Death... and me

However, things didn't go as planned for either side. Celso was holding a small object that looked like a white dragon scale that had a tinge of red over it. Then again, Kentucky couldn't see it since he was too far away. He could only make out the silhouette of Celso's people as he followed their group.

Rean and the others didn't know, but Celso used a similar scale to find the previous pool. It's just that the previous one had a blue hue instead of red. Everything was going well for Celso and his companions when, out of nowhere, one of the nearby volcanoes erupted.

That wouldn't be anything out of the norm. On their way to this area, Celso and Rean's group had seen five more volcanoes erupting. Since they kept some distance from the volcanoes, they were able to leave their dangerous areas without any issues. Only the falling lava and molten rocks caused them some small trouble.

However, when this volcano exploded, something enormous, brimming with yellow-red light, came out of it. It looked more like a giant rock covered in lava. However, the aura it spread immediately caught the attention of both the twins and Celso's group. 'Ancient beast!'

That ball of lava then opened, landing nearby.

*Bang!*

Scales colored white and red spread on its back as it stood on four legs. Immediately, Hurio identified the beast, quickly sending a Divine Sense message to everyone. 'It's a Star Armored Salamander! Quick, Kentucky! Fall back! It's definitely no weaker than any of the other ancient beasts we found so far.'

Kentucky didn't need to hear that twice before he made a turn and dashed into the distance. Celso's group was no different as they immediately started to run away as fast as they could. Unfortunately for them, neither Kentucky nor Celso's groups could go further than a few dozen meters.

*Roarrrrrr!*

Spatial power soon spread from the salamander. Not only that, its spatial power seemed to be mixed with Fire Element as well. It immediately created an area of twenty kilometers where no one weaker than it could move as they wished.

'Fuck!' Kentucky tried to fight the spatial power while he felt the Fire Element imbued in it enter his body. Even Kentucky's heaven-defying defense couldn't stop the Armored Salamander's power from affecting his body. Rean was also more or less like Kentucky since he was the best at manipulating Yang Energy and Elements.

However, Roan, Hurio, and especially Lilia were faring not so well. They were using all their Divine Energy to try and drive out the power of the salamander, who hadn't even left its landing position yet.

Celso's group wasn't any better. The only difference was that they seemed to have some protection treasures that they all used to try to fend off the Fire-attribute spatial power of the Armored Salamander. Sure enough, the top ten powers only sent their best disciples to try and enter the other plane in the Lost Star Realm. Naturally, they gave these disciples plenty of treasures for self-protection. It's just that these treasures took in mind the battle against other humanoid races, not ancient beasts.

Thanks to Rean's Yang Energy resistance, Rean was still able to keep his Light bending skill activated. In other words, no one saw that they were there yet except the salamander. But in the Armored Salamander's case, it wasn't trying to catch Rean's group at first, so it landed much closer to Celso's group instead. Simply put, its natural spatial detection ability caught sight of Celso's group first. In a certain way, that confirmed that those at the Void Tempering Realm and above could sense lower-level cultivators.

However, as soon as the salamander spread its Fire-attribute spatial ability to lock Celso's group down, it noticed the extra person there. The same shadow that Kentucky saw moving and trying to stay hidden several times.

There was a reason why the salamander took this long to notice the owner of that shadow. That's because the guy was following Celso's group from further away, so it entered the salamander's range after the salamander jumped out of the volcano. Immediately, both the guy and the salamander noticed each other's 'black hole' inside their natural spatial detection range. As mentioned before, those above the Transition Realm couldn't really hide from each other. At the very least, Rean's group didn't know of a way to do that.

The man then looked at the salamander and had a dark expression on his face. Kentucky was able to identify the man as well. 'To think it's actually an elder of the Dragon Tail Brotherhood following them.' It was easy to tell due to the man's clothes. As far as Kentucky might be, the color was easy to make out.

The salamander then began to make its way to the man, not the least bit afraid. The same couldn't be said about the man, though. He was indeed in the Void Tempering Realm and had some capabilities to control spatial powers. However, he wasn't even close to being able to activate such a huge spatial ability, let alone fuse an element into it. With that being said, the Armored Salamander was definitely at a realm much higher than Void Tempering.

In any case, the only thing he could do was keep himself free from the salamander's Fire-attribute spatial locking ability. Not to mention that he could only do that because the salamander spread out its ability way too much. If it had focused its ability on the area he was staying in, he wouldn't be able to move as he wished either.

With that, the elder of the Dragon Tail Brotherhood threw away any thoughts of battling the Armored Salamander. Instead, he immediately used his spatial powers to move to where Celso's group was and used it to hold their body. Following that, he blinked away, carrying Celso's group with him. Yes, fleeing was the only option!

The salamander was enraged when it saw that, so it immediately gave chase, completely ignoring Rean's group... or so Rean and the others wished for it to happen. However, it seemed way too lazy to move with its enormous body. It probably felt that it wasn't worth the effort to capture Celso's group. Instead, it turned in the direction of Rean's group. To it, their group seemed a lot easier to catch.