The duo went back to the main camp of the hellhounds.
As per usual, the "king" lazily laid on its "throne" which was a glorified dirt hill with the top dug as flat as grizzly-sized dogs could make flat.
Percy thought about rushing in but thought otherwise. Even though it wasn't hard for him to dust one of them, fifty all at the same time was a bit much, even for him.
He turned to Eviane and asked what she thought.
Eviane was the more experienced in hunting of the two, so it was best for him to ask for advice.
She tapped her bottom lip multiple times before she opened her mouth. It was interesting to watch her thoughts display on her face.
Her brows went up, down, frowned, sideways, and then settled back down.
"The only thing I can think of is the muddy area near here. We could use that to lure them in, but it really depends on muddy it is. I don't know how you'd be able to deal with it, and hellhounds can probably just shake it off. If anything it would slow us down rather than slow them down... Also, I'm not sure if-"
Percy let the girl continue talking while he thought to himself.
Now that he understood more of their capabilities.
It wouldn't be that hard to lure them. With a little bit of prodding, he was sure they would be on him like a swarm of bees.
Sure, they were a bit fast and a tad strong, but that was all they amounted to. He could see why it would take only a small group of hunters to dispatch a pack of fifty.
He didn't once think about how much he overestimated the abilities of the hunters of underestimated himself, always comparing his strength to theirs on the same power scale.
Or even how a single hellhound was extremely dangerous to a group of average demigods.
With all of the "lessons" with his mistress, she told it in a way that described the Greek world in a mythical context, meaning that Percy still didn't understand that this was the Greek world.
He also assumed that these creatures were "normal" and were supposed to be here. With Percy's understanding of gods and goddesses, it was strange to assume that the naiad he saw a while ago was a goddess.
But to be fair, he had never seen someone with light blue skin before, and she was incredibly pretty.
It didn't cross his mind a single time with all of the fantastical powers he was seeing everyday such as: manifesting bows out of thin air, producing silver light whenever convenient, casually talking to animals, small boxes that can inexplicably house large tents, and those same tents being much larger inside than outside. That maybe the Greek stories his mistress was telling him were real, but Percy never felt the need to question his surroundings.
He chalked it up to being a different world, and that this world was clearly much different than the Isles.
In fact, he was question whether or not this was a different dimension (It's not.) because from what Percy could tell everything was completely different than what he was used to.
Percy didn't question a single thing.
He wasn't dumb, but he also was not the brightest.
He was very knowledgeable about the sword, but not so much about other topics.
Percy coughed lightly to the still talking Eviane.
"Let's go with your plan."
"Oh. Ok," she said in a slightly bland tone. "Let's go with what you said."
The way she said it flowed so naturally as though she practiced those lines a million times.
Three floating question marks hovered above Percy's head.
The look in his eye turned to pity as soon as he realized why she said that.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
She felt like he was looking at a poor little puppy on the street, except she was that puppy.
"Hey!" She started waving her arms in front of his face.
It didn't do anything. That pitying look was still there.
Her face began to distort in anger, but that didn't change the look on his face.
"Hey. I'm really going to get angry here."
She was met with silence.
Just when she was about to raise her arm to hit him, the guardian scooped her up and began running.
"What the Hades is your problem!" She angrily stared at him as she struggled to get out of his arms. "Let go of me! Let! Go!"
She was being held like a piece of luggage. His arm was around her waist, pinned to the side of his body. Her thrashing didn't make him loosen his hold a single bit, and it felt like she was trapped underneath steel beams.
After a while, her attempts died down, and she cooled down.
Percy asked, "Are you done?"
Eviane made a sigh of resignation, giving him the affirmation he needed.
"Where's that mud pool you were talking about?"
"Mud pool? Uhh? It is- far- right? ... EEK!"
He took a hard right without losing any momentum.
Eviane swore that her body was bent in an "L" shape, and for a brief second she saw the frightening scene of dozen of bloodthirsty hellhounds chasing after them.
It was something that you would find from a nightmare except it was happening in real life.
The scariest part was that they made absolutely no noise, which is surprising if you considered their size.
There were a few tears budding in her eyes.
Maybe the male noticed something was wrong because it felt he held her a little bit gentler than before. But, she was grateful that he didn't say anything about it.
If anyone knew about this, she could never show her face in the Hunt ever again.
It was embarrassing being held by a male like this, but it was more embarrassing that she was tearing up.
The mud pool was in sight.
Percy said in his nicest voice, "I going to throw you up and you're going to help me from up there, ok?"
He was trying to sound sincere, but when you have no experience comforting other people the tone sounded a bit off.
His feet screeched to a halt, quickly assessed which tree would have the most space for her, and he launched her up all in the matter of seconds.
Percy leaped into the mud pool, dodging a bite.
His boots began sinking as soon as they met the mud.
Its body tumbled at him with full momentum. Good thing he had his sword out and dusted the dog before they collided.
In the back of his mind, he couldn't help but think that maybe this was a bad idea. The suction coming from the mud was a tad annoying, and the mud made his boots dirty.
He dismissed the thought. Now was not the times to be worrying about such things as he mustered strength into his legs to get running again. The rest of the hellhound pack was right behind him.
Percy jumped high into the sky, over the lunging hellhound as it crashed head first into a tree. Percy used it as a springboard, stabbing downwards onto one of his pursuers.
It exploded into dust underneath him, but this time he was prepared.
One of the black dogs leaped at the newfound opportunity, only to be shot with a sliver arrow through its entire body.
He didn't have to look to know that it was Eviane. He was impressed. That was a very well timed shot.
Percy had his doubts whether or not she would actually help because he wasn't particularly liked in the Hunt by anyone. It was good to know that someone had his back.
He was sure she helped him before that too because there was no way only one of them jumped at the opportunity. It was physically impossible.
Now that he had some breathing room, Percy was able to look around a bit. Instead of a mud pool, it was more like a mud field. He couldn't see where it ended.
The guardian saw many of the hounds refuse to enter the mud especially the king. There were a few still avidly chasing him, and a few more behind those ones.
This much he could handle, dusting the one immediately behind him with a stab in the head.
Percy kicked the head of another dog, twisting its body to collide into the one behind. Both of them laid in the mud without moving.
They made some space for him to fight the others because they had to either climb over the two bodies or go around them. Both options allowed him to fight only one hellhound at a time.
Eviane had her own problems to deal with. There were some that were trying to known down the tree she was in, fortunately it looked like she was safe for the time being.
Hellhounds weren't able to climb trees unlike the same sized grizzly bear.
It only took him minutes to clear the hounds that were in the mud field with him as hellhounds trickled in like a leaking water pipe. It was easy for him to fight one on one against a hellhound especially with Eviane on crowd control duty.
Eventually, it was only him, Eviane, and the king left.