"No luck?" Reign asked Aelrinder as the two groups met in a clearing in the forest.
"Nothing yet, damn it, this place is simply too big, they could be anywhere!" Aelrinder shouted a bit as he sat down.
The two groups had spent the whole day searching for the Tainted base, only to find nothing. Even though the elves had done their best and searched about 70% of the forest, that was something they were able to do after about a month of searching around and having multiple search parties.
For the last 30% however, the monsters that inhabited that area were simply too strong for most parties and only Aelrinder and his team were able to safely go there, of course, Reign and the others could do the same, but having only two search parties made the process incredible hard and long.
Even after searching for the whole day, the two teams had combed through approximately 3% of the area, making it clear that they would need a couple of days more to find the base. Of course, if they were lucky enough they might be able to find it soon.
"What about you Beast, the eagle find anything yet?"
"No, the forest is too dense, it's pretty much impossible to see through the trees, even with his improved sight after hitting Tier I, it's still very hard to see through the trees." Beast shook his head as he used his connection with the eagle in order to try and find the base of the Tainted.
The forest was, however, a great place to make a base and stay hidden, after all, the dense trees and bushes made for great camouflage and one only needed to do a little in order to hide a small-sized base.
Of course, the Tainted definitely had a large base, but the problem is that it could be anywhere, the base might be on the floor of the forest, or on the trees, they might have even made it below ground, making it nigh impossible to be found.
Contrary to the elves that enjoyed making their bases on the trees and on the floor of a forest, the Tainted had no such habits and would make a base anywhere and anyhow they wished.
"Alright, the sun is slowly setting, I guess it's time to go back, we'll continue this tomorrow." Reign said as he got up from the rock he was sitting on. Aelrinder and his team nodded to him before getting up as well, just as everybody was about to leave, Beast spoke.
"That is weird."
"Huh, what's wrong Beast?" Reign asked as Beast stayed silent and continued using his ability to connect to the eagle and see through its eyes.
"It's, it's a normal part of the forest, at least at first glance, but, when you look a bit closer, the trees are weird, the leaves don't move when it's windy and my eagle can't see anything past the trees, which should be impossible since even though the trees are near one another and it's hard to see through them, he should be able to see at least a bit, but here it's just impossible."
"Hmmm, could it be that the Tainted put fake trees there?" Shadow asked as the others all shook their heads.
"No, that just makes no sense, maybe it's an illusion of some kind?" Wolf spoke before Aethion's voice was heard inside their heads.
"Array, they might have used an array to hide, the array creates a sort of illusion that blends in with the surroundings, making it extremely useful for any place."
"That's right if they used an array in order to camouflage themselves, then one not know that there's a base there even if they were staring straight at it!" Reign suddenly shouted out as Aelrinder and the elves all stared at them.
"You found it?"
"We're not 100% certain of course, but there is a good possibility that we have." Reign nodded to Aelrinder as everybody suddenly started walking to the place Beast had seen.
It would take about 30 mins to get there and even though the sun was slowly setting and the forest would become more dangerous afterward, they had no fear as there was nothing that monsters below Tier I could do to pose a threat to them.
After 30 minutes the two teams had arrived at the place that Beast had managed to see. They could see nothing out of the ordinary however, the only thing in front of them was the forest and it was the same as ever. They could see trees, bushes, and other plants, but there was nothing else there, no monsters, no Tainted, just nothing.
"There's nothing here, are you sure they're using an illusion?" Aelrinder asked as Reign turned his head to look at him.
"No monsters."
"What?"
"There are no monsters in the vicinity, nothing, not even one monster can be found nearby, don't you find that weird Aelrinder?"
"You're right." Aelrinder suddenly said as his mind started working, even though the forest was large and there were areas where monsters were very scattered and far between, this area of the forest was completely devoid of them.
The whole area about 1km in diameter was devoid of monsters, something like that should be impossible.
Darkness suddenly enveloped Aelrinder and the others, it was Shadow who had used his ability in order to make everybody less visible. Even though they wouldn't be invisible like he was in the dark, the cloak of darkness would still help out by making them harder to spot.
They all stayed in the same place for about 30 minutes before they were able to see an interesting sight.
Two Tainted suddenly appeared from the forest, the weirdest thing is that they just appeared, one moment there was nothing, and then they simply showed up some 50 meters from Reign and the others.
"Mark this place on the map, this is definitely their base." Reign said as 4 more Tainted appeared from the opposite direction of the first two. The Tainted were pulling a monster they had hunted while the two looked around in order to spot anyone that might have come nearby.
After a while, the two signaled for the others to come over and they all simply disappeared while walking forward.
"Tomorrow we strike," Aelrinder said as they all slowly made their way back to the elven territory. The base, although in an area that was deemed not searched was perhaps even found by some elves before, they just didn't know that it was found, or perhaps they walked straight into it and got killed by the Tainted.
Luckily only Alerinder, the queen, and the higher-ups of the elves knew about the plan so even if the Tainted had managed to capture some elves for interrogation, they would have found nothing out as they simply didn't know what the plan for the attack was.
The only thing the Tainted might have managed to find out was the existence of Reign and the others. That might have pressured them into hiding, but even so, they had no idea what was going to happen to them.
The next day.
Reign and the others met up with Aelrinder and the royal guards once more. There were going to be no more fighters to help them with taking down the Tainted base as they would simply be liabilities, even the royal guards were not needed for battle, but to operate the item just like the Tainted did during the attack on the elves.
The item was safely kept in Aelrinder's spatial ring and they slowly made their way toward the Tainted base. They needed to find a good spot to put the item down and since there were no monsters in the vicinity of the base it might take a bit longer for the monsters to be drawn over by the item and attack the base.
Reign and the others stopped about 300 meters from the Tainted base, from here they could observe what was happening in the base whilst drawing over all the monsters that were nearby.
As they all activated the item, a strange hum was heard as an invisible force and a very thin fog suddenly appeared and slowly disappeared into the air. Only about 15 minutes later could Reign and the others see monsters walking toward the base. Even though the monsters were previously cautious of the Tainted base and dared not come close, the item forced them to do so.
As more time passed, more monsters could be seen and after some 25 minutes from the usage of the item, more than 200 monsters were attacking the Tainted base.
The monsters were seemingly hitting the air itself as they came close to the array, the array functioned like a shield as well as a camouflage. It was however not as powerful as the dome that the elves had since the Tainted had to sacrifice its defensive strength in order to use the camouflage.
"Let's start this party." Said Reign as he smiled savagely while staring at the Tainted base.
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