Chapter 731: Shared Senses

Moon deactivated his hive skill and knelt beside Honeybun, resting a hand on its receding crystal shell.

Good work, buddy. The both of you did really well there, how did the link feel?

<Okay,> Honeybun replied, satisfaction in its tone.

Moon also rubbed Mirage’s neck and complimented him, not letting the white steed feel any less loved after Honeybun joined their family.

"Not bad," Karl said, walking over with his beasts. "Your companions have real potential. That illusion trick alone is worth its weight in gold. We should hunt together more often, share experiences and plans."

"I’d like that," Moon replied softly, nodding his head. "Your team’s sharp. I picked up a thing or two watching them work."

"You flatter me." Karl responded with an easy smile of his own.

Moon didn’t lie, he had indeed learnt a few things from Karl. The best being his class skills that he was currently using.

Watching a beastmaster direct his companions in live combat was an experience that would help him bring Hive and Shared Senses to full proficiency faster.

Six beasts lay dead in the glowing undergrowth, and Moon glanced deeper into the twilight forest, where more shadows waited.

"Come on. That was just the welcome party. Let’s find out what else is hiding in here."

As they walked deeper into the twilight forest, Karl released his hawk to scout ahead.

The bird lifted off silently, vanishing into the purple gloom above the canopy, and the team continued their advance through the glowing undergrowth. A few minutes later, Karl stopped abruptly, his eyes going distant.

"Hold up. The hawk spotted something. I need to see it for myself." He turned to the group. "Protect me while I do. I’ll be exposed for fourty seconds or less."

Moon understood immediately, and it lined up with what he’d already deduced about Shared Senses.

That’s the wakness of Shared Senses. Although it was a great scouting skill, it was also a dangerous one. When you link your vision to a beast, your own senses dull. You go half-blind and deaf to your immediate surroundings, wide open to any attack from your actual position. That’s why you never use it without cover. Safe ground and a guard, always.

"We’ve got you," Moon assured him. "Take your time to get information. Nothing gets near you with us around."

He gestured Honeybun and Mirage into protective positions around Karl, and the tank Bran planted himself as an additional wall.

Karl’s eyes shifted, his focus leaving his body as his vision linked with the hawk high above. Through the bird’s sharp sight, he watched the forest unfold, and there, a distance ahead, he found something significant.

Several packs of the shadow-canines locked in a vicious battle against another species entirely, a different kind of beast contesting the same territory, bodies already scattered across a clearing.

At that exact moment, while Karl was blind to his own surroundings, a beast lunged from the shadows behind him, jaws wide, aimed straight at his exposed neck.

A sharp crystal spear lanced out and punched clean through the beast’s skull, killing it instantly. The creature dropped to the forest floor with lifeless eyes, its body twitching once before going limp forever.

Moon smiled, pleased with the little turtle.

Honeybun had reacted in a fraction of a second, spotting the threat and ending it before it could reach the vulnerable Karl. Exactly the order Moon had given, executed flawlessly. The little turtle’s reaction speed was impressive.

Barely a heartbeat later, several more shadows leapt from the surrounding gloom, the ambushers pressing their attack while one of the team was compromised.

They were dealt with just as easily.

Mirage took one, its illusion splitting the beast’s focus before a solid kick injured it. Then a swing of his sharp tail ended it.

Honeybun used his crystals to skewer another.

Bran’s shield crushed a third, and Karl’s hound bit into the last’s neck, each of them cleanly dispatching a target before the pack could capitalize on Karl’s blindness.

By the time Karl’s senses returned to his own body, the fresh threats were already corpses at his feet.

He blinked, taking in the bodies scattered around him, and let out a breath.

"...Thanks." He nodded gratefully to the group.

"That’s what the guard is for," Moon said. "What did you see?"

Karl gathered himself and reported. "Ahead of us, approximately a kilometer away. There’s a fight going on between several packs of these shadow-canines, but they’re not hunting us or each other. They’re fighting a completely different species."

"What do they look like?" Bran asked.

"They are some big beasts not nearly as fast as those, but they are very durable, I couldn’t get a clear read on them from the air, but it’s a real battle. Bodies are scattered everywhere and both sides are taking losses."

Moon absorbed the information, turning it over.

"A territorial dispute between two species contesting the same ground," he murmured, half to himself.

Then, louder, to the team: "That’s not a problem for us. That’s an opportunity."

A familiar cold smile touched his lips. "We can take advantage of that. Let’s move before they finish each other, it would be a waste of experience."

The team exchanged glances, and Moon started forward toward the sounds of distant battle, already turning the two conflicting species into pieces on a board only he could see.

The team set out toward where Karl’s hawk circled, tracking the ongoing battle from above.

Being significantly over-leveled for a C-Rank gate, they moved with confidence, their survivability assured against anything the interior was likely to throw at them. They kept a brisk pace through the glowing undergrowth, and within a few minutes they neared the source of the distant sounds.

Karl raised a hand, signaling a halt.

"The fighting’s just a hundred meters north," he said quietly, his hawk feeding him a live view of the terrain ahead. "But the tree cover breaks fast up there. It opens into a clearing. The moment we step past the treeline, we’ll be in the open, and both sides will see us as clearly as we see them. No more sneaking once we commit."