Infinite Realm

Somewhere within Maldora Canyon...

"Where to now?" Sato held up a map in his hand as he searched for his next destination.

After the battle with the Gatekeeper, Sato and the rest had continued their exploration of the dungeon, [Temple of Vasiliás]. Along the way, they had met various kinds of monsters, not just the usual Dark Priests. There were Cursed beasts; which looked similar to bears but were more ferocious and had cracked eyes with one horn jutting out from their temple, Dark Knights who rode on deer-like creatures with a pair of terrifying antlers and horrendous aura, and dwarf-like enemies that were mindless and only knew how to attack. 

Under the onslaught of the new types of monsters, the team moved forward albeit at a much slower pace than before. It took them over 4 hours before they managed to reach the next checkpoint which was another BOSS room.

By relying on the map, Sato discerned that this wasn't the main BOSS' chamber but another mini BOSS.

When the team went in, they were confronted by a Kraken beast with an overwhelming aura, far greater than any monster they had seen till date. That was the beginning of the end.

Even though the team fought with all they had, they were still no match for the beast and had all fallen to its attack. 

In just 10 seconds, Yato and Katsuo were killed. 15 seconds, Lu Zhen had joined them with Fudo following suite. Seiichi displayed his impressive reactions and dodging skills as he lasted longer than the 4 but he still died a few seconds later. Following him was Xue Yan, leaving Sato to face the monster all alone. 

Surprisingly though, even with his level 17 ability, Sato was not a match for the creature and was only able to hold his ground. 

Under the constant assault from the tentacles of the monster, Sato eventually failed to maintain his footing and joined the others in dying to its hands, or tentacles.

Usually, when a player dies whether it be in a dungeon or a field, they lose a certain number of experience points. However, after they had defeated the Gatekeeper, one of the rewards they got was a [Protection Card], which had the ability to prevent a player from losing any experience points upon death. The only limitation of this card was that it could only be used in the [Temple of Vasiliás] dungeon but to the team, they didn't have any problem with this. There were 7 [Protection Cards] looted from the Gatekeeper's corpse which was pretty much enough for everyone in the team so despite suffering a team-wipe, they didn't really suffer any loss.

It was right after that, Sato decided to leave the team and head out on his own. He wasn't making any improvements by following then and was instead falling behind. And so, Sato left the others, leaving the dungeon's environment and heading deeper into Maldora Canyon.

'As long as I keep going up ahead, I will encounter a river closeby. It's quite possible that the monsters there would be amphibian-type creatures or reptiles. Their strength should also be from level 15 and above. There's also the chance that they move in groups or are individual hunters. But based on the normal behaviours of animals in similar environment, they're usually lone-wolves. If that's the case, they will be Elite rank at least.'

By simply using the location and climate of the environment, Sato roughly predicted the strength and type of monsters he would face. Doing this would make him more prepared as he would come up with appropriate strategies to face them.

With his destination fixed, Sato began heading deeper in with caution. Even with his level 17 strength, Sato didn't dare to be so audacious in this region. Maldora Canyon was a level 15 map on paper but this was just the outer part of the region. The real Maldora Canyon was much bigger and the deeper in one went, the stronger the monsters. Most players didn't know this but Sato has stumbled on this fact earlier on. He had unknowingly encountered a powerful l that easily slaughtered 3 other monsters without resistance. What made him realise that the monster wasn't the average kind in Maldora Canyon was that its targets were level 16 beasts he had fought beforehand. 

Seeing the same creatures being ravaged by another opponent with such ease made Sato understand that he wasn't at the top of the food chain here.

*Craw* *Craw*

Sato walked slowly, moving close to the cliff while intermittently hiding in the shadows of some lone trees or hanging boulders, preventing his silhouette from being spotted by aerial monsters. Hearing the loud caws from the side, he immediately went behind a dead tree as he hid and stared towards the origin of the sound.

A couple of metres away was a carcass crowded by huge black crows. From a distance, it wouldn't seem like anything was wrong with this scenery after all, in a hot and arid location such as Maldora Canyons, it was reasonable for there to be predators as well as scavengers. However, the scavengers in quote -the black crows- weren't your average birds. Any one of them reached a height of at least 1.5 metres(59.055 inches) with had beaks that were 11.8 inches long(0.3m), and numbered about 6-8. They were one of the few monsters that moved in groups and while they usually feasted on carcasses, their taste wasn't limited to that. 

Sato had once seen a murder[1] of crows attack a bison like monster and take it down. While he wasn't aware of their level, he knew that he wasn't capable of taking down that Bison monster with such as the murder did so after that encounter, he would always pause his movements and take cover whenever he sights any aerial bird.

'With danger at every corner moving forward is becoming a whole lot more difficult.' Sato sighed.

While the area was much more dangerous than he had anticipated, Sato still didn't plan in going back.. Here was a good spot for levelling but due to the presence of the crows, Sato decided to change it.