Risen World

After that brief fight Joshua and the rest of the group got on the move once more. Although Lily and Thomas had both gained a new beast companion each they wouldn't be able to use either one of them in any upcoming fights since they were both injured. It would take a few days for them to heal up in their soul realms, but by then they should have a good idea of the entire prairie and will be ready to take on the real challenges of the territory. As the group got on the back of Momo once more they started heading out of the bush tree area and towards the last portion of the prairie they had yet to explore outside of the center.

By the time night came around once more they had finally got to the point where they couldn't see any more bush trees for a while and the grass was starting to grow taller once more to the point where it was a good twenty or so feet in the air. Momo and many of the other beast in the prairie could easily make their way through the area, but for humans it felt like they were small insects trying to make their way around a lawn. There were far less hills in this section of the prairie and at the moment Joshua couldn't sense any other beast around. They had just entered the area, but it was already dark and was time to get some rest.

The group set up camp with Joshua and anyone else with a sword cutting down the large grass to make room for their little base of operations for the night. Once that was done they got down to eating diner then set up watch for the night before getting some rest in preparation of spending the next day exploring the new area. Momo was going to be able to move around the area well enough but Joshua was looking forward to the day where the owl that Thomas had tamed would be able to fly the entire group over the area at a much faster speed than any beast could move on the ground.

The following day the group all got up at the first sign of light and had a quick breakfast before getting on the move again. They had to get up on the back of Momo to get a good view of their surroundings while moving through the area at first, but eventually they broke out of the tall grass and found themselves in a spot that looked familiar to Joshua. It was an area that was extremely dry with most of the grass in the area being torn away and several little holes dotting the ground below. Joshua had Lily stop Momo as he jumped off so that he could inspect the ground. He realized quickly why he found the sight familiar as the holes were around the same size as the ones they had often seen in the first area of the prairie that they had explored. This was clearly the results of a group of prairie chicken making their way through the area.

Although the prairie chicken were annoying to deal with even if they were worth a decent amount of experience do to the amount of them that were always around each other, they might be easier to handle now with the level ups the group had gained since their first visit to the prairie. The chickens had the annoying ability to fire high frequency waves of energy that on their own weren't overwhelming, but when an entire group of them fired them off they could tear a much bigger beast apart in an instant. From what Joshua remembered the prairie chickens were about twice the height of the grass around the group making them the smallest beast in the prairie that they had come across up to this point, but if this was a territory that was filled with such creatures then it could end up being dangerous.

"Looks like we have prairie chickens in the area." Joshua said before closing his eyes and sending out his aura sense to see if he could find any other beast around nearby. It didn't take him long to find a group of prairie chicken with well over fifty of them gathered together in another little clearing as they cleared out the ground of worms to feast on in the morning. Joshua could see how these prairie chickens were almost like locust in the way they terrorized an area. They swarmed to a food source, ate all of it not caring how much damage they did to the area, slept for a minute, and then got on the move to do it all over again. This seemed like it was the area of the prairie that was most welcoming to these annoying creatures as the ground that Joshua stood on was already starting to show signs of the grass coming back. In a couple of days it would be green once more and in a couple of weeks it might be nearly as tall as the rest of the grass.

"How many are there and how far?" Henry asked from up on the back of Momo. Joshua was the only one to jump down so the group could get on the move once again rather quickly instead of wasting time all getting off and all having to get back on.

"Around fifty all grouped together eating worms out of the ground right now. Even though they're smaller than all of the other beast in this oversized prairie they're still around as big as Lily's frog beast companion. If we can take them by surprise and hit them with some well time wide area attacks then we should be able take most of them out right away." Joshua explained after leaping into the air to get back on to the back of Momo with all of the others.

"It's still dangerous if they spot us first. If that many of them end up firing off their screeching attacks all at once I don't know if Jayce's shield wall will be able to hold up all that well against so many of their attacks." Isabella said getting a nod from Jayce who agreed. He had blocked the attack of around a few dozen or so of the birds in the past and that nearly shattered his shield wall immediately.

"That's where Celia's reinforcement skill will come in handy, but hopefully it won't get to the point where we'll have to handle things that way." Joshua responded before turning to look at Thomas. "Thomas do you think you can fly up on Imperia with Aito to get a look at the surrounding area. Natalie can link what you all see to the rest of us so that we can all get a good idea of what we're heading into outside of just dealing with the prairie chickens."

Thomas and Aito both nodded while Imperia jumped off of Thomas's shoulder and grew to her full size. She was big enough to carry around five or six people comfortably, but her thinner framed body wasn't exactly designed for passengers. It was one of the reasons why Joshua was glad that there was another flying beast companion in the party for the future.

After Imperia took Aito and Thomas up into the sky the rest of the group was soon enough given several mental images of how the surroundings looked from up in the air. From what Joshua could see from the mental slide show of different views of the surroundings it was clear they were currently in what consisted of mostly grasslands but there were some areas that looked like marshes. The marshes were small in comparison to the grassland surrounding them but they stood out to Joshua as another source of water outside of the watering holes that could be found in the other areas. If that was the case it was likely that other beast besides prairie chickens would make their way into the area, but from the way several places looked like they had been picked clean by the chickens it was clear that they had priority in the area.

From the images Joshua wasn't able to see any other beast nearby even with Aito's enhanced vision, but they had just entered the area and they still had days of travel to go before they might find the guardian site. That would especially be the case if they ended up having to fight several beast along the way. When Joshua took a look at the image that showed the prairie chickens that he was sensing closer to the edge of his aura sense there were a few things he noticed about the birds right away. These prairie chickens were a bit bigger than the ones in the first area of the prairie that they had come across. This was likely because they were higher level and that could become an issue for the tanks if they got ganged up on by several of the screech attacks at once.

The fact that the prairie chickens could group up and take on any beast meant that the other animals that were willing to risk coming into this area for a drink of water or to eat some of the tall grass would have to have ways to get around the abilities of the prairie chicken. When Joshua thought about it, most of the beast in the prairie had ways of getting around the prairie chickens. The bobcats could literally leap through the air and just ignore them for the most part if they needed to get past, the owls could fly well away from them and with their speed they could probably swoop in and steal one for a snack while they're at it, the bison stayed in large groups as well which was enough to keep the little chickens away and the same could be said for the deer. The only three beast that Joshua could see having trouble with the prairie chickens were the coyotes that he had already seen have issues with them, the snake which even with its tough scales probably couldn't survive an onslaught from several prairie chicken at the same time, and lastly Joshua wasn't certain about the porcupine. He didn't know all of its abilities, but it was a definite threat to other beast.

Now that the group had got a decent look at their surroundings it was time to test themselves against the prairie chicken and finally start leveling up the group ahead of their contest with the guardians of the prairie..