"Oh, hey! You're still alive!" One of the Peak Ancestral Mages shouted to a Mid Ancestral Mage with a smile.
The other Ancestral Mage floated over and nodded. "Yep, and I also made quite a bit this time. I completed three trials."
The first Mage let out an impressive whistle. "Impressive," he said. "Anyway, did you get Maruda?"
The second Mage slowly shook his head. "Couldn't find him."
"Huh, he's normally one of the first ones that return. I thought that you got him," the first Mage said.
"Nope," the second Mage said again. "It would suck if he suddenly dies. I wouldn't get my payment and his wealth."
"Speaking of," he added as he looked at the gathered Mages above the surface. "I also don't see my contractor."
The first Mage shrugged. "Maybe they're still in a trial?"
The other Mage just furrowed his brows. Then, he turned to Lucin, who was looking at the ocean. "Lucin, who are we still waiting for?"
"There's one more Peak Ancestral Mage. She's choosing her rewards right now. I don't think it will take longer than a couple of minutes," Lucin answered.
When Lucin said that, several other Mages raised their eyebrows in surprise.
Wait, basically everyone was already here?
They looked at each other and counted.
Twelve Peak Ancestral Mages.
Two Late Ancestral Mages.
Two Mid Ancestral Mages.
One Early Ancestral Mage.
Three Initial Ancestral Mages.
20 Clouds in total, and with the one they were waiting for, they would be 21.
They had started with 36, and now they were 21.
They had expected that there would be about 30 left near the end, but there were only 21.
This was quite a devastating death quota.
Even more, the deaths mostly focused on the first two levels in the Ancestral Mage Realm.
The other three levels were still within expected parameters, but 80% of Early Ancestral Mages and 70% of Initial Ancestral Mages died.
What happened?
Did they enter one of the extremely rare group trials with a chance of death?
No, these kinds of trials were only open for Peak Ancestral Mages that had been in the Wilderness Hunt several times already.
That only left one other explanation.
Someone had killed a lot of them.
But who?
It was probably one of the three remaining Initial Ancestral Mages. After all, an Early Ancestral Mage couldn't possibly kill that many Initial Ancestral Mages since they were not allowed to attack them first.
The Peak Ancestral Mages talked to each other via voice transmission, trying to find out who it could have been.
In the end, it came out that two of the three Initial Ancestral Mages had been at that level for quite a time to accumulate power, and they had always been quite peaceful.
One of them focused on inspecting the wildernesses and noting down locations of trials to make a lot of money. She even had several deals with other Clouds. In exchange for her safety in the Wilderness Hunt, they would get a discount for purchasing any of the trial locations.
Killing others would be detrimental to her business, which was why everyone was quite certain that she hadn't been the killer.
The second Initial Ancestral Mage was a notorious serial trial taker.
He was the first Ancestral Mage's biggest customer, and he specialized in a wide variety of skills.
He completed one trial after the other, earning a lot of stuff which he would then mostly sell to other Clouds.
He even took requests to find certain extremely rare materials in the right trials.
It would make no sense for him to kill so many other Clouds since that would damage his business.
Also, judging from the auras of the first two Clouds, they were not happy about this development.
That left the third Initial Ancestral Mage.
It was a woman with light-blue hair, and they all remembered her.
She had been the new Cloud that had asked the leading Bolt about the Deep Crevices on their way here.
After exchanging information, the Clouds concluded that she had joined just a couple of decades ago and that her powers were a mystery.
They knew that she had an Ice Affinity, but they hadn't seen her fight before.
And that still held true.
Not even a single Cloud had seen her fight in the Wilderness Hunt.
The other two Initial Ancestral Mages also noticed all of this, and they moved closer to each other.
They were thankful that they had traveled mostly together this time.
They wanted to see if they could earn more by combining their businesses this time.
They also remembered that they had seen the third Initial Ancestral Mage before in the Wilderness Hunt, and as they thought back to that event, a cold shower ran down their backs.
They hadn't realized what sort of danger they had been in!
It was terrifying!
Today, all the Clouds realized that the newest Ancestral Mage Cloud was extremely dangerous.
She was probably also very powerful, and most Clouds looked at her with narrowed eyes filled with wariness.
They knew that she would only grow more powerful after this event. After all, she would have gathered a scary number of Mana Crystals this time.
Splash!
A Peak Ancestral Mage came out of the water. "Sorry, I'm late," she said with a bright smile.
Lucin just nodded and summoned his Transportation Plate.
"Everyone's here. Let's go back."
When the last Peak Ancestral Mage heard that, her eyes widened.
There were so few!
Another Ancestral Mage informed her of what had happened, and she threw a shocked glance at the light-blue-haired Initial Ancestral Mage.
They would need to be careful of her in the future.
Everyone stepped on the Transportation Plate, and the blue-haired Mage took the spot behind that weird warrior.
At that moment, some of the Clouds sighed.
The warrior was lucky that he hadn't come across the blue-haired girl.
Otherwise, he would have most likely been killed by her.
Then, the Transportation Plate shot into the distance.
The Wilderness Hunt was over.
