When ambushing the team stayed within the edge of the path and the forest, but now that they are waiting for a longer time they decided to stay a bit deeper. But it seems like the rumors about the surroundings of the forbidden path are not completely false.

A large boar like beast is running towards the team. It is an Astral Plane Initiation stage beast. So, there was no problem for them to kill it at all.

​​

They are quite surprised by the fact that a beast as weak as this will come at them directly. The beasts have better instincts that many creatures, this should have normally ran far way from them, but instead ran straight towards them.

Sam started checking the corpse. The first clear and major difference is that the blood of the beast is blue. From the looks of the beast, he could guess that it is Metal-tusk boar. But that boar wouldn't have blue blood which is quite a surprise.

He used the observation ability to take a look at the insides of the beast and the muscle density.

All of them are different than what a normal Metal tusk boar should have.

While he was wondering what is wrong with it, they could sense many presences coming towards them. The team knew they would be in trouble and ran back to the path, but before that Sam pocketed the dead body of the beast. And as soon as they arrived at the path directly the approach from the beasts suddenly stopped.

They roared a few times and went back.

"Seems like we need to stay in the outskirts, but let stay this side."

Sam said and they moved to the other side of the path and even then, they didn't dare to go deep inside the beasts are too sensitive for some reason.

After establishing a small camp. Sam started dissecting the body. If they were to travel here, it is better to have some understanding regarding these beasts without going there blindly.

But after dissecting and observing each and every organ, he could only say one thing. The beast is mutated and its physical features improved and it has blue blood. Except for that, there is not much data he could gather from it.

He couldn't find what caused the mutation.

He doesn't know if the blue blood is the result of the mutation or the mutation is the result of the blueblood and finally he doesn't know if this has anything do with the forbidden zone.

The only silver lining is the blood is a bit similar to the Azure blood demon blood. But apart from the color similarity and a bit of similar smell, there are not too many similarities. There was definitely no trace of the lightning elemental energy in them.

The only conclusion they came to after studying it for a while is that they need to be careful in the forest and shouldn't go deeper.

But to do that, they need to find a different way to ambush. The next opponent might be an elder and they have to be prepared for that elder to come. And since the elder has a stronger cultivation, they would need a proper hiding spot to ambush him.

Now, it was once again, Sam's time to think. The elder is too strong for him. So, to fool him, he would need a proper distraction that would make him ignore many obvious things. Luckily for him, Sia and Gran are good concealment and formations regarding the concealment, they can still have some edge.

Sam quickly cooked up a plan. From the looks of it, it would take a few hours for the Elder to come. They set the emergency message so that, the Elders would wait for a bit before they come searching for their team.

They played it so that they would think the team has indeed found a trace of Sark, but they were also spotted. Sark was severely injured before they engaged and it only worsened which forced him to flee. But they also found some suspicious people nearby who seemed to be helping him after some pursuit and they are hiding currently to find what their goal is. The message also mentioned something about the cultivation level of the helper being the same as Sark.

They even left some loose-ends so that the family elders would over think. They even made this guy say that he would report back in two hours.

But there was no report. This could cause the family elders to speculate a bit and think of possible people who could be helping Sark.

And since there is really no one helping them, they would be over-thinking it and after some time, they would send people.

Since the team leader made clear about the cultivation, there is a great chance that only one elder will come and on the off chance that there are multiple elders, they need to be prepared for that too.

So, Sam made a plan that could work for three elders.

Sia and Gran started working on the concealment formations and Sam took out his new holographic technology.

He started created a formation discs that would better suit his purpose.

With Saber Monarch's strength he might be able to take on an Initial stage Transcendent stage cultivator and Five Elemental King might be able to do the same.

If Gran and Sia worked together, they could also take one of that level. Even if they wouldn't be able to kill them, they could occupy and exhaust them, giving some time for other's to help and along with Agar's help they might take down their opponent.

But if the Elder that came was a middle-stage one and multiple elders at that, they would be in some trouble.

Even though chances are not high, Sam didn't want to leave anything for the chance and put themselves in danger. So, he took out the metal poles that are responsible for destroying the walls of the Kala tribe city. The poles that are used for merging the Void, ripple and repel styles.

He started modifying the inscriptions on it so that they would be able to use them in this situation.

After some modification, the preparations were done in the two hours.

Sam gave the modified metal poles to the rest of the team.

In this battle, he wouldn't be able to help them no matter how much he wanted to. It is indeed a bit frustrating knowing that he couldn't take action by himself. He looked inside the divine dimension where the Raiju is eating the corpses of the previous demon team and pursed his lips.

He felt that his cultivation is too slow and one should wonder what other players or other cultivators would do to him if they heard him say it out loud.

Anyway, after setting up all the formations properly, they hid once again and Sam directly entered the divine dimension.

When the whole set up was activated a bunch of holograms were on the outskirts of the path and a few traces of Azure blood leading to the forest could be seen on the road.

The holograms are of some people Sam met or even killed. Most of them are people he killed. They are all posing as the allies of Sark who are currently helping him.

One hologram is of Sark himself. Even though Sam only saw him once, the twins have seen him quite some times and they are familiar with him. So, he made a rough hologram and anyway, there is a tolerance for accuracy within.

The holograms might seem like they were hidden, but they are placed that way to look like they are trying to hide but failed.

This was all a bait for the elders. The team is hidden under the concealment formations. Even if Sia and Gran's concealment is not up to par, it would be hard for the elders to notice with such a blatant display of Sark and his 'allies' right in front of them.

At least Sam hoped so. This could also be considered as a test for his new technology and luckily, Sam didn't have to wait for quite a long time to get the results.

Because within an hour, the elders came.

There are two elders which is actually a relief, but one of them seemed to be the leader and from what Sam could see through the crystal table, he seemed to be a middle-stage cultivator of Astral Plane Transcendence.

And Sam informed the rest of his team through the crystal table.

The team became a bit nervous but they are still prepared for this.

When the elders noticed the traces left behind and Sark along with their allies, they are delighted. They fell into the trap easily as they moved with raging auras and without a care.

But as soon as they stepped off the path and attacked a hologram, the twins appeared out of nowhere and stabbed the metal poles into both of them.

The initial stage elder was stabbed, but the middle-stage elder dodged. But before he could react again, Saber Monarch came from behind and stabbed him in the back with the pole and went back into the hiding.

The poles that were filled with their energy all channeled it in the three styles simultaneously and forcefully entered the body of the elders.

And when a person who doesn't know void style and doesn't know how to control suddenly experiences an energy flow similar to that in their body, they would have some deep trouble. Much less there is an addition of ripple and repel styles too.