Ao noticed something strange and asked what's going on.
"Well, I've just seen Lofa entering my Divine Sense range."
Arlan and Ao were surprised, it's not very easy to encounter a specific person in a place as big as this testing zone.
"Quite a coincidence indeed. Did she get together with the people of the Ice Continent?"
Krune shook his head.
"That's the weird part, she is alone. And she is moving pretty fast too. It seems like she is running from something, but I can't see anything in my Divine Sense."
Not only Krune, but Ao and Arlan were puzzled with that. Is there really some beast or cultivator that can hide from Krune's Divine Sense? They looked at each other and discarded that idea. It's too improbable.
"Do you want to take a look?"
Ao and Arlan looked at each other and nodded in the end. Loja is still part of their Mercenary Guild Alliance after all. Besides, it's not like it will take too long anyway. But just as they were about to move out, Krune noticed another one entering his Divine Sense.
"Not good, there is a Core Formation Demon Beast after her."
Hearing that, they immediately set out at full speed. At the same time, Krune used his Divine Sense to tell Lofa to move in their direction. Lofa was already losing her hopes when she suddenly heard Krune's voice. With no other choice, she immediately followed the directions provided by him. Although Lofa was moving towards them, the Demon beast was too fast! At this speed, it would reach her in time. Krune looked at Ao and Arlan, and they nodded at each other. They took out their swords, and Krune touched them for a few seconds. After that, Krune left straight away.
His eyes turned sharp, and the power of the tribulation lightning start to revolve around his body. With a flash of purple light, Krune disappeared from his spot!
"Tribulation Lightning Movement, 40%!"
Krune had concluded that for him not to damage his body, 30% was the limit. But if he wants to reach Lofa in time, he still needs to pay a small price. Arlan and Ao knew that he could move faster, but it was still a sight to behold when he did so. That tribulation lightning was really overpowered!
Lofa kept fleeing when, suddenly, she heard a voice from behind.
"Aren't you quite fast at running? Too bad though, it wasn't fast enough."
It was the same Fire Eagle from before. It was looking for Krune and his team when Lofa's group entered its Divine Sense. Lofa and her group had come after noticing the commotion from the nearby demon beasts. So they decided to check, and maybe they would be lucky enough to get a black token. They had battled other teams but fled quite a few times. They were still lucky enough to gather two black tokens, needing only one more to get the three necessary.
Unfortunately, they were spotted by the fire eagle who ambushed them. The leader of their group was caught off guard and killed before he could even use their blue token. But that wasn't all. The eagle is bound by a contract, so it can't just let the team go to start with; otherwise, the fire eagle wouldn't even bother with the rest of the team after it got the black tokens. Lofa's team immediately choose to separate since they weren't the eagle's match. That was their only chance to survive.
It turns out that Lofa was quite lucky, and the eagle targeted another member first. But in the end, it still caught up to her, and this is the final situation.
The fire eagle was sure to catch her soo, but then it noticed someone entering its Divine Sense, as well. After seeing who it was, it was overjoyed. That guy completely fitted the description given by the other demon beasts, which means that he has the black wolf's black tokens and their own. But its happy face disappeared in the next second because it noticed that Krune's speed wasn't the least bit lower than its own!
'How can a Foundation Establishment be so fast?'
But the eagle didn't give up. It was obvious that Krune was coming for the female human cultivator in front of him. Unfortunately for it, Lofa was moving in Krune's direction.
'I refuse to believe you can get to her before me!'
The eagle then increased its speed once again. If it can get to Lofa first, it might be able to use her to force Krune's black tokens out. Krune also noticed that change and released more tribulation lighting power.
"50%!"
Little light saw that and said:
"Your human form isn't very good to control the tribulation power. If you go back to your wisp form, you should be able to use 50% without suffering any damage."
Krune knew that. But it also means that his true form would be found out. Although he wants to help Lofa, he won't risk that much for her, because he is confident of holding the eagle back that he decided to help start with. Not to mention that Ao and Arlan would take part in the battle very soon. This much body damage wouldn't take long to heal anyway.
Lofa noticed Krune in the distance and was delighted. Just as she was about to call his name, she heard a Divine Sense scream.
"Get down!"
Lofa was alarmed with that but did as she was told.
Boom!
Right above her, several blue and red colored hexagonal shields formed a barrier and were struck by a gigantic fireball. Lofa saw that, and her soul almost left her body. If Krune hadn't warned her in time, she would have been burnt to the point that even her bones wouldn't remain. But she didn't delay even for a second, it is evident that the situation was dire. So she immediately dashed in Krune's direction.
The fire eagle's eyes almost popped out of their sockets. How can a Foundation Establishment control so many of them? Even it would have a hard time controlling that number of spiritual equipment, and it could see that Krune had even more around him that he didn't use to resist that last attack.
It's not that Krune didn't want to use them, but it was because they would be damaged instead. Only his shields with water and fire elements could resist that explosion without being harmed. The water element shields were the fire element's weakness. In contrast, the fire element shields could resist attacks of the same element. Using water shields in the center and fire on the borders, Krune was able to block out the attack.
As soon as Lofa reached Krune, he grabbed her waist and said:
"Hold tight!"
Lofa got a little embarrassed but had no time to think, so she did as Krune told her.
After that, he immediately retreated. This time, he went back to using 30% of tribulation lighting in his movement technique. The eagle noticed that he was a lot slower and immediately sent a barrage of attacks. But it soon found out that Krune's shields and defense skills were annoying as hell!
To send an attack of the same power as that fireball, it would need some time to gather spiritual energy again. The problem is that even if Krune is slower now that he is carrying Lofa, he is still a lot faster than she was. It would give Krune more than enough time to leave the area. Not to mention that he could probably block that again.
'This annoying fly!'
The eagle was enraged with that situation. It couldn't accept that a Foundation Establishment could hold it for so long and still haven't been injured yet! Well, at least not injured by one of its attacks. When Krune first arrived in the scene, his body had some burnt skin, and there was blood on the corner of his mouth. Obviously, a side- effect of using more tribulation lightning than his body could take.
Krune finally got used to carrying Lofa around and started to attack the eagle as well. But he wasn't aiming to injure it, only faking some resistance and purposely using only water element attacks. Water was obviously the element the fire eagle hated the most. So Krune was successful in enraging it even more. Noticing that, a slight smile appeared on his face. He then sent a Divine Sense message to Ao and Arlan.
"Is everything ready?"
Ao and Arlan immediately answered while paying attention not to alarm the fire eagle with their own Divine Sense.
"No problem here. Unless the eagle pays special attention with its Divine Sense, it won't notice anything."
Krune had prepared an ambush, a very simple one, though. He doesn't think it will be enough to kill the eagle, but it should be enough to scare it away. Krune's objective was to simply give a hand to Lofa since they are from the same guild after all.
To make sure the eagle wouldn't notice anything, Krune kept flying among the trees on the ground. He was seemingly trying to hinder the eagle's flight so that he could escape.
When he finally arrived at the ambush position, he passed by it and waited for the eagle to come. Sure enough, the fire eagle was right behind and jumped straight into it.
Suddenly, Ao and Arlan attacked it from both sides. There was no time for the eagle to dodge at all! But it was then that everyone received a Divine Sense message from the fire eagle.
"He! Do you think I didn't expect this little trick? I know very well you were a group of three and had been waiting for this moment."
Divine sense messages can be sent and heard in an instant. Only like this, the eagle had time to say those words. Then, the fire eagle's feathers started to shine with a metallic and fiery luster. Suddenly, almost half of it shot out from its body.
"Divine Feathers Mutilation!"
The eagle might have had no time to dodge its enemies' attacks, but the same could be said about Ao and Arlan. Not to mention that the fire eagle was very confident that its attack was much stronger than its enemies'. It could already visualize Arlan and Ao being full of holes and dropping dead on the ground. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only one to use a Divine Sense message at that moment.
"He! It wasn't only you to think about that."
Suddenly, tribulation lightning started to flow out from Ao and Arlan's swords. All the metallic feathers aimed at them were immediately pulverized by the arcs of purple lightning. Ao and Arlan had already expected that, so their attack didn't stop for even a second.
That moment of life and death, the fire eagle used a secret technique that burned away its own life. Its body started burning like a phoenix, and a powerful fire barrier appeared between it and the swords. Of course, the power of the tribulation lightning isn't that easy to block, not to mention that Krune had used around 50% of the amount available for him back then. But it was still enough to buy the eagle a precious second.
It immediately used that chance and charged out of the encirclement, soon disappearing in the distance. As Krune expected, it did really escape. Krune then looked at Ao and Arlan with a smile and asked.
"Did you get it?"
Ao shook his head, disappointed. On the other hand, Arlan burst in laugh.
"Yeap! Just as we guessed, the eagle also had a spatial ring attached to a collar on its neck. I think it is okay to assume that all Core Formation Realm cultivators and demon beasts of this test have at least one black token. Or at the very least, the bosses of each territory definitely do."
Krune was happy with this result. It turns out that the fire eagle's spatial ring had another three black tokens in it. But Krune was puzzled with one thing, Ao seemed to be somewhat disappointed.
"Is there something wrong?"
Arlan laughed even more after that.
"He's just sad because he lost our little game. We challenged each other to see who would be faster to grab the spatial ring, and he lost."
Krune finally understood what was happening and sighed. Do they have to compete in literally everything?
It was then that Arlan decided to ask something else.
"By the way, how long will the two of you keep hugging each other? I start feeling jealous."
Krune sighed and shook his head.
"I released her a long time ago. But for some reason, she simply doesn't let me go."
Lofa noticed that she was still embracing Krune, and it was so tight that she looked like an octopus!
"Ahhhhh!"
Lofa screamed and immediately kicked Krune away. Krune, who had just been injured even further by that kick, couldn't understand a thing. He looked at Ao and Arlan and asked:
"I've just saved her life, haven't I? What a poor way of thanking someone!"
Ao shook his head and said:
"In my opinion, you've already received a very good payment."
Krune couldn't help but think that sometimes humans really made no sense!