"There is one!"
As Azekiel reached closer to the city, he finally started seeing some Monsters. He noticed a monster roaming freely, right outside the entrance of the city.
The monster didn't appear weak, either. For some reason, he seemed stronger than the ones that Azekiel saw before when he had to leave the city. The one that was outside the city was almost three times the size of the one that had killed his mother.
The beast looked like a yeti, but its fur was blood red, and there were ice spikes coming out of its back. Amongst the hundreds of ice spikes that were all around the beast's body, only a rare few looked to be pure. The rest all had some trail of blood on them as if they were used to kill someone, and the blood had dried up.
One could only guess how many people this guy had killed.
"Raphael, how do you suggest we deal with it?" Azekiel inquired, even though he already had an idea that he had finalized. He still took a second opinion just to see if his ideas matched with Raphael's.
"Should we sneak into the city and look for their leader? Or should we kill the beast and enter openly?"
"If I'm not wrong, the leader of the group would be in the city since it's closest to the tower. Sneaking in would be the safest route, but it'll be really time consuming. On the other hand, just barging inside openly would bring a lot of attention to us."
"In the former, we go to the leader of these beings without having to fight an entire army. In the latter, we make the Leader of this group come to us by being loud enough. The latter option is faster, but it'll make us fight a lot of them."
"Since we have no idea exactly how many of these things are inside, it would be foolish to create too much noise while entering. There might be a hundred, or there might be thousands... I think we should be more careful. We still have quite some time before we have to finish this mission."
As Raphael expressed his opinion, Azekiel also nodded. "You're right. This Trial is the second part of the hidden quest. The first part already was dangerous enough to almost kill us. This mission should only be more difficult. That means the leader of this group... He might be just as dangerous as Avila, if not more."
"That's right. Fighting him and his thousands of followers can get quite risky since it'll become a numbers game, which I don't think we should let it become."
"Lia, create an illusion," Azekiel commanded Lia. Since he was sneaking inside, he wanted to do that without taking too much risk either, and what better way than to use the illusion?
Lia cast an illusion, making the beast see everything as normal. In the illusion, the three of them were there.
Due to the illusion, even as Azekiel walked past the beast, the beast wasn't able to see them. It was as if they were spirits who didn't exist at all. They could go anywhere and do anything, as long as they didn't attract too much attention to them.
The group of three finally entered the city that once used to be full of life. The streets that were always filled with people and traffic were now empty. The roads were covered in blood, but there were no bodies that could be seen. It was as if all the bodies were either moved aside or destroyed.
There were vehicles on the street that were damaged beyond repair. Some even had their shell crushed entirely.
Just on the one street itself, Azekiel noticed around a hundred beasts; all spread out. Some beasts were sleeping while the rest were walking around as if patrolling.
Azekiel raided his head, looking at the top of the house that was still somewhat intact. He could see beasts sitting on top of the houses as well.
Fortunately, Lia's illusion had a range that was big enough to keep them safe from being noticed. At least by these people.
"Hmm? That girl?" Azekiel grimaced, noticing a person in the distance that shouldn't be there.
"Am I dreaming, or that's the same girl that was inside the tower? So she was a human like you?" It seemed that Azekiel wasn't the only person who could see the lady. Even Lia and Raphael were able to see the woman.
"She was after the Stone of Time as well," Raphael affirmed. "Maybe she's someone selected by the Tower as well? She could have a similar mission as us?"
"I don't think that will be possible. The tower wouldn't give the same hidden quest to two people. Also, I'd never seen her in the tower before, in my three years there. She wasn't amongst the people there on Floor Zero, let alone amongst the people being selected by the Tower. Something isn't right."
"We should follow her and see what she's after," Lia suggested. "Whatever she's doing here, it must be something that we need to know as well."
Azekiel agreed as well. Even though his first aim was to go back to his house, to see just how it was now, something had changed with the girl's appearance here. Something was really wrong here.
He had seen the girl fight in the tower, which made him assured that she was someone like Avila, who lived in the World inside the Towers. She was stronger than most of the Kings, after all. But her presence here had shaken his entire notion.
There were only a few possibilities at this point. One was that the world inside the Towers was connected to the real world, and there were other ways to get inside the tower. The other was something much darker... It was that the girl worked for the monsters who were somehow able to enter the tower now. In both cases, he needed to know everything.
Azekiel followed after the girl, but the girl suddenly stopped in the middle of the street.
She turned around, staring straight in Azekiel's direction. For a moment, Azekiel felt as if the girl was looking straight at him. Did Lia's illusion fail? He looked around, but no beasts were looking in their direction. It was evident that the beasts couldn't see them.
"This stench... That man...? Am I imagining stuff?" The young lady shook her head before she continued walking.
Azekiel also sighed a breath of relief. She definitely couldn't see him. That was confirmed. He continued following her as well.
