Dual Cultivation: Beasts and Women!

As he took another step forward, Robert felt a strange sensation and stopped, one of his abilities telling him to be careful.

"They're here." The faction leader said as Liam checked the item tracker, seeing the enemy's position very close, but still not knowing how many meters they were away from their opponents.

'Hudson must be farther away than the others.'

Liam put the tracker away as he watched his companions tighten their grip on their weapons.

In the position they were in, they couldn't see the enemies and the enemies couldn't see them. However, they were almost at the point they had considered as a potential trap area, and the senses of a stronger cultivator could never be ignored.

"Should we split up?" Liam suggested as he looked at Robert.

"What do you have in mind?"

Liam said what he had considered so far, "The enemy must have traps right ahead. So we can't risk entering that area alone. Either we send our Spirits that way," he pointed forward with a finger, "or we split up and go in from the sides." He used each hand to show the left and right sides, where two mountains began, each belonging to powerful beasts in the area.

The enemy couldn't have gone far because of the beasts in the area, so they should be less than 100 meters in each direction Liam indicated.

"The only problem with splitting up is that we might get the wrong enemies." Lazarus looked at Liam, weighing the pros and cons. "On the left could be Myles and the strongest. And the weakest could be on the right. Or vice versa. Whoever takes Myles' group will do badly."

"It doesn't matter." Liam said with a twinkle in his eye. "Senior Robert will go one way and I will go the other. Our forces will be balanced. Besides, I don't think the enemy would concentrate all their strongest men on one side of the traps."

"Liam is right." Robert agreed. "Let's split up and attack the flanks. The enemy doesn't know we're here, but we know they're right in front of us. We'll use that advantage to take them out."

Everyone nodded in agreement and soon split into two groups, with Lazarus and Robert on one side and Liam on the other, with 3 Spirit Lords assisting him.

They would reveal their positions the moment they summoned their Spirits, so the group slowly followed after splitting, Robert leading his people while Liam did the same with his flank.

Using the shadows that were still strong in this area of the forest before dawn, Liam concealed his and his group's movements until he hid behind a tree and motioned for his companions to hide.

From his position, he spotted four enemies positioned in the branches of large trees. The four were 9-Star Spirit Lords, but just ahead of them, near where the traps were supposed to be, two Spirit Earth cultivators were positioned on the ground behind rocks.

Glancing back at his companions, Liam instructed them to attack the four Spirit Lords and he would take care of the two Spirit Earth cultivators.

They had the advantage of being able to keep an eye on their enemies' backs, and soon the four were on the move, each with a weapon in hand as they prepared to summon their Spirits.

When Liam reached the limit of how far he could go without being in sight of one of the four enemies in the trees, he paused for a moment and signaled to his allies that it was time to act.

He moved forward and ran towards the closest enemy, who was hiding behind one of the rocks in the area.

At that moment, the sounds of blades clashing and traps being activated rang out from the front of the area, drawing the attention of the six enemies on that side of the area.

It was at that moment that Liam saw one of his enemies get up from where he was crouching and focus forward, turning his back completely on him.

As he jumped up to land an attack on his opponent's left shoulder, he called Thal'Korr back to the battle in the forest.

The man ten feet in front of him realized something and circulated his mana throughout his body as he looked back. He shivered from head to toe at the sight of Liam attacking him so close, and immediately called his Spirits.

"Aaaaagh!" the first man Liam attacked screamed as he felt the enemy's blade pierce his shoulder, but fortunately, it wasn't a fatal attack.

"Enemy!" The other Spirit Earth cultivator shouted at the sight of Liam and reacted similarly to the man's scream, calling his Spirits to fight the apparent 9-Star Spirit Lord near them.

Liam smiled inwardly at the reaction of his enemies, letting Thal'Korr move on to the 'normal' Spirits of his opponents while he took the demon from the screaming man in front of him.

'This is what I really wanted.'

He thought as he circulated his mana through the black tablet in his soul's space, while vortices of black energy formed in the palms of his hands.

Liam overpowered the 1-Star Spirit Earth Demon from the enemy bleeding in front of him, using {Black Art} as best he could.

The enemy with the wounded shoulder shuddered in fear and turned pale as he sensed what was happening.

"Noooo!"

As he shouted to Liam, some of his four weaker allies nearby suffered quicker defeats. Two of them were taken aback as soon as the sounds of battle broke out, both mortally wounded by the assassins moving against them.

As for the other two enemies, one wasn't attacked at first, while the other was quicker to defend himself and narrowly escaped an attack that reached one of his vital points. Still, this man was wounded while his two Spirits came to his aid.

While Liam absorbed the life force of the demon in front of him, his three allies summoned their Spirits and began fighting in the area, moving away from the Spirit Masters and letting their Spirits do the dirty work.

The other Spirit Earth cultivator did something similar, commanding his three Spirits against Liam as he watched Thal'Korr and the human fight side by side.

A loud cracking sound came from the mana body in front of Liam, just before it exploded into many mana fragments.

The master of this Spirit bled internally, feeling his spiritual powers suddenly weaken as he lost his dominant Spirit forever.

Thal'Korr felt the power coursing through his body and didn't flinch as he destroyed one of the other two Spirits of the wounded foe in front of him, then charged at the rest of his opponents.

Liam slashed his enemy's throat as he dodged the attack of the man's third Spirit and turned his face to the surrounding demons.

Raising his arms in the air and moving his mana, he caused the shadows of several of his opponents to paralyze the Spirits and their masters. He then lunged at the strongest demon, making sure that nothing happened to the other demons around him.

{Black Art!}

Boom!

Sounds of explosions and screams continued to fill the surrounding space as another Spirit exploded in Liam's hands, and the enemy Spirit Masters trembled in fear.

One of the enemy Spirit Masters still managed to injure one of Liam's companions, but after his demon was "devoured" by the {Black Art}, even that opponent couldn't last much longer.

Thal'Korr used his master's advantages to destroy the strongest Spirits on that side of the traps, and he slit the throat of the strongest Spirit Master remaining among the enemies.

The man fell to the ground after his body was torn apart by the Shadowfiend's claws, giving the three Leopards' Spirit Masters the opportunity to approach Liam after he had killed the last Spirit in the area.

The four of them and their Spirits moved forward, with one of their Spirits leading the way to avoid the traps.

After less than a minute of moving amidst the sound of screams, blades clashing, and explosions coming from the front, they arrived where Robert had led the rest of the group, where there were currently 5 Spirits fighting over there, with only 3 Spirit Masters left standing!