At the end of the month since the confrontation with the four vampires, Onyx—the last one to complete his cultivation—awoke from his sleep.
Torne had finished his cultivation before Onyx, even though he had consumed more vampire blood. However, because of the differences between beasts and ghosts, and that Onyx had consumed part of the vampires' bodies, he really needed more time.
When he woke up, 15% stronger than he had been a month ago, Onyx and his group left the cave where they had been hiding and returned to their journey to the Valley of Lightning.
Torne had improved almost as much as Onyx, since vampire blood was more valuable than vampire flesh. But that was obviously not enough for them to advance. They had only just reached the 5th stage, so a 15% improvement was already very good!
With the improvements of his entire group, Vicente was looking forward to his advancement and the end of their hunt. Fortunately, they were less than a week away from the Valley of Lightning, where they would try their luck against a creature with a cyan essence.
Their journey was about to reach its climax!
...
A week later, the group had traveled north with no major problems.
Nowadays, it would be impossible not to encounter monsters along the way. Besides the fact that the northern region of the continent was the natural home of most of the monster races in the Polaris Realm, The Purification had opened 'doors' to the entire world of special magical creatures.
Nevertheless, the group hadn't come across anything as menacing as the vampires they had encountered a month earlier.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})Today, the group had entered the Valley of Lightning, an always stormy place where more than a thousand lightning bolts cut through the sky every day.
Everyone in the group felt the hostility of the environment, feeling a numb sensation in parts of their bodies, but also a cutting sensation from the lightning in the area.
In this mountainous area, the sound of distant thunder echoed every few seconds, creating a symphony of terror that could easily deter the faint-hearted.
This was an extreme place where there were no natives. All the beings who entered and lived in this area were beings who had chosen this area as their home after reaching a certain level.
While the rest of the group felt uncomfortable with the elemental concentration of the area, Vicente felt welcomed, as if he was entering his ancestral home.
'Be very careful from now on, master. There are many Paragons nearby,' Torne warned.
The ghost hadn't noticed any Archmages yet. But even Archmages were rare in the north of the continent, so it wouldn't be easy to find the strongest ones in the valley.
Upon entering the area, one might even notice High-level Paragons here and there. Torne sensed at least a dozen of them within his range!
Vicente had already noticed several Mid-level Paragons, so he was already in position, on the lookout for magical beings near his group.
The same was true for his six companions, who were alert to the dangers of the area itself, as well as the Paragons they had already spotted in their vicinity.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})Lina was constantly using her power, while the others were stimulating their mana, ready to activate their powers as soon as they needed them.
Amid the group's attention to their surroundings, Vicente scanned the area for strong beings.
This was a special area for beings compatible with the lightning element, so many creatures there had an elemental affinity with him.
But Vicente had not only the lightning element, so he needed to find a target with some compatibility with the earth element.
This made it easier for him to "eliminate" those that weren't worth his group getting close to, and he quickly whittled his targets down from the dozens of creatures they could sense nearby to 5 beings, all High-level Paragons.
From the distance the group was at, there was no way they could sense the quality of the pentagram formed by these beings. So as soon as he had determined who he would look at first, Vicente warned his group of targets to get closer to these High-level Paragons.
As they did so, they felt the situation become more tense, while even their breathing became less noisy as they cautiously made their way around the area.
Most of the beings in this area weren't interested in protecting a territory or taking action against people who entered the area. This was a perfect place for cultivation, so as long as no one interfered with their meditation, no one would move out of their little domains.
Because there were so many powerful beings, everyone in the area was only interested in protecting their cultivation grounds and had no interest in getting involved in other people's problems.
This was an advantage for Vicente's group, and they took advantage of the fact that the vast majority of these beings were from different races and didn't know each other, so they could fight a target without worrying about being attacked by the many monsters nearby.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})Using this characteristic of the area to their advantage, the group soon got closer to these five special creatures and quickly realized whether they were what Vicente was expecting.
Of the five, three of them had green magical essences, despite their great magical affinity with Vicente. One of them was so strange that it had a 90% affinity with Vicente, which was an odd thing for magical beings to have. Normally, only pentagram forms without the involvement of living beings were so compatible.
Unfortunately, that wasn't what Vicente wanted, so he put the winged monster aside and turned his attention to the other two.
One of them, a creature with the body of a deer, the tail of an ox, the hooves of a horse, horns on its head, and hair on its tail and neck that seemed to be made of lightning, was just one step away from evolving and transforming its essence into cyan. Unfortunately, its cyan-green essence had not yet completed the transition to the next grade.
Vicente lamented. Hunting down this High-level Paragon would be ideal for his group. The danger would be great, but measured, not so far removed from what they had already faced.
As for the fifth of them, as they approached this creature, Vicente and all the others suddenly felt a Beginner Archmage's aura appearing about two kilometers behind this 5th stage creature.
The Archmage's aura was terrifying. For a moment, everyone in the group paused as they looked at the High-level Paragon, realizing how small it seemed next to the Archmage's aura. However, while they ignored the green essence creature in front of them, Vicente couldn't help but notice his great compatibility with the monster in front of them.
Gulp!
'It has an elemental affinity with earth and lightning that is very close to mine,' Vicente thought as he looked to the north and saw what looked like a mountain moving.
'Forget it, master. It's not worth it,' Torne said as he thought about it and felt the power of the monster close to them.
