Simon walked back to the field above the city with the two new intelligent beast corpses dragging behind him, leaving a bloody path in its wake. When he finally reached the grounds above the city he noticed his group waiting for him patiently.

Changing his walking pace he soon met up with the group, they marvelled at the sight of the corpses behind him. Simon was just as amazed by the carnage around him, the hundreds or thousands of corpses.

"Suppose you all had one hell of a fight," Simon remarked as he took a close look at the carnage. A lot of the beasts had punctures in their throats or have had their entire head sliced off. "So, where the explorers? Wouldn't they usually take this all back to turn into food."

Lachlan leaned back a bit, using his arms as support. "Nah, they heard the sound of the supposed king of the sky. I'm guessing that's it right behind you? Along with the king of the ground."

Simon chuckled at what the citizens of Houston called them. "Sure, although they certainly ain't no kings anymore. Although, it was understandable for them to be afraid of these beasts, especially the flying one, just the sound it produces by beating its wings could knock a normal person out cold."

"Whoa, that's nasty. How are your ears doing then?" Joe said as he walked up to take a closer look at the so-called king of the sky. Although it was missing a head it still produces the same sort of intimidation it would with it on. Its large golden body, paired with its dark claws and two pairs of wings.

Simon held up his hand and stuck a finger in his ear, taking it out and smacked his ear. "I don't know, I can hear you all just fine... I think."

"What do you mean you think?" Georgia asked somewhat concerned. She rushed up to Simon and tilted his head, taking a closer look at his ear even though she has no idea what she could do. She certainly isn't a qualified doctor.

Simon brushed Georgia's hand off his head. "No, I just hear something faintly, it sounds like a voice trying to get my attention. A very feminine voice, something akin to a fairy."

The group got extremely worried and rushed over; however, their ears twitched at the sound of a faint voice. They thought for a second they were going mad until Simon walked forward a bit more and moved the corpses.

"Hey! Is that an intelligent beast?!" Someone shouted from behind the two corpses, it was certainly feminine but they didn't know where Simon got the voice of a fairy part. Although it wasn't rough it also wasn't smooth like an angel.

The group walked around the corpse and noticed a small metal pole sticking out of the ground, at the top was a bend along with a lens. They saw a speaker attached to the side near the bottom of it.

"Can you hear me?! Is this thing on? Oh hey, can you tell me whether or not those two corpses belong to intelligent beasts!"

Simon nodded towards the odd metal pole sticking out the ground with confusion in his eyes, although, he was also relieved he wasn't going insane. "Yeah, they're the corpses of two intelligent beasts. Why?"

"Wonderful!" The female said before a small circle in the ground began to rumble, the dirt started to split apart as a pod emerged from the ground. The metal pole was sticking out the top of it, continuing to stare at them. A gasp was heard. "They truly are intelligent beasts!"

The pod opened up, revealing a semi-small figure surrounded by screens, her mouth was agape as she stared at the corpses in awe, her eyes were widened and sparkled with excitement. Jumping out of her pod she raced to the corpses and pulled out a magnifying glass. She had long brown hair and dark blue eyes, all while being shorter than Lachlan. Reaching a height of 4'7.

Lachlan swiftly analysed her to see if she was a threat. Fortunately, she certainly wasn't, or at the very least didn't have the stats to be one.

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Name: Marie Santos (Human)

Age: 23 (Adult)

Soul Contracts: 0/5

Compatibility: Wolves (High)

STR: 12, AGI: 14, VIT: 10

INT: 28, PER: 20, WIL: 16

Weakness: Naive, Extremely Curious

Strengths: Knowledgeable in Languages

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Simon walked up to her and grabbed onto her shoulder, gently pulling her away from the corpse. "Hey kid, you do realise where your standing is basically a warzone. How could you be so reckless?"

"First of all, I'm not a kid, I'm 23. And second of all, I saw what your friends did in the warzone; they basically shredded all the beasts here. I feel pretty confident in saying that being right next to them is safer than being below ground in the city." The girl grabbed onto Simon's hand and yanked it off her shoulder. "Also, the name's Marie Santos, I specialise in ancient myths and traditions."

"So, why do these corpses need your expertise?" Simon asked. He had completely forgotten that all intelligent beasts come from myths and legends; gods, worshipped in certain religions and societies. The next words that came out of Marie's mouth quickly reminded him.

"You do know that it's so far been proven that all intelligent beasts are based on some ancient mythology. For example, this bird." Marie pointed towards the bird before grabbing its back left-wing and lifting it up. "From what I know this is likely a Thunderbird, a legend of North American Tribes. A bird said to uphold morality, punishing all those and do wrongs."

Marie then moved onto the boar, she lifted up its fur, revealing a golden pattern engrained onto its skin. "Although it could be a few different legends; it's likely Moccus, the Celtic god of swine, associated with Mercury. It's said to be the protector of pig and boar hunting, as their meat was seen as sacred, to be used during rituals."

The group listened in amazement, Simon raised his eyebrow. "Well I'll be damned, you are really knowledgeable about this. I'm sorry I called you a kid before, just your small physique made me think that."

Marie held up her hand to tell Simon to quiet down. "It's alright, you certainly aren't the first to call me a kid despite my maturity. And of course, you most definitely won't be the last either."

"Now, onto some more serious news." Marie stood up and clapped her hands together. "I would like to join you and your group on the journey you're taking. I feel as though these won't be the last of intelligent beast corpses if I come along."

Chloe stepped forward and flicked her head up. "Okay, so while that might sound good I have to ask one thing. How does this benefit us exactly? Although your expertise certainly is astonishing, we could probably find others that also have the strength to survive in this world."

"Possibly, but they certainly won't be as good as I am," Marie said proudly. "Unlike most people, I don't just study the more popular traditions and myths, I also go for the extremely unknown ones as well."

"Indeed, but how does this benefit us?" Chloe asked again.

Marie was slightly flustered, she had seen what the group was capable and knew that just one of them is enough to kill two intelligent beasts. Her skills really don't have that much importance to a group like that, they're far too strong.

"Do you know other languages? Ancient ones as well?" Lachlan stepped in to ask, he thought it would be a good time to hint to the others; considering he had already seen her stats and knew that was one of her strengths.

"Of course, although I'm slightly rusty with the ancient languages I know French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Latin, and obviously English as well," Marie answered proudly. If there was anything other then ancient myths and traditions she was good at it would be languages.

"Well, although that other expertise isn't the most useful, those languages are needed in our group since we're travelling around the world," Lachlan said as he looked to the group. All of them giving him a nod while Chloe gave a thumbs up. "So, welcome aboard."

"Great, when do we leave?" Marie asked with wide, sparkly eyes. She wasn't able to hide her excitement at all and was eager to leave at that very moment.

"Whoa, relax a bit, we're still staying for a while longer, just until our business here is stable. Also, we all want to do some relaxation time with our partners and families," Chloe said as she gestured with her hands for Marie to calm down.

"Oh, I can help with the whole business thing," Marie said. "My father owns one of the biggest meat distributors in Houston. to the point where 90% of the meat being eaten or sold in Houston comes from my father's company. We could set up some sort of deal where your business directly buys form us."

"You know what, Flynn, you can deal with this stuff since you're good at it, I'm going to head back to the island to grab my sister," Lachlan said in a rush before shooting off into the air, heading straight for the island.

"Yeah, you're good at this stuff Flynn so good luck with it." More and more people in the group shot off, disappearing into the distance, leaving only Flynn and Chloe to deal with the current situation. The two sighed deeply before looking at Marie.

Chloe's shoulders moved downward. "Alright, let's make that deal and get this over and done with. I still have a wonderful day planned out and I don't want something ruining it."

"Great, let's go." Marie rushed into the pod and gestured for them to follow. "Hurry up! This pod is my own personal elevator, it took a lot of convincing to have my father install it. He was so worried that I would accidentally enter a battle; fortunately, I was able to convince him that I'm not that stupid and would only need it for after the battles are over."

Chloe and Flynn both walked over and got into the pod, it swiftly got awkward but Flynn decided to break that with a question. "So, have you ever accidentally entered a battle?"

"Yup, but fortunately my father doesn't know so I'm fine and still have this elevator." The pod's doors shut and the group felt weightless momentarily. The pod had glass windows near the stop so both Chloe and Flynn were able to see the city as they entered a building.

The pod stopped before its doors opened again. A man was standing there with a cigar in his mouth, he had slick, combed back black hair. Standing at 6'2 he was dressed in a dark blue business suit. As he puffed out a cloud of smoke he sighed. "Do tell me Marie, why the hell did you go up?"

Marie's face went bright red as she scratched her head from embarrassment. "Uh, well you see dad, these people were still at the surface and um, I thought I would be very safe up there considering their strength."

Flynn and Chloe could see that the man's head was about to explode. He held his hand up to his face and pinched his nose. "You really shouldn't be doing things like that. I heard that the king of the sky and land were close."

Marie nodded vigorously. "Indeed, one of the members in their group killed the two of them. Their corpses are just above my elevator so I was able to see them. See, so I'm not that reckless."

"Wha," The man's mouth went agape from shock as he stared at Chloe and Flynn with wide eyes. All his subordinates behind him were just as shocked. Silence reigned the room as the two sides were just staring at each other awkwardly.

Marie walked up to her father and elbowed his sides. "Anyway, we have a deal to make with them. You can handle that right?"