600-612

Chapter 600 - Leon's Visit

"I'll cleanse the palace grounds first and make it safe for my parents before working on the areas of my women's families..."

"The rest of the Capital will be worked on eventually as I make regular trips in between regions..." Leon muttered in contemplation before he suddenly paused.

"No, this is too inefficient. I am putting a load of work on my shoulders again. I will drop by the Lancaster Workshop and visit Rachel and future mother-in-law later..."

When Leon thought about his matters with Rachel, he was at a loss. Nevertheless, their marriage considered the interest of the two families.

"I can only tackle the problem as they come..." Leon shook his head and continued to cleanse the palace grounds.

His Black Vortex Space slowly filled up with refined Demonic Energy and more fragments of Wrath Law before.

Suddenly, Leon felt like he was being watched before abruptly turning his gaze to the west before the traces disappeared in a flash.

"Quite fast..."

Leon wrinkled brows before becoming more confident of his steady choice to not be hasty in cleansing the Capital.

"Sure enough, there's a hidden expert in Capital. But I wonder if this person is a friend or foe? Since the person's trace disappeared, there's no use searching blindly for this person…" Leon muttered with a frown.

Still, he should inform his parents and keep an eye out.

…

Crawford University, Dean's Office.

"I only took a look because I was curious what kind of Law this kid comprehended, but I did not expect him to have grown such sharp senses..."Dean Wilfred rubbed his forehead wryly after retracting his gaze quickly before he could be spotted.

Suddenly, the doors to the office were knocked before a person entered and gave a respectful bow to the Old Dean.

"Dean Wilfred."

"Un."

Dean Wilfred acknowledged the person's greeting calmly before asking, "Did you find out what I asked for?"

"Yes, Dean Wilfred. The recent stir in the Capital is not caused by any powers from the Geyser Kingdom. In fact, the informant I contacted also said similar events have been happening in the east," the male subordinate informed.

"These demon worshippers obviously do not belong to the West, but they do not belong to any powers from the East either, huh…? For them to appear during the start of the Cataclysm, this does not seem like a good sign…" Dean Wilfred muttered with a frown.

"An unknown force that has not been accounted for by the High Council. They have hidden themselves very well from the High Council's eyes."

"That's hard to digest, Dean Wilfred. I do not believe the High Council would have missed such a large force with their all-seeing eyes. What if these demon worshippers are a new emerging force instead?"

"The High Council's eyes are not omniscient as you think. They can only see the surface of things and not what lies underneath. It's easy to miss a few things—if not a lot of things," Dean Wilfred spoke calmly.

"Still, whether they are or not, their presence only fuels the growing chaos in the Human Domain."

"Right." The subordinate nodded before asking respectfully, "What else shall you have me do, Dean Wilfred?"

"If you can, I want to catch one of those demon worshippers and bring them to me for an interrogation. Still, safety is of utmost importance. Do not take risks and do not expose yourselves to the locals either, understand?"

"Understood"

"Good."

After the male subordinate bowed to leave, Dean Wilfred noticed the person suddenly hesitated before he casually asked, "What else?"

"The informant passed on a message, asking when you will be returning to the High Council, Dean Wilfred?" The male subordinate relayed.

Dean Wilfred paused for a moment before saying, "Everyone of them is so persistent. Can't an old man retire in peace? How many times has it been now? I'm not interested in continuing to play gods with those other old codgers."

"With all due respect, my Lord." The male subordinate said respectfully before adding his opinion, "Every Elder of the High Council has unfathomable strength. To the mortals, they can indeed be considered gods."

"Oh, I know they are strong. But that is still far from being the strongest. They have become drunk on power and status ever since we discovered those major relics in the sky together. Now, they only know how to enjoy themselves and spy on others."

"They have lost their edge and ambition. And for that reason, Lord Aldrich left without warning anyone. A few hundred years later, and not a single of his traces have been found. God knows where he went or whether he is still alive or not."

After listening to Dean Wilfred's words, the male subordinate's expression became doubtful as he asks, "Didn't Lord Aldrich die in the underground exploration according to the Crawford Empire's recorded history, Dean Wilfred?"

"You should go now." Dean Wilfred urged the subordinate to leave with a smile while leaving the person's question unanswered.

"Right… My apologies, Dean Wilfred. I will leave now.

After the subordinate left respectfully, Dean Wilfred gazed into empty space blankly before he muttered in reminiscence, "Lord Aldrich was the strongest of us and most talented of our generation. It's impossible for him to lose to some insects in the subterranean world…"

Shortly after, Dean Wilfred's expression turned rueful before shaking his head.

"Haiz, what does this old man know? The subterranean world, boundless black sea, and Dark Continent are all places even the High Council cannot pry into…"

…

After Leon finished cleansing the palace area, he flew towards the direction of the Lancaster Workshop in the Upper North District while absorbing Wrathful Demonic Energies on the way.

With surprises, the Lancaster Workshop was bustling with activities like Leon expected as the clings and clangs of metal rang in his ears.

"Y-Your Highness! Welcome back!"

The blacksmiths immediately paused their work to greet before Leon waved his hand at them and said, "Don't mind my presence and just continue with your work. But I will have to trouble one person to answer my question. Is my mother-in-law, Duchess Amelia, here?"

"Her Grace is on the second floor. Shall I escort you there, Your Highness?"

"No need. I can head there myself. Thanks.." Leon rejected the blacksmith's offer before heading to the lift promptly.

Chapter 601 - Demon Gathering Array

On the workshop's second floor, Amelia Lancaster was seated by her design desk, drawing up new airship blueprints with great focus that she did not notice Leon arriving beside her.

Leon quietly observed the new blueprint before shifting his gaze to study the second floor, thinking it had been a while since he last came here.

'This floor used to filled study materials on the levitation device. But now, there is not a single trace of it. Instead, there were trains, airships, railways, and many other designs,' Leon silently mused.

"Oh? When did you get back, Leon?" Amelia Lancaster exclaimed with pleasant surprise after resting her eyes for a moment.

She immediately stood up before speaking while inspecting Leon, "Come, let Mother-in-law have a good look at you. You have not been around much—Woah, you seem to have become much more burly."

"I have made some minor breakthroughs in Body Cultivation," Leon smiled wryly before changing the topic, "The workshop does not seem all that busy as I would expect it to be."

"With the discovery of Transcendent Crystals and your parents being more generous with their rewards, the number of Fire Awakeners has been growing along with a few selected Metal Awakeners around to help out…"

"The additional hands have pushed productions to new heights, reducing the need for raw manpower from the commoners. With the railway to the Grassland Region nearing completion, most of the workforce has been directed over for the New Capital's construction."

"Makes sense." Leon nodded after listening to Amelia Lancaster's explanation before saying, "I've heard about the plans, but I have yet to see the progress over there for myself."

"But that will have to wait for another time. I'm a bit tight on time and will not be staying in the Capital for long before I need to return to the Wildlands."

"I see. Well, alright then. What did you come over to see me for this time?" Amelia Lancaster interrogated before adding, "You wouldn't be visiting unless you have a reason to."

"Why would say that, Mother-in-law? You're making me seem like such a bad person…" Leon scratched his cheeks wryly before speaking in his defense, "I did drop by to use the forge, but am I not seeing you first before that?"

"…"

Amelia Lancaster was a bit speechless before saying with a shake of her head, "If you were truly sincere in visiting this mother-in-law of yours, you would have brought gifts."

"You know what I mean, right?" Amelia Lancaster gave Leon a sidelong glance while trying to remain dignified and upright.

Leon gawked for a moment.

Shortly after, he smiled ruefully with a nod before taking out a few stalks of tier-3 herbal tea spirit herbs from his Worldspace and passed it over.

"Please accept this small gift of mine, Mother-in-law."

"Hehe, thank you."

Amelia Lancaster happily accepted the few stalks of spirit herbs with a hum before storing them in her interspatial ring.

"Right, how is Rachel?" Leon suddenly asked.

"Rachel? She has been doing quite well in recent days, surprisingly. She is quite motivated to overcome her trauma. Still, you should pay her a visit sometime."

"Although a date was never set, you two have been engaged the moment you two were born. You should spend more time together," Amelia Lancaster said with a slightly helpless expression.

The amount of time her future son-in-law spent with other women was much longer than the time spent with her daughter. She was quite concerned about their relationship.

"About that…" Leon's expression turned awkward before he admitted, "To be honest, I am not sure how to advance our relationship… I feel that our feelings are mutual, but there are things holding us back…"

"Un, Mother-in-law is also aware of the problem." Amelia Lancaster nodded before saying, "If you need help, just tell me, and I will help you solve the problem."

"How will you help me?" Leon could not help but ask with a weird look.

However, his future mother-in-law did not answer. Instead, she simply said, "Just answer my question. Do you want my help or not?"

"Then… can Mother-in-law help me?" Leon requested politely.

"Kukuku…" Amelia Lancaster chuckled wickedly before saying, "Of course! It's settled then. You don't have to worry about this matter and just leave it to me. Go do what you need to do for now. We will talk about this another time."

"But…"

"Shoo!"

Amelia Lancaster waved Leon away without much explanation regarding the matter, causing him to be dumbfounded as he unwittingly left in a compliant manner.

"What was that about?" Leon rubbed the back of his head questioningly. He could not help but have a bad feeling about it, but there was no point mulling over it for now.

Shortly after returning to the first workshop floor, he shook his head, "Never mind. I will just have to see what Mother-in-law plans to do the next time I return to the Capital. For now, I should do what I came to do."

After selecting an empty workbench and forge, Leon took out his ancient bones and pocketed a few spare alloys lying around before commencing his work.

Four strange-looking bone disks were completed within a short while before Leon took out his Ravenous Black scribing pen and began engraving runes on them.

"It's done. Four Demon Gathering Arrays," Leon softly exclaimed shortly after completing the last engraving.

"Although this is the first time I crafted Demon Gathering Arrays based on the basic concept of the Spirit Gathering Formations, I quite confident in my runic knowledge."

"Now, all that is left to do is to deploy them and see whether they work according to my expectations," Leon muttered while wearing a confident smile.

He did not have time to cleanse the Wrathful Demonic Energy within a short time.

But the Demon Gathering Arrays could continuously gather the surrounding Wrathful Demonic Energies, clearing the air in the area by concentrating and condensing them inside the Demon Gathering Arrays until return to refine them.

It was a good alternative, considering the time constraints.

"Are you leaving now, Your Highness?"

"Yes, I have some things to do.. Continue with work had for the empire," Leon patted the sweaty blacksmiths with an encouraging look before bidding his leave from the workshop.

Chapter 602 - Arrangements Before Departure (1)

After leaving the workshop tower, Leon visited the city guard's main garrison in Upper District.

"The city guards at your service, Your Highness. How can we help you?" A city guard captain saluted with a fist rested on his chest.

Behind him stood 40 other elite guards with Rank Awakener Realm cultivation that followed suit and saluted simultaneously with a stomp.

Leon glanced at the gathered group of elite city guards that displayed rigorous discipline and unity—a stark contrast to the group of pot-bellied drunkards that he once months ago.

After a moment, Leon calmly asked with a casual look, "Is there a map of the Capital I can see?"

"Of course, Your Highness!" the city captain answered before barking to one of his men, "Bring the Capital's map over here for me!"

"Yes, Captain!" An elite guard immediately answered.

Shortly after the elite guard headed inside the main garrison building, the captain used his Earth-ability to raise the ground and form an earthen table with smooth surfaces like a slab rock that have been sculpted by master artisans.

"The map, Captain!"

"Un."

The elite guard returned shortly with the map before the captain laid it out on the earthen table for the prince.

"The map of the Capital, Your Highness."

"Un. Thank you." Leon nodded.

He studied the map of the Capital before finding the most ideal locations to deploy the Demon Gathering Arrays in each Upper District.

Shortly after, he divided the 40 elite guards into 4 groups of 10 and took them to each site one by one, deploying the Demon Gathering Array in the area before heading to the next one.

"Your jobs are to protect these Demon Gathering Arrays with your lives. Do not let anyone approach them, and definitely do not let anyone destroy them until I get back, is that understood?" Leon instructed the elite guards.

"Yes, Your Highness! We hear and obey!" The elite guards complied without questioning before Leon nodded with approval.

"Good!"

After all Demon Gathering Arrays were deployed and all elite guards were stationed to guard their designated areas, Leon left with the captain.

"Your Highness, may I be so impudent as to ask what those bone disks are used for?" the captain asked humbly with strong curiosity.

Leon after the captain a casual glance before explaining, "Those bone disks are runic devices that can gather the Demonic Energies in the air and compress them into a concentrated form. You should understand what this means, right?"

"Yes, Your Highness!" The captain answered, immediately understanding the crux of the purpose for deploying the Demon Gathering Arrays.

It was not hard to understand.

Nevertheless, the captain could not help but mention, "I'm afraid that this task might be too much for the city guards to handle alone, Your Highness. We might require the palace guards' assistance in guarding these runic devices."

Although the captain was a 3-Star Ranked Awakener, it did not make him feel capable nor strong in the present era of quick changes—where anything could happen anywhere and anytime.

"This is what we are heading to the palace for. I will arrange it, and you will take the palace guards with you. I do not need to tell you how to handle them, right?" Leon casually asked.

"No, Your Highness." The captain quickly shook his head and said with a cupped-fist salute, "I completely understand what needs to be done. You can leave it to me, Your Highness."

"Good."

Shortly after they arrived at the palace, Leon immediately made the arrangements before the captain left with 16 palace guards.

Leon watched the group leave his sight before turning around and heading back to his father's study room to discuss and make some arrangements with his parents.

However, the study room was empty when he arrived.

Seeing a palace maid passing by, Leon immediately pulled her over and inquired, "Where did my parents go?"

"Y-Your Highness!" The palace maid, Ellie, cried softly with a hint of excitement after seeing the prince suddenly coming out of King Heinrich's study room.

"His Majesty, King Heinrich, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, are both in the back courtyard, Your Highness." She answered shortly after while carrying a tray with teacups and a teapot on them.

"I see. Thank you," Leon nodded.

Shortly after, his gaze shifted down onto the tray of teapot and teacups the palace maid was carrying before asking, "Are you bringing the tea to my parents?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

"I see. Then we can head over together."

Leon spoke without much thought, but the palace maid immediately broke into a bright smile as she happily responds, "It will be my honor, Your Highness!"

Shortly after, the two of them headed in the direction of the back courtyard, walking alongside each other.

Ellie snuck glances at Leon's side portfolio from time to time, but she was slightly disappointed that the prince did not seem to take notice and look her way.

She could only silently lament in her heart.

Sometime later, Leon and Ellie arrived in the back courtyard, where Heinrich, Elizabeth, Duna, and Darlene were all seen seated by the stone table and chatting cheerily.

However, after they spotted Leon's arrival, Heinrich and Elizabeth's smile immediately disappeared without a trace before they glanced at each other for a moment and nodded.

Leon immediately noticed the strange atmosphere, but before he could open his mouth to speak, his mother stood up and pulled him away with a solemn look.

"Come with me. We need to talk."

"Uh… Yes, Mother," Leon responded compliantly while scratching his head cluelessly with an inexplicable feeling in his heart.

He could not help but feel like he was in trouble for some reason.

Nevertheless, he allowed himself to be dragged away by his mother. They did not stop until they arrived on the palace walls, where a good view of the Capital could be seen.

"Is the current stir in the atmosphere the result of your doing, son?" Elizabeth inquired.

She could sense movements in the air, but nothing was visible to her eyes

"Yes, Mother. I just deployed the Demon Gathering Arrays into four corners around the Capital to draw in the Wrathful Demonic Energy in the atmosphere.. This will reduce the risk of our people going berserk."

Chapter 603 - Arrangements Before Departure (2)

"I see..."

Elizabeth nodded in understanding before she suddenly frowned, "But if all the foul energy after concentrated into these four points, wouldn't these areas become dangerous?"

"Not at all, Mother," Leon shook his head before explaining, "The Demon Gathering Arrays are built to condense the gathered energy into solid forms."

"Thus, there will be no risks involved so long as no one touches the crystallized energy. However, these objects do need to be guarded against robbery and falling into the wrong hands."

"I see." Elizabeth nodded after understanding the whole picture before saying, "I will arrange for people to—"

"I have already arranged some city guards and palace guards for the task, Mother." Leon interrupted before adding, "I plan to inform father later to pay attention to these four locations."

"Since you have already settled everything, I have nothing to worry about. Let us talk about something else, instead." Elizabeth nodded before her expression suddenly turned stern.

Suddenly, Leon's heart became tensed for some reason, not understanding why his mother looks so serious.

'Am I in trouble?' He thought for a moment before asking directly, "What do you want to talk about, Mother?"

Elizabeth gave Leon a solemn look before saying, "I know you've had a rough childhood, but it seems that I have been too lenient on you."

"What are you talking about, Mother?" Leon furrowed his brows in confusion.

"Hmph, as long as your feelings are serious, Mother doesn't mind how many women you bring home anymore..."

Elizabeth snorted before firmly stating, "However, it is not okay to play around with any women! I do not want any of this scandal in the family, you hear me? When you enter a relationship, you have to stay committed!"

"Ugh... I still don't understand, Mother." Leon scratched his head before asking with doubt, "When did I ever play around with women?"

"Hmph, still pretending?" Elizabeth snorted before saying, "Fine, let me tell you this; Duna has already told us about your casual relationship and experiences."

"You can't hide it from me. How can you make such a nice girl your f*ck buddy after she helped you out so much? Do you have a conscience? Because she's an evil spirit, she can't be your official lover?"

"Ugh…"

After listening to his mother finish speaking, Leon's expression clouded with a dark look.

"Duna is very mischievous, Mother. You should not listen to everything she says! We are not like that at all! We are not f*ck buddies!"

"Then let me ask you this simple question, what is your relationship with Duna?"

"We are… lovers, I guess?" Leon answered unconfidently while scratching his cheeks.

Elizabeth immediately narrowed her eyes dangerously before asking with a strict tone, "What the hell do you mean, you guess? So are you or are you not?"

"Well, it has been made official, but I am working in that direction."

After Leon said this, Elizabeth sighed before shaking her head, "Haiz, whatever. Just remember what I said."

"Still, to think that you would also lay your hands on non-living entities. I must say, son, isn't your strike zone a little too wide? Are you going to bring home some random cats and dogs next time?" Elizabeth said with an exasperated expression.

Shortly after, she added, "You need to exercise some self-control, son. Seriously, Mother no longer knows if you are purposely trying to build a big harem or a goddamn zoo!"

Leon's expression gawked with awkwardness after being admonished by his mother before he said, "You can't blame me for this, Mother… some things can't be controlled…"

"Well, I suppose not. My son is simply too talented…" Elizabeth spoke with a bit of helplessness.

Leon was about to heave a sigh of relief when her expression suddenly turned fierce again before adding, "Still, no cats and dogs. You hear me?"

"Yes, Mother…" Leon's lips twitched slightly.

…

Shortly after, Leon managed to change the topic to a different matter. But at the same time, he made a mental note to punish Duna for her mischief.

Leon spent some time deploying one of the portable teleportation arrays in a secured location within the palace before teaching his mother its usage with clear instructions on switching destinations.

"Have you understood everything, Mother?" Leon asked shortly after.

"Un." Elizabeth nodded.

"The device might be complicated to make, but it looks pretty straightforward to use. It was not hard to understand, son."

"Right, this is for you, Mother."

Leon suddenly handed over another spare portable teleportation array along with its artificial Demon Cores before saying, "Once Mother set up this portable teleportation array in the Grassland Region, it'll be easy for us to travel back and forth between these locations."

After Elizabeth accepted the items from Leon and stored them in her interspatial ring, she nodded, "You can leave it to me, son. This will save us a lot of traveling time."

Leon smiled lightly.

Rather than saving traveling time, the teleportation array will practically erase any traveling time between these three locations; Western Frontier, the Capital, and Grassland Region.

…

Sometime later, Heinrich smiled upon noticing Leon and Elizabeth's return to the Inner Courtyard.

"You're both back."

"This is for you, father."

"Hm? What is this?"

After Heinrich accepted the few sheets of paper from Leon, he began reading through them with curiosity.

At the same time, Leon gave Duna a short glance while the person pretended not to notice before explaining to Heinrich, "These are Divine Cultivation Techniques."

"Oh?" Heinrich exclaimed before uttering, "More techniques?"

"These techniques aren't the same as the last ones. These cultivation techniques are for Energy Condensation Realm, Revolving Core Realm, Heaven Ascension Realm, and Void Realm."

"And what do you want to do with these, son?"

"Well, I've noticed that our people are beginning to reach the peak of Body Tempering while some have even managed to pave their own way into Energy Condensation. I didn't want our people's cultivation to be shackled by the lack of techniques, so I am handing these over to you, Father."

"As for the specifics of what to do with them, I will leave that those decisions to father," Leon added shortly after.

"Fair enough."

Chapter 604 - Arrangements Before Departure (3)

Leon spent the remainder of his time in the Capital chatting with his parents regarding matters related to the empire and its issues.

"Duna, Darlene, it's about time for us to leave now," Leon eventually notified the two before informing his parents, "Father, Mother, your son will be going now. I'll come back to visit you two after I resolve matters on the other side."

"Un, just go do what you need to do, son. You have done enough here. These cultivation techniques will aid the empire's growth greatly," Heinrich said.

"I know you don't need Mother to remind you, but be careful on your journey, son. The Wildlands is riddled with danger, especially in these tumultuous times."

After Elizabeth spoke, Leon nodded with a warm smile, "I understand, Mother."

Shortly after, Leon pulled Duna and Darlene to leave the Inner Courtyard—but after taking a few steps, he suddenly recalled a few unfinished matters.

"Oh, right. About my adoptive father, Brian, and the other Illusory Butterfly Sect Disciples, have they been…" Leon began inquiring into the matter from when he left off to explore the Dark Continent for his adoptive mother, Mia, and the others.

Thankfully, his mother and father had not mistreated Brian, Baron Grant, and the other ex-disciples—at least, their lives were still kept and executed.

Nevertheless, they had been under house arrest and had not been able to leave the guest courtyard. Still, it was better than dirty cells under the palace, or of course, death.

Once Leon recounted his experience in the Dark Continent, filling in the blanks that Darlene did not cover during the time she spent with his mother, he explained the circumstances and story regarding his adoptive father and the ex-disciples.

"I see. I have nearly forgotten about this matter if you have not brought it up, son. Brian and Baron Grant have also told me as such, but I could not confirm the truth from their mouths and could only keep them under house arrest until now…"

"Since it's been cleared up now, I won't pursue this matter further. Let bygones be bygones. I'll send someone to inform them of their lifted house arrest," Elizabeth said with a soft sigh before asking Leon, "Do you want to see them before you go, son?"

"Hmm…" Leon thought for a moment before shaking his head, "It's fine, Mother. I will visit again within two days. At that time, I will meet them and also see if Father Brian and the others want to follow me to the Dark Continent."

"Fair enough." Elizabeth nodded before she suddenly frowned.

"Since the Cataclysm happened, the Dark Continent must have been affected in some way as well. When you are heading for that place again, you must be extra prudent and careful, son."

"I know, I know." Leon smiled.

Shortly after, Elizabeth and Heinrich ended up deciding to follow Leon to the newly deployed teleportation array in the palace—wanting to witness its operation.

Nevertheless, Leon suddenly paused his steps once again. There was still one last matter for him to take care of in the Capital before returning to the other side.

Since he had provided divine cultivation techniques up to the Void Realm, it is only right to provide accompanying cultivation pills to aid cultivators in reaching such a level.

However, he only had Tier 3 Spirit Herbs, allowing him to refine cultivation pills for Divine Practitioners of the Revolving Core Realm.

Refining cultivation pills for Divine Practitioners of the Heaven Ascension Realm and Void Realm was out of the question.

'Even with the aid of cultivation pills, it will still take time for people to reach the peak of Revolving Core Realm. There's no need to teach Reginald the pill formula for the Heaven Ascending Pill and Shattering Void Pill for now…'

Leon began thinking about his alchemy disciple—who was really just slav—ahem, worker refining pills for him and the empire.

'I don't have Tier 4 Spirit Herbs, but even if I do, Reginald will not be able to refine the Tier 4 Heaven Ascending Pill, let alone the Tier 5 Shattering Void Pill. He has only been practicing alchemy under for a few weeks…'

It will take years of practice to reach Tier 4 in alchemy, even if someone is endowed in alchemy in knowledge.

'Right, Reginald still needs lots of spirit herbs to continue practicing alchemy. I am definitely not making him refine cultivation pills for free. This is all for the sake of advancing his alchemy skills,' Leon thought.

He had already imparted the knowledge of refining Spirit Enhancing Pills, Spirit Condensation Pills, and Core Strengthening Pills to Reginald.

The person only needed to continue refining these pills for now.

"Is there still something else, son?" Elizabeth inquired, seeing Leon had suddenly paused his steps.

"Yes, Mother."

Leon nodded to his mother before making some simple inquiries regarding Reginald.

Shortly after, he soon learned that his alchemy disciple had been working day and night tirelessly in the pill refining room ever since he left the batch of herbs for Reginald to practice pill refinement on.

"Quite the number of pills have been accumulated over the past few weeks or so. There aren't many spirit herbs left, and they are mostly the most valuable ones," Heinrich stated.

Leon did not expect Reginald to succeed in refining Tier 3 Core Strengthening Pills and becoming an Alchemy Grandmaster so soon.

"Father, can I trouble you to get someone to deliver these spirit herbs to my alchemy disciple?"

After saying this, Leon waved his hand and poured out several sets of spirit herbs ranging from Tier 1 to Tier 3 Spirit Herbs.

"Of course." Heinrich nodded.

After seeing Heinrich stored everything into his interspatial ring, Leon began rubbing his chin in musing, "Maybe it's time to reopen that pill store of mine."

"That would definitely bring in immense profit once the pills hit the market, but you won't be around to manage it, would you? Do you need my help?"

"Then, I will trouble father with the task of finding suitable people in managing the pill store," Leon accepted his father's offer.

Shortly after, he added, "However, the cultivation pills shouldn't be solely monopolized by the rich. We need to circulating pills well to give the commoners an equal chance of obtaining them. Perhaps a contribution system will do? Of course, I will leave it to you to sort out the finer details, Father."

"You brat… Giving me more work… Haiz, alright. Just leave it to me," Heinrich sighed with a bit of helplessness.

Leon smiled wryly.

"Then… I'll be going now."

"Un, save travels, my son."

Eventually, they bid farewell to each other before Leon activated the teleportation array and stepped inside with Duna and Darlene.

Chapter 605 - Flying Mutant Rats

Shortly after Leon disappeared inside the spatial portal along with Darlene and Duna, the teleportation array did not deactivate on its own but remained operating—even after they left.

"So this is how a portable teleportation array works, huh?" Elizabeth studied the runic device by turning a rotating pad.

In a short instance, the new sets of runic lines disconnected, immediately short-circuiting the energy flow and deactivated the teleportation array.

The spatial portal closed up and vanished without trace after losing its supply of energy.

After another turn of the rotating pad, the runic lines realigned and activated the teleportation array as the spatial portal was opened.

"How fascinating. Our son invented this?" Heinrich marveled at the teleportation array's functions before curiously asking, "Where does this spatial portal lead us?"

"This one should lead us to the Western Frontier," Elizabeth said before turning the rotating pad again back to the original spot, "And this one will lead us to where our son is."

"Oh? Seems like this teleportation array has up to four different locations according to these rotating pads. What about these other two points? Where do they lead?" Heinrich inquired with interest.

However, Elizabeth shook her head.

"This one will open the spatial portal connected to the portable teleportation array I was given by our son, while this last one is a dummy without any spatial coordinates recorded. It's used to deactivate the teleportation array," Elizabeth explained.

"I see… It seems like our son has introduced us to quite an amazing mode of travel. It's even more effective than the high-speed airship travel I plan to implement in the Grassland Region after building our the New Capital…" Heinrich praised.

"Un." Elizabeth nodded in agreement.

"However, this method of travel has a fatal flaw. We cannot make it public and known by everyone. It must be well-guarded and can only be used by people we trust," Heinrich added with furrowed brows of concern.

"Right." Elizabeth agreed before stating with a solemn look, "If any of these portable teleportation arrays are lost to our enemies, they would be able to use it against us and strike us while we least expect it."

Elizabeth rotated the rotating pad once more to deactivate the teleportation array and save energy.

Shortly after, Elizabeth continued, "Even if this teleportation array is deactivated, anyone can jump to this location if they have any teleportation array with this teleportation array's spatial coordinates recorded."

"True. Although I don't think anyone can rival our son's knowledge in runes, can't we deactivate the teleportation completely by removing the power stones embedded in the sockets?" Heinrich wondered.

Elizabeth recalled her son's previous instruction before she shook her head, "They teleportation arrays uses its own energy to create the portal for the spatial jump. As such, it does not need another teleportation array's activation—only its spatial coordinates."

Suddenly, a spatial portal reopened before Heinrich and Elizabeth were startled with alarming expressions.

"Someone is coming!"

Not long after, Duke Ignis's figure could be seen walking out from the spatial portal before he looked around with a wondering expression.

"Oh?"

Heinrich exclaimed with pleasant surprise after recognizing the person before he approached Duke Ignis and patted his broad shoulders.

"Well, if it isn't Brother Ignis? What brings you back here? How's the situation in the Western Frontier?" Heinrich inquired with a smile.

"The Western Frontier's situation is stable for now, but there's no telling what will happen in the future. Leon dropped by in the Western Frontier and suggested that I should get familiar with using these teleportation arrays—And so, here I am."

After Duke Ignis answered casually, he continued to have a look around before speaking, "Judging by the surrounding, this place should be the inner palace?"

"Un." Heinrich nodded.

"Since you are already here, we might as well take this chance to catch up, Brother Ignis, and you can also tell me about the Western Frontier's situation in detail."

"Alright." Duke Ignis agreed.

"Then I leave you to men to have some time together. I need to get back and prepare for the trip to the Grassland Region," Elizabeth spoke, seeing it was not appropriate to stick around while there were still matters to settle.

"Alright, dear. I know you don't need me to say this, but be careful on your journey. There's a lot of unpredictable elements and danger during this Cataclysm," Heinrich said out of concern.

"I know, Heinrich." Elizabeth smiled before smirking, "But you should concern yourself in dealing with those Demon Worshippers. Don't worry about me. I will come back to visit after I set up the teleportation array in a secured location in the Grassland Region."

"Right, we still have those Demon Worshippers to worry about…" Heinrich immediately felt a headache regarding this matter.

However, Heinrich recalled Leon's act of cleansing the Capital's foul atmosphere before his expression slightly eased up shortly after.

Nevertheless, it was the first time Duke Ignis heard about this matter as a puzzled look shortly appeared on his face.

"What are these Demon Worshippers you are talking about, Brother Heinrich?" Duke Ignis turned to Heinrich with knitted brows.

"We can also talk about this over tea, Brother Ignis. Come," Heinrich urged Duke Ignis with one hand but failed to make the person budge, causing him to raise an eyebrow before looking back at Duke Ignis with surprise.

"Is it just me, or have you become much stronger physically? Your muscles are hard as a rock, and your stance is stable and firm like a mountain. I cannot budge you at all!" Heinrich exclaimed after a few more attempts at moving Duke Ignis.

Duke Ignis immediately cracked a smile before chuckling softly, "Ohoho, you just noticed? I made a small breakthrough in the Western Frontier."

Swoosh~!

At the same time, Duke Ignis flexed his strength in front of Heinrich and Elizabeth by making a punch at empty air, resulting in a strong gust of wind swirling into the distance.

"Small breakthrough, my ass." Heinrich rolled his eyes in doubt before asking, "Quickly tell me what happened in the Western Frontier."

"Hahaha, this is all thanks to Leon. I would not have been able to achieve this kind of breakthrough without his help. Also—"

Duke Ignis began explaining with a smug look when he suddenly froze upon recalling a certain event, causing his expression to take a quick turn into gloominess.

"Also what?"

"Haiz, forget it."

…

Meanwhile, Leon had only returned to Soft Feather's side in the Wildlands for a brief moment.

After seeing they were still en route to the Desolate Crow Clan, Leon decided to make a quick stop in the Western Frontier to check on the situation.

"Are you leaving again, Your Highness?" General Marquis Hendrick inquired at Leon's side near the Western Frontier's teleportation array.

"Yeah, since everything is still stable here, I will be returning to the other side." Leon nodded before saying, "I'm about to arrive in the Desolate Crow Clan's territory. I need to be present to tackle any danger that may arise upon arriving."

"Then… please be careful, Your Highness," General Marquis Hendrick said.

After Leon nodded, he stepped into the spatial portal and returned to the other side, where he had left the others.

However, he was immediately stunned upon his return.

"Lilith, make sure you do not leave Soft Feather's side! Soft Feather, please protect Lilith! I will handle the rear!" Aria shouted while fending off a large group of berserk flying beasts with 36 ice-lightning swords.

"Begone!"

Duna took on the vanguard position and waved her hand, sending out a wave of darkness that swept away the numerous mutated rats with grotesque-looking wings made of blood and bones ahead and blinded them.

"Awrooo!"

The Transcendent-level silver wolf's howl was heard below while it was similarly getting swarmed by a sea of mutated rats in the berserk state.

"What's the situation?" I was only gone for a few minutes. How did we get ourselves surrounded by swarms of rats so suddenly?" Leon quickly inquired after deactivating the teleportation array on Soft Feather's back and storing it inside his Worldspace.

"Leon, you're back!" Lilith exclaimed with joy even though her eyes were red and teary—choke-full of emotions and on the verge of crying.

"I don't know! When we arrived at my clan's territory, the place was already overrun with rats! I don't think anyone is still alive around here! My parents… they might already—"

"It's too soon to jump to conclusions. Let us deal with these rats first, then figure out what happened here," Leon interrupted with a frown before withdrawing his Tier 4 Bone Spear from the Worldspace.

"Alright…"

Lilith stood up on Soft Feather's back, but she was shortly forced back down by Leon.

"I wasn't talking to you, Lilith. You still haven't reached the Transcendent level yet. It'll be too dangerous for you to participate in this level of battle. Just hug close to Soft Feather's back with Darlene and sit this one out."

"We will handle this."

Shortly after Leon spoke, he immediately took a big leap off Soft Feather's back before making a mighty sweep to the side.

Swoosh~!

Numerous mutant flying rats that managed to latch onto Soft Feather's wings as she was vehemently trying to shake them off were immediately blown away by the wind pressure!

Shortly after, he made another powerful sweep of his spear, immediately blowing away the mutants rats latching onto Soft Feather's other wings before he inquired, "How are you faring, Soft Feather? Are you alright?"

"I'm alright for now, but you better do something quickly! I don't think I can hold on for much longer if this keeps up!" Soft Feather cried while flapping her blood-soaked wings with many bite marks and several feathers missing.

"Sorry, Soft Feather… You wouldn't be in this state if you did not have to protect me." Lilith was filled with guilt.

At the same time, Darlene also wore a guilty expression.. Perhaps, she should not have come—for she was holding everyone back.

Chapter 606 - Extremely Big Mountain

"Let's just say that we are even now, okay? I apologize for the rude remarks I said previously. I did not mean it," Soft Feather spoke apologetically, feeling pained at the loss of a few feathers—to say nothing in the least for an entire wing.

Nevertheless, Lilith shook her head, having gotten over this matter after regaining her ability to fly—and with greater freedom to boot.

"It's fine, it's fine…"

At the same time, Leon was slightly surprised, not expecting Lilith and Soft Feather, these two birds, to start getting along only during a moment of danger.

'Interesting. Better late than never, I guess,' Leon smiled slightly in thought, having thought Soft Feather was going to be stubborn until the end and never apologize.

However, she had taken the initiative to apologize to Lilith, proving him wrong.

'She's a good bird.'

Awrooo!

The Transcendent-level silver wolf's might howl was heard, but nothing could be seen with their vision obstructed by dense clouds of black rats in all directions.

"How are you doing down there, Silver?!" Leon hollered while sweeping away mutant berserk rats that broke through Aria and Duna's line of defense.

After receiving another lively howl in response from the Transcendent-level silver wolf below, Leon was able to gauge Silver's situation and understood that it was not in immediate danger.

Boom! Boom!

From time to time, flashes of black appeared in the front, while flashes of white appeared in the back due to Duna and Aria's elemental attacks.

"I can keep this up all day, but the same cannot be said for Soft Feather—not as long as she is forced to cover for Darlene and Lilith. Soft Feather is too big for us to cover her completely. I'm afraid she won't last long enough for us to exterminate all these vermins."

"Why don't you send them back through the teleportation array and let us clean up the battlefield first before bringing them back after, Leon?" Duna suggested before adding, "Unless you have a better plan?"

"Hm? Are you showing concerns for the others?" Leon smiled in question.

However, Duna snorted, "Hmph, no. They are deadweights and holding us back. I just want to get rid of them quickly to focus on killing these vermins."

Darlene and Lilith's eyes dulled in response to Duna's harsh words while Leon smiled awkwardly at her dishonesty.

"I see…" Leon shrugged before consoling the two ladies, "Don't listen to her. She never speaks what she truly feels."

"Hmph, what do you know?" Duna quickly snorted again.

Nevertheless, she did not comment any further than that and simply obliterated the mutant rats in front of her in silence.

"These rats are at least 3-Star to 5-Star Ranked Awakener equivalent in strength…" Leon briefly gauged the strength of the mutant black rats in their surroundings.

Shortly after, he wondered whether they were a stronger species of rats than the Wingrats or they have simply grown this strong within a short period of time due to the Cataclysm.

Leon shortly shook his head of the idle thoughts and spoke, "There's no need to send Darlene and Lilith away. I will lure all these rats away from Soft Feather."

"Don't take any unnecessary risk, Leon."

"Right, how do you plan on achieving that? Can your little bit of flesh or blood be more desirable than our big bird here?"

Aria expressed her concern while Duna quickly doubted before Leon smiled slightly with an unconcerned attitude, "I have a bigger bird."

"Get lost."

Duna immediately rolled her eyes.

"Hahaha…" Leon chuckled softly before his eyes flickered with a solemn and sharp glint, "You'll see."

Shortly after Leon said this, he immediately sliced his own arm and allowed himself to bleed before a rich yet surprisingly pleasant scent of blood pervaded from his body.

Swoosh~!

Leon quickly separated himself from the rest of the group while the noses of every flying mutant rat twitched before they squeaked and chased after him.

Squeak! Squeak!

Shinggg!

Leon made a sharp sweep with his Tier 4 Bone Spear, immediately bisecting several dozens of flying mutant rats in a single swing!

The blood spilled from bodies did not plummet out of the sky with their bisected bodies but froze in midair for a brief moment before they were absorbed and refined by Leon with the Everlasting Blood Mantra.

Swoosh~!

Numerous drops of Origin Blood were refined from the blood essence of the flying mutant rats before they were fused with Leon's blood, increasing his Origin Blood collection to 11 types of Origin Blood.

At the same time, the other duplicate Origin Bloods were transformed into vital energy that reinvigorated Leon, filling his body with a seemingly endless amount of vitality and stamina.

Squeak! Squeak!

The flying mutant rats went crazy at once due to his rich and overpowering scent of blood as he failed to contain all the vital energy and allowed it to leak out of his body to capture their attention.

"Come to me, vermins!" Leon welcomed the mutant rats without fear.

"Leave these berserk mutant rats to be and find an opening to break out from their encirclement! I'm going to use their blood to practice my Everlasting Blood Mantra!" Leon shouted to the others shortly after.

"Be careful!" Aria warned.

"I will!" Leon spouted before reassuring, "Don't worry, these rats won't be able to harm me!"

The dense clouds of flying mutant rats surrounding Soft Feather and the others quickly thinned out as they soared in pursuit of Leon.

Duna's eyes immediately flickered.

With a wave of her hand, a wave of destruction reduced hundreds of flying mutant rats ahead into scattering ashes, revealing a clear sky on the other side.

"This way!" Duna hollered to the others.

…

Meanwhile, in another region of airspace, Leon pulled the dense clouds of flying mutant rats away while swinging his bone spear left and right, cleaving away hundreds of rats at a time as he descended towards the surface and fight on the ground.

He did not use any other power available to him—only relying on the physical prowess granted by his powerful Body Cultivation to slay the mutant rats with brute force while drawing their blood for practice.

Awrooo!

Silver's howl was shortly heard as Leon sensed its presence, moving towards his location with excitement while mowing down the mutant rats obstructing its path.

In a short moment, the Transcendent-level silver wolf's figure was revealed, bursting out from a sea of mutant rats with its big furry body soaked in the blood of its prey.

"You want to fight by the side, huh? Fine, let's do it! Kill them all, Silver! No treat if you kill any less than me!"

"Awrooo!"

After giving a mighty howl, the Transcendent-level silver wolf dived straight back into the sea of berserk mutant rats, incited to hunt them all down in a frenzy.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Berserk mutant rats were slapped left and right by Silver's powerful tails, shattering bones and crushing organs that they were blown away by the force of the tail blows.

At the same time, Leon never stopped swinging his bone spear, reaping dozens to hundreds of lives with each sweep and blowing their scattered parts away while their blood quickly soaked the earth.

Nevertheless, the flying mutant rats' form made Leon furrowed his brows in thought, especially their wings that looked like bat wings but made of bone and crystallized blood.

'These rodents can still be recognized for now, but if they continue to mutate, would they still be considered rodents or recognized as such?' Leon mused while forming piles of carcasses under his bone spear before they were blown away by the wind pressure of his swings.

Suddenly, Leon was reminded of the fleshly abomination.

'What did those things used to be, I wonder?'

…

"Let us hold our ground here, where we can still see Leon in the distance," Aria suggested while slaying a few lingering flying mutant rats in the sky after the group broke out of the rat tide's encirclement.

"Sounds good to me. I can finally catch a breather," Soft Feather spoke before descending to the ground where she could inspect the state of her wings.

Thud!

Soft Feather landed shortly on an enormous black mountain with a heavy thud, causing the entire mountain to shake unstably and rumble before it started to deform.

Countless black bodies rolled down from the top of the black mountain before everyone realized it was not an ordinary mountain but a massive black mountain made with an unfathomable amount of rodent carcasses!

The ladies all quickly furrowed their brows in disgust due to the pungent stench before they each used their own means to eliminate the horrible smell from the region.

"The number of carcasses here is even greater than the Western Frontier… Evidently, a great battle had been fought here…" Aria commented while inspecting the surroundings on one of her flying ice-lightning swords.

Shortly after, she turned to Lilith and asked, "How much further until we reach your Desolate Crow Clan?"

"Not much further, I think?" Lilith answered with uncertainty.

"This region of the Wildlands was changed so much I am unable to recognize where we are… The amount of carcasses here is simply too horrifying…"

"But reasonably speaking, we should have already arrived at my Desolate Crow Clan by now…" Lilith added with a frown.

Duna hummed with a low tune before nonchalantly asking Lilith, "Any chance that so-called Desolate Crow Clan of yours is buried under this endless heap of rodent carcasses?"

"This…"

Lilith's expression froze before her heart was shaken by Duna's question.

"That might be possible...."

Chapter 607 - Inexhaustible

Subconsciously, Lilith did not want to think about such a possibility.

If the entire tribe was buried under the endless mass of rat carcasses, it would imply that the Desolate Crow Clan was most likely…

As Lilith arrived at this chain of thought, Aria's sudden pat made her jump slightly in surprise.

"There's no conclusive evidence that Desolate Crow Clan has been wiped, so let us not jump to conclusions," Aria said with a slight smile.

"Yeah, even if the Desolate Crow Clan was buried under here, it does not mean that everyone died here. They could have fled to seek refuge at a higher-ranking tribe," Soft Feather added lazily, laying down on a layer of ice covering over the black carcasses.

"Let us have a look, shall we?" Duna suggested.

But before anyone could agree, she went ahead and cleaved the mountain of carcasses apart with a slight wave of destruction, causing her fingernails to crack at the same time.

"Tch!"

Without any surprises, Duna was unsatisfied with the result—having only made a small fissure, which was no different from a slight crack on the big mountain.

"It's going to take more effort than that if you want to dig through this big mountain," Aria commented with amusement.

Duna gave her a look before she snorted, "If you know, then hurry up and come help."

"If that how you ask someone for help?" Aria responded uncooperatively, causing Duna to give her another glance as sparks seemed to clash between their gazes.

Nevertheless, Aria relented with a shrug after looking at Lilith's dejected look, "Well, alright. Not a big deal anyway."

Shortly after, Aria raised her hand and commanded the ice-lightning swords to form a lotus sword formation and drill into the small fissure created by Duna.

Rumble!

The mountain of carcasses could be felt vibrating from the drilling, causing Soft Feather discomfort as she could not even rest on her sheet of ice in peace.

She raised her raised with displeasure before spouting with a soft sigh, "Let me help."

"And what can I do to help?" Darlene inquired, feeling the need to contribute to the team despite her unfamiliarity with everyone.

As the weakest and most likely also the newest member in the group, it was something she needed to deal with if she wanted to build a harmonious relationship with everyone.

"You? It's fine." Aria shook her head and said, "You don't need to do anything. Just stick close to Soft Feather and watch yourself. The ground will be unstable and cause you to trip if you are not careful—"

Boom!

A pile of carcasses was suddenly blasted into the air some distance away from the group as several dozens—No, hundreds of shadows shot out from underneath.

In the next moment, Soft Feather and the others were entirely surrounded by a group of beastkin warriors, weapons drawn and pointed at them with hostile gazes.

'Transcendents!'

Aria and Duna immediately narrowed their eyes, feeling the strong aura emanated from the several dozen warriors.

Nevertheless, they were only Rank 1 Transcendents while the rest were mainly at the 9-Star Ranked Awakener in strength and below.

Shortly after, a beastkin warrior in black feathery armor stepped forward before barking, "Why are you trying to enter our tribe?! State your intentions clearly or die!"

"Are you threatening me?" Duna's expression immediately glazed with coldness.

Several beastkin warriors were quickly intimidated by Duna's powerful and menacing aura in that single instance. Still, they neither retreated nor cowered as they endured Duna's pressure head-on.

They have been tempered by blood and battle and would not succumb to fear so easily.

"Seems you have chosen death!" the black-feathered beastkin warrior stated with a grave look, having understood that the woman in front of him was powerful despite being unable to gauge her cultivation!

As the black-feathered beastkin warrior raised his hand and ready to give the kill order, Lilith quickly stepped out from behind Duna and shouted, "Wait! Uncle Jorn! It's me, Lilith!"

"Halt!"

The black feathery-armored beastkin warrior called Uncle Jorn immediately stopped his men from attacking with a hand gesture before glancing back at Lilith with surprise.

"Little Princess? You're back!" Jorn spoke before to his men, "Lower your weapons! Her Highness has returned!"

"Welcome back, Your Highness!" The beastkin warriors all greeted shortly after.

Lilith gave her surrounding clan members a sweeping glance with joy in her eyes, seeing there are survivors. She immediately became hopeful for the rest of the tribe.

"What is the situation of the clan, Uncle Jorn? How are my parents?" Lilith quickly inquired with an expectant gaze.

"They…" Jorn suddenly paused with a frown as he observed the rat tide's movements in the distance before continuing, "Let us talk inside the clan, Little Princess. We need to hide and mask our scent before the berserk rats are attracted."

"You don't need to worry about that. The rat tide is currently preoccupied with something else. Why don't you take a closer look and see what is actually happening?"

Duna stated coolly before adding with a frosty expression, "You did not answer my question. Were you threatening me?"

"I apologize for our disrespect, miss." Jorn quickly apologized before asking respectfully, "How should I address you, miss?"

Although he could not tell Duna's cultivation, he understood that she had to be very powerful to be able to make everyone feel apprehensive with just her aura alone.

"Duna. You may call me Duna."

As Duna introduced herself, Lilith quickly took the initiative to introduce the rest of the group to her Uncle Jorn, who was a close confidante of her father, the clan leader of the Desolate Crow Clan.

Once the introduction was done, Jorn and the beastkin warriors' gazes lingered on Soft Feather in awe as it was rare for them to see such a big and majestic beast in their region.

"I didn't expect to see a member of the Blue Luan race in these parts of the Wildlands. Desolate Crow Clan is honored by your presence, Princess Soft Feather," Jorn said humbly.

After Lilith's introduction, the beastkin warriors were further made aware of Soft Feather's identity as the daughter of a Paragon from the Blue Luan Tribe, a higher-ranking tribe than their Mid-rank tribe, due to Aria's insertion.

"Hmph, it is good that you know."

Soft Feather strutted with her head proudly raised to the high heavens with smugness written all over her face as she enjoyed the reverence and respect of the beastkin warriors of the Desolate Crow Clan.

"Don't feed her ego. These Blue Luans can be prouder than the heavens themselves if you showering them with a little bit of respect and admiration," Duna casually stated, causing Soft Feather's mood to turn foul.

"Hmph, you want to say that again?"

In a short instance, Soft Feather began to bicker with Duna.

Nevertheless, Jorn and the other beastkin warriors did not pay attention to this as their gazes shifted to the rumbling distance, where Leon and Silver fought with the swarming rat tide.

"Such vigor and valiance! I wonder which expect is fighting over? We need to help them! Even Rank 2 Transcendents could be exhausted to death if they were to fight the rat tide!" Jorn spoke with a solemn look.

Aria's eyes immediately flickered.

"Where are you going?" Duna casually asked Aria, seeing that she was about to head off on her ice-lightning sword.

"Since Lilith and Darlene are safe over here, I am going back to help Leon fight off the berserk rats," Aria calmly answered.

However, she was quickly stopped by Duna, "Leon doesn't need your help. Can't you see he is having so much fun over there? Are you sure you want to spoil it?"

"This…" Aria frowned.

At the same time, Jorn opened his mouth and spoke, "Miss Duna, I am afraid I cannot agree. No matter how much fun the person is having, it would not last forever—they would not last forever."

"To throw away one's life for fun is simply not worth it. Moreover, this person appears to be Rank 2 Transcendent. It will be regrettable if we lose such an expert in these lands that currently runs rampant with rat tides."

"You're really stupid, you know that?" Duna quickly insulted before saying, "Does it looked Leon is showing any signs of exhaustion? No, rather than that, he is becoming more and more energetic over time."

Being a ghoul-like being in her present state with regular bloodthirsts, Duna was naturally most sensitive to blood.

Although Leon was not growing stronger in strength, she could definitely sense that his vigor was growing over time—even when she is over a dozen miles away from Leon's location.

"This…" Jorn expressed his doubt.

Being unable to sense what Duna sensed, Jorn turned to the Little Princess, Lilith, for answers. However, Lilith was unable to ascertain Duna's claims as well and turned to Aria.

"She's… probably telling the truth," Aria shrugged nonchalantly on the surface, but in truth, she was slightly unwilling to speak up for Duna in her heart.

Nevertheless, she did not want to look petty.

…

Meanwhile, Leon continued to sweep away waves after waves of black mutant rats without a hint of injury on his body nor a trace of fatigue on his face.

He was inexhaustible.

At the same time, his boiling and vigorous blood drove the squeaking rats crazy!

On the other hand, the Transcendent-level silver wolf sustained numerous injuries as bite marks were seen all over its body.

Upon seeing this, Leon hollered, "Eat this, Silver."

Swoosh~!

A Tier 3 healing pill was tossed over before Silver snatched it with his teeth within a blink of an eye and swallowed it down—whilst being under the barrage of the mutant rats at the same time.

"Hoho, nice reaction."

Chapter 608 - Silver's Mutation

Shortly after feeding the Silver the Tier-3 healing pill, Leon wrinkled his brows in thought while swinging his bone spear in a continuous and circular loop that forms a defensive circle the rats could not breach with their inferior strength.

'I have become quite proficient in the Everlasting Blood Mantra. Refining Origin Blood only takes up one-third of the time when I first started practicing this technique. Practicing any further than this is will just be a waste of time…' Leon mused.

He has reached his current speed limit in refining Origin Blood from the mutant rats' extracted blood essence.

'Despite refining so many Origin Blood from these mutant rats, they have not been able to provide me with any new type of Origin Blood. These rodents serve no other purpose than to replenish my stamina…'

At this point, Leon had most likely slaughtered at least several hundred thousands of flying mutant rats, but despite this, he only has 11 types of Origin Blood.

'If I want to master the Everlasting Blood Mantra and advance Body Cultivation's blood refining phase swiftly, I will need to find places with large and diverse gatherings of beasts… like beast tribes, I suppose.'

'However, I cannot just slaughter all the beasts in a beast tribe for no good reason if they are not my enemy, not to mention I do not necessarily have to kill them to obtain their Origin Blood. Just enough blood essence will do…' Leon contemplated.

'Time to wrap this up quickly, so I can regroup with the others and continue our journey.'

Having settled his mind, Leon shifted his focus back on the mutant rats with a sharp glint and began slaughtering the vermins with greater ferocity and power—!

Awrooo!

The Transcendent-level silver wolf suddenly gave a mighty howl of pain, causing Leon to glance over immediately with a frown, "Hm?"

"Silver, what's wrong?!" Leon quickly hollered with a clear and resounding voice.

However, the three-tailed silver wolf did not seem to have heard him.

Instead, it continued howling while rolling around on the blood-soaked ground in anguish as if it was being tormented by a thousand ants gnawing its innards.

Leon quickly shot over and cleared the mutant rats in the area with a mighty sweep of his bone spear set aflame with scorching heat under his Fire Law.

Tens of thousands of rodents were immediately swept away by a flame wave before a ring of fire was formed, baring the mutant rats from coming closer.

'This is…'

Leon's frown deepened after taking the chance to inspect the three-tailed silver wolf's condition.

He could see redness in the three-tailed silver wolf's eyes, but it was not the result of the Wrathful Demonic Energy corrupting its mind and making it go berserk.

"Awroooo!" Silver howled.

Bones could be heard creaking and cracking while the surface of its flesh squirmed like worms as veins protruding on its body.

Myriad changes could be seen under Leon's divine sense before his eyes flickered with a conclusion, 'Silver is undergoing a mutation!'

"But is this mutation a good thing or a bad thing? Come to think of it, how did beasts grow stronger before they gain intelligence and learn to cultivate?" Leon wondered.

'Descendents of divine beasts had their powerful latent bloodline to help them, but what about the beasts in the lower spectrum without any noble heritage from their ancestors?'

Evidently, there were no divine beasts in the absolute beginning.

"Only through evolution and cultivation were they able to become divine beasts. I have only taught Silver about Divine Beast Cultivation recently. It shouldn't be undergoing cultivation breakthrough," Leon muttered.

Not to mention, a cultivation breakthrough would not alter the beast's body constitution like he was currently witnessing in front of him.

"Which leaves us with evolution, huh?"

Having reached this conclusion, Leon decided not to interfere with the three-tailed silver wolf's evolution and chose to protect it from being interrupted by the mutant rats.

"The wall of flames will keep the mutant rats from coming close. It's fine to leave Silver here and focus entirely on killing."

Swoosh~!

Leon flew outside the fire ring and dived straight into the sea of rats with his bone spear ignited in flames and began burning all the rodents in his range.

Squeak! Squeak!

The flying mutant rats immediately cried in burning agony under the power of Leon's scorching hot flames, causing the fast rodents to quickly retreat in alarm and fear.

As for the slow ones, there was no need to mention what happened to them. Naturally, the fast ones lived, and the slow ones died.

Flickers of intelligence were reflected in the eyes of the surviving rodents, but it only lasted a brief moment before they were replaced by the original berserk-red gazes.

Leon narrowed his eyes before pondering, "There are some other things I have meant to try for some time now. I shall use this chance to practice it on these rats."

…

Meanwhile, the three-tailed silver wolf continued to howl and squirm on the ground—when a new tail was eventually squeezed out, its claws became sharper, and its fur became harder!

Boom!

Sometime later, the three-tailed—No, the four-tailed silver wolf completed its evolution as its aura surged fiercely and proudly!

Awrooo!

A single mighty howl quickly shook the battlefield!

The unprotected eardrums of several mutant rats were immediately ruptured before Silver leaped out of the fire ring and slammed its paw down on a group of mutant rats.

Boom!

A heap of the dirty rose into the sky as the earth shattered under the force of the four-tailed silver wolf's powerful paw, crushing all numerous mutant rats before sweeping out with its four tails and sliced up hundreds of rats with its sharp wind pressure.

In the distance, Jorn and the beastkin warriors observed the battle before they were shocked by the four-tailed silver wolf's changes.

"Oh my god, that silver wolf was only an Early-stage Rank 1 Transcendent just a moment ago, but now, its strength directly shot up to Early-stage Rank 2 Transcendent!"

"We can only improve our strengths 1 stage at a time, but a single evolution allowed the silver wolf to jump an entire rank. This kind of increase in power is unreal!"

The beastkin warriors spoke.

Chapter 609 - Law Fusion

"I didn't expect that Silver's evolution would help it improve its strength by so much. This was almost a tenfold improvement!"

While killing rats in his surroundings, Leon directed some of his attention to watching the silver wolf fight with a curious gaze.

"It also grew an extra tail after its evolution… Does this mean it will continue to grow an extra tail with each tail?" Leon muttered with surprise.

"It seems I would need to re-evaluate Silver's bloodline… It might have a noble lineage that I am not aware of—No, the Cataclysm must have played a major part in its evolution."

The mutations were changes brought by the Cataclysm and only made possible because of it.

"Either way, it seems that Silver has a chance to become something much stronger than ordinary divine beasts—and much quicker than I anticipated at that…"

"Wolves are also proud beings. It would not be appropriate for me to continue calling Silver by such a lousy pet name… I should come up with a better name for a future divine beast…" Leon contemplated.

But then again, he was never good with names.

Eventually, Leon stopped paying attention to the silver wolf and resumed his experimentation with the mutant rats as his target practice.

'Let's try it,' Leon decided.

The Tier 4 Bone Spear was shortly stored away before Leon reach out his hands as the power of Fire Laws quickly gather on one palm while the power of Ice Law gathered on the other hand.

He had fused laws of perfect cycles to produce Grandmist Energy according to the Hegemon of Primal Chaos.

However, what he currently wanted to find out is what sort of power would be produced by fusing different combinations of laws.

'Considering the law seeds are all merged with my soul core, even if I was to fail, I should at least have the ability to even make an attempt at law fusion.'

"For my first experiment, Fire Law and Ice Law. What sort of power will be produced by fusing these two laws, I wonder?" Leon muttered before clapping his hands together.

Naturally, he knew that fire and ice would mutually destroy and cancel each other out, but this only applies when a person tries to fuse the elements.

What he was attempting to do was to fuse the two laws themselves.

In a short moment, the Fire Law and Ice Law in Leon's hands made contact before feeling a repulsive force pushing the two laws away from each other.

When he tried to force the two together, a stronger repulsive force was produced, forcing Leon's hands to bounce apart.

At the same time, the power of Fire Law and Ice Law in his hands was reduced in size.

"Simply jamming them together would not work, huh? Figures. If it was that easy, there would have been many experts in this field already," Leon said self-mockingly.

At the same time, the mutant rats were constantly on his tails.

With his hands preoccupied, he had been using his legs to sweep them away, clearing out space for himself to continue his experimentation.

'Since jamming together won't work. Let's try another approach… for example, the concept of yin and yang, perhaps?' Leon decided.

There was yin and yang, and yang in yin. The two form a delicate yet intricate balance with profound truths pertaining to the way of the universe.

Many things could be derived from the concept of yin and yang. Even some martial arts were formed based on yin and yang.

However, Leon took the most straightforward method and swirled the two laws of ice and fire together like two strands intertwining, forming many layers in between each other.

As such, the strands of Ice Law would always be surrounded by Fire Laws, while in turns, the strands of Fire Laws would also be surrounded by Ice Laws.

Leon watched the two laws coming together and contacted like two different colors blending in a mixer, causing his eyes to flicker with excitement.

'It's working!' Leon exclaimed in his mind before an accidental lapse in concentration immediately made the two powers spiral out of control, causing his expression to change abruptly in that single instance.

'Oh shit!'

Boom!

A powerful explosion immediately blew Leon like a catapult as his body through the air and slamming through numerous mutant rats, crushing them to death.

At the same time, the explosion generated an enormous blast wave of red and blue aura that immediately swept across the field of mutant rats.

"Ugh, to make such a rookie mistake…" Leon shook his head wryly with a self-deprecating smile before feeling pain in his arms.

After realizing one side was burnt while the other was frozen, Leon was astonished.

However, what lay in the distance ahead of him was even more astonishing than the injuries he found on his own hands!

One side of the field was completely scorched black by the flames, while the other side was frozen with numerous icy spikes pointed outward.

The area coverage of the damage far exceeded Leon's imagination.

If he had not been the culprit that caused such destruction, he would have believed that it was the result of trying to fuse two little balls of primary laws together.

"Isn't this sort of multiplicative increase in power a little too frightening? The power must have increased by at least a fiftyfold…" Leon's lips twitched at the result.

If the incomplete fusion power of two laws at the 9-Star Rank Awakener level already produced destruction similar to a Mid-stage Rank 1 Transcendent, how strong would a complete fusion power of ice and fire be?

All the mutant rats in the area of devastation were wiped out, but there are still many more vermin in the region.

"I shall put a pause on the law fusion experiment for now… It's a little too dangerous to play with," Leon chuckled wryly before shaking off the ice and healing his hands.

Shortly after his hands were healed with the triple aid of pills, wood energy, and his body's current regenerative ability, Leon drew his spear and dived back into battle.

Chapter 610 - Awe And Fear

A few moments into battle, Leon withdrew a silver needle, preparing to test his next experiment.

After he instilled a very faint trace of Nihility Law into the silver needle, he spread out his divine sense and shot the silver needle at a mutant rat's head.

Swoosh~!

The silver needle quickly shot through the air.

But before it could reach the mutant rat, the power of Nihility Law corroded the silver needle until it was exhausted, causing only the butt of the silver needle to remain, which penetrated the mutant rat's head slightly.

"As expected, the power of Nihility Law is too overbearing, huh? It'll be difficult to imbue Nihility Law into any of my attacks if it only ends up damaging my weapons," Leon muttered with a slight frown.

He could see that the mutant rat had survived with the butt of the silver needle sticking out of its forehead.

Nevertheless, the purpose of his experiment was not to kill the mutant rat but to cure it.

"Nevermind. I shall try something else," Leon decided.

Swoosh~!

He immediately dived into the sea of mutant rats and singled out one from the group, clutching it firmly by the neck before separating himself from the rest with a single spear swing.

Squeak! Squeak!

The captured mutant rat dangled powerlessly in Leon's grasp with its futile resistance before Leon locked onto the Wrathful Demonic Energy in its body and extracted every ounce of it.

Shortly after the energy was refined, Leon tossed the mutant rat back into the group.

Most of the mutant rats ignored it and continued rushing towards Leon in their vain attempts to hunt him down.

However, a few mutant rats paused and circled around the mutant rat that seemingly lost all traces of its berserk state, studying it curiously.

Squeak! Squeak!

The mutant rat tried to communicate.

However, in the next moment, the surrounding mutant rats immediately pounced onto it and tore the thing apart with their sharp teeth.

Within a few breathes, the mutant rat was mostly devoured by its berserk brethren, leaving nothing behind except a few bones and patches of blood.

"It's too troublesome to cure these guys. And even if I do, they just become food for their own kind, huh? This is not worth the effort," Leon understood.

It was better to just kill them all.

Once he arrived at this conclusion, he immediately exerted his Nihility Law to the limit, forming a short-range barrier around himself and simply allowed the mutant rats to charge to their own deaths like moths drawn to the flame.

Squeak! Squeak!

The mutant rats immediately cried after charging into the Nihility Law Barrier as Leon watched their bodies disintegrated.

However, there were too many rodents for the Nihility Law Barrier to completely stop the mutant rats from breaching his defense.

"My comprehension of the Nihility Law is still a little low…" Leon muttered casually without a hint of urgency.

With a wave of his hand, he summoned a wall of flames to incinerate his enemies, adding a flame barrier after Nihility Law Barrier.

Any chances of the mutant rats reaching Leon were reduced to zero.

As the mutant rats continued to kill themselves without further actions required from Leon, he took the chance to review his previous experiment on law fusion.

The power of fire and ice law fusion far exceeded his imagination.

"Although I expected the power of law fusion to be great, it was far greater than I had hoped. Is it because I chose two laws of extreme polarity or something else?" Leon pondered.

Most likely, if he was to attempt at fusion two other laws, it would not have been as difficult, nor would it have been as powerful as the fusion between ice and fire.

"I don't want to sound arrogant, but chances are, anyone else conducting a law fusion of fire and ice would most likely fail," Leon thought.

He thought he finally understood what it means to be a Hegemon of Primal Chaos, but it seems that there was still much to learn.

"Only people who practice the Hegemon of Primal Chaos would be able to bend the very laws of the universe, I'm guessing?"

…

Meanwhile, the other beastkin warriors continued to observe the rat tide's situation from a distance on the black mountain before their eyes shrank.

'What kind of power is that?' The beastkin warriors were shocked.

Beastkin races with bird lineages like their Desolate Crow Clan were all endowed with sharper visions than any other beast races in the Wildlands.

They could see some sort of invisible power reducing the mutant rats into…

'Is that energy?! This person is some sort of bizarre power to convert living beings into pure energy?!'

Although the beastkin warriors could not recognize what kind of energy was being produced, it did not make them any less shocked than they already are.

In fact, they were even more shocked!

'Just who is this human? How could he wield such a bizarre yet incredible power?' The beastkin warriors' gazed burned with intense curiosity.

At the same time, some apprehension and fear sprouted in their hearts.

The human's bizarre power appeared almost demonic due to their lack of understanding, and because they did not understand it, they feared it.

If the mutant rats could be converted into pure energy, then they could also be as well—If the human decided to use that power on them, that is.

'This person must not be offended!' The beastkin warriors thought.

Although they could not observe the whole situation clearly due to the mutant rats' swarming blotting out the area, only allowing them to peer through the gaps from time to time, they did not believe their eyes deceived them.

The beastkin warriors glanced over to the Little Princess with questions in their minds but seeing that the Little Princess was chatting with her Uncle Jorn, they could only keep silent until she was done.

As for the Blue Luan and the other ladies in the group, the beastkin warriors were not familiar with them enough to strike up a conversation and ask.

"Uncle Jorn, since we do not have to worry about the berserk mutant rats, you can tell me what has been happening in the clan now, right?" Lilith asked.

"Well…" Jorn glanced into the distance for a moment before he nodded, "I suppose we can talk here."

Chapter 611 - Fenrir

"As you can probably already see and tell, Little Princess, the clan is currently buried under this mountain of carcasses." Jorn proceeded to explain the situation.

"There were simply too many rats attacking the clan that we had no choice but to use their carcasses as cover and hide from them after losing more than half our people in the battle."

"We lost more than half our clan to the rat tide?" Lilith repeated with a heavy heart before gazing at the black cloud of mutant rats attacking Leon in the distance with a frown.

At the same time, Aria and Duna also turned their heads to look while listening in on Lillith and Jorn's conversation.

Although the current rat tide's numbers were great, it was still inferior to the rat tide they faced at the Western Frontier.

"Losing half our clan's population is not a small loss... but with our clan's strength, I am sure that we can still finish off the rat tide if there was only this much left…" Lilith said.

After Jorn heard this, he smiled bitterly before saying, "That would indeed be correct if our warriors were all in peak conditions at that time, Little Princess. However, we are not tireless machines."

"After slaying more than a billion rats, everyone was too exhausted to continue fighting for much longer. Also, the remaining rat tide back then was still much bigger than what you currently see now, Little Princess."

"Mostly likely after we went into hiding, the majority of the mutant rats went looking for other prey after losing their targets," Jorn inserted after his explanation.

"I see…" Lilith uttered with a hint of awkwardness.

After witnessing Leon's seemingly endless vigor, she seemed to have forgotten such a simple truth.

Not everyone had a secret method of replenishing their stamina like he did.

"Pardon my ignorance regarding the Wildlands, but I find this rather strange…" Aria suddenly inserted herself into their conversation with a wrinkled expression.

Even so, Jorn was not displeased with Aria's sudden interjection and asked her with respect, "What do you find strange, Miss Aria?"

"The rat tide. I am aware that the Wildlands is vast, and rodents breed very fast, but there shouldn't have been this many in one region, no?" Aria asked.

Back in the Western Frontier, she had thought the rat tide was quite large but still within a reasonable range.

However, after seeing the carcasses in the Desolate Crow Clan and thought about other places in the Wildlands that were most likely also under attack by rodents, the added numbers far exceeded the scope of being normal.

"Right, I also find it quite strange that these creatures just seemingly burst out of nowhere," Jorn nodded.

"These species weren't born to live deep beneath the earth, and neither would their natural predators have allowed them to breed to the point of being overpopulated like this."

"Not unless someone purposely protected and bred them," Aria guessed.

"Rather than someone, it's more like some force—And a tremendous force at that. This isn't something a single person can pull off," Duna joined with a calm and collected expression.

Jorn frowned with concerns before asking, "But for what purpose would they be doing this?"

"To take over the world? To destroy all life? Who knows? But one thing for sure is that the rat tide is only the beginning. Perhaps, they will reveal themselves after every tribe under attack is worn out," Duna casually spoke.

Jorn furrowed his brows before asking, "How can you say that so calmly, Miss Duna?"

"Am I not supposed to? What does the Wildlands have to do with me? Whatever happens to it is of little concern," Duna stated nonchalantly.

"You…"

Jorn was struck speechless.

Nevertheless, he recovered after a short moment before stating seriously, "If the unknown enemy truly wants world domination or to wipe out all life, this is a matter that concerns every living being!"

"And what makes you think I am one such being?" Duna asked coolly.

"You…"

Jorn was stunned before his eyes widened in realization after failing to sense Duna's heartbeat and warmth.

"You… what are you?—"

"Let us continue this topic after Leon finish dealing with the rat tide."

Once Aria, who Jorn believed to be the strongest person in the group, said this, he had no choice but to give a silent nod before everyone else also expressed their agreement.

Shortly after, Lilith changed the topic and asked, "Uncle Jorn, what about my parents? How have they been? Did the Desolate Netherbird Tribe make things difficult for them during my absence?"

"They were…" Jorn hesitated.

Upon seeing Uncle Jorn's hesitation, Lilith's expression immediately turned solemn before she requested with a firm look, "Please tell me everything that has happened, Uncle Jorn."

"This… Well, alright."

…

Sometime later, the last mutant rat on the battlefield was slain before Leon dispersed his barriers of fire and nihility.

"A lot less messy than I anticipated," Leon casually commented while giving his surroundings a quick inspection.

Suddenly, he frowned before giving his hands a glance.

Although the injuries fully healed, he could vaguely feel the heat and coldness in each hand—almost as if it was an illusion.

"The coldness is coming from my burnt hand while the heat is coming from my frozen hand, huh? How peculiar…" Leon muttered with slightly creased brows.

However, before he could continue his train of thought, he was interrupted by Silver's feet entering his field of vision, causing him to look up at the four-tailed silver wolf's prominent figure standing before him.

Seeing that the four-tailed silver wolf had a solemn and dignified aura surrounding it as it gazed back at him with a sharp look, Leon raised an eyebrow.

"What? Now that you have evolved and become a Rank 2 Transcendent, you don't want to listen to me anymore?" Leon asked.

The four-tailed silver wolf gazed back at Leon with an even deeper look.

However, in the next moment, it rolled over with its limbs hanging before giving Leon a soft bark as if asking him to reward it with a belly rub for the excellent work it has done.

"Awroof!"

"…"

Leon smiled wryly.

Perhaps, he was just overthinking.

"Alright, I have decided. From now on, you'll be called Fenrir," Leon stated while giving the four-tailed silver wolf a belly rub.

"This name hold significant meaning and expectations. I hope you will be able to live up to it."

"Awrooo!"

Chapter 612 - Desolate Crow Clan's Problem

Fenrir howled excitedly as it promised to live up to its new name.

At the same time, it was evidently very satisfied with its new name as it could be observed from the way it waved its four tails wildly.

"Alright, that's enough belly rub for you." Leon patted the four-tailed silver wolf.

Shortly after, he stated with a serious look, "Although you have become much stronger after your evolution, you must not forget what I taught you and continue to practice the cultivation technique I imparted."

"Awrooo!" Fenrir snorted.

"Don't look down on it, Fenrir. It might not seem like much now since you have little success in it, but at the higher level, it will increase your chance of becoming a divine beast, understand? At the very least, it will increase your spirituality and intelligence."

"Awroof!" Fenrir snorted again, thinking Leon was calling it stupid.

At the same time, it was already drunk on power, having tasted the benefit of evolution. Why the need to cultivate progressively step by step when a single evolution could allow it to take a big leap in power?

"Well, whatever. I am only saying this for your own good." Leon shrugged before urging Fenrir to follow him, "Come, let us return to the others."

"It seems like we could also use a wash after," Leon added shortly after.

"Awroof!"

Fenrir responded.

Swoosh~!

Leon and Fenrir raced to the black mountain together before they swiftly arrived before the others within a few short moments.

"Seems like we have arrived at the Desolate Crow Clan," Leon commented with a slight smile after noticing the presence of the beastkin warriors possessing black crow features.

But shortly after noticing the mood was not right, Leon furrowed his brows before asking, "What's wrong?"

"Lilith's parents were taken away by the Desolate Netherbird Tribe, and if she wanted them back, she must head there—or so the messenger stated according to this person."

Aria informed him before he shifted his gaze to the person leading the group of beastkin warriors.

"Greetings, Prince Leon," Jorn greeted before nodding, "It is as Miss Aria said. The Clan Leader and his wife were taken away by the Desolate Netherbird Prince's subordinates prior to the Cataclysm's arrival."

"If the Clan Leader and his wife were taken away, then who has been ruling the Desolate Crow Clan until now?" Leon frowned.

His objective question immediately received numerous glances from the ladies as they all turned to Beastkin Warrior Jorn, awaiting his answer.

"This…"

Jorn gave Lilith a careful glance.

He had yet to cover this topic in their previous talk. As such, Lilith and the others would also be hearing who is the current ruler of the Desolate Crow Clan for the first time.

After a short sigh, Jorn explained, "The current person in control of the Desolate Crow Clan is Lord Bahlzacs, a Mid-Rank 2 Transcendent and a close subordinate of the Desolate Netherbird Prince."

"The Desolate Crow Clan has not been the same ever since this person arrived and took control of the clan in the Desolate Netherbird Prince's stead."

"What did you just say, Uncle Jorn?"

Lilith's expression quickly turned gloomy before asking in a low tone mixed with hidden anger, "Our clan is being ruled by an outsider? Can our Desolate Crow Clan still be regarded as the Desolate Crow Clan if it is ruled by a member of a different race?"

The Desolate Crow Clan belonged to her father!

Although the Desolate Crow Clan and three other clans lived under the sovereignty of the Desolate Netherbird Tribe, they were still vassals that at least retained had their independence and self-governance.

However, now that Desolate Crow Clan was being ruled by a member of the Desolate Netherbird Tribe, it was the same as the Desolate Crow Clan becoming a territorial extension of the Desolate Netherbird Tribe!

"Many of our members also expressed the same opposition to Lord Bahlzacs's ruling. Any of the Elders would have been a better candidate to rule in the Clan Leader's absence than some outsider."

Beastkin Warrior Jorn nodded.

He could completely understand the Little Princess's frustration and anger.

Shortly after, Jorn shook his head and said with a helpless sigh, "However, there is nothing we can do. Our people are too weak to oppose the Desolate Netherbird Prince and his subordinates."

"It seems like this Desolate Netherbird Prince is not just a useless silkpants. I doubt he wanted your hand in marriage simply because he lusted for your beauty, Lilith," Aria stated with knitted brows.

Lilith immediately frowned before asking with a puzzled look, "What do you mean?"

"She means that the Desolate Netherbird Tribe's Second Prince is after the power that stands behind you and not you, yourself. It appears that the Desolate Netherbird Royal Family's situation is quite chaotic," Leon casually interjected.

"That's right." Jorn acknowledged with a nod.

"If the Little Princess had not run away from home and forced the Second Prince to become more desperate, we would have never realized the Second Prince's grand ambition. He wants to tie our Desolate Crow Clan under his banner and compete with the First Prince for the throne!"

"But while we understand what is going on, we are still helpless to change it. The marriage arrangement is something that has already been agreed upon by both parties," Jorn clenched his fist with gritted teeth.

"But I never agreed to the marriage arrangement!" Lilith stated strongly.

"Right, the Little Princess never agreed." Jorn nodded before stating, "However, your father, the Clan Leader, did."

"And because the Clan Leader agreed, our clan cannot be the one to break off this agreement. Otherwise, it will be viewed as disrespecting the Desolate Netherbird Royal Family."

"Is there nothing we can do about this?" Lilith asked helplessly, feeling despair seeping into her heart.

"Just kill the Desolate Netherbird Second Prince, and your problems will naturally be resolved," Duna stated nonchalantly before adding, "Well, you can also swear fealty to the First Prince and have the First Prince deal with the Second Prince."

"Oh my…"

The surrounding beastkin warriors exclaimed before looking around cautiously for anyone that may have overheard Duna's words.

"That is easier said than done, Miss Duna," Jorn smiled bitterly after similarly sweeping his surroundings cautiously for eavesdroppers.

Shortly after, he began explaining his concerns, "Although the Second Prince isn't strong, he always has at least one Mid-Rank 2 Transcendent at his side, protecting him."

"On the other hand, there is no certainty that the First Prince will help us if we swear fealty. He might even force us to become the vanguard in the battle for the throne. Furthermore, we would have completely offended the Second Prince in that case."

"Either way, our clan has been completely dragged into the two princes' struggles for the throne," Jorn sighed emotionally before saying, "You should leave, Little Princess. It's not safe for you here. If the Lord catches you, you will be taken to the Second Prince."

"There's not much time left. If I don't return to the clan with the other warriors soon, Lord Bahlzacs might start feeling suspicious," Jorn stated.

"I see…"

Lilith felt downcast.

She finally decided to return to the clan after much determination, but before she could even enter the clan, she was being forced to leave again.

Leon observed Lilith's mood for a moment before turning to Beastkin Warrior Jorn with a casual inquiry, "Let me asked you something. Would you rather succumb to your fates or fight it?"

"Given the chance, I would fight it, of course!" Jorn answered before asking with a self-deprecating smile, "But what good will fighting it do? The whole clan would be wiped out in the process."

"So, you and your men would rather live on your knees than die on your feet?" Leon asked.

Jorn and the other beastkin warriors clenched their fists tightly before Jorn gritted his teeth and said, "For the prosperity and continuation of the clan, we have no choice but to submit to fate."

"What a good 'for the prosperity and continuation of the clan,' huh? That's just an excuse for you to act like a coward," Duna mocked.

The beastkin warrior was immediately angered before Jorn thundered, "What did you just say?! Are you mocking our resolve?!"

"Of course! Not only am I mocking your resolve, but I am also mocking your intelligence!" Duna admitted with a disdainful gaze.

"You…!"

Jorn's body trembled with anger before pointing his finger with shaking hands, "The Desolate Crow Clan does not welcome you! Please leave!"

Duna's gaze turned cold immediately.

Before the situation took a drastic turn, Leon stepped in and interrupted with a raised hand before speaking softly to Duna, "Let me handle this."

"It does not matter which side your clan chooses; you would still be dragged to fight at the forefront! Even if you chose the winning side correctly, what do you think the result will be?" Leon turned to Jorn.

"This…"

Without waiting for Jorn's answer, Leon continued, "All your clan's best warriors will die in battle, the survivors will continue to live with their heads down, and the clan will decline until it fades into the obscurity of history!"

"If that is what you mean by prosperity and continuation of the clan, then, by all means, continue what you were planning to do," Leon shrugged before stating, "However, you are not the decision-maker of the Desolate Crow Clan."

"What do you think, Lilith? What do you want to do?" Leon turned to Lilith before stating with confidence, "If you want, we can help you save your clan from inevitable destruction."