Year 1, Winter, Third Month, Second Week.

Two weeks quickly passed.

Since the villagers could now digest more meat, each feast was using four beasts. Fortunately, conserving the meat wasn’t a problem in winter. However, their meat had ended on yesterday’s feast and soon the team would need to go out hunting...

Today, they were meeting with the still bedridden Diana to run some scenarios and tactics. Despite being unable to lead them, she was giving them her full support, even though, she felt sad and envious for not being able to go.

This time around, instead of Diana, Tael would be leading them, so it was important for him to get a handle in all possible scenarios.

To improve their defense and reduce the chance of beasts slipping through them, they increased the number of defenders to six members. To enhance the new shields and upgrade the attackers' weapons, Karl stopped his other projects and focused solely on these weapons.

Since Diana was staying and they got more energy crystals on their last hunt, the heating circle would stay active. So, after simulating several scenarios and deciding on tactics they were more or less, ready.

.........

Karl laid on the ground and breathed heavily, enjoying the pleasure of finishing an endless task.

He looked at the enhanced stone knife proudly and amazed. Even after working for almost a year, he couldn’t help but be astonished by Alchemy.

‘Now, they need to test the Activation Array… This new method is much simpler...’

Master AI taught him the Activation Array almost a month ago, but he couldn't find the time to study and test it. The Array was pretty basic and only took him three days to comprehend it.

The square represented accuracy and held the concept of State. To draw it, Karl had to focus on the aspect binary, either something is or isn't.

The Activation Array interrupts the magic energy's flow in a design, which would be continued once the Array is pressed, forming a switch for the magic tool.

With this addition, Karl could finally fixate the crystals in the magic tools without activating them continuously. The Activation Array would be placed in the weapon’s handle and the user would still have to train a specific activation-grasping move.

Even so, the weapons and tools’ function would be majorly improved. Missactivations, activation failures and accidents of crystals falling from the improvised straw glove in the middle of a battle would be greatly reduced.

Now, the design of the elemental weapons was finally complete.

For now, Karl decided to don’t modify the bow and arrows because of the small space for placing the crystals and the complicated design of magic composed weapon.

.........

The next day, near the water stream.

Unfortunately, the team didn’t found any beasts near the village, like last time, so they walked all the way here. They were planning to check near the stream since every beast would need water.

Sania stretched her body and looked at her coat and boots like she was testing their quality. Since the last hunt, Karl had drawn the Toughness Rune in both the coats and boots of every team member, making them stronger to resist attacks and usage.

But, aside from that, Sania was chosen to be a beta tester of another enhancement. He also drew a Lightness Rune on her boots. The Rune was small and didn't have a large effect. Mostly, because it would take too much time and energy for Karl to draw it, but also because it would make it difficult for her to fight.

The idea was to make her movements lighter and also increase her speed, but if the effects ended up being too strong, she would lose balance and control over her body.

Fortunately, Karl drew a small effect Rune and it was powered by environmental magic energy. Even so, Sania had to get used to it, since the Rune’s effect was stronger outside the village.

One hour later, she was looking at the horizon praying for a beast to appear soon when Tael gave a signal for the team to stop.

She looked everywhere excitedly but couldn’t find a beast, she could only look at him to see in which direction the disturbance came from. Strangely, Tael was looking confused at the direction of the water.

Before she could react, a long and thick bluish line emerged from the stream and moved towards them.

It was a snake beast. The 20 meters long and thick beast quickly contracted its body and launched an attack on them.

Despite the sudden attack, they were on high alert so it didn’t take much time for everyone to respond. The archers shoot their arrows on Tael’s signal, while the attackers held their weapons, prepared to dodge or attack at any time.

Toni wasn’t the quickest thinker but he didn’t hesitate to step up to protect the team, so moving to intercept the snake while activating his defense Array. Half of the arrows hit the snake causing it to hiss, while the other half just slipped through its bluish scales.

Toni tried his best to block the snake’s charge but it was too massive, the impact threw him meters away.

The other defenders trembled but didn’t panic, most of them had experienced worse situations, so they activated their shields without delay.

The snake threw two more defenders and received the second volley of arrows, getting hit by three more arrows. The beast’s instinct was to pass through them and knock them with its powerful body, but the prey was blocking it, so it tried to knock them even harder.

The snake stopped in an upright position and the remaining defenders took the chance to tighten the formation, after the fight against the white wolves their training emphasized the importance of not letting their enemies slip through them.

The beast hissed and launched another head-on attack, this time the three remaining defenders got pushed three meters back, but fortunately, the second layer was two meters further.

For the first time in the battle, Sania saw an opportunity to attack and took it. She ran to the back of one defender and used him as a step to jump at the snake, she flew straight ready to bury her dagger in the beast’s eye.

However, the snake reacted just in time to dodge the attack, its counterattack came immediately, it turned around trying to bit her.

Sania wasn’t being hasty, the attack had good chances of inflicting damage, or at least it would create an opportunity for the other member by distracting the snake. Fortunately, the team didn’t waste her efforts.

The defenders opened a gap in the center and prepared for a fast intervention while the two short-ranged attackers moved to attack the snake.

Despite being in mortal danger, Sania was calm and focused on her task. The beast’s movements indicated that it had a water crystal, she could guess it by its movements and flexibility.

She tightened her grip on the dagger and prepared to dodge the beast to the right while cutting its side. Fortunately, the attack followed what Sania expected and she dodged within the right timing.

The dagger entered the snake’s scales and Samia ran opening a big cut along its body. Unfortunately, the beast had great muscular control and started to make strong contractions until she was thrown to the ground.

Sania looked at the snakehead coming for her, but instead freaking out she smiled. The snake hissed in pain and contracted its body trying to shake off the attacks that were hurting everywhere in its body.

The other attackers made use of Sania’s distraction to coordinate a massive attack. They thrust their knives at the snake in different places, instead of opening new cuts, they focused on increasing the size of the cuts made by the arrows.

The archers didn’t stay idle either, under the protection of the defenders they were shooting at the parts clear of attackers, the snake size could also be a disadvantage.

Tael saw Toni and the other thrown defenders coming back to join the formation and intervened:

“Toni, go with them to the other side. If the snake tries to retreat, block its path. After it gets too wounded it might try to escape…”

Toni nodded and moved to the designed location.

After suffering multiple attacks, the snake gave up on Sania and turned to attack the others. Although she didn’t have a muscular body, she didn’t suffer too much from her crash, the boots also offer great help decreasing her weight and impact.

She didn’t waste this chance and stood up to attack it again. She started to slash at the snake’s scales but soon realized that it wouldn't be enough to kill it and decided to give the snake’s head another try, but a chance wouldn’t come easily.

Tael also tried to shoot at the snake’s head but it was moving constantly and he couldn’t risk hitting the team members. The attackers couldn’t make a fatal wound so they tried to worn it off by attacking one side when it tried to defend the other side. The snake would throw some attackers every time it turned but it wasn’t causing much damage to them. The snow was finally working in their favor by reducing the landing impact.

The snake was getting tired and its wounds were becoming severe, so it decided to give up and run. It turned the massive body around and moved back towards the water trying to escape.

However, Toni was ready to block it, he intercepted the beast and activated the defense Arrays. The shield couldn’t stop the impact completely and started to break, while Toni was being pushed back. The two other defenders placed their shields on each side of Toni and activated the defense Arrays.

At the cost of hurting their arms and shoulders, the snake’s escape was stopped. Before it could retreat to make another attempt, Sania jumped and thrust her dagger on its head.

The snake swung its head madly, throwing Sania and the defenders to the ground. It kept struggling aimlessly until it finally died.

One broken tooth, two dislocated shoulders, countless bruises and a lot of pain. The team won the battle against the beast without any casualties or severe wounds. Sania couldn’t wait to taste the beast’s meat.

.........

The leading Fighter smiled at the dark grim valley in front of them.

Lew felt shivers all over his body. Previously, when they entered the ghost section he couldn't imagine a worse atmosphere, but he had been naïve, this was much scarier and deadly.

“We're finally here... This is our last stop, the Death Valley.”