see you haven’t change much.” Nick said, “Let me introduce you, this is my wife, YunYun. YunYun, this is the most majestic eagle in the world, Angel.”

“Nice to meet you! Nick me told a lot about you, but I never imagined you would be this handsome!” YunYun said and took few steps forward while stretching her fist out.

Angel crooked his head a little looking at the small human in front of him.

“What are you looking at her like that for? She is my wife, that means she is your friend. It is only normal to for you two to fist-bump!” Nick said. He was confident about rank six beast’s memory, he was just silently praying that Angel wouldn’t try to play a prank like King Kong – the cliff was way too high for them to survive a ‘friendly’ accidental fall.

His worries were unnecessary. Angel stretched out his claw and touched YunYun’s small fist.

“Alright! With introductions out of the way, let me bring you up to date.” Nick said and sat on the edge of the cliff. This eagle had a good taste – the view from above the clouds was great! YunYun sat besides him and Angel also took few steps to come closer.

“We did look for you for almost half a year, but now that we met, what do you say – should we go and clean that place up?” Nick asked.

Angel glanced at him sideways and snorted.

“Good! Let’s do it!” Nick nodded, “During the last few years I managed to kill few of those bastards, including the two main culprits who poisoned you, remember? One skillful with the sword and the other who you left with only one arm. Now, all that is left, is for us to go to their nest and burn it down.”

Eagle was visibly surprised at what Nick said and his eyes widened when he heard that the young human managed to deal with the two strong ones.

“No need to be surprised. I am quite strong and fast now.” Nick smiled when he saw Angel’s reaction, “Of course, I am not as fast or strong as you.”

Angel flapped his wings and let out a loud cry to the sky. Indeed, he was ‘the’ strongest!

“That being said, I am grown up now and you should not carry the two of us in a basket.” Nick continued, “So, what do you think if we do like this – first, we run towards the south to the place you left me back then. We would meet there in a few days and then proceed towards the mount Corbus together – you in the sky and we on the land.”

Eagle crooked his head again, pondered a little and then nodded.

“Good, see you soon then. Don’t scare too many people on the way! Hahaha!” Nick laughed, while YunYun politely said ‘goodbye’ and they both ran down the cliff.

Angel snorted and took off as well.

“He is amazing!” YunYun finally said when they were running on a dry land once again, “Every rank six we meet is more amazing than the last one, or rather – all of them are great, albeit each in their own way.”

“Indeed!” Nick agreed, “We can look at them like at a pinnacle of evolution in this world.”

“And the coincidences how we met them are even more unbelievable!” YunYun smiled remembering the trio in Lethe kingdom.

“With this I disagree.” Nick shook his head, “The more we practice, the more I get this subtle feeling how Qi governs everything in this world. It’s almost something like the universal law – you must’ve felt the same at least few times. Meeting Angel … we looked for him for a long time, but even without knowing it we came closer and closer in our search. And, in the end, we basically came to his doorstep, but we were stupid and couldn’t see the final step we had to take. And then, the universe or the Qi flow, call it as you like, led him towards us. He could’ve gone hunting a couple hours earlier or later and we would not have met for two more years! And you can look at all of that in a wider perspective, for example, how I keep stumbling upon the people from the Holy Order all over the world, how we keep finding rank six beasts and even our meeting was special.”

Nick thought a bit and then continued, “My theory is that these are no coincidences and the more we practice Qi, the more we will experience its wonders. YunYun! The upcoming years will be so fun!”

She squeezed his hand tighter and both laughed loudly while still dashing south along the northern beaches of the Sun kingdom.

The eagle was soaring high up the sky and looking at the two tiny humans. Indeed, the kid had grown. Even though Nick was a friend, from him Angel kept getting this similar feeling he got from few other rank six beasts he had met during the years. A strong existence!

Back then he did made a deal with the tiny kid and they escaped together. Of course, he could’ve left him there, but that went against his pride. Later, he thought about going back and dealing with those people alone, but for some reason he held back. And now he understood that he, a mighty shadow eagle Angel, for some reason needed or, may be, wanted the assistance of this kid. If few years back that thought would be ridiculous, now they could discuss things on equal grounds. Of course, on the outside Angel would never admit it.