The first gold ring stretched before Zhao like a landscape of intermingled dreams and nightmares. Undulating hills covered in luminescent vegetation contrasted with abrupt cliffs where creatures of enormous power made their hos.
The air shimred with concentrated mana, dense enough to be visible even to the untrained eye.
Zhao advanced with caution, his Mist Owl fused with him, granting the ability to move through the air with stealth. His Camouflage Raptor remained materialized at his side, ready to conceal him further from imdiate threats.
'This route is much riskier than the previous one,' he thought, rembering the relatively safe path he had followed on his prior visit.
Every step here required constant vigilance; a mont's lapse could an death.
According to Victor's predictions, King Dragarion should be in his resting place after another exhausting battle against the Dragon Tree. After prolonged incursions into the platinum ring, even the monarch needed to recover from the accumulated excess mana.
Of course, his Qilin and Azure Dragon were beasts especially gifted for mana purification, but even these legendary creatures had their limits. And if Victor's calculations were correct, Dragarion would now be in the final phase of his recovery.
The problem was the territory Zhao had to cross to reach him.
Zhao stopped at the edge of a clearing, observing carefully. The trees ahead were ford of several, impossibly thin for their height, trunks grouped together… But they weren't really trees at all.
"Golden Noses," he murmured to himself, studying the vertical forms that remained disturbingly motionless. His Mist Owl's enhanced vision allowed him to discern details that would be invisible to others.
Strange creatures with fifteen legs arranged in a circle that, when joined together, mimicked the appearance of an odd trunk. A very fluffy one.
Their furry, elongated bodies rose dozens of ters, culminating in two long golden protrusions, one pointing up and the other down, hence their na.
The upper one was a horn and the lower one a long snout of which only a small part was the mouth and everything else was what gave it its na, which was actually an olfactory organ of extraordinary sensitivity.
They weren't particularly aggressive by nature, preferring to form small patches of hundreds of individuals and remain still like small forests absorbing mana from the environnt, which explained why Dragarion liked to rest with them around him...
Their mouths, though elongated, were found only at the end of the proboscis and were small, incapable of penetrating the King's armor while he rested. Their legs, though extraordinarily hard and long, were also soft and covered with abundant hair, designed more to withstand great weight together than to attack.
They were harmless creatures for Dragarion, but ultimately, they were Gold 1 rank. What made them truly dangerous for soone like Zhao, who didn't have armor that completely negated their attacks, was their ability to detect intruders.
His stealth, perfected over years and improved with the new creature that Ren had suggested, was practically useless against these creatures' sense of sll.
Being crushed by hundreds of legs and bitten by dozens of small mouths tearing at his skin wasn't sothing Zhao was eager to experience.
They weren't the strongest creatures in the area; on the contrary, they were quite weak in comparison to other creatures of the sa rank. To make matters worse, their anatomy didn't allow them to use their horn, their best weapon, below their heads.
But when they felt threatened...
Zhao had heard Victor's explanation, and even Ren's curiously more detailed one. A herd of Golden Noses could form a defensive do with their horns, creating a virtually impenetrable pointed fortress from which they could impale any of the enormous predatory beasts in the area with their horns.
"Ti to apply Ren's trick," he murmured with certain resignation.
The mushroom boy had explained a thod for dealing with these creatures when Zhao had asked him about them. A technique so simple that it was humiliating for soone of his experience, but effective nonetheless.
Zhao removed a small flask containing a yellowish liquid with a particularly unpleasant odor from his backpack.
"I can't believe I'm going to do this," he complained while uncapping the flask. The stench imdiately assaulted his nostrils, making his eyes water.
The mixture contained territorial marking fluid from the Giant Cat Bears, mixed with certain fungi that grew exclusively in their excrent. The result was an aroma that would confuse the creatures, making them think the bearer was the natural predator and would make them enter do mode, paralyzing any movent below their horns.
"The boy and his tactics," sighed Zhao as he applied the mixture to himself. His raptor edged away, its scales shifting to a sickly green.
The effect was imdiate and nauseating. Zhao had to fight against his own gag reflex as the stench invaded his nostrils. His raptor emitted a growl of disgust.
"I know, I know," murmured Zhao, wiping excess liquid from his hands onto the grass. "It's repulsive, but necessary."
With each breath, the sll seed to intensify. Zhao waited a few minutes for the liquid to dry, carefully observing the Golden Noses. Their collective stillness was more eerie than reassuring, like a forest frozen in ti.
Finally, he prepared for the most difficult part: locating the King in the "haystack".
"Stay close," he instructed his beast, which nodded with understanding, maintaining a prudent distance to avoid dying from disgust at receiving its owner's new "bouquet".
Zhao took the first step, holding his breath. Then another. And another.
The nearest Golden Noses tensed even more, alert, searching for the predator that had fouled the air to the point of rendering their noses useless.
To Zhao's relief, the beasts reacted exactly as Ren said they would. Their horns shifted slightly upward, forming the beginnings of their defensive do, but they remained otherwise immobile.
"It worked," he thought, allowing himself a small smile. "That boy never ceases to amaze ."
He continued advancing cautiously, maintaining a constant and deliberately slow pace. Any sudden movent could frighten and activate the creatures despite the sll.
A while later, now with greater confidence, Zhao entered another patch of Golden Noses. Occasionally one would relax for a mont, but none showed signs of aggression. Their golden horns glead in the strange light of the gold ring, creating an almost beautiful pattern against the sky.
Finally, after what seed like an eternity, Zhao found a clue in the center of a patch, a big mineral rock with a wide cave opening. It appeared this could have been the King's resting place.
He allowed himself a brief pause upon entering to catch his breath and calm his nerves. The sll still clung to him like a second skin, but he had grown sowhat accustod to it. His Mist Owl's enhanced senses shifted focus from danger detection to exploration, scanning the dark interior of the cave.
"The next ti I see that boy," murmured Zhao, "I'll have to thank him properly. Though I'm not sure I can forgive him for making sll like this."
Zhao analyzed the space. The massive depression in the cave floor, surrounded by scorched rock that bore the unmistakable pattern confird his suspicions. Without doubt, this was the King's resting place.
But the King, who should have been recovering, wasn't here… Haven't been for a long ti.
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