The next morning quickly ca in the blink of an eye after Lucas fell asleep.
Lucas, who had woken up an hour ago, was staring over the horizon, which had now begun to turn lilac.
To clearly observe what will happen, he had unconsciously woken up earlier than expected.
At this mont, Lucas hid in the dense leaves of a tall tree overlooking the creek.
In this position, he was able to see a wide area of the creek. He was not extrely close, and at the sa ti, not too far away from the creek. The tree that he was perching on has rooted at around twenty ters away from the creek. The branch he was sitting on, though, has extended at around ten ters away from the creek.
He was in a vintage point of view and would not be easily spotted from above and below.
As the sun in the horizon began to show itself, Lucas also noticed so movents a few ters behind the tree that he was positioned on.
These were the dried leaves and dead twigs alarm traps he had set up yesterday.
With his vintage point of view, Lucas easily spotted where the movents were coming from.
A beast was slowly crawling toward the creek with great caution. It cautiously looked around as it stepped on the dead twigs and leaves sprawled on the ground. Not suspecting anything, the beast continued to move forward toward the creek.
A mont later, Lucas saw another beast coming into his view from another location. This one was more massive and looked more nacing than the first one he saw. Its steps appeared careful, but were actually heavy and quick. Even if the beast did not step on the alarm traps he had set up, Lucas was still able to hear the commotion that it caused from afar.
As the sound of the new beast footsteps resound in the area, the small beast that ca first halted on the spot, highly alert.
It kept looking around, its eyes and actions full of wariness.
The sound of footsteps grew closer, and a mont later, the two beasts of varying size t each other.
The next mont, an unbelievable thing happened right in front of Lucas' eyes.
After the two beast's eyes t in the middle, the bigger one—that with a quick glance looked like an apex predator, actually ignored the smaller one.
As if it did not exist in the first place, the bigger one ignored the small beast and continued to move forward with the sa cautious yet heavy and quick strides.
After a few seconds, the small beast continued to move forward too, as if eting the bigger beast was just rely an illusion, and sothing it did not have to mind.
A few monts later, Lucas saw the sa scene happening over and over again.
Beasts that t each other would choose to ignore, rather than go into a conflict.
No matter if they were big, small, a predator or prey, all of them chose peace over violence as they moved toward the creek.
Looking over, Lucas saw those beasts drinking water over the creek. They were close to each other, one tiny leap and a predator beast would be able to attack the beast nearest to it easily.
With a quick glance, Lucas counted at least fifteen of them in the area in front of him alone.
He did not dare to imagine how many beasts were drinking in other parts of the creek during this ti.
None of them seed to mind the presence of the others, though.
The scene was quite marvelous, and at the sa ti bizarre.
Just like what happened yesterday, the beasts that were done drinking retreated, while new ones would erge from god knows where to replace them and drink their fill of flowing water.
Like yesterday, the drinking session went awfully peaceful.
The session had once again lasted for almost two hours.
As the last beast retreated away from the creek, the surroundings beca eerily quiet with only the sound of flowing water entering his ears.
The morning drinking session was truly bizarre and harrowing.
It made Lucas wonder what was truly special about the creek's water.
His gaze shifted toward the west where the creek probably originated from. If the creek has an end, its secret would probably be hidden there.
After allowing the surroundings to calm down, Lucas decided to co down from the tree.
Now that he had confird one part of his conjectures, he could now start to prepare for his plan of sprinting toward the mountain. To do that, though, Lucas would need all the energy that he could have, though.
Gathering the things he had hidden yesterday, Lucas began to prepare for his al. Since he already cooked the remaining hare at yesterday, he only needs to heat them up now.
***
In another part of the wilderness that Lucas was in.
Asher bent down on his knees and stared at the dried puddle of blood located beneath a tree.
Behind him was the corpse of a small beast. Judging from the fresh blood that gushed out of its orifices, one would be able to imdiately tell that it was killed through strangulation just a mont ago. Further behind, the corpses of so beasts—mostly small ones—were present too.
Asher stood up and looked around, as if trying to determine which direction he should go.
Through the pieces of trails left behind, he determined the direction and went toward it without any hesitation.
A mont later, Asher stood over a creek.
Bending down, he allowed the vine-like beasts in his arm to extend and dip toward it.
Asher tilted his head, "Rejuvenation?"
His eyes lit up with glee. Without hesitation, he scooped up so water and greedily drank it as if there was no tomorrow.
A couple of spluttering later, Asher stood up, his vicious grin growing wild. His previous stoic expression could no longer be maintained all the ti and would sotis show emotions.
Walking along the creek, he felt the effects of the creek's water gradually spreading through his body.
A few monts later, the sll of rotting corpses assaulted his nose.
"A Fla-Mane Lion? Am I in that area…" a scowl appeared on his face for a brief mont before it returned to its previous blank expression.
"This Fla-Mane Lion is the peak of Iron Star?" He judged through its size and color.
Recalling how that brat's contracted beast also managed to kill his Iron Star 9 Dark Catowl, Asher gritted his teeth in anger as he realized that maybe it was not a fluke.
"Could it be that they have grown stronger here?"
That was indeed a possibility.
He still believed that the death of his Dark Catowl was just an unfortunate incident caused by a re fluke on that brat's end.
If they had indeed grown stronger in this wilderness, though, it showed how talented they were.
"Is that brat actually the new Gold Grade awakener?" A hint of annoyance surfaced on his face, but it was soon replaced by eyes full of rage.
"So what?"
"I'd still win!"
He needs to hurry, though. Who knew what kind of growth that brat would experience if left unchecked.
And so, his pace increased for the first ti in a while.
***
After he and Spot were satisfied with their al, they imdiately set out to the west once more.
At this mont, Lucas was running at moderate speed as Spot ran in front of him, trying to match his pace.
Since he could not confirm if the beasts really did not dare set foot near the creek after the drinking secession, he decided to run at moderate speed for the ti. Once he confirms his conjecture, though, he would be able to run as fast as he could without worrying about potential ambushers along the way.
After almost an hour of running, Lucas and Spot decided to stop. He drank so water in his canteen while Spot went to the creek to drink water there.
Spot even looked at him as if saying that he should also drink the creek's water directly.
Showing a wry smile, Lucas indeed went over and took a tiny scoop of water using his hand to drink.
After recovering so Spiritual Energy, Lucas and Spot continued with the sa pace once more.
Two hours later, it was already noon.
They had traveled along the creek, for the past three hours without encountering any beast to his delight.
Their journey was not interrupted, and Lucas could now more or less confirm that his second conjecture was also true.
With that, he could now choose to sprint toward the west and reach the west mountain as fast as possible.
After a slight rest, Lucas and Spot once again sprinted forward.
The creek had already curved multiple tis, but the curve was nothing drastic and it still slithered to the direction that he was going.
As the sun began to set in the horizon, Lucas, who was quite tired from his sprinting journey, finally stopped on his tracks.
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