Death... and me

Frin had a nasty expression on his face, knowing that his Demon Beast Alliance had lost three of its Divine Demon Beasts already. "How could this guy be right under our noses all this time without us even knowing? My Demon Beast Alliance is fucked now. Did you see it? In the middle of those demon beasts that tried to stop us, two of them were part of our group. That meant they also fell for the power of the crimson sphere."

Duran nodded, his expression not any better than Frin as he said in response, "I saw it. However, you at least know that they're part of your alliance. As for the Zasfins, I haven't found a single member from my group. After all, those spheres will kill anyone who isn't a demon beast straight away. With that, who knows how many of them have already succumbed to death?"

Roan didn't care about any of that, telling them, "Stop complaining and let's go find the other spheres."

"What?!" Rean and the others were taken aback by that. "Didn't you see what just happened? We were almost trapped by a horde of them. We might not be able to escape next time," Rean complained as he healed Frin and Duran's injuries.

Roan shook his head as he explained in response, "And that's exactly why we can't stop. For that guy to put up such a strong defense for those spheres, those things obviously mean a lot for him. Most likely, the more spheres we destroy, the weaker he'll become. At the very least, his control over the demon beasts should decrease."

Roan continued, "There's one good thing, though. It seems like he can only find our positions when we're close to one of the spheres or a demon beast being controlled by them. We had passed by many low-level demon beasts, which should have been the method how he tracked our movements since we didn't bother hiding when there wasn't anything dangerous."

With that, Rean soon understood what Roan meant. "I see...but wouldn't it be too risky?"

Duran was the one to answer that. "Now that I think about it, there should be a lot of danger. We just need to make sure we hide well with your concealment skill while moving. Without Spiritual Sense or Soul Power Scanning, it should be possible. We can even try to use a hit and run tactic."

Roan agreed with Duran. "It's good that you understand. Since our positions won't be found, we can expect less defense. Of course, I'm sure that guy won't keep the crimson spheres alone anymore, so all of them will always have some protection."

"It isn't much of a problem," Duran could not help but say in response to Roan's words. "If he's telling all of the Stage Nine Demon Beasts to protect the spheres, that means his forces would be scattered all around. It'll be a lot easier to flee as soon as we destroy a crimson sphere."

"Exactly." Roan agreed with Duran. "I will also select the spheres at random. So far, we've always headed to the closest one to us. This made it even easier for that guy to track us. This time, I'll select different crimson spheres from random points. Let's keep this up until only around 10 to 20 spheres remain in the end."

"Why 10 to 20?" Frin could not help but ask.

Rean understood what Roan was trying to do and answered, "That's because that guy will be able to gather his forces around those spheres. With a smaller number of spheres, it won't be hard to predict where we'll head next even if he can't find where we are."

"I see..." With that, Frin understood the issue. "But will we simply leave those spheres be? Don't we need to destroy them as well?

Roan faintly smiled when he heard that. "Not at all. This operation has two objectives. The first one is to obviously weaken or disrupt that guy as much as possible, destroying the spheres. The second is to detract attention away from him."

Roan's words reminded Frin of Kentucky and Celis. "Ah! That's why you sent the Minokawa to observe where most of the higher-tier energy is located. You want to be sure that it'll be partially or maybe completely unprotected."

Roan nodded, satisfied. "That's the plan. I hate to break it to you, but I refuse to believe that we can leave this place without dealing with that guy first. After all, it was obviously his doing that everyone was teleported here. Do you think we can find an exit without doing that?"

Duran, Frin, and Rean immediately shook their heads. They weren't idiots. From the very start, getting rid of the enemy was their only choice of leaving this place alive, let alone activating the portal to the Realm of Gods.

"Then again, there's one thing I don't understand," Rean mentioned out of nowhere, quickly attracting everyone's attention as they waited for him to continue. "At first, I thought that guy was the owner of this dimensional realm. However, if that was the case, he shouldn't have a need to use the demon beasts' vision to find our location. He should have been able to bypass the restrictions of his own realm on Spiritual Sense or whatever he uses. Don't you think it's strange for him to have the same problem as us?"

"This..." The others were caught by surprise by Rean's words. 

Even Roan had to admit that Rean's thoughts made sense. "Indeed, that doesn't make any sense at all. Rean could already make formations capable of blocking the Spiritual Senses of others but not his own or the people he didn't want it to work on. If that guy was capable of creating this realm, I refuse to believe that he couldn't make a safe area for himself."

Duran also noticed another strange point after that. "That's not all. We know he's probably stronger than Frin and I, or so those red claws that capture the souls from Stage Nine Demon Beasts make it seem. If so, why didn't he come out and deal with us by himself? If this is his realm, he should be able to travel around as he liked."

Frin added one more thing, "In fact, if this was his dimensional realm, he should be able to use the realm to deal with us as well, no? But the realm itself hasn't done anything."

In the end, they all reached the same conclusion. "This is not his realm, that's for sure!"