The larger dragon ticks were nothing to be impressed by. Their features were only uglier since they were creatures that grew only to be a parasite on something else. Their sharp pincers that drew and sucked blood were like hollowed spears waiting to attack the small group as they approached.

Yes, they had stirred up this trouble, But Walker didn't like that one of the larger dragon ticks was charging toward them right away. They were not some easy prey they could just grab and be done with. These monsters were overconfident and needed to be dealt with, so maybe he should take his turn.

That was until he saw that Alice's humming had made a spear of light that shot through the air piercing the stubby head of the larger dragon tick. She looked at Walker who was giving her a quizzical glance, "they spread illness when they bite monsters and leave them when they are full. Ticks are troublesome."

From the perspective of a healer, Alice had everything right. These monsters could spread disease to those they bit and left when they were sated. It would make sense that as a healer, Alice had tangled with healing those affected by these things before. Su also gave a nod in agreement, she'd seen it as well, it was something many farmers had to deal with. The only thing was, that right now they were dealing with larger ticks than would be in a normal farmer's field.

Then again, as the next larger dragon tick started charging, Walker had already made a small arrow of flames using his fire mana manipulation. It shot through the air and pierced the dragon tick further away this time. It also started to burn it up in to ash without creating a lot of black smoke. Walker knew all too well how much better it was to use some water mana and air mana to trap and cool the smoke so that they would not need to breathe it in.

Midnight sprinted forward gathering her dragon flames in her hands. Doing so in dragonkin form was a little difficult but she found it exciting to be gathering her dragon flames in to her hands and fighting like Remey did. She had seen Remey use punches and felt this was the best chance she had to really experiment with new styles she had somewhat trained since she had been focusing more on the dragonkin form.

It was a fun experience for her. Midnight had fought in her proper dragon form more often than not. She had taken a while to get the dragonkin from in her perspective. Then again, she had watched everyone fight before. Using her magic to make a ball of flames and throw it was nothing too troublesome since she had seen Walker train his magic. Seeing how she could wreath her fists in flame and strike down on the back of a smaller dragon tick was because of Remey. Using the flames to act as a small shield? That was all from Su.

All three of them watched as Midnight went full battle frenzy trying to test her abilities and get more comfortable against real enemies she did not need to hold everything back against. She was gifting freely to ensure that she would be able to properly use her dragon form without needing to harm herself and the others by taking her main dragon form.

When she opened her fist and slashed down with her clawed hands, it caused the flames she had wreathed them in to fly through their air and hit a further small group of dragon ticks. They were all skittering around in panic with the flames scaring them. Some of them made foolish choices to attack while others retreated deeper in to the next.

Walker took notice that the next they had walked in to was not far from the entrance they came from. It was making a lot of sense since the regain ticks would leave here often to try and find prey to latch on to or to eat entirely. He also saw that the room must have been some form of storage area. There were many bits of rotted wood remnants and piles of what could have once been food but were not just scattered black soil. Otherwise, he noticed the runes covering the walls all seemed related to keeping temperature constant. They were known rune formations.

There were small eggs no bigger than marbles which made it striking that these dragon ticks could grow to be so large. Then again, dragons would be born fairly small and grow pretty rapidly. Walker had seen it with his own eyes and knew that Midnight would most likely be larger than the royal dragons in their dominator dragon status when she reached adulthood.

The flames Walker controlled began to sweep in a small vortex. Not quite a flame tornado, but enough to gather the ashes of the monsters he burned in to a single place. Alice also hummed a soft song of purification to enhance the flames and remove any dangers from the remnants. It was better to be safe than sorry in case anything here could make anyone sick. The dragon ticks were not really a clean species seeing that they were monsters that lived on the bodies of other monsters without being cleaned.

When they had calmed down and Walker had stored away the ashes, he looked around the larger room and heard the faint sounds of retreating dragon ticks. There would be more within the ruins but for now, he was interested to see what the rune formations on the walls looked like.

Despite being cracked and damaged overall, the runes carved in to the stone made it clear that they could be salvaged to some degree. It would take a lot of effort to repair them though. Not just some work here and there, potentially a slow and steady rebuild of each wall over time rather than just allowing the ruin to fall apart or to be entirely replaced.

This state of things would make the entire process take years rather than a few months. The angels had certainly believed that the ruins would have better material and formations to work with in terms of repairing the city. However, this was simply because they based the ruins off of what they had seen elsewhere and also within the current damaged floating cities being repaired. They had not realistically assumed that the damage was this grand.

With a long sigh, Walker spread his mana sense out and found that there actually were runes still working to some degree. He could feel the stone passageways were laced with small rune formations and lines. Not the kind that carried mana for useful things like keeping the island floating, but for keeping a door closed.

"We can allow the main cleaning force to follow the few remaining dragon ticks. We are going to go through this passageway and reinforce it as a new area to explore." Walker placed a hand on the largest wall and the stone began to shift. He also used earth mana manipulation to repair small cracks that could have gotten bigger.

"Oh, separate passageways that haven't been mapped? This is going to be interesting." The glint in Su's eyes showed exactly how she imagined all this would go. She wanted to see as much as she could since she was able to be herself and not keep an eye on those she was training. Right now she was able to relax and let loose, so she was doing exactly that. She knew she could protect those around her and she had the buffs from Alice as a benefit too.

"I want to see it too." Alice whispered as she pushed Walker ahead of her. She wanted to make sure it was safe and let Waker handle that was fine by her. Plus, Walker was already watching the runes change on the walls. This passageway hadn't been touched by these monsters so they were already cleaner. Duster, but cleaner in terms of remnant bones or rot from prey brought through the passage.

"Midnight, you and I in front then." Walker smiled and pushed ahead. He saw the rune on the walls all carried mana but didn't seem to be in use. Like whatever they had originally been connected to was taken out leaving them to degrade with time rather than due to the cracks and damage from the higher ruins of the city above them.

"Maybe we should have some light." Walker conjured up a few light orbs and realized that along the ground there were marks from what could be small rodent type monsters. Proof that other passageways might connect or at the very least they could still run in to monsters to deal with too.

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