"Lyrian!" Alten yelled from the floor, his voice mixed with a tone of shock and bewilderment.

"You're alive," Leon said after sheathing his sword, relieved that Lyrian made it out safe. historical

"Oh course I'm alive," Lyrian immediately replied, "I wouldn't allow myself to die here to such a stupid thing, I have many things to do in this life," He smiled before showing a core that he held in his hand.

"We got the core, let's get out of here." He said jumping down from the corpse of the Diamond Lizard as the other two followed along.

As they made their way out, a few stray Rock Lizards also scurried away at the sight of them.

Before the three were only blurry figures of prey, but now, they were blurry figures that killed their ruler.

Or In other words, predators.

"What should we do with them?" Leon asked, looking at the final few scurrying away.

"We could fight them for cores... but so many of them would be too much to handle. For now, we should just focus on getting to the top of this mountain." Lyrian said as the three exited from the large cavern room.

Thankfully, Rock Lizards had either left the cave entirely or ventured deeper down into the cave system via smaller holes, so the three had no trouble getting out from the cave holes on the sides of the mountain.

"I thought I was a goner there! I can't thank you enough for saving me!" Alten exclaimed towards Lyrian as he walked, nearly in tears from a mix of gratitude and relief that he wouldn't fail.

He already felt like he owed Lyrian from being saved from Bardon and also being allowed to journey with him, but now he felt guilty, as though he was nothing but a liability that dragged Lyrian and Leon back.

Disappointed, he inwardly spoke, 'Damn it, I need to show that I'm not just a burden... I won't be in such a pathetic situation again,' he vowed to himself.

He felt quite bad about his situation, but for now, all he could do was try and improve so that Lyrian and Leon didn't see him in a bad light, that is, if they didn't already do so.

'Damn it, I have to get clean. All this blood is going to dry and stink up pretty soon.' Lyrian thought to himself, oblivious to Alten's concerns.

"Hey, Alten, do you know if there are water sources on the top of the mountain? It's a huge mass so I'd imagine there would be some." He asked, shocking Alten out of his gloomy daze.

"Oh- Yes! There are many lakes and river systems at the top of the mountain. Actually, there is an entire ecosystem up there, and these caves are also a part of that. It's completely separate from the ecosystem at the bottom of the mountain." Alten quickly answered, happy to help.

"Okay then, theres no more points in worrying about anything else, let's get up there!" Lyrian finally proclaimed.

The three eventually made it out back onto the mountain atop their ostriches.

Needless to say, Lyrian's ostrich, which was already feeling like it was a poor slave to its horrible and ruthless master, extremely disliked the fact that it now had to carry a load of blood and guts.

Nevertheless, after seeing a glimpse of Lyrian's clenched fist, it quickly obliged.

They were back on their way to the top of the mountain immediately. This time, they made sure to avoid any and all holes, not wanting to make the same mistake as before twice.

After a few more minutes, they reached about 8000 feet into the air, flying through the clouds in the sky.

As they passed through, it felt like they were washed with a thick mist of water.

Lyrian hoped to be showered in the clouds, but instead his blood simply became more wet and dropped onto his ostrich.

Seeing this, Alten and the other two ostriches couldn't help but crack up.

The air was noticeably denser up there and it was slightly more difficult to breathe, but for those who cultivated magic before like Lyrian and the other two, their constant breathing techniques and higher rank had allowed their lungs to be more powerful.

Because of this, the increase in altitude wasn't a huge problem.

At around 12000 feet, they finally reached the top of the mountain. After the ostriches climbed over the cliff, the three got off and feasted their eyes upon the top of the mountain for the first time.

Undoubtedly, the area was enormous. None of them could see the other side of it.

Not only because it was large, but also because it wasn't exactly flat as its name portrayed.

Sure, the floor was flat, but there were multiple different ledges with different heights, creating step-like hills that made it impossible to see what was on the other side.

One of the first things that Lyrian noticed however was a small trickle of water coming down from a higher cliff on the mountain.

"Let's follow this small river, it might lead to a body of water I can bathe in to get rid of this blood." He said as the other two followed him.

"Let's be careful. As Alten said, the ecosystem here is different. Creatures are far more powerful." Leon made sure to speak, wanting everyone to be cautious.

As they followed the river, they traveled up a hill, finally arriving over an enormous lake that was situated in the middle of a flat piece of mountain-top land, with only a few large stones here and there.

"A lake! It's time to get bathed!" Lyrian said excitedly as he ran over to it, eager to wash off all of the residues of the Diamond Lizard from his body.

The two rushed to follow him, but Lyrian suddenly slowed down as he noticed a few people were already standing beside the river.

'People? Here? I thought we got here pretty fast but I guess we weren't the first to arrive.' He thought to himself.