Everything was quiet and to Shane, it looked like the others expected him to have a plan.

This caused him to smile as he fulfilled their expectations and answered.

"The plan is relatively simple. Advanced Ocean hounds are known for their high water affinity, and we have to face 7 at once which could turn into a hassle.

However, there is one advantage we should be able to make use of! Advanced ocean hounds have a thick membrane above their eyes which renders their eyesight to be relatively poor.

Based on the information available, their eyesight is even believed to be blurred, but that's not important.

Because of their bad eyesight, Advanced ocean hounds rely on their mana fluctuations to perceive their surroundings!

What would happen if everyone's mana pool were to be concealed? That would obviously not be enough, but I tried out a few things before! I can tell that overlapping one's concealment skill with a mana concealment potion does wonders, and only when we reveal our skills would the advanced ocean hounds notice our existence!

At least, if we're silent and make no noise to alarm them!

"

After he had explained what the Advanced ocean hounds' strengths and weaknesses were, Shane began explaining their tactic, which was nothing special in his opinion.

However, the others couldn't help but feel that Shane's plan was either too risky or extremely clever!

Thus, after another ten minutes had passed, everyone began to walk slowly and silently towards the last cavern hall!

While Cosmo was in front of everyone, walking around reluctantly, Shane was at the rear waiting for the perfect timing.

After he had entered the cavern hall, Shane halted in his tracks, while everyone else who had concealed their mana pool gulped down a concealment potion!

Their silent steps couldn't be heard either and the moment Cosmo and the others had safely reached the center of the cavern hall without any of the seven advanced ocean hounds attacking them, Shane initiated their plan.

As he initiated the start of his plan, Shane released the Hidden Paradise's full mana absorption capabilities, while Umbra too emerged from the Hidden Paradise.

He roared loudly, attracting the advanced ocean hounds' attention, while the others unsheathed their weapons.

At the same time, the seven advanced ocean hounds also noticed Shane's high mana absorption. However, Umbra's sudden emergence was a big surprise to the advanced ocean hounds!

They hadn't perceived the large snake's mana fluctuations, and now a late Awakened stage beast dared to encroach their habitat?

Nobody knew what the advanced ocean hounds were thinking but from Shane's perspective, they seemed to be extremely enraged!

This was great and exactly what Shane had planned. Each of the hounds created dozens of several-meter-long compressed aqua jets and shot them towards Umbra and him.

He couldn't say that this was unexpected, thus, Shane sent Umbra back into the Hidden Paradise before he circulated mana through his lower body to catapult himself to the side.

With this, he evaded the first batch of attacks and Shane got ready to deflect the next wave of attack that shot towards him.

As another batch of aqua jets rushed towards him, he jumped up before he moved backward, straight into the cavern tunnel. It connected the tunnel his guild members were in to the one everyone had come from!

However, instead of fully retreating, Shane couldn't help but smile as he noticed that only three advanced ocean hounds seemed to attack him right now!

'Did they do it?' Shane wondered as he saw a large spatial portal that had manifested above one of the advanced ocean hounds that charged towards him.

Only a moment later a group of ten warriors emerged out of the spatial portal.

Their weapons were already unsheathed and ready to slash at the advanced ocean hound which had just noticed that something was off!

It tried to push to the side, only to notice that a huge earth wall had shot out of the ground.

At that moment, the Spatial portal dissipated and another one manifested above a different advanced ocean hound.

A similar scenario happened, with the sole difference that not humans, but dozens of projectiles emerged through the spatial portal, piercing straight into the oblivious advanced ocean hound.

There was only one advanced ocean hound left, but Shane noticed that the last spatial portal had yet to appear.

Based on Shane's calculation, everyone should have been able to utilize Cosmo's spatial affinity to their advantage to kill the first four advanced ocean hounds without any issue.

Otherwise, both his and Umbra's distraction would have been for naught!

'Did I miscalculate something? Was one of the advanced ocean hounds fast enough to detect Cosmo's spatial portals?'

At that moment, more than two dozen compressed aqua jets, manifested from the last advanced ocean hound shot towards him.

He was barely able to evade the first few attacks, only to be hit by the remaining few that blasted him away, throwing him a few meters away.

Shane crashed into the tunnel wall with a resounding *whack* and the wall cracked behind him.

Spitting out blood, Shane coughed a little but he was happy to have survived. However, that was mainly because of the item he had purchased for himself!

When he had bought weapons, armors or shields, for each of the Starlight guild members, Shane had found something he wanted for himself.

It was the 'Armor of protection, Olaros', a Tier-2 (Extraordinary) armor with the Impact absorption effect!

The effect's name itself spoke volumes about its use and there was no need for Shane to read through its description.

Nevertheless, only now did he truly realize how strong the build quality of the armor was! It had been manufactured out of leather and several metal parts, but that was not what made it worth to him.

More important to Shane was the fact that he could survive the attack of Superior peak-Awakened stage beasts as long as they didn't target his head!

Unfortunately, the fight was far from over and the last advanced ocean hound was still charging towards him.

It had almost reached him when Shane saw the long-awaited spatial portal through which Jack and a handful of the group's members emerged.

Everyone had noticed that their tactic worked perfectly well, only to perceive that their pace had been too slow!

When Cosmo and the others saw how Shane was blasted into the tunnel wall, they couldn't help but worry.

Cosmo had instinctively activated his Space Jump ability to manifest a large spatial portal below Jack and his group, to make them land right over the advanced ocean hound!

When Shane saw how Jack and the others emerged out of the spatial portal, he couldn't help but sigh in relief.

Blood trickled out of the corner of his lips, but Shane was unable to suppress his grin when he saw how the others used every ounce of mana within them to finish off their last opponent. The advanced ocean hound was as astonished as its brethren when a dozen humans with an average mana purity of 73% manifested above them.

Their strength alone wouldn't have been enough to kill all advanced ocean hounds so quickly. But the fact that everyone had received new weapons that increased everyone's combat prowess by a large margin made a huge difference.

When the last advanced ocean hound had been defeated, Cosmo appeared next to Shane in order to see how injured he was.

Fortunately, Shane seemed to be fine and he had, at most, received a shallow injury which Kylia tended to.

Shane was not sure how everyone had defeated their assigned advanced ocean hound, but he could tell that he was the most injured among everyone.

This was great to know and it didn't take long before Shane was fit enough to stand up on his feet.

"Let's take the Syldalyr sand and leave this place as soon as possible!

"

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