They stepped through the barrier, their feet landing on the raw, untainted, chaotic earth of the primordial continent.
They moved with precision.
Levi had let Amelia stay behind. She will only be a burden unless she cultivates to tier 1, so he left her at the domain to cultivate using some of the resources brought from the dimension.
"Master Levi, I hear howls from that direction," Tiara, standing guard beside Levi, warned.
"How far away?" Levi asked with a whisper.
"About 70 meters away from us," Tiara said after a moment of silence.
"Liam, Marcel," Levi called out to the two melee fighters in the group. "There are monsters close to us. Get ready to engage," he ordered silently.
"Miles, keep your distance and be ready to shoot at any time," he added.
Tiara, who was by his side, glanced at him. "Master Levi, what about me?"
"You are to guard me," he said, not even bothering to face her.
She bowed slightly.
Soon, the monsters came into sight: 5 tier 0 dire wolves, feasting on the corpse of another monster, spider-like with a human face.
One of the wolves looked up, staring straight into Liam's eyes. As if it triggered a chain reaction, the rest of the wolves looked up at that exact moment.
Levi's expression faltered for a moment. It was subtle and unnoticed by even Tiara, who stood beside him.
'They are more than I thought,' he mused. Previously, he had thought they were only 3, or at most 4.
"Tiara, how many of them can you kill without wasting energy?"
"All of them will only cost me a little," she replied, her tone blunt and precise.
A smile formed on Levi's lips. Not because of the danger of the wolves, nor the fact that they were getting killed.
He was just too surprised that it became a smile. A person killing 5 wolves without breaking a sweat. It was something he would have called impossible if it had been said a day before.
Even on Solun, to kill 5 wolves, a person needed to be good at shooting, maneuvering rough terrains, and it would still cost too much energy.
While he thought, the wolves did not wait. With ferocious growls, they dashed forward, their paws digging deep into the earth beneath them.
Liam and Marcel got into stance. Marcel held the hilt of his sword tightly in his hand. His shield was raised valiantly in his other hand.
Marcel's body snapped into alertness, his fist curling tight as he dropped into a fighting stance, ready to move the instant they neared.
Miles nocked his arrow, his gaze calm as he stared at the wolves.
Although they appeared calm and prepared on the surface, their minds were chaotic. Facing monsters at the same base tier strength was akin to death, especially due to the superior physique of monsters.
With each passing breath, the wolves got closer, the dust rose higher, their hearts raced faster, and their fear grew bigger.
Swoosh.
The splcing sound of metal tearing through the air whistled past them.
Tiara had released a single arrow covered in her energy. The arrow shot faster than the eyes could see, piercing through the head of the first wolf with brutal efficiency.
Its momentum did not decrease; it only got faster as it moved to the second wolf, creating a hole in the neck.
Then the next. The arrow jumped between wolves like it was the arrow of a death god seeking to claim souls for the afterlife.
As the last wolf dropped dead, the arrow flew back to Tiara. The blood clot at its tip flew away due to the sheer speed.
She caught it gracefully mid-air and put it in her quiver like it was nothing.
In front of her, Marcel looked at her like a deity, while Miles thought of what he could do when he started using energy at tier 1.
Among all of them, Liam was the most surprised. He still remembered yesterday when they killed wolves. She had barely killed one, while he killed two.
'If only I hadn't died in that place,' he thought.
Levi looked at her, his smile deepening. But it faded just as quickly. 'We will have stronger warriors soon.'
Under their guidance, he walked to the corpses and looted them. As usual, the loot was the same as before.
[2.5kg of meat, 5 liters of water, 50 energy points, and 5 wolf hides]
As he stood up, another thought struck his mind. 'How do we do these loots? We can't leave them here. We can't take them along, it will interfere if we were fighting.'
Levi was torn. Taking the loot along will be a burden, but it will make their journey faster. But taking it back to the domain will take extra time.
"We are carrying them back to the domain," he said after a moment of thought. He had no choice anyway. If he decided to sacrifice combat power for time, he might have to pay dearly, so he chose the safest option.
Like soldiers trained to follow a set program, they moved, carrying whatever they could carry. The things were too much, and even Levi had to join them.
The only person who was spared was Tiara.
"You should be free to protect us from danger at any time. There might be monsters waiting to ambush us," those were Levi's words as he collected her load.
In the endless dimension, in a garden filled with various exotic flowers, as well as thorny plants, Lucien walked carelessly with a wheat stalk in the corner of his mouth. His sword hung by his side, held the jacket tied to his waist.
It felt like he was on a vacation, rather than training.
"I wonder how Levi is handling the domain now," he muttered.
Suddenly, his expression changed. Having faced death countless times since entering the dimension, his senses had been sharpened beyond normal limits.
Swiftly, he turned back, just in time to avoid the bladed limb slicing towards his head.
His face hardened as he looked at the monster that dared to interrupt his relaxation.