“Young master, more wolves have appeared on the fringes of the Endless Forest, we have already pulled out as you ordered,” a shadowy figure spoke.
Gerard sat on his chair, he nodded towards the shadow as it faded into the darkness. It had already been 9 days since Gerard sent the notification bird to Aeron. But Aeron had yet to return, someone else was even asking him about Aeron’s whereabouts, to which he had to reply that he did not know precisely but that he was somewhere safe inside the Endless Forest, and that he already sent Aeron a message.
“How many people have we got right now Brock?” Gerard asked.
All his closest people were gathered in the room, they were currently inside the Governor’s office. Since the Governor vacated the City, Gerard took over the huge earth building they called the City Hall. There were many people inside who were not part of Gerard’s group, these people were the chosen representative of the remaining people who were willing to fight.
“We have approximately 6,000 people willing to fight young master,” Brock answered.
A thousand of the 6,000 people were from Gerard’s group, they were the most talented of the bunch and were also the strongest, 2,000 were from 4 other groups, each had a representative inside the room, and the extra 3,000 were people who decided to stay and fight at the last minute. Gerard didn’t feel optimistic about the last group because most of them were below level 6 and were only there for the rewards, many of these people were those who had given up on getting stronger so they wanted to take some risk to earn compensation. Of course, Gerard understood that most of them weren’t greedy for themselves, but were actually taking these risks for their family, most especially, their children.
Gerard just wished that it didn’t have to go to the point where they needed all of these people to fight, this was the main reason why he let them be placed as reserves.
“Young Master these are Evan, Ryan, Vince, and Chris, they’re the leaders of the 2000 Professionals who joined is earlier,” Sam introduced.
Each of the people introduced was of significant talent, each at least led 500 people with them. What was more impressive were their Stages, each of them was at the least a Level 5 Earth Stage Professional albeit every one of them was already in their middle ages, reaching Earth Stage Level 5 was already commendable and might even give them a chance to transcend. If Gerard wasn’t there to reign control, then these 4 would probably be the strongest powers in the City of Una, but that was under the premise that they were willing to defend Una from the Wolf King’s invasion, and succeed. Evan who was a buff Warrior stepped forward.
“It is our pleasure to meet you, Lord Gerard,” Evan said as he bowed in respect.
They had their own intentions when they arrived here in the City of Una, but the events that happened afterward were unexpected. Their groups were contemplating whether they had to retreat together with the masses or try to stay, fighting was out of the question as they knew one Sky Stage Wolf could crush them all, but Gerard’s invitation sparked hope within them, if they were able to fight and endure the Wolf King’s rage, then, they would be able to garner more service to the city. Although to people who were powerful and rich enough, resources like mana stones weren’t hard to come by, to people who had Grade-3 or Grade-4 and even Grade-2 affinity with not so good backgrounds, mana stones were something they needed to work for and were a must if they wanted to level up faster.
The Central Region held the most important Cities of humanity, but the people who held power also understood that expansion was a necessary move. Thus, Pioneer Cities who were able to survive for at least 5 years were supplied with mana stones and other resources from the Central Region, Transcendents didn’t need mana stones as much, but their families did, the same were true for people who lived in the City.
The ways to get mana stones from the City was to complete tasks, sign contracts, and the most popular one was to be assigned a title and land. One could also trade mana stones, weapons, information, and materials from the City using merit points, and the easiest way to achieve all these was helping in the establishment of a Pioneer City like Una.
“Thank you for deciding to stay and fight,” Gerard returned the bow.
“No need for thanks Lord Gerard, we have only benefited from you with the supply of mana stones, weapons, and armors that you provided, your people even taught us techniques we wouldn’t have been able to learn,” Evan quickly replied.
This was the truth, Gerard had been very generous with his treatment towards them, they were even allowed to keep what they were given after the war, that and the addition of merit points and other rewards made them very happy about their decision. Although the person in front of them was almost half or even less their age, the respect they held was no less than what they had with City Governors.
“It is only right for me to do what I did, after all, we are all risking our lives for this battle,” Gerard said with seriousness.
“Agreed,” Evan replied as his companions nodded.
Sam at this point started to introduce the other people in the room.
“These are Beatrice, Frank, Jon, and Eric, they represent the other 3000 Professionals who decided to stay,” Sam said.
The four people Sam introduced were visibly different from the other four, although one of them stood out. The other three were level 6 Mortal Stage Professional, none of them were comparable to Gerard’s people, though they might be able to pass the test of the four other groups, Gerard and his people did not see anything special from them. It seems that they were chosen to represent the others because they were past level 5.
Beatrice, the only woman in the group stepped forward, her long brown hair cascaded to her shoulders, her figure was shapely enough but it did not betray the obvious implications that she was a warrior. But what stood out about her was the great sword she carried on her shoulder, it was 1.8 meters long, if that was it then it wouldn’t have been so surprising, but the sheer bulk of the sword was thrice that of a normal great sword.
“So, you’re the famous Lord Gerard,” she spoke as she gazed at Gerard with a measuring look.
A strong pressure exploded from her, but to her surprise, Gerard barely reacted.
‘This woman should have a unique skill related to strength,’ Gerard thought.
“It is a pleasure to meet such a valiant lady,” Gerard returned a greeting with a smile.
The sword was big, and although normal warriors were more than strong enough to utilize such weapons, they were not as widespread. Big and heavy weapons that slowed you down were fatal in battles with beasts and other races, thus, only people with full confidence in their strength and speed used these types of weapons.
“Impressive, such a young man with your strength, very impressive indeed,” Beatrice said, her tone had already changed and even seemed to have a tinged of nostalgia.
Although judging from their looks, Gerard and Beatrice were of the same age. Gerard smiled again as if he realized something before he replied.
“Beatrice Reava, now I remember, it’s been such a long time hasn’t it, I never thought you’d grow into such a beauty, last time I saw you, you were…” before Gerard could continue, Beatrice’s glare made him stop. They weren’t very close in the past, in fact, they’ve only met a handful of times before she moved away.
“Ahem, I would like to thank all of you for staying here in the City to fight, I cannot promise you anything as even I don’t know a lot about our enemies’ number and strength, but I promise to stand with you and FIGHT!” Gerard’s aura exploded like a tsunami covering the whole room, everyone felt like they were pinned by a fierce and mighty lion ready to rip them to shreds.
******************Deep in the Endless Forest*******************
A dark wolf stared at the wolf king, but unlike in the past, the wolf king had changed. Dark fur covered the wolf king’s body, its eyes were filled with anger and rage, it slouched on its back as it raised its body, standing only with its two hind legs, its arms changed from paws into 4 fingered hands each finger ending with sinister claws, although it slouched as it stood up, it still reached 4 meters in height. The changes were apparent as the wolf king evolved into a humanoid form, its eyes burned with rage and madness, it raised its head to the sky and howled its rage.
HOWL!!
A dark crimson aura engulfed the wolf king as it burned like flames. The 4 Sky Stage Wolves also exploded with their aura, there was an obvious disparity between the Sky Stage Wolves and the Wolf King, none of them should have surrendered with the current strength of the wolf king, yet all of them were inferior to the Wolf King’s father. The other wolves followed suit as wolf howls haunted the Endless Forest.
********************Back to Aeron*********************
Aeron took some time before he noticed Lina’s question, his gaze became a tad bit gentler when he saw her face before he realized and went back to his normal self.
“I was given a task by the Governor to escort you back to the City of Isa,” Aeron explained.
“My father gave you a task to escort me back?” Lina asked in confusion, surely someone in the Ironbull Family was more qualified than Aeron who was only in the Mortal Stage.
“Yes, even I was confused, but since I was planning to go to the City of Una, I just accepted,” Aeron answered.
“Hmm that’s not typical of my father,” Lina murmured.
“By the way, are you fine?” Aeron noticed that her right hand held the cloak, and her left hand held the side of her stomach. Aeron concluded from the damage in the surrounding that the true and fake Lina fought violently before he woke up.
“It’s fine, it’ll heal in another hour or so,” Lina said.
Earth Stage Professional truly did have a stronger body and a faster regeneration, and just as Lina said, she only needed to rest a bit more for her injuries to heal.
“Alright then, we’ll rest for a bit before we travel to Una,” Aeron said, his purpose to stay in the Endless Forest was done, and the person he was looking for was already found.
“Un,” Lina nodded in approval.
She was too happy to notice that Aeron who was younger and weaker than her was the one dictating what they were going to do, she closed her eyes as started to meditate, this was to accelerate the flow of mana inside her body and speed up her recovery.
“Hmm, I’ll have to try and familiarize myself with this new ability,” Aeron murmured.
He walked a distance away from Lina, she was currently meditating and what he was going to do might disturb her, he had also reminded Arthur to let the other monkeys guard the surrounding without showing themselves, this way, Aeron could rest assured that he at least had some protection. He was now capable of producing and manipulating mana, and according to his memories, there were three ways to use aura. The first was Release, this was the easiest to do as it was just releasing your aura to produce pressure, although controlling it was a bit harder.
“Release,” Aeron said softly.
A light grey aura exploded from Aeron’s body, this was the crudest way to use release, but ones one mastered release, then they’ll be able to produce pressure even without showing their aura. The second way was Envelop, this one needed more control, but one advantage Tamer had over other Professions was control, through their powerful souls, they could control aura better than other professions.
“Envelop,” Aeron said.
The light grey aura started to gather around Aeron’s body, covering himself with a light grey veil of aura. The veil of aura wasn’t as stable as Aeron wanted them to be, but this was already a good result considering he had just leveled up. To test it further, Aeron stood up and jumped.
Boom!
The floor almost broke with the force of Aeron’s jump, Aeron who was now 10 meters in the air looked down with excitement, this was the difference between humans with aura, and those with none, not only does Envelop protect you from attacks, it also reinforces the body to an outstanding rate. And the last aura ability Aeron could make use of was Infuse, this method was just as hard as Envelop, but the difficulty increases with the more one infused aura to a skill cast.
“Richie, give me the glaive,” Aeron ordered.
The only skills he could activate were [Accelerated Strike], and [Lightning Strike], although he could now cast [Lightning Strike] without depleting his mana, the mana expenditure would still be a lot. Richie handed Aeron the obsidian glaive. Aeron felt the coldness of the obsidian glaive as he held it to a stance.
“Infuse,” Aeron murmured.
“[Accelerated Strike]”
Vhuuum!
A black flash appeared covering a distance of 10 meters, Aeron stood still in excitement, this was the result of Envelop, and Infuse done together, with the additional effect of [Accelerated Strike], a simple jump wasn’t much, but moving forward while attacking with a glaive that wasn’t light was another matter altogether. Aeron closed his eyes as he retrieved his aura, he suddenly remembered something and looked behind him, he saw Lina still in meditation before he heaved a sigh of relief, he was too excited earlier to notice that he was making loud noises while testing his aura.
Aeron started to meditate to recover from his experiment, but not long after, he heard something which did not bode well.
Howl! Howl! Howl! Howl!
