Forty days later.

Sam and Arkiv are currently standing on the tree as they looked at the city in front of them.

Yesterday night they reached the surrounding forests after a long journey.

The journey was just as annoying as the last one. The most annoying part is them knowing why this journey is so long.

It was all just for Nike to satisfy her ego. She created these routes and the forests and placed all the beasts there just for the sake of increasing their journey's difficulty. It is like a perilous pilgrimage.

Even though they were being forced to do this, she still feels great about it.

One could imagine how twisted her mind is and how vain her thinking is.

When they reached this city, they are finally relieved.

But they didn't directly enter it or just show themselves.

They cannot go to the front entrance directly. If they want to go there instantly, they have to go through the city, but they have to take a detour which would take around half a day now and there is a great chance that they would be spotted by feathered.

They have to get as many details on what exactly is happening in the city from here.

They started observing them yesterday because of that reason and from the looks of it, there is indeed severe unrest going on.

The feathered are moving in the forest like crazy and they seemed to be searching for someone and the temple is damaged severely in several places.

The people definitely escaped from this place.

There is no doubt about it. But Sam wants to find out who are the players that are situated here. If it is someone else, he has to find a way to deal with them and get the weapon fragment directly from the temple.

They have one advantage over the rest. After Silva was treated and came to consciousness, he gave Sam some important information and the first one is that all temple layouts are the same in the six cities as they are designed by someone Nike herself appointed.

This is not common knowledge and only the six city heads or kings would know about it.

So, if he wants to find the weapon fragment in any other city, he just has to find a way to enter the main hall of the temple and turn the statue a bit and the secret door will be opened.

As for infiltrating the temple, which turned out to be a difficult task as even the shadows and the silver pigeons were unable to do so, is actually not too risky. The main thing that is needed to enter the temple directly without receiving any damage is the presence of active Feathered blood.

They can directly take a human, creature, or anything else inside directly if they want to and if Sam couldn't do that, all he has to do is draw some fresh blood from the feathered and hold it in a vial and as long as the vitality and the nature of blood didn't change, he could enter the temple.

Sam really felt like he received his worth after treating them. This information is enough for Sam to get his hands on the weapon fragment.

The only drawback is that the blood has to be carried by a living creature. The shadows and undead are not suitable. Otherwise, Sam would have sent his shadow soldiers to finish the task off.

They observed for the whole day and after getting an estimation on the scale of the activity the feathered are causing, the situation doesn't seem too serious and the players seemed to have escaped recently.

They decided to take a detour now and first find out who the players at this spot.

But this time, they didn't take the hovercar or go on the beasts, they just used the forest as a cover and go slowly.

After an hour or so after the journey, Sam and Arkiv are currently having a meal. This is one of the perks of the journey. Even though it is annoying, they got to sample a lot of beasts and Sam even collected a couple of them to rear in the divine dimension.

As they are making the small talk, all of a sudden they detected some other presence nearby and got ready to fight.

At this moment, Arkiv who is looking in the sky felt a cold feeling behind his back and jumped forward.

A dagger just slashed the air in his spot and missed him with hair's breadth. At this exact moment, Sam also rolled to the side, and earth elemental energy channeled into his legs and then onto the ground as a sharp earthen spike raised behind his heel and blocked another dagger.

He slid to the side and looked at the seared meat which is crusted with various herbs that fell on the ground.

"I don't like wasting my food you know. It is not polite either."

Arkiv looked at a feathered standing there coldly as he took out his body and his aura raged.

Two feathered are standing there with smoky black wings.

One look and anyone could guess they are dark element users and specialized in shadow element.

"A flying shadow. Not a good combination if you ask me." Sam said once again as they didn't speak.

"Who are you? You are not the two humans that escaped. Where did you come from?"

"Well, technically we are also humans who escaped the temple, but not this one," Arkiv replied as he took out the arrow as got ready to shoot.

"Which city are you from? Which King is so incompetent to let you get away like this?"

"Silva city."

Sam said as he eyed the two feathered closely. Both of them are twins.

They both have dark elemental energy running around them and the wings are still in shadow form. It is partial elemental fusion.

"Grace is really slipping down. She couldn't even keep you guys there and you even managed to escape from the city. Silva city seems to be on a decline on all fronts."

Arkiv chuckled at it and said.

"You are the one to speak, I am pretty sure those two fuckers whoever they are already giving you a hard enough time. Are you sure you want to mess with us?"

"Hard time? All they could do is run away." The one who is eyeing Sam spoke in disdain and made a move.

He disappeared into becoming a shadow and tried to stab him in the neck, Sam took out a dagger of his own and blocked the attack, but right before both daggers clashed the feathered moved to the side and tried to stab Sam in the back.

When he thought that the attack landed, he suddenly felt a huge impact on his chest and lost his senses for a while.

Before he knew it, he felt another impact as he hit a tree nearby and fell down.

He looked at Sam in surprise.

This is the first time his trick has failed when he fought against a peer.

"Your movements are fine and gliding with the wings is good as it caused almost no sound, but you not exactly stealthy with your moves, your energy is all over the place. What a pity for someone to be gifted and not knowing how to use it." Sam looked at him and shook his head as if he is really disappointed and felt pity for that ability.

"All you got is one lucky shot. Don't think that you are all that just because of that."

The feathered spoke and made a move, the remaining feathered also didn't wait any longer and made his move on Arkiv.

Arkiv kicked the ground and jumped onto a tree and kept on hopping as he planned to create enough distance between them.

But the shadow is moving too fast. Arkiv started shooting arrows one by one and managed to keep him at bay so that he can move freely.

Meanwhile, Sam started glowing in black as dark elemental energy surrounded him. He held the dagger and said.

"Let us see who can be the better shadow for now."

With that the battle became intense.

The feathered shadows have a bit of an edge as they used their wings mostly for gliding while being in the shadow form.

Arkiv is having a bit hard time coping with that, but Sam is matching him with that same speed.

He is not even attacking at all and even the elemental fusion is not hundred percent. It is around fifty to sixty percent and mostly focused on defending.

He moved like a slippery eel as he blocked the movements and made him uncomfortable.

As for why he is doing this instead of finishing off the fight, he just wants to have some fun and see what he has got.

The last few months have been a bit of a frustrating task after all.

Meanwhile, Arkiv changed his game and is making moves that are not his usual style. He started shooting multiple arrows in different directions and he is using a different arrow style. This seemed to be one of his special techniques and this caused that shadow feathered to back down instantly.

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