Chapter 568: Nesting Trees |
The aura presence that Joshua could sense off in the distance was clearly that of another owl that was flying high in the sky preparing to swoop down into the fray and attack the bison while they were trying to deal with the other owl. Even the leader of the bison was currently focused completely on warning the rest of the bison on which direction the first owl was coming from. The smoke was a good distraction that kept all of the bison focused on the original owl and that seemed to be exactly what the pair of owls wanted.
It was clear to Joshua that the two owls were working together. The first owl was getting the bison used to its patterns of attack and always going in the same way with only slight differences. It made it seem as if the owl was alone and trying its best to confuse the bison so it could score a kill. To Joshua however it looked like the owl was always pulling up at the end right when it had a shot at attacking the bison. It left scars on their bodies, but it wasn't doing any true long lasting damage that was life threatening. He still hadn't seen the owl try to go for the throat of a bison a single time. The owls were lulling the bison into a false sense of security and it was working.
When everything was set up perfectly with the bison moving to a better position to defend against the first owl Joshua noticed one of the bison that had been hit multiple times by the owl was positioned on the edge of the group away from the rest. It was put there to avoid taking to many more hits, but it was being left wide open for an attack from another predator. It was in that moment that the second owl decided to go on the attack. The first owl was coming in first and the leader of the bison was focused on warning the group which direction it was coming from. The second the group of bison created the rock wall they were already out of position for the second owl that was coming in from the side.
The second owl stuck to its small size and even stayed in its incorporeal form for as long as possible. The combination made it extremely difficult to keep track of for even Joshua and it was clear that the bison had no idea that it was coming for the attack. Once the first owl phased through the rock wall and avoided the horns of several bison once more the leader of the bison suddenly shifted its head and let out another guttural call to try to get the bison to turn their attention to another direction, but it was too late.
The follow up attack by the second owl was at the perfect moment as none of the young bison were ready for it and the injured one on the edge of the group was the one to pay for that. The owl grew in size instantly as its claws came in from the side and pierced through the eyes of the bison all the way into its brain. With that one violent blow the first death of the clash had come to fruition. The owl quickly jerked its claws back tossing the body further away from the group before flying up into the air so the rest of the bison couldn't attack it. The first owl then swooped in clawing the dead bison in the back and lifting it up into the air. Its speed was slowed down by this action, but since the rest of the bison were still looking towards the owl that had gotten the kill it gave the other one a chance to drag the body away.
The bison once again huddled together in preparation to defend themselves once more, but things grew quiet as the smoke cleared and the sense of danger began to fade away. Joshua could already sense with his aura that the pair of owls had already left and were heading further into the prairie in the direction the group was headed. For the rest of the night the bison were restless and always on guard, but they had already lost one companion and they weren't going to risk losing another.
For the rest of his watch Joshua could only think about how difficult it would be to deal with the pair of owls in the future. They were swift and incredibly smart while working together and they had a great tactic of singling out one target instead of trying to take on the whole herd of bison. Now that he knew what was the top predator of the area he also knew what to keep an eye out for. Luckily the predators of the area attacked at night and Joshua had the right strategy to deal with it.
Soon it was the next morning and the group ate some more aura fruit before heading out to try and find the guardian sight of the prairie. One thing Joshua noticed after a day of eating aura fruit was that the amount of aura he had in his body has suddenly grown by the very slightest of margins. It wasn't even something truly noticeable, but Joshua knew that if he kept eating things like aura fruit on the regular he would slowly but surely gain more aura. It might take years before it made a big difference, but it was valuable to have a way to improve in strength that didn't involve fighting and leveling up. The thought made him wonder how valuable such things might be in the universe let alone on earth.
According to Julia the fruit seemed to have a similar affect when it came to mana and the other mages in the group agreed with her. With that in mind Joshua made sure to keep in mind planting the fruit back in the giant garden dungeon that Grace and his mother were keeping track of. If they could grow these things there at a faster rate than it might become a new source of well-guarded materials for the alliance. If they could even end up selling them for universe coins then they would truly be making out like bandits.
After a couple of hours pushing further into the area and passing by several different groups of bison they finally found something that looked different from what they had normally seen along the way. The further they went into the area the more they started coming across far bigger bush trees than what they had seen when they first joined the area. These trees were so tall that the bison would be forced to knock the fruit down if they wanted to eat from it instead of plucking them out of the trees. The parasaurs were still big enough to reach up towards the fruits near the top of the tree and start munching away, but they were the only beast in the prairie that would be able to reach them.
These much taller and thicker bush trees were starting to pop up all over the place. That was when Joshua suddenly sensed a familiar presence of the pair of owls from the previous night sitting at the top of one of the much larger bush trees. The owls were awake and currently eating from the corpse of the bison that they had recently taken down. At first Joshua was surprised that the thinner tree made up of mostly roots was able to hold the wait of all three creatures, but it proved to be far more sturdy than expected. The owls kept tossing down the bones of the bison to lessen the weight, but the parts of the bison that they wanted to keep would be used to build up their nest on the top of the bush tree.
Joshua noticed that he could also hear the sound of light chirping coming from the bush as well and it was clear that there were baby owls up there. It seemed like the bison just got caught up in the circle of life. The pair of owls took notice of the group below and just glanced at them from time to time. Joshua couldn't sense any killing intent coming from them, but he didn't know if that was because they didn't care about the small group of humans riding on the back of a ferret while they already had their food for the next few days or because they were just so good at hiding their killing intent.
As they moved further into the area Joshua noticed that were several similar bush trees that shot high up into the air. Occasionally you would see nest on them and sometimes the nest would have owls perched inside either sleeping or eating. Joshua saw a smaller owl come flying into the area towards a nest while carrying the body of a coyote and Joshua realized this place wasn't their only hunting ground and the entire prairie seemed to be up for consideration. They were clearly the most powerful predators around and they knew it. Since the owl was smaller than the ones Joshua had seen taking on the bison Joshua was certain that only the fully grown owls were willing to take on bison and in most cases they did so in pairs.
Joshua kept all of this in mind as they started to reach the center of the area and Joshua knew they were getting close to the guardian site..
