101 Light-Blue Snake

We arrived at the spot where the beast was seen last time by the scouts. We had to clean the beast around the area before looking for the beast's traces. Once we finished, I was finally going to try my tracking vision.

When the all of my different types of vision became aura vision I could use all the functions I had before at will, but if I use all of these abilities at the same time the amount of information that I receive makes me get tired faster, so I don't use most of them unless I need them.

Around me, I could see soft auras in the places that all beast had passed by… so basically everything around me was brighter than before. There were differences between each trace, older traces were dimmer and strong beasts left behind a stronger aura.

As this was the first time I use tracking view even if I could somehow know how old some of them were, when the traces were left behind by stronger beasts, it was more difficult to know how old they have been there. Fortunately, the aura I was looking for had been here just 1 day before and all I had to do was confirm I'm going to follow the correct one using psychometry, this meant a massive load to my brain, but I somehow managed to handle it.

Once I identified the trace, it was easier to follow it. Around the edge of the city the number of beasts was higher than inside, we have to thin their numbers as much as we can because any of this beast could become a potential threat to the people in Green Shelter. Till now I have killed 25 snakes, 8 of them were F-Ranked, and 1 was an E-Rank. Besides this, I have killed about 5 other F-Ranked beasts from different species.

I subconsciously have been killing mainly snakes while leaving another beast to be shot down by the rest of the team. Since the snakes were more challenging to handle the other didn't mind that I killed mainly snakes. I could identify from their aura that the number of Ranked beasts that have died but just from their aura, I couldn't be sure about their Ranks. I'm pretty sure that all of them were F-Ranked, Gabriel shot a lizard that had a skin Hard enough to be compared to the alligator I fought so I think that it might have been and E-Rank.

After going forward for a while using tracking eyes the trace became more evident as we arrive at the city limits. We were in front of a grassland, after about 200 meters was a forest with a swamp on the center, at least that's what I know from general knowledge of the area since I have never been there.

The light-blue snake that we were tracking went back to the swamp I had a weird feeling about it the swamp, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Usually, the hunting parties wouldn't leave the city area, so if that snake was out of the city, we would not continue to follow it.

I looked around to be sure that the trace doesn't come back into the city for a while, but I knew that the snake went to the forest about 2 hours ago.

"If it went to the swamp it meant that this finishes here."

Zak declared at my side while turning around ready to go back to Green Shelter.

As we were about to leave, I received an unexpected notification.

[Mission: Help Cai-Cai

Type: Emergency.

Reward: Choose (Detoxification / Poison Resistance / 3 Skill points), ???.

Time Limit: 02h 59m 59s]

"Who the f*** is Cai-Cai?!?!?!"

I subconsciously blurted.

Zak jumped at my side looking at me dumbfounded.

"DON'T SCREAM LIKE THAT!!! YOU WANT TO ALL THE BEAST AROUND TO COME HERE!!!!"

"Sorry … but I think that you just called a lot more attention than what I did."

The rest of the team came to where we were discussing.

Surprisingly even after all the yelling, no beast came to attack.

"What happened? Why are you screaming?"

"Spencer suddenly yelled and scared me."

They all looked back at me waiting for an explanation. I ignored them and used psychometry on the grassland to understand what the snake was doing.

Of course, I couldn't control what I saw, a higher amount of memories appeared on my mind, my head started to hurt as the time passed. People, machines, and animals moved around as the seasons passed fast on my head. My mind forgot what it saw faster than what I could understand it until I finally saw what I was looking for. The light blue snake going outside the city, don't ask me why I know it, but it was scared, and something was calling her.

This vision made me realize that something was wrong, but I wasn't anxious until I saw three familiar silhouettes going to the forest.

I could only hold for a second as I saw Dante followed by Lucy and Rose in her astral form, the amount of information was too much, and it was difficult to handle when it finished my head hurt, and I had blood coming out from my nose.

____________________________________________

[Rose POV]

Back at the apartment, I was on the bed ready to use my astral form again.

'Ready?'

Dante nodded at my side since he was connected with Spence by the pet contract, I wanted to see if it was possible for him to work as an astral anchor too.

I once again felt weightless as freed myself from my body, I floated around with Lucy on my shoulder as she was used to.

Since next to my body it would be useless to try this ability we slowly moved away from it.

The distance from my body grew as we went out of Green Shelter. Last time we measured I could handle around being around 500 meters from my body or Spencer. It might have grown in this couple of days thanks to Astral Link, but that distance was already around the limits of Green Shelter, so to be sure that Dante work as an anchor, we needed to leave this place a little.

We left the place, and as I reached what I thought should be my current limit, I didn't feel the pull that usually came when I was nearing the threshold, the experiment was going well for the moment.

We took more distance to be sure, but I was right on my thoughts. Thanks to the pet contract, Dante worked fin as an Anchor, I couldn't use him as a portal, but this was a complete success!!.

I love spending my time with Spence, but I don't want to bother him each time I want to try something new with my powers. This experiment with Dante opened a lot of doors for me to improve my prowess on my own, and I might even surprise Spence with something too.

As I was moving farther and farther away, I noticed something weird coming from outside the city.

Dante seemed to notice it too.

'Do you know what it is?'

'Mmm~ I'm not sure but I think is the aura from a strong beast… a lot of beasts respect it~.'

'A mind ability?'

'No~, it's more like they feel intimidated by the presence… it's like when the pack leader or the alpha of a group gives an order~.'

'You are telling me that stronger beast can control another beast only with their presence?'

'It's not common, but I have seen it once before.'

Will there be a large-scale beast attack? I was worried, but my instinct told me that there was something else going on over there.

'Do you think we can go and see what is happening?'

'Sure, reptiles are dumber than rats~, so it's easy to keep them away from me, and I don't think that you will be in any danger~.'

I wasn't entirely sure about if I should just go, but if Dante says that he has no problems controlling the beast, then I'll trust him. If we go back to inform this without more information, there was not much that could be done, and they would need to send scouts to investigate, so if there is a potential threat that we can identify I prefer to do it as soon as we can.

'Let's go then.'

Dante ran through the streets towards the edge of the city with Lucy and me flying behind him.

We arrived at the limits of the city and continued our path towards the forest, thanks to Dante I haven't seen many beasts around us.

'Actually~, there aren't too many beasts in the area~, most of the ones that were in the city~ went back to the forest~, I had to send the beasts that were left to Spencer~.'

'You send the beasts to attack Spence???'

'Yes, but he can handle them~… he wants the data for the investigation you two are doing~.'

I sighed but thanks to my connection I knew that he was ok.

While we neared the forest a light blue snake about 7 meters long was moving back and forth as if it was nervous about something… Snakes can be nervous?

'It depends, those that are smart enough can… and she can~.'

'She can think?'

'Yeah, she can't talk back, but she is able to think~, Do you want me to ask her what's wrong~?'

'