Ciel and Rein tried the experiment, and it had worked successfully.
'Let's see what Forsakened meat tastes like. It smells and looks quite good. Even if it tastes bad, at least we know it won't be poisonous.' Rein thought
She always wondered what monster meat would taste like when reading fantasy stories.
Words often couldn't fill in for the feeling of taste, no matter how much the author would describe it.
With that thought, she took a bite.
'Hmm, it's not bad. It's like meat you would find at a high end restaurant. Much better in fact. Maybe we should have taken a few of those Feral Pikes…' She thought
However, she knew that if they tried that, their corpses would be flowing down the river at this moment.
After their food break, they planned on how they could defeat the Blood Bears. Nothing was certain, so they came up with a few escape routes if things went south.
After all, they would be using another monster to help them. If they didn't have an escape plan, they would be foolish.
"Alright, that's enough for now. Let's rest while we can, 4 hours each." Ciel said
They both hadn't rested properly since they left the Arrow village.
Even though it was only 4 hours, it was enough for an Awakened Sorcerer to feel refreshed.
And since they had faster regeneration while transformed into a shadow, they would have even more vitality by the time they woke up.
Rein went to sleep first. Nothing happened while she was asleep, and before long, Ciel entered her shadow.
'Tomorrow's going to be another long and terrible day huh. How long can we last like this? We need to get stronger, but we won't reach the next Soul Tier for quite a while.'
'Let's hope everything goes smoothly. If it doesn't, we'll just improvise. If we can't improvise, then we'll just run away again.' Rein thought as she watched the beautiful stars in the night sky
She was almost back to perfect condition. In fact, she was already stronger than she was previously.
Since the Soul Layer expanded with Spirit, their physical strength, abilities and Spirit Essence capacity would slowly increase with higher Spirit Charge.
It wouldn't be as much as increasing a Soul Tier, but it was still a noticeable increase. At 25% Spirit Charge, she was 25% stronger than a newly advanced Awakened Sorcerer.
After 4 hours, Ciel woke up and exited her shadow.
"I'm running out of the Void element in the Soul Core. We're gonna have to open the Door of Void before the fight." Rein said with a hint of fear
"Alright, let's do it right now." Ciel replied calmly
Rein would need as much Void element as possible in their Soul Core for their upcoming plan.
The duo entered their Soul World and went up to the Door of Void.
"Keep all the Eternal Stone close to you. It will block the mental damage significantly in case the entity notices us." Ciel advised
Rein nodded. They moved all the Eternal Stone so that it touched the Door of Void.
After that, it was time to open the majestic door.
Rein opened it slightly, and the Void element started flowing into their Soul Core.
A minute passed, but nothing happened. Soon, the Soul Core was fully saturated with Void element.
'That went better than expected. Maybe the Eternal Stone masked our presence more than expected?' She thought as she closed the door
"I think I figured out another property for Eternal Stone."
"It provides anti divination, making it hard to detect it unless you can see it with your own eyes."
"The entity isn't fully awake, so it can only perceive things with its other senses." Ciel explained
"So if we keep some with us in the physical world, we can avoid divination techniques, like the artifact Ryker had. That's pretty broken." Rein said
"Well, your attribute seems even more broken. We don't even know the full capabilities of Void element yet." He said
It was true. Void element had high destructive capabilities, but there was so much more that could be done with it. Rein just didn't have the knowledge and proficiency to understand and make use of it.
There was also the fact that they didn't have enough Spirit Essence to experiment with it.
After exiting the Soul World, they made the final preparations for their plan.
[ Alright, I'll be going now. Tell me as soon as you see the Blood Bears. They should be here within 2 hours. ] Ciel said
[ Yeah. ] Rein nodded
He then went into the forest, where he had to play out his part in the plan.
Rein was left with a bow and arrows, along with a katana.
While waiting, she practiced with the blade, following Ciel's teachings and technique.
After a while, the sun was rising once again.
Rein watched the sunrise in a calm mood.
At that moment, Ciel said:
[ They should be here any minute now. Stay alert. ]
Rein looked down the cliff and observed the forest.
A few minutes later, she saw the vast canopy of the trees slightly trembling in the distance.
[ They're here. I don't know how they'll get up here, but get ready with the plan. ] Rein said
'I wonder if they can jump up here from the shore… I wouldn't put it past them, but that would just be too much.'
'Whatever happens, we're as ready as we can get. Now we just have to execute the plan properly.' She thought calmly
Their plan had it's flaws, like whether the Forsakened they would lure would fight against the Blood Bears.
However, there were a few ways that could be used to escape. Also, Ciel was quite confident that the Forsakened would indeed fight against each other.
He knew they could because the Blood Bears were fighting the Feral Ants at first.
After a minute, Rein saw the two Blood Bears at the edge of the riverbank.
They looked just as fierce as they did the last time she saw them.
'Let's see. What are you going to do?' She thought
The Blood Bears looked at the precipice for a moment, but didn't show any hesitation.
Bears couldn't jump too high, but that logic couldn't be applied in a world of magic.
Luckily, the two bears entered the river and started swimming towards the precipice.
The Feral Pikes didn't bother them, knowing they would just be killed instantly.
Once they reached the precipice, the Blood Bears used their sharp claws to start climbing up.
'If they start climbing the cliff, shoot their eyes quickly. Thankfully, they are climbing, otherwise we would have had to use plan B.' Rein thought
She knocked on the arrow made of Eternal Stone on her bow, and aimed the bow.
'As soon as the first arrow hits, they'll notice my presence. I'll have to do this quickly, or I'll be killed.'
She shot the arrow, which easily pierced one of the eyes of a Blood Bear, giving her confidence in her aim.
The moment it hit, the bear that got hit let out a terrifying roar, and started climbing up the cliff at an astonishing speed.
The second one followed right after it, with rabid drool frothing at its long snout.
'Shit… they're faster than expected… but I can still get them in time.' She thought rationally
She remained calm and shot two more arrows.
They both pierced the eyes of the bears, leaving a spring of blood falling into the water below
Before she shot the third one, she started running away.
There was no time. If she was greedy, she would be too late to escape from them.
One of the Blood Bears was completely blind while the other was missing an eye. It was a favourable outcome.
She ran towards the forest at full speed.
[ Are you done yet? ] Rein asked
[ Yeah, I'll be there in a minute. Climb up the tree with the rope. ]
'Nice. If we get those monsters to fight each other, we'll be good.' She thought while running
The Blood Bears were about to reach the top of the cliff, but they were a moment too late.
Rein climbed up a tall tree that had a rope hanging from one of its branches.
The Blood Bears had noticed her, but were too far away to do anything.
They started running towards the tree in a fit of outrage.
Meanwhile, Ciel was leading another unknown Forsakened towards the tree.
Before the Blood Bears could reach the tree, Ciel was already there, and he entered Rein's shadow.
He quickly exited the shadow onto the tree branch, and threw a shiny white, oval shaped object towards the bears.
It was an egg.
The egg of a Blood Serpent.
The egg smashed into the ground, scattering the insides everywhere.
A second later, a fierce serpent — over 20 metres in length — slithered towards the Blood Bears with frightening speed.
Its scales were dark gray, and looked tougher than steel. Its eyes were filled with fury, madness and resentment.
It curled around the blinded Blood Bear, and crushed it with incredible force. The blind bear was slow to react, but strong enough to survive the crushing force.
The second Blood Bear used its sharp claws and maw to bite down on the snake.
Its sharp teeth pierced the steel-like skin, and blood started flowing out through the fresh wounds.
There were shockwaves going through the ground, with the nearby forest shaking.
'We just have to pick off the winner… if we can even do that.'
'We stand no chance in a direct confrontation...we can't even get close enough to this battle without getting crushed like ants…' Rein thought
Luckily, they had a perfect solution when it came to ranged attacks.