The Capital City of Silce

However, Crushing Fang looked at Leon and the beast cores.

"Do you really want these? I have quite a bit of space left in my spatial ring. I can carry it for you if you want. Think of it as a little thank you for coming with us."

Getting such an offer, Leon couldn't turn it down so he nodded. Suddenly, Crushing Fang moved like a phantom and sped to each core and tapped it with his spatial ring until almost every beast core was sucked into his spatial ring.

After thanking Crushing Fang a bunch, the group decided to continue moving through the swamplands. As they walked, Leon tried to see if Ensis was a bloodline weapon.

'Ensis are you a bloodline weapon?'

A familiar voice appeared in the back of his mind once again.

「Technically yes and no. At the moment I'm still too weak so there wouldn't be any amplification. However, if you can get stronger. I might be able to do something similar.」

Hearing that Ensis could potentially act as a bloodline weapon or at least something similar, he became excited even though he hadn't broken through a single time with his two bloodlines.

'Do you know what level?'

But, he was only met with silence, which he just assumed meant that Ensis did not know either.

As the group continued their way through the swamplands they would see the occasional group of beasts that looked completely different from the ones the group had fought before.

However, these beasts would instantly leave the moment they saw the group.

Leon thought it was because the beasts were just extremely weak, but if he knew it was because the beasts were ordered by their leaders to back off when they see the group.

He would be amazed at the intelligence beasts had, but also confused as to how the beasts knew that the group was incredibly strong.

In reality, the beast that Crushing Fang had killed was one of the weaker apex beasts but still an apex beast in the swamps that had their own territory and subordinates.

However, once the giant whitish beast died. The territory it held crumbled as other apex beasts took it over, but the other apex beasts learned about what happened and decided to play it safe and not engage with the group.

After all, who would engage with a strong opponent if all they were doing was walking through their territory doing nothing for a brief amount of time?

After another few hours of walking without anything impeding on the group, they could finally see where the swamplands start tapering off.

Meanwhile, Leon had been drinking the blood stored in his canteen as he wasn't sure when it would go bad since his canteen didn't preserve the freshness of something like a spatial ring would.

Luckily for him, the beast was a newly minted A-Tier beast which meant that its body parts like meat and blood wouldn't go bad for quite a while.

Unfortunately for him, he was expecting a nice subtle flavor like the drop of blood he was given by Radiant Light.

With this in mind the first time he consumed the blood, Leon took a nice swig and almost spat it out since it tasted like dirt.

Crushing Fang and the others noticed this and gave a slight chuckle, but Leon could only grimace as he drank the horrible tasting blood and channeled his mana.

By the time the group made it out of the swamplands, he had already finished the remaining blood in his canteen and got a notification from the system.

(You have reached the maximum amount of benefit for *Confidential* Bear bloodline from Superior Black Flame Croc blood)

As Leon read the notice, he took a mental note of the name of the beast for later purposes and evaluated his progress with his bloodlines.

Although he didn't have any form of numerical proof, his gut feeling told him that both his bloodlines were almost at the first breakthrough and just needed that extra push to get him through.

By the time the group left the swamplands, the sun was already slowly descending as it was late into the afternoon.

Aurora looked into the distance and saw what looked like a small military base and a couple of roads. She pointed at the biggest road which appeared to be the main road.

"We just have to avoid the base and follow that road past the hills and we should see the capital."

But before they moved, the gate to the military base opened and hundreds of soldiers started to walk out in formation down the road towards Framas.

The group could only wait out the time it took them to get down the road and out of sight until they could start moving towards the capital.

The military base was located on the left side of the road so the group rerouted themselves to the right side of the road and sneaked their way across, but surprisingly the military base made no movements and noise.

Leon could only think that most of the soldiers most likely left responding to the "invasion" that the tribes were doing, which was good for the small squad of elites since the capital would be less protected.

By the time the group crossed the hills that the roads led into, the sun had already fallen and the sky showed a new moon, which meant the group was given an opportune time to act as there was not a lot of natural light to expose them.

As Leon walked up the hill with the squad, they finally reached the top and he finally got to see the capital of Silce.

The capital itself reminded him of Mifis, which wasn't surprising considering the fact that Silce was quite small. Just the fact that their capital was this big was already quite an achievement.

Meanwhile, Aurora looked at the capital city and frowned.

"That's weird. Normally the city would be bustling, but I can't see anyone or anything that isn't a soldier."