"From what this little buddy here saw, then the dragon should be a bit farther down the road. It didn't take very long for it to get out of the view of the monkey, but I did see it fly over to the mountains."
"So that's where we're headed?" Lucas looked over at the mountains in the horizon.
There were at least tens, if not hundreds of them that crowded the background. They blocked their line of sight with the opposite side, which just went to show how gigantic each one of them were.
Kenneth had barely seen the dragon fly into the tallest mountain, so he assumed that that was where they would be going next.
"I think we'll be able to hit Mt. Burnmist on the way. Why don't we go for that before we hunt the dragon?"
"Sounds like a plan, little brother. But are you fine with letting the dragon go? It might fly away."
This was a slight worry for Kenneth. The dragon could leave it's last known location, and it would take who knows how long to find it again.
"You know, I don't think it will. But if you guys really want to make sure, how about we go for it then? I am also quite worried."
"Gotcha, I'm down to just slay it immediately. The mining can just be later." Lucas was obviously more excited about fighting the beast, rather than spending time near an active volcano.
With everyone in agreement, the Karman Krew took to their steeds immediately and headed for the mountains, planning to return to Mt. Burnmist after slaying the dragon.
While on the road, they had come across a checkpoint, like the one from before.
The process itself was much smoother now, though. Or at least it should've been.
Since they were all scanned, save for Gwyar and Thanatos, the identification took a second to look through the database for any information about the dhampir.
Thanatos was not scanned, meanwhile. He was able to elude the cameras around the checkpoint by shifting through the shadows.
His usage of mana was not detected, either. The mana scanners were not able to record a high enough mana level.
Thanatos' life of darkness had made him accustomed to the dark; in fact, he welcomed it.
The mana he had used to cast the spell wasn't even at the level of the mana in the air. So the scanners could not tell that anything was off.
Gwyar on the other hand, had to go through a somewhat tedious process. His whole body was scanned.
No discrimation here, luckily. The machine had detected that he was a dhampir, much to Kenneth's displeasure. But it allowed him to go on, after he had been created a profile in the database.
But now it should make the next checkpoints easier to pass.
During the process of making a profile for Gwyar, Kenneth had asked the A.I about some more things about Mt. Burnmist and the surrounding mountains.
He was told that in the massive sea of rock, there was really only one road in it. This massive road was an elevated highway that cut through the rocky hills and mountains, and was used by many to quickly get through.
The problem was that it was currently being fixed.
The technology that waa required to fix it in a mere few hours was there. The only problem was that every so often multiple landslides would occur in the area.
These dangerous disasters had started happening quite a bit ago. Everytime, a loud tremor would resound in the area, and multiple boulders and pieces of the mountains would fall onto the highway.
The repair effort was eventually halted, until the people could find out a way to stop the frequently occuring landslides from happening. If not, at least lessening the times it would happen.
So the Karman Krew had to takr a different route. They would have to go under the highway, into the forest below.
The massive constructed highway had blocked the forest below from receiving its required amount of sunlight to grow, causing the plants to get weaker.
It was an unknown land, one that was not fully mapped, because of how few had dared to actually enter its dark grasp.
But they had no choice. There was a dragon to be hunted!
And so they decided to brave the forest and head under the road.
"It sure looks dark when looked at from over here. We're outside the forest, and yet I can see how dense it is." Kenneth stared at the entrance to the forest, its doors seemingly calling for his name.
After the checkpoint, they had immediately headed for the forest. And once they had reached it, Kenneth had formulated a plan to help them get through quicker.
And what better way to do so than Spatial Magic? Kenneth swore that this was the greatest type of magic, just from the fact that users of this magic had the ability to control space.
Apparently portals were also pretty unique too, so that was a plus.
Kenneth decided to have Thanatos lead the way this time. Aurelia would he right behind him, and the rest woild follow close by.
Thanatos could easily move through the dark areas of the forest, and could return back whenever he wanted to.
And even better was that Aurelia was in her "natural" habitat. The forest was bound to be filled with animals who would agree to help the apostle, and perhaps give us a tip or two.
Of course, there would also be hostile ones, but that couldn't be avoided.
Once the whole area had been scanned by Thanatos and Aurelia, they'd return back to Kenneth, and he'd gather the information directly, and send it over to Catalyn.
After having a firm understanding of the forest, they could choose to simply teleport with her portal and get through, if not cut the time required to by a large margin.
And so, after a quick break, Kenneth had sent out Thanatos, who immediately headed inside the forest.
Soon Aurelia followed after him, and had swiftly moved to the top branch of a tree. She then leaped to the other sturdy branches and navigated the forest floor quickly.
Close behind, Lena had set up multiple Blinks. After casting the spell and leaving Kenneth and the others in the dust, glowing lights had soon appeared, lighting up the dark forest with their radiant glow.
Once the path was set, the rest had followed the trail set for them.
