By extremely coincidental timing, Linne and the others encountered the Seirin Group.
In order to replenish their energy, the members of the Seirin Group and the artificial creatures had been hunting through the forest while retreating toward its edge. By the time they exited the forest, the toxic gas had already invaded most of it.
To the north of the forest is a wide grassland. It's an open expanse where any person standing there could be seen from far away.
As soon as the Seirin Group emerged from the forest and looked up, they spotted Linne and the others in the distance.
They didn't look like a military unit, nor were they poachers. They're more like a family out for an outing.
Hawk motioned for the main group to halt, then took out his phone and dialed Dove's number.
At that moment, Dove was standing on the back of a Scale Lizard, flying high above, watching the forest being gradually devoured by the creeping green fog.
The phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated, so he took it out and pressed the answer button.
"Five people were found in the north direction of the forest." Hawk's calm voice came from the phone.
"Poacher?" Dove asked.
"Unconfirmed. Should we eliminate them?" Hawk said.
"Yeah. Kill them." Dove replied flatly.
"Understood."
After the call ended, the members of the Seirin Group and the artificial creatures instantly entered combat mode.
In the distance, Linne and the others also noticed the other party. Then, they saw the other party changed course and headed straight toward them.
"That's probably them." Linne looked at the Seirin Group in the distance, her vision slowly focused, and her entire presence changed.
Law had sent them a message containing intel on the enemy. It's all written from an objective perspective with no personal judgments. Therefore, the strength of those artificial creatures could only be understood through direct confrontation.
No matter what happened, they couldn't afford to be careless.
Machi and the others began releasing their Aura, which immediately covered their body. They then stared intently at the enemies charging toward them.
They were outnumbered twenty to one. If the artificial creatures were really as tough as Law's report implied, then their small team wouldn't be able to hold them off.
'Even if Linne is here...' Machi glanced at Linne, who is releasing overwhelming pressure. Although she knew that Linne's strength was unfathomable, the enemy's numbers were just too great.
"Let me be clear. Once this starts, I'm not looking out for any of you." Linne took a few steps forward, then turned back to look at Machi and the others, and said in a deep voice, "If you feel that you have no chance of winning, don't hesitate and run as far as possible."
At this point, she paused, then continued, "After killing eight or ten of them, I'll be the first to run."
Hearing Linne's last sentence, which was not at all like a powerhouse, Machi and the others were left speechless. She knew she wasn't joking, and she meant every word.
Nobunaga drew his sword from its sheath, and Aura covered the blade.
"Let's hope I can cut through them…"
He muttered to himself, because Law's objective evaluation focused almost entirely on explaining the defensive capabilities of the artificial creatures.
Linne, the seasoned veteran, took a few steps forward, placing herself at the front of the group. She bore the brunt of the overwhelming pressure emanating from the approaching Seirin Group.
She was already over a hundred years old, short in stature, with a haggard face, cloudy and lifeless eyes, and her hands barely lifted. At this time, she looked like an old lady sitting in a nursing home.
And yet, in that seemingly powerless stance, she stood alone against the ferocious charge of the artificial creatures, unmoving amidst the wind.
Perhaps, it was only when she was truly serious that her gaze would sharpen. She silently observed the artificial creatures as their Aura surged forth like fountains, her face remained utterly expressionless.
The first to charge was a bear-like creature standing five meters tall. With all four limbs on the ground, its speed far surpassed that of the other artificial creatures.
It reached Linne first, adjusted its posture in an instant, and swiped a claw at her head.
Faced with that terrifyingly powerful strike, Linne's small body shifted slightly to the side. Her lightly raised hand suddenly shot out like lightning and pressed against the beast's wrist.
Without any visible exertion of force, a crisp cracking sound rang out.
That seemingly effortless press bypassed the creature's Aura defense and, through some unknown means, snapped its wrist with a clean break.
In the very next second, just as the bear-like creature's strength peaked, Linne actually followed the force it generated and pressed her hand downward.
Then, the massive beast, like a runaway train, was slammed into the ground.
Boom!
The ground trembled slightly, and a wide swath of grass was flattened.
After knocking down the bear-like creature, Linne didn't wait for it to get up. She leapt into the air and landed above it, and then stomped down with one foot on its back!
Silence!
Linne's foot landed without causing a single noise. No wind stirred, no force exploded outward.
Then, after a brief pause, like a line of dominoes falling, a series of crunching sounds suddenly erupted. The bear-like creature violently coughed up blood, and a few moments later, it lay still. The Aura surrounding its body slowly faded.
One grab, one stomp, and then an artificial creature died.
"Their hides really are thick."
Linne lightly tapped the bear-like creature's body with her foot, then suddenly leapt backward to avoid a flanking attack from two other artificial creatures.
She retreated more than two meters, while the two artificial creatures, having missed their strike, slammed down angrily on the bear-like creature's corpse.
With a loud bang, the body of the bear-like creature suddenly sank, and a powerful gust burst outward, bending the surrounding grass flat.
With the help of the momentum generated by their stomp, the two artificial creatures pounced on Linne.
"Indeed, there is a lack of flexibility."
Linne raised her head and looked indifferently at the two artificial creatures that pounced on her from mid-air, and their large shadows covered her small body whole.
However, instead of retreating, Linne advanced and took the initiative to rush into the gap formed by the two artificial creatures.
After avoiding their wild strikes, she reached out with both hands and pressed them on the sides of the two artificial creatures.
There was still no sound, but powerful Aura fluctuations could be seen emanating from Linne's palms.
It seemed as if time suddenly froze. Linne and the two artificial creatures paused strangely for a moment.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the two huge artificial creatures were suddenly blasted apart, flying in opposite directions.
They were launched over a hundred meters before crashing down and plowing long furrows through the grass.
By the time the two artificial creatures came to a stop, judging from the weakening Aura fluctuations, they were clearly at the end of their rope and not far from death.
The few younger generations, who hadn't acted yet, were dumbfounded when they saw Linne killed three artificial creatures in a flash.
It seems like... a complete domination, so do they still even need to fight?
On the surface, it looked like Linne casually slapped these creatures to death. But in truth, every attack she made was backed by a significant amount of Aura.
In other words, she was burning through a lot of her Aura to break through their defenses and deliver lethal blows.
If someone like Machi used the same amount of Aura, she wouldn't be able to do nearly as much damage. This is the difference between them and a seasoned master like Linne.
Linne was not joking when she said she would kill eight or ten and then run away. She had already made that call before the fight even started. And now, after killing three artificial creatures in one go, her prediction actually wasn't far off.
She can consume half of her Potential Aura to kill about fifteen artificial creatures in quick succession. After that, she would retreat without hesitation, as she would never put herself in a situation where death was likely.
After all, with her foot already on the grave, she no longer had the luxury to be willful.
…
Meanwhile, in the forest, atop a mountain.
Law was not aware that Linne and the others had arrived at the grassland area outside the forest, nor did he know that they had run into the Seirin Group.
From his elevated vantage point, he watched countless creatures begin to charge up the mountain and hesitated. Should he waste his Aura to kill them, or should he take Sanbica and escape past the poison zone and out of the forest?
As one particularly fierce tiger-like beast closed in on their position, Law stopped hesitating and began clearing out the lucky few creatures that had temporarily escaped the poison.
For those creatures who had just narrowly survived the toxic gas, a new nightmare had arrived.