The first night in the Wilderness passed uneventfully, all six of them took turns standing guard for a little over an hour while the others were sleeping. At morning after having their breakfast -- a deer they hunted before -- they packed their things and set off, in the direction of the Sundering Flames.

A few days elapsed in the same manner, without any noteworthy incident. The landscape was beautiful, the whole place was filled with various trees, several of which were hundreds of meters high. Some of them were blooming in different colors and the air was full of the flowers' sweet fragrant scent.

There were a couple of times when wild beasts decided to attack them, however compared to Quin and his team, they could be considered as small fries and they had no problem taking care of them.

On the eve of the fifth day they finally reached their goal: the Sundering Flames.

“Oh my god! It’s so cool!” Dreon was the first to exclaim. He stood in front of the flame wall, with his mouth agape, looking at the flames with shining eyes.

“Indeed, I haven’t seen anything like this in my whole life,” Alinor said calmly, but his excitement could be clearly seen.

“Yeah, it’s beautiful... But don’t you feel a bit strange?” Quin asked.

“Hmm? I haven’t noticed anything like that,” Alinor replied.

Aline simply shook her head.

I do feel like there’s a menacing, suppressing aura every time I look at it and I even feel like I’m shivering with cold! Why is it only me who feels it?

“Strange? Yes, it’s indeed strange!” Dreon answered. “How do you think something like this can even exist? It’s been around for centuries! Can you imagine that? There’s definitely something strange... Something shady! Do you think it’s also a part of the Shrieker’s scheme?” He paused only for a moment, and then continued, with a shocked expression on his face. “Oh my god! They’ve been scheming, conspiring behind our backs for centuries!”

It was at this point when Quin interrupted him. “What kind of nonsense are you talking about? The Sundering Flame being the Shrieker’s scheme? Sometimes, I really wonder if you’ve got a screw loose!” He was almost yelling at this point. “I was trying to speak about something serious and yet for some damn reason you felt the need to bring up your stupid theories! But alright, humor me, why would this be their scheme? The only connection that you could possibly bring up is that they could pass through the flames. So what? We can swim through water, even several types of corrosive waters, yet we’ve got no relation to them. Have you heard about Lightning Drakes? Not only can they move through even the Tribulation Lightning itself, they ate it for a snack!

“And why’d our people do something like that? There is no infighting inside our nation, and there hasn’t been for ages, we always stood united against our foes. The most powerful people of Ade Lai -- like our Grand Duke, Gorman or Nyra -- were always friendly toward each other and if you had read up on our history, you would’ve known that they fought alongside each other for countless years!

“Besides this place is crowded with our legions, do you think that even if there were a couple of rebels among them the others wouldn’t have noticed it? Do you think the Spirit Forming experts in the legions are just for show? Their clairvoyant spells aren’t just ordinary ones, but more complex, sophisticated versions, which can cover a significant area once activated.

“You know, I didn’t even try to argue with you, I just listed a few random reasons from the top of my head! However even these are more than enough against your stupid theories,” Quin said and the irritated look on his face completely mirrored his feeling. “Anyways, it’s high time to set up camp. I’ll go catch some food in the meantime,” he said and disappeared in an instant by using Flash.

It’s strange that no one felt the same thing that I had... he thought. Wait, I haven’t even even listened to Lin and Sao! Sometimes he totally forgot about the duo. They have never been too talkative, in fact he barely even heard them speak. For some reason at most of the times, Alinor was joined by them wherever he went. They stuck to him like glue, but they were not actively part of their group. At first Quin assumed that they were some sort of bodyguards but then ruled out this possibility, as Alinor was stronger them. Actually, even if the two of them had joined hands against Alinor they would have been defeated.

In an hour or two he returned with a lot of food. In truth, the ‘catching some food’ was just a pretense for channeling his fury, so most of his time was spent by searching for something he can use as a punching bag.

It turned out to be quite useful and when he returned, he felt fine, without any anger burning inside him. When he arrived, he looked around, not seeing any signs of Dreon.

“He left just after you, saying that if he’s so unwelcome he will be camping in another place,” Alinor said, seemingly able to read his mind.

Hmph, how childish and hysterical, leaving the camp just like that! Well, he will return shortly anyways, he thought not paying any more attention to the matter.

The night passed and just as they were eating their breakfast in the morning, they saw that Leyn suddenly arrived, her face filled with concern.

“Guys,” she said, “We’ve got a problem, Dreon just ran away.”

“What happened?” Alinor asked, looking calm on the outside, but in truth he became a bit worried.

“I camped between your and Dreon’s place, to be able to keep all of you under watch and in the morning I decided to see how he was doing.” She paused, thinking hard how to formulate what she wanted to say. “Well, when I asked him, he said a couple of things and then told me that he will continue the ceremony alone. I tried to convince him, but he used a wind spell and disappeared right away.”

Hearing this Quin felt a bit bad, but then thought there was nothing to worry about as Dreon’s strength was quite good and he would just come back to them in a day or so.

“And then?” Aline asked. “You went after him, didn’t you? So what’s the issue?”

“I, uh,” Leyn replied, flushing with a hint of embarrassment and shame could be seen in her eyes, “I tried, yeah, but I couldn’t catch up to him.”

“But aren’t you already in the Qi Culmination sub-stage?” Aline asked, looking completely surprised.

“Yes, I am, but I am of water element and Dreon’s element was air. There’s no way for a water element user to catch up to someone with an air element, even if there’s a gap of a whole sub-stage between them,” Leyn answered, her head lowered.

“Wait, aren’t our guardians with us in case of emergency? Then, what’ll happen to us in a dire situation?” Aline questioned shocked, with a pale face.

Currently, their whole group shared her worry and concern.

“Yes, guardians are there for emergencies,” she replied. Although she tried to hide her feelings of embarrassment, shame and inability to do anything useful in this situation, but they were clearly reflected on her face. “There are different types of guardians as well, I am, as a water element user, a healer. Though my speed isn’t that good, if any of you gets injured I can heal you.”

“Alright, but why is it such a big problem that Dreon left?” calming down from his previous worry that they were left with a somewhat useless guardian, Quin asked.

“Uh, he went in the wrong direction. I mean, look,” she said, while taking out a map from her pocket, “These marked areas are the ones with dangers. If we see any of the groups entering it, we have to warn them first to stay together all the time. Most of them aren’t exceptionally dangerous if you work together, however facing them alone can be... Lethal.”

Once again, they became anxious, this time due to their friend’s safety.

“Quin, you’re supposed to be the fastest among us by a great margin, can you try to catch up to him? With your speed I think you can easily manage it,” Leyn asked.

“Hey! Are you trying to kill him?!” Aline asked and stepping next to Quin, cupped his arm protectively while glaring angrily at Leyn. “Sending him alone towards that dangerous area? Haven’t you said just before that it can be lethal if you’re alone? What if he’s attacked by a powerful wild beast there?”

“N-No, there’s no way I’d try to do that!” she exclaimed. “I only thought that he’d catch up to Dreon way before that”.

“No, I’ll absolutely won’t let him on this suicide mission!” Aline said with teary eyes, looking frightened, even at the thought of losing him.

On one hand, Quin felt quite happy that he was so important to Aline, on the other -- even if he planned to do the same thing what Leyn said, and there was no way he would be afraid of a couple of stronger wild beasts -- seeing how easily Leyn would have sent him there made his resentment toward her grow.

“Hey, I said I wasn’t talking about anything like that! Anyways, we gotta do something before it’s late,” Leyn said.

“Alright, we pack our stuff as fast as we can and then leave right away to catch up to him,” Quin said, taking up the role of the leader this time.