"Ou, Ou, Grouuuu,"
Resounded all around Blanc and the rest.
The howls of the monkeys were deep and frightening to the faint of heart.
Luckily, they were not faint of heart.
It sounded horrible, yes.
But the sound they made when an arrow hit them, though just as horrible as the howl, was more pleasing to Blanc's ear.
Thud, thud, thud,
Three howler monkeys were dead.
One killed by Blanc, one by Celine, and one by Lune,
Kael's arrow missed.
"Tch," he clicked his tongue as he reached for another arrow.
Miyanna waited for her own chance to strike.
But the monkeys were too far for her to reach.
"Hubby, I can't kill any like this," she yelled over the angry howls of the monkeys as they saw three of them dead.
"Don't worry," Blanc said to her as he aimed, releasing the arrow the next moment.
As a screech left the monkey's mouth before going silent and crashing to the ground, Blanc turned towards her.
"Stay near me, and if they don't come down on their own, I'll bring some down for you to kill, but be quick, kill them as they fall, okay?" Blanc instructed.
"Okay," Miyanna nodded, preparing her sword.
As they talked, three more howler monkeys fell to the ground.
Six were dead.
The monkeys got angrier and angrier, using fruits, nuts, and small rocks as projectiles, throwing them at all five of them.
Luckily, they were easy to dodge, but they were annoying.
Another arrow flew from Blanc's bow, missing vitals on purpose, catching a stray monkey on its shoulder and sending it tumbling down the tree.
"Now!" Blanc yelled.
And Miyanna listened, breaking in a sprint forward, dodging everything that came her way, and as the monkey began free-falling head first straight to the ground, Miyanna pointed her curved sword forward, impaling the monkey, killing it instantly.
"Another one," Blanc yelled to her as he wounded another, feet away from her.
And another howler monkey was dead the next moment.
Though the howling continued, and though the sounds they were making resounded all around them, angrier and angrier as each monkey fell, in less than five minutes, the rainforest fell silent, as all the howler monkeys were dead, painting the ground with their blood and the humid air with the strong smell of iron… and monkeys.
Blanc's earlier counting was wrong.
There were twenty-eight howler monkeys.
Five were killed by Kael, five killed by Lune, with Blanc, Celine, and Miyanna killing six each.
"Now this is what I call a harvest," Blanc said, looking at the corpses each of them had piled up for their own harvests.
"How do we harvest these?" Miyanna asked.
"My loves, you two go in first. Me, Lune, and Kael protect you. After you are done with your harvest, you stay and defend us while we harvest ours," Blanc instructed.
No further explanations were needed, since, as instructed, they began their harvest, which took longer to complete than it took them to kill all those monkeys.
Once they were done, they went straight back to walking.
For Kael and Lune, the five they both killed and harvested were enough for them to have the Mark of the Howler turn black.
Their Mark looked like the palm of a monkey on the back of their shoulders.
As for Blanc, Celine, and Miyanna, only the sixth one managed to make their Mark turn Black.
All three of them received only one Mark.
Celine's Mark turned into a dark tail that fell on the lower half of her spine, ending at the tailbone.
Miyanna's Mark was now a Dark small footprint on each of her calves.
Blanc's Mark was the small handprint of the howler monkey on the back of his left hand, clearly visible, which was annoying to try to hide.
Still, this harvest was an absolute feast.
And even though they were only monkeys, a Black Mark on each of them at once was a significant boost in their strength, especially for Miyanna and the twins, who at least doubled the kills they harvested.
Now that the spirits were higher than ever, the walk through the rainforest went quicker for all, not stopping to rest until the destination for today's special trip was within their sight.
In front of them was a dance of dark green and white.
A forest of conifers covered by snow.
While the Jaguar Path, the rainforest was humid and hot, less than two hundred feet away from them stood a forest so cold that snow ruled over the ground.
It was the Moose Path, the taiga.
However, there was an issue.
Between them and the taiga in front of their eyes was a small gap of no less than two hundred feet.
"How the fuck are we to get there?" Miyanna muttered, looking inside the gap.
The gap went deep.
If not for the sun above it, they would not have been able to see how deep the gap actually was.
Luckily, no sun was needed to hear what was inside the gap.
At least half a mile was between them and the river below that crashed hard into the rock between the two Gardens.
It moved swiftly and crashed like bulls onto the rock, resounding like the echo of a lion to Blanc's ears.
"By the Vita…" Blanc muttered, looking at how fast the current of the water was.
In books Blanc read in the past, it was stated that passing through the Gardens from the inside had been done in the past.
To check, Blanc looked around until he found a fallen tree.
The trunk of the tree was medium in size and broken into three pieces.
Blanc picked one of the three that he was able to wrap his hands around in a hug as he carried it back to the gap and threw it inside.
The piece he picked was six feet tall and at least three hundred pounds.
Yet the moment it touched the river, the strong current ripped it into tens of pieces, which joined the flow of the current in less than a second after contact.
"What the fuck?" Miyanna muttered, horror in her eyes at what they witnessed.
"Well said, sister," Celine nodded, still looking at the remains of the log Blanc threw in, "What the fuck…"