The apparitions kept moving in a circle around the boy, seemingly shouting without any sound. The man watched from a distance of a few dozens of meters while all the others recalled their beast spirits back into their tattoos and stood behind him.
Many were there just to quench their curiosity and find what it looked like to integrate with a high-grade beast spirit while the others were looking for a chance to step up in case the boy failed.
Because one person would get only one chance to integrate with a beast spirit and if they failed, that was it. They would once again have to venture out into the wild and find the same beast with the exact same word of power, the chances of which were one in a billion, if even that.
The integration process itself was rather simple. The word of power which was developed naturally on a beast's body would become attached to its soul and once the word was extracted, a portion of the beast's soul would come along with it.
To integrate, the user would have to overpower the beast's soul and bear its pressure with their own soul.
Only a powerful soul would be able to integrate with multiple words and those with a higher-level like this one that had more unique or stronger abilities like the ability to seal and use ice-related powers that were included with this specific word of power.
The man watched from the side with a deadpan expression while the boy struggled on his own. This was a fight that he would have to fight himself.
Seeing as it would take a while to finish, the old man that had brought the boy out walked up behind the man and bowed.
"Lord Gi-An. There is news from the frontlines," he whispered.
Several of the people around them perked their ears and listened closely, making the old man frown.
Lord Gi-An, without turning around, waved his hand casually, "Its fine. Continue."
The old man bowed once again, "Yes. The attack on the rock creature was unsuccessful. All of them were killed before they could do anything."
The people that were listening in with interest were shocked to say the least while Lord Gi-An finally had a change of expression as well.
"Did the rock creature attack itself?"
"No, my lord. It was a single man, someone we have no information about. He killed everyone instantly."
"Show me," Lord Gi-An turned around and looked at the old man's eyes which only had two golden tattoos in them.
The old man blinked once and the scenes of Xue Meng wiping out the over 200 natives played out in front of him for everybody to see.
Lord Gi-An's lips curled up into a smile without him even realizing it and he started talking out loud, "That's more of a massacre than a fight. I am truly astounded by these aliens. Every time we think we have them figured out, something new happens. But no matter, they were only a few new recruits that couldn't pass the tests. No loss for us."
His comments relieved many of the surrounding eavesdroppers that did not know the whole situation. They started talking amongst themselves.
"So they were only the failed recruits."
"Still, to kill them all and so quickly…"
"We need to be careful going forward. Meeting someone like that on a battlefield won't be a good thing."
"Yeah, but how many of them could they have? There is probably a handful of people as strong as that man, otherwise, they would have already wiped us out."
"That's true."
To the natives, the participants were considered to be the main force behind the so-called invasion. They had no idea that their entire planet was but a mere proving ground for the powers of the beast world, used to test out their young.
They were under the expression that the participants were the main attacking force and once they were defeated, all would be fine. They hadn't even considered the possibility that it was something else, because that was the only way they could continue fighting.
Lord Gi-An's smile slowly disappeared upon hearing their conversations. Because even though he had no idea to the extent of the power of these invaders, somethings were rather simple to figure out for him who had been fighting them from day one.
'Too young. All of them are young men and women, haughty and overconfident.'
The oldest of them that he had come across looked to be only in his late twenties. Then what about the others? Surely, they wouldn't send their young ones to fight a war.
The only reason he had yet to make himself known to them was because of this simple fact, that he knew next to nothing about them.
That's why most of his recent endeavors were focused on information gathering. For a seasoned fighter like him, there was nothing more important than knowing the extent of his opponents' power.
Lord Gi-An turned away and closed his eyes, "What about the others?"
"The attack on the horned creature is going well but it has yet to conclude," the old man explained before lowering his voice, "Something happened when the last team was on its way to the long-necked creature. We found another one of 'them'," he finished with a grave look on his face.
A tattoo on Lord Gi-An's neck lit up and covered both of them with an invisible shield in the shape of a tortoiseshell.
When he was sure they would not be overheard, Lord Gi-An spoke up, "And?"
The old man shook his head dejectedly, "It was gone. Someone took the beast away before we could reach it."
From where he was standing, the old man could not see his expression but it wasn't hard to imagine considering how serious the situation was.
"Find it, no matter what. That is the one word of power we can't allow to get in their hands, you know better than anyone else how valuable it is to us, to the resistance!"
"Yes my lord, I have already dispatched the shadows.. They have found a trail of the one who took it."
