The Earth Online

66 The Flying Monarchs

Thaleos, Kedrick, and Haya all knew that learning a new skill wasn’t easy; that’s why they knew that their throat singing wouldn’t be perfect, but they were happy to hear from Ygritte that at least it served its purpose.

Although far from average, their throat singing skills were enough to act like signals if they were in danger.

“I mean, to be honest, you all sound like frogs but it honestly works better to blend in the background.” The druid joked around causing her team members to chase her around the Melam Military Base.

After tiring themselves out from the chase, they quickly had a hearty lunch and drove straight to the manor.

Once arriving at the location, they immediately saw Reiko practicing his dagger skills. The pale man was doing some flips while slashing different parts of the nearby trees.

They noticed that the man’s shirt was basically drenched in sweat, he looked like he had been practicing for hours as he continuously did triple flips.

“Dude, that’s sick!” Kedrick shouted in praise, which prompted Reiko to do a perfect triple flip and land right in front of them. Everyone clapped their hands as the Asian man bowed multiple times.

“What brought this about?” Haya asked while studying the s***h marks on the trees and thinking poor trees. Reiko chuckled a bit as the tan man barely hid his expression.

“Well, I tried one of your strategies. You know, the one where you go back and forth through the door just to be safe.” The pale man mentioned while wiping the sweat off his face. After successfully cleaning himself up, he continued with a gruff look on his face,

“Honestly, it worked at first but then the monsters picked up the intervals between me entering and exiting the world. By the fourth round, there were like three minor monsters waiting for me. Not that they almost killed me, but you don’t know what might happen next, right?”

They all nodded their head in agreement and recalled all the times they almost lost their lives because of surprise attacks.

“Well, just saying, man. Be careful out there.” Reiko warned in a serious tone as he directly gazed at them.

“Yeah, definitely, bro. We’ll figure out how to outsmart those monsters.” Thaleos said while already hatching up a plan in his mind. His other three team mates can already see him thinking.

Kedrick led them to the gym and entered the place with excitement. He was eager to try out their new strategies and see how they play out in the second stage.

Haya opened the door to the second world and was met with the familiar breeze of purple and blue waves. After the two men entered, Thaleos and Ygritte quickly followed after.

Upon entering, they were already met with a couple of minor monsters. “f**k, dude, didn’t tell us that he tried it out today.” Haya muttered under his breath.

Not that he was blaming Reiko since he understood how mentally and emotionally exhausting the whole game was. The surprise just caught him off-guard, but this didn’t stop the whole team from quickly taking out their weapons and carefully assessing their next moves.

When they saw the small group of butterfly beasts flying over their heads, they knew that the fleet was probably up to something. The large monarch butterflies that had humongous gorgeous-looking wings started rotating faster and faster.

Soon enough, yellow specks started falling, covering the group’s heads and bodies. They immediately tried removing the yellow speck on their bodies, but it seemed to get bigger and bigger.

They tried running away from the location, but their feet got stuck on yellow essence on the forest floor. “f**k, these things are like f*****g strong glue,” Ygritte shouted in a panicky tone, aside from potentially losing their life, the druid also hated sticky shoes.

“What the f**k are these things? Do I start throat singing now?” Kedrick exclaimed in frustration as he tried removing the specks multiple times through brute strength. Ygritte and Haya just laughed at the man’s joke in a panic.

Thaleos took out his dagger and started cutting away at the yellow essence, but his efforts proved to be fruitless as the butterflies just moved faster and faster.

At this point, their lower bodies were already stuck on the ground, so they could only move their upper body. The beast tamer quickly took out his bow and arrow and tried aiming at one of the butterflies.

Since they were moving in lightning speed, it was hard to keep track of which butterfly to attack. This enticed Ygritte to take out her own bow and arrow and aimed at one of the butterflies.

They trusted their gut feeling and internal calculations and released the subsequently. Two butterflies immediately fell which threw off the whole group. Their formation was disrupted so they were having a hard time reforming their circle.

Haya and Kedrick saw the butterflies slow down and threw their steel daggers as quickly as they could. The force of the two daggers caused another butterfly to fall. There were only two butterflies left floating above them.

They looked visibly angry as they swooped down to where they were. They started releasing purple specks, which the bearded man knew was miasma as he felt the familiar nauseating feeling.

When he saw his teammates looking a bit dizzy, he opened up the duel space and quickly took out the wolf-eagle. The beast immediately got to work and attacked the butterflies with all its might.

Although Thaleos noticed how his tamed beast was also affected by the purple miasma's influx, it looked like it was getting more and more feral, so he took the wolf back in. Since the butterflies where in a vulnerable position, he quickly took out his two daggers.

Without even taking a second glance, he quickly attacked them with the two daggers. They could all hear the swoosh of the weapons and the multiple thumps that followed after.

When they turned around, they saw that the two butterflies were already dead. They were now surrounded by 5 carcasses of killer butterflies and were still somehow stuck in the middle of it.

“What the f**k now?” Haya asked in an irritated tone as he tried moving his feet. Again, it proved to be useless as his whole left foot was basically covered in overgrown yellow specks.

“Do you remember anything about this in the journal, Thaleos?” Ygritte asked as she was trying to cut off the yellow speck growing on her clothes.

“Dude, I swear these things just keep growing and growing.” The beast tamer could see the irritation in the umber man’s face as he was just ready to take off his shirt.

“No, James didn’t mention anything about a sticky substance, but I do remember him saying something about butterflies. He says that their blood usually has many uses like you can make multiple healing and magic potions. Maybe that’s a start?” The beast tamer explained while struggling to get his boot off the yellow essence.

Haya was glad that at least one of the butterflies was near them, so he bent over a little bit and picked up the butterfly that was as large as bald eagle. Upon successfully carrying the beast, he asked Ygritte to cut through the butterfly’s skin.

The druid quickly took out a dagger and proceeded to slice the butterfly carefully. Immediately, green liquid started leaking and Haya tried putting some on his feet.

He watched the yellow specks slowly disintegrate until it became nothing, and now his left foot was free from the trap. Everyone internally cheered at the results and waited for Haya to free them.

Once they were free from the yellow specks, in return, they were now covered in the odorless green blood of the butterflies. They decided to take their time in looting all kinds of parts of the butterflies, such as some parts of their wings, antennas, and legs.

“Yes, so many potions we could make.” Haya exclaimed in joy and excitement as he hid all the butterfly's mined parts into the Akkadian cube.

While they were finishing up with the mini-battle, Thaleos paused as he heard multiple wings flapping from afar. Everyone froze when they heard the same thing.

“f**k, I think there’s a lot of them coming here.” Kedrick carefully whispered to his teammates. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement and debated whether they should go back to the door or fight the butterflies head on.

“You reckon how many are there?” Haya asked them in a quick hushed tone as he heard that they were getting nearer.

“I think there’s about 20 of them. Let’s make a run for it, just make sure that your steps are muffled as much as possible.” Thaleos whispered in a dangerous tone as he could feel that the butterflies were a couple of feet away.

So, Ygritte went first, and then followed Haya and then Kedrick. The beast tamer was the last one to go as he needed to watch over his teammates’ backs.

As the bearded man was making his ways to the final steps up the vortex, he was suddenly knocked out of place as a horde of butterflies ferociously attacked him.