Is this really a Game?!

For the following three portals, Reign and the others continued doing the same as before.

They would arrive, Reign would try to sense somebody, but he would fail each time, Beast would send out his wyvern to fly around in an attempt to find a person as well, and Wolf would start looking around the area.

Compared to how he had done it before, Reign went easier on the corrupted sources this time, using the same attack, just lessening the intensity of the light.

The second time he had done so, the light turned out to be too weak, and he had to quickly increase the intensity so that the corruption in front of the source wouldn't attack him.

Each time he had gone up against a new source, he would try a different approach. Reign would always adjust the intensity and destructiveness of the power by a bit, trying to make it perfect not just for destroying the source, but also so that he could preserve the runes and symbols that made up the portal.

After all, the Queen and Drayce both needed more of the runes and symbols in order to understand more of the runes, to understand how they functioned, perhaps where they came from exactly, and who was behind them.

After taking down the fourth portal, Reign stared at Wolf who was looking around before exhaling deeply and then looking at Reign.

Wolf motioned for Reign to come over before looking around them.

"No traces, not even a single one after looking at four places."

"You haven't managed to sense anything, no mana traces, no soul signatures, nothing."

"That is just too weird, no matter how good somebody is, they shouldn't be able to leave without leaving even the slightest trail."

"At least if mana was used to clean up, we can immediately notice the mana signature, but here, there is just nothing."

"It's as if nobody has been here for a long time."

"But that shouldn't be possible, the runes and symbols have to be placed by a person, which means that there were people that have come here, the question is when?"

"Were these all placed months ago, and are only now being used?"

"Does the enemy have an ability that allows them to completely hide their tracks like the phantoms do, or is there something else entirely?"

Reign widened his eyes at Wolf's words before sitting down.

"Hmm, I don't know, what if the enemy does have someone that has such powers, that is that good at hiding themselves and erasing their presence, mana, and soul signature."

"If there is a person that is that good, then I'd have to admit it, that person would definitely be better than me and Shadow at doing the exact same thing."

"That's quite a high praise coming from you, you know?" Reign asked with a smirk as Wolf nodded his head.

"I know, but that is how it is, I do hope I am wrong, though.

"And I hope that my next theory is the correct one." Wolf suddenly told Reign as he got up and grinned.

"Let's dig a bit."

"Dig?" Reign asked with confusion as Wolf nodded his head.

"Yes, digging, let's go dig."

"Why should we go digging?"

"Because of my next theory, don't worry, it won't take long, just a bit, after all, with our current strength, we can dig quite a bit in an incredibly short period of time."

Reign glanced at Wolf, his expression still one of confusion, but he sighed and shook his head before surrendering and listening to what Wolf wanted them to do.

"Around the source, let's say about 2 meters around it?" Wolf asked as Reign just nodded his head, his expression showing that he wasn't that interested or knew what Wolf was doing right now at all.

"Ok, let's start," Wolf said before he started digging and throwing the ground behind him.

Shovel and shovel passed before Reign was standing and staring at Wolf in shock.

"How did you know this?"

"I tried thinking of how to not be noticed by you, and since hiding my mana won't work thanks to the fact you can manipulate and sense souls, wouldn't it be best to get a shelter that has something there to defend against those senses"

"But…" Wolf suddenly glanced at Reign with a smile on his face.

"If I already had something that could defend against those things, then I would just need to make sure to not be seen, and to not leave a trace, which is many times easier compared to the previous one."

"So, you think the enemy has a way of countering my soul sensing, as well as regular mana sensing, and that is why we haven't come across them."

"I mean, it does make sense, after all, we have visited quite a couple of the sources of corruption and there have always been 0 people present to spread the corruption." Reign continued, his face still calm and steady.

"So, you believe that they have gone underground, created the portals from below, used their powers to activate them, and then left via tunnels?" Reign asked as they both continued digging.

Beast had heard what they talked about, as did Shadow and Laura, and they all had to admit that the theory sounded … believable.

"Whether they dug up the tunnels themselves, or had people with earth manipulation, soil manipulation, rock, or any other ability that is similar to those, I don't know, but I think they went below the ground."

Just as Wolf finished talking, his shovel suddenly went deep inside the soil, which made him lose his balance for a moment before he smirked.

"I think we found one."

Wolf and Reign then quickly started digging, and in only a couple of seconds, they managed to uncover the tunnel.

It was rectangular in shape, with the height of the tunnel being 2 meters and the width 5 meters, allowing for two or more people to move at once, but making it difficult for anyone taller to pass through.

"Tracks," Wolf said as he stared at the tunnel and its floor, a smile blossoming on his face as he continued doing so.

"There were 2 people who came here, they probably activated the portal and then left this place, tch, we don't know exactly how long ago that was, nor do we know how long they needed to wait in place for the portal to start working and before it was fully self-sufficient."

"Do we follow after them, or go after the other sources?" Shadow asked Wolf who sighed.

"I will go follow the tracks, Reign, you should continue taking down the sources, with your light manipulation, you are the one who is capable of doing so with the greatest ease, speed, and efficiency."

"Shadow and Laura stay with me, Beast, you will Of course go with Reign, the wyvern is of great help and speeds things up tremendously."

"Since you have no need to slowly look around and take everything in and try to find traces, you can destroy the sources much faster and then quickly copy the runes and symbols, I don't believe you will need a lot of time to destroy the sources."

Reign nodded his head before walking toward Beast who had already jumped on the wyvern.

He jumped on its back and it immediately took off, issuing a roar as it did so before flying toward the next source of corruption. As for Wolf and the others, they glanced at one another before jumping in the tunnel and making their way away from the portal and deeper inside the area they were in right now.

The tunnel was very basic, it was just soil, but tough soil that had seemingly been compressed to make it many times more durable than normal soil. There were no lamps placed in the tunnel, no signs, nothing, it was a tunnel that only led straight, had only one direction, and had no use for anything else inside of it.

Of course, with Wolf's flames, they had no issues looking ahead or having to worry about a source of light near them.

As for Reign, he did just as he had done before.

He would arrive with the Wyvern, jump down, attack the portal, destroy the portal, copy the runes and symbols, and then go to the next one.

Both he and Beast were going full speed ahead.

They didn't want to leave the others alone, they wanted to do whatever they could, as fast as they could.

Taking down the corrupted areas was definitely the number one thing, the one at the top of the priority list, but finding those that had activated them was also important, thus the reason why they split up before.

If they don't find the ones that spread the corruption, then it would be much more difficult to end this. The only thing that was present inside the minds of Beast and Reign, however, was whether Wolf and the others were ready for what they would find.