Damien didn't have the mind to count the time, but considering the moon's trek over the horizon, it had been over an hour since they started dispersing the crowd.
The original number was in the tens of thousands, but now, they'd been cut down to only a thousand or so birds chasing Damien and the girls through the rainforest.
They'd already left the Aegis Tree grove behind, along with the many birds who were stuck there,
The best part of Damien's plan wasn't splitting the crowd, it was turning them against each other!
It was inevitable for the Messenger Birds who got separated at the beginning to recover before the chase ended, but Damien kept cutting down Aegis Trees and producing more nectar!
When those who finished their meal returned to the chase, they were subjected to several shattered trees covered in nectar that was being fought over by their comrades.
But when it came to Honeydew Nectar, there was no such thing as camaraderie.
Like a domino effect, the birds piled on top of each other and killed each other for food, getting too involved in their own conflict to care about Damien and his group!
Damien turned back and glanced at the birds that were still following.
'With this amount, we should be able to win after a few minutes of battle, but without a guarantee that the ones we left behind will stay behind, that's too long.'
The solution was simple.
"Rose, work with me on this!"
Damien called Rose off Zara's back and wrapped his arm around her waist, teleporting away as Ruyue and Elena accompanied Zara in fending off the crowd.
"We're setting up a minefield!"
"Got it!"
Rose didn't need more instruction to understand her role.
Every time Damien rematerialized, he tapped his foot into the ground and set a delayed reaction mine formed from spatial mana, Vector Control, and just the tiniest bit of lightning to act as a fuse.
Once he was done, Rose followed up and drenched the area in the scent of their group and hid the mana fluctuations from the bomb, even adding the smell of Honeydew Nectar into the mix with illusions to attract the enemy.
They repeated the process ten times, creating a true minefield that spanned several hundred meters before flashing forward and leaving the area.
"Zara!"
Damien's call echoed through their spiritual connection and rang in her ears.
Her eyes immediately turned solemn.
Bang!
She slammed her paws into the ground and pivoted on her ankles, lurching as she abruptly shifted direction.
"Woah!" Elena exclaimed, hurriedly clutching her fur to avoid falling off.
Meanwhile, Ruyue jumped in the air and put her hands together in a strange formation.
'Marking of Death.'
The spell she used essentially did the same thing as Rose's illusion in this situation.
It amplified the smell of death coming from her body, driving the Messenger Birds mad with provocation and rage!
Ruyue flipped back and landed on Zara's back just in time to catch her acceleration.
The birds lost all sense of reason in their tiny brains and rampantly pushed forward in chase.
Zara danced through the environment gracefully, shifting from side to side and impossibly twisting her path, naturally throwing off the birds and—
BOOOOOOM!
A massive explosion went off behind her, swallowing a good portion of the pursuers.
Her steps led her through the minefield without stepping on a single trap, but the Messenger Birds weren't so lucky.
Because even though they didn't touch the ground themselves, time was up!
The tiny strand of lightning mana Damien incorporated in the traps snapped, starting a chain of chaotic interactions that led to an even greater explosion of mana!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
With Damien's space mana as a basis for these explosions, every single one twisted the atmosphere and ripped the birds who got caught in them to shreds.
But…
They were remote-activated and heavily disguised.
These kills didn't carry Damien or his group's traces at all!
"Run! This is our chance!"
Damien instantly roared, his voice booming over the explosions.
He dashed forward, angling his body slightly to the right and moving almost 5 kilometers to the east until he found a cave hidden by foliage and naturally disguised in the forest.
He and the girls rushed in, instantly covering its entrance with concealment formations.
And without hesitation, they combined their power once more to create a greater concealment formation that could even hide them from boss-level creatures like the Ghost King.
"Haa…haa…haa…"
Heavy breathing was the only sound filling the air. All of them needed to catch their breaths, and more importantly…
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Their bodies collapsed to the ground.
They could barely hold themselves up on their jelly-like legs anymore.
But for now, they were out of trouble.
For now, at least.
Damien shuffled through his spatial storage until he found a large mountain of strange glimmering stones, of which he withdrew a chunk and threw on the floor.
"Spirit stones?" Ruyue immediately remarked in surprise.
"Right, I stole a bunch of them back in the Cloud Plane, but I never found somewhere to use them. Since we have to conserve mana, we might as well use them now to power the formation," Damien replied with a shrug.
"Fair enough," Ruyue nodded, "but they won't last very long."
"Haha, they might not have before, but did you forget? We're only using 2nd class power right now."
"Ah!"
Ruyue nodded in understanding and stopped asking. Since it was taken care of, she could recover without worries.
"Oh, right," Damien suddenly said.
"You should be able to access my spatial storage through the engagement rings I gave you. If you ever need anything, just check in there. It's stuff that's been piling up for over a decade at this point."
The engagement rings he gave them weren't common rings.
In fact, they were rings he crafted himself with a very special functionality.
They let the individuals they were soul-bound to enter the Sanctuary without Damien as a medium.
It was a method that could be used for self-protection, but also one that allowed him and the girls to meet at any time, regardless of the distance that separated them.
Damien just remembered that accessing his subspace was also a byproduct of this connection.
It would definitely be useful for them in the future to use his resources, especially since he'd hoarded so much in recent years.
'Even on Holy Light Star, Elena came up with that whole plan to plunder all the treasures and extort the geniuses by auctioning them off at the end, but the Nox didn't let that happen, so all those treasures are just collecting dust in my inventory.'
Damien shrugged it off and focused on recovery as well, conversing with the girls and watching the outside situation to make sure the Messenger Birds didn't find their traces.
Hours passed.
There were several close calls, and the incessant screeching that got more furious with the passing of time got closer and closer, but in the end, Damien and the girls were able to see light entering through the gaps in the cave's entrance, indicating the coming of dawn.
And the coming of dawn meant—
OOOOOOOOOOOH!
'As I thought.' Damien grinned.
'It's here.'
