After the fifteen soldiers of angels left the premises of the castle, Bobby appeared magical from the thin air. "Hee-hee-hee, everyone, good luck with the search party!" He muttered, chuckling.
"Yeah, hahaha... It's so ironic that the one they're searching for is instead standing right here where no one will look." Cynthia jumped in with a peal of hysterical laughter.
"Cynthia, let me give you a tour inside this palace... Considering they left it like this, I wonder if there is some sort of security measure for all of them to leave their lovely home." Bobby said, "Can you have a look at it?"
Cynthia, who was currently in the spirit form, sent out a mass of white grace energy and a white mist came out of Bobby's forehead and shot toward the castle. Subsequently, inside his mind, he heard her chanting in an old ancient tongue and saw her making various hand seals, and started manipulating the white mist, scanning the entire castle.
Within a few seconds, the white mist returned and entered through his forehead and became part of Cynthia.
"Your guess is right. There are fifty-five layers of the Saunter Array, placed at every entrance and various spots all over the place…" Cynthia said telepathically to him.
"So can you help me?" asked Bobby.
"Easy-peasy! Bro, you need to just ask." She replied with a smile.
"Good let's not waste time here.. Lead me inside." He then approached the entrance door and was about to push the door.
"Stop!" Cynthia jumped in, halting his hand just a few inches away from the door. "Hahaha, I got you…" She burst into laughter.
"That's not funny at all." Bobby pushed and opened the wide iron door with a creak.
"Alright, I'll be serious…. The arrays are within the main entrance door. So, just do exactly as I say…. Take five steps forward and turn right, then go straight…" Cynthia said, helping him with every step carefully and finally he reached the Conference Room.
After strolling around the room and examining everything, Bobby moved on to the next room and then to the next, checking each one out one by one.
After fifteen minutes, Bobby walked out of the castle. "Now, I can picture some of their daily habits of all of them together, eating habits, reading habits, and hobbies."
"Alright, I have learned enough... Let me go observe our key person of interest until I have a good idea of his behavior, his facial expressions, eye contact, walking mannerisms, how he speaks, etc."
Next, he chanted a spell in tandem with various hand seals and shouted, "Heaven And Body Concealing Lightning Technique, activate!"
In the next instant, inside his body, all the Origin Chi of the Lightning elemental churned and came out of various orifices of his skin and multiple bolts surfaced, covering his body and his body started fading and soon disappeared as if he was just a mist in human form and vanished with a gust of wind.
"Ninja Movement Technique, First Law, Racing Against The Wind!" Bobby's voice chimed out of nowhere.
After a few seconds, a whistling sound sounded from the woods nearby, and for some reason, leaves flew randomly in the woods near the castle because of a powerful gust of wind.
Meanwhile, in the northeastern part of the island, there was a delta valley between the twin mountain volcanic peaks on the two sides and the last side was covered with a small lake filled with water hyacinths and water chestnuts.
The valley was the most fertile place on the entire island, with the rich vegetation, and various tall trees with fruits and herbs, and also the wild thrived in this valley for years and it could be said that this place was like heaven for wildlife in this island.
Half an hour after the commencement of the mission, a scrawny youth with a pair of black wings with multiple white spots flew toward the valley, passed through the small lake, and halted, floating in the air.
It was none other than Loki. The Delta Valley was his scouting area, and he had to cover every part and must report back to the castle.
Because of his poor physique, he panted as he sweated, pouring out profusely from his forehead.
After taking a deep breath, he floated high in the air, flapping his wings from time to time, and then he reached his hand inside his pocket and pulled out a thick metallic gray plate.
He then infused his white Grace energy into the plate until it glowed and then a beam of multiple color lights flashed out from it and formed a thin screen showing the topography of the Delta valley and then he zoomed in until he saw the green point beeping on it which was his current position and there were various dots, some black, some red on the spots. The dots represented the life signatures within the perimeter.
He counted and found that there were over fifty thousand life signatures inside the Delta Valley.
"This will be a tougher job than I thought. Certainly, Captain Shiko must have his reasons for sending me to this region where there will be plenty of challenges." Loki muttered under his breath and then he flew toward the direction of the place with the nearest dot to him.
Then he started his scouting work by using his training and combing from one place to another while he flew in the air just above the tips of the tallest trees here.
Sometimes, he would rest, lending on some thick branches, and this continued, but he didn't find the human survivors. Not only him but also all the other fourteen, including captain Shiko, failed to find even a single trace of any human survivors.
Near to Loki, a lanky youth was lying on the steep horizontal branches of a tall apple tree, occasionally plucking the ripe apple and taking a large bite or two before tossing it to the ground.
The scanning device in Loki's hands had multiple times scanned the region where the lanky youth was currently there but picked no life signature.
This continued for ten more days and finally, he finished combing through the entire Delta Valley region.
During this whole day, the lanky youth in camo uniform with torn pants was observing him 24/7 without taking a break, memorizing all his ways while he continued enjoying all the various sour and sweet fruits inside the valley.
After taking a bath in the small lake, the scrawny youth named Loki put his clothes on as he smiled. "Now that my mission here is complete, it is good to take a bath to refresh. Alright, time to return to the camp."
He then spread his pair of wings, started flapping them, and lifted his body up in the air.
Suddenly, a gigantic blade appeared out of blue and cut over his head.
Loki flapped his wings with a quick reaction and avoided the sneak attack.
The enormous blade fell over the ground, and half of it entered inside the ground. In the next instant, a muscular giant wearing the same uniform as Loki appeared on the ground, standing.
"Brat, you are lucky to dodge my blade this time." the man grasped around the handle and pulled it out of the ground.
"What do you think you are doing? I know you have strong backing behind you, but don't you think it's pretty lame for a big guy like you to sneak on me like that… Hah, and still can't kill me, yet." Loki said.
"Little Bastard, I have enough of following and spying after you instead of doing other productive missions…" Hunk said, "And now because you are so eager to achieve the status of genius and to be in Captain Shiko's good books, your only path is death now... You can consider this as an easy escape from your miserable poor life… Alright, offer your head to me, little bastard. "
He then infused his white color Grace energy inside his gigantic blade and flapped his wings and dashed toward him in the air. And he started hacking at Loki.
Loki reacted quickly, dodging all of his sword strikes. He then took out the black coin and started infusing his Grace Energy into it as he continued dodging every move of Hunk in the air.
Then suddenly the black coin transformed into a long sword and he started blocking the strikes from Hunk's broadsword.
But because of their extreme difference in their physical strength, each time Loki blocked the strike from the broadsword, he would be forced backward and his hands holding the sword also felt the brunt of the residual impact from the clashing of their weapon.
Hunk became angrier as he failed to land a single fatal strike on Loki for the last fifteen minutes of their bout.
So after giving the last strike, which was blocked, Hunk halted, floating in the air. And then he started chanting a spell on an ancient tongue, conjuring fire law, which burnt around his broadsword.
Seeing his opponent relying on magic, Loki also chanted and summoned a water elemental that was floating over his long sword.
Then the two flashed toward each other in the air and struck at each other.