"So, what the hell is this?" Reign asks as he and the others look at the final location that the demon had given them. The place they were looking at was actually a waterfall from the river that passed through the mountain range.
Since the mountain they were in was actually the smallest one, the river ended passing through it before falling down and creating a magnificent waterfall. The waterfall they were at right now, however, was not that one, it was a 16-meter tall waterfall on the mountain itself.
As Reign and the others looked at the waterfall and the river below it, they could sense danger coming from it, for some reason the water that came down from the waterfall gathered in a small lake before a part of it continued down, creating a magical scenery.
"Yeah, I don't think we should swim here, or get close, to be honest," Shadow said as he looked at the small lake nervously, since they were all able to feel danger coming from the lake, they were confident that a powerful Tier I monster, or perhaps a Tier II monster was present inside the lake.
"I know, but, what about that?" Asked Reign as he pointed to the waterfall.
"What do you mean what about that?" Tank asked Reign as he looked at the waterfall before looking back at Reign with a confused expression on his face.
"What do you mean, what do I mean, it's a waterfall, there's bound to be a cave with some treasure behind it!" Reign said as Shadow showed an excited expression on his face.
"Right, there's always a cave or something behind a waterfall, how did I forget about that?!" Said Shadow as he face-palmed, "We need to go there, god knows what we can find!"
"I mean, we might, but do we really want to risk getting attacked by the monster whilst we try to check?" Beast suddenly asks them before Shadow smiles.
"I'll check it out alone, I can hide almost perfectly from anything with my skill, I'm confident that I won't be noticed while going there," Shadow said before giving them a thumbs up and going around the lake before arriving near the waterfall.
Luckily the waterfall and the huge wall of stone from which it fell down created a nice and long shadow beneath it, perfect for Shadow to use and hide.
As Shadow entered the shade that the wall provided, he almost completely disappeared. Not only was it hard to physically see him, but sensing him had also become many times harder as even Reign had to completely focus in order to sense his mana that was almost completely hidden inside his body.
Shadow slowly made his way over to the waterfall, making sure not to disturb what monster or monsters were in the lake. As he got to the waterfall, a problem arose as he wasn't able to see anything behind it, merely the wall of stone from which it was falling down.
"Damn it, no other way I guess," Shadow said as he took out his two daggers and stabbed them through the tough rocky wall.
He used his daggers and slowly moved across the wall while the strong water fell down on him. Each movement was dangerous since he could be dragged down by the water and if he fell, there was no saying what would happen.
Of course, he could always teleport to safety, but he didn't know if he would be able to do it on time or not.
The waterfall was about 23 meters in width and so far, Shadow had managed to pass about 8 meters, slowly nearing the middle of the waterfall. He suddenly froze in his tracks and so did Reign and the others who were watching him from afar.
A huge head suddenly arose from the lake and stared at the waterfall, it didn't seem like the monster had detected Shadow as it seemed to only be out to catch some sun, but simply looking at the head made Reign and the others nervous as they could immediately tell that the monster was at least a peak Tier I monster, probably a boss.
The head of the monster was one of a crocodile, only one that was many times larger compared to normal ones, even the crocodiles that Reign and the others had hunted in the IronBark Woods were mere babies when compared to this one.
The crocodile suddenly growled as the water around him rippled. The sound of the growl made the party all get goosebumps as they nervously stared at the crocodile.
After a minute or two, the crocodile's head submerged back in the water and slowly disappeared as everybody released a sigh of relief. Shadow, who was the one closest to the crocodile exhaled deeply before continuing on his way, the short encounter he just had was enough to almost scare him to death as the monster that came out of the lake was incredibly powerful and could have killed them all if it so wished.
Shadow slowly moved before he was finally in the middle of the waterfall, there was nothing there, however. No cave or small crevice that would lead him to a secret place where he could get some treasure, there was nothing.
The visibility was awful as the water blocked him from seeing anything further than 1 meter around him. He tried sensing mana but there was nothing close to him, he could only sense the terrifying mana in the lake and nothing other than that.
Shadow moved around, going a bit to the side, down, and sometimes higher up but there was nothing there. Shadow sighed as he looked around him, disappointed that the good old rule of treasure always being present behind a waterfall didn't apply here.
Before he left, however, he suddenly caught something interesting below him. There was nothing there at first glance, but the water that fell down and the sunlight that would now shine a bit made something else shine, something that was in the stone wall.
Shadow slowly went down before holding himself with one arm while using the other arm to hold his dagger and cut around the object.
The object in question was a gem, it was about 5cm in diameter and it was azure blue in color. A sense of coldness could be felt as Shadow held it with his hand, interested in what it was.
Before he could inspect the gem, however, his eyes constricted as he felt incredible danger. He quickly jumped to the side and used his ability as a 20-meter-long crocodile suddenly jumped from the lake and hit the place Shadow was previously at.
The stone wall shook violently and the water from the waterfall exploded around the crocodile as Reign and the others looked in shock at what just happened. A large part of the stone wall suddenly had cracks on it as the crocodile's attack was unimaginably powerful.
"Let's go!" Shouted Shadow who had used his teleportation skill multiple times in succession in order to get to them quickly. The rest didn't say anything before quickly leaving the location.
Sounds of collision and the angry growls of the crocodile could be heard as the party used their full speed in order to get away. If the crocodile went after them, then who knows what might happen, the only way they would be able to survive was if they could somehow lure another monster to fight it.
Their fear turned out to be right as they could suddenly hear trees falling down on the ground, the crocodile had sensed them and was now chasing them, furious at what Shadow had done.
Whatever the gem was, it was obvious that the crocodile treasured it greatly, that was actually the reason why it came out of the water previously and stared at the waterfall, it wasn't because it sensed Shadow, but because it was looking at the gem.
"The field, we have to get to the field!" Suddenly shouted Reign as everybody used as much mana as they could in order to run faster. The field was luckily close by and they only needed a little bit of time to get there at their full speed.
"It's still a bit further away, we'll go around the field and position ourselves so that this monster is between us and the crocodile, as soon as the croc enters the field, we run!" Reign shouted before he channeled mana to his eyes in order to see exactly where the mass of flesh was.
The party did as they were told and followed after Reign who was currently ahead of them. As soon as Reign made sure that the mass of flesh was between the croc and themselves he stopped, and so did the others.
It only took the crocodile 5 seconds to show itself before it stopped and stared at Reign and the others with hatred. It growled before charging at them, unaware of what was in front of it.
If the crocodile was normal, it would have definitely been able to see that something was wrong with the field in front of it, but in its enraged state it simply didn't care, it simple charged in order to get to Reign and the others and rip them apart.
As soon as the crocodile entered the field, however, it disappeared from sight as only Reign, Shadow and Laura were able to see it after channeling mana to their eyes.
"Let's get back a bit, if this turns out well, then we might be able to get the corpses of two powerful monsters today." Reign said as the others all nodded at him.
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