With the Provedence sacked and his army nowhere to be seen, and having double checked that his torturer had gone as well, Rex used his brand connection with his eagle that had been having some fun around the city, and some of the Svergi men were to be believed, the bird had some fun within the city as well, every now and then swooping down to brag an unsuspecting solder of the humans for a snack. Once the bird landed Rex petted it for a short while and spoke to the bird, who after the branding was bestowed the knowledge of common and could understand his words without much effort. The monster was powerfull enough to have the intelegence on the level of humans, so while answering with words was out of the question for the bird, conveying its general thoughts in long strokes was not impossible.

"I hear you had some fun and a snack or two within the city." Rex spoke during his petting. "I dont mind it at all. On the contrary, you have my permission to have fun with our enemies and feast to your hearts content whenever we are storming any of their congregations like villages or cities. I do ask that you try and not eat the prettiest of the women. Those are usefull and could sell well after all."

The bird leaned in more into his hands that stroked the side of his head, it was enjoying the attention quite a bit it seemed. Some few minutes later Rex stopped, and jumped on the birds back, and once he indicated the dirrection he wanted them to go in, his eagle took flight. Rex did not have to even talk. Their connection strong enough that he could easily nidge the bird with his mind when they needed to change dirrection, and since they were in contact with one another, he could also speak with the eagle somewhat telepathically. It took only a little while untill they reached the first of the few villages that stood in his way towards the next city of Nor.

As they were above the village Rex notified his eagle that he would not take long in dealing with this place, only a hundred or so people living here, and with the birds descent and understanding Rex leaped of its back. A few second later a loud crash was heard in the central area of the small village, drawing everyones attention to the very center of this village where a rather large dust could was slowly setting down. Slowly and bit by bit the people saw an appearance of a siluethe of a person, holding something in his hand, and the more moments passed the more and more they could make out the weapon he was holding. With the dust mostly settled Rex gaze suddenly locked on someone in the crowd, a maniacal grin appearing on his face as he spoke.

"The time to purge your kind for the atrocities you have been performing for centuries had come." and with those words he dissapeared from his spot, appearing next to the gathered crowd with insane speed beyond their comphrehension. Then his hand swung downcausing a splash of crimsonto splatter around as the man was split in half by the incredibly sharp blade. Then he dissapeared again, and moved slightly to the side, this time swinging his weapon in a large cleaving arc, cutting multiple people in half at the waist as he did so. It took him only a few seconds to to slaughter a few dozen of people whne finally the rest fell into a panic mode as whatever was happening finally registered in their minds.

Sadly for the rest of them, their fate was just the same, as Rex unreasonable speed allowed him to finish what he started in less than a minute. It did take a bit longer for him to eliminate the rest since they were scattering in all the possible dirrections, making him swing once for nearly every remaining and escaping villager. Still, with the unreasonable difference in their power he had absolutely no trouble in eliminating them all. Now that the village no longer had any living residents, he sent out a ping with his mana, sensing for any resonance of a highly concentrated mana object or a void in his ping. The heavy mana concentration would be an artifact of sorts, or just magically atuned item, be it sword or a piece of ormor, or even some magical materials aquired in the dungeons. The void zones in his mana pings indicated barriers or seals, warning him of a possible treasure or trap of a magical nature in said place. Either way it was good to check for such things. One could never know whether some old adventurer did not decide to hide their hoard in a remote and small village like this. He had found quite a few such hiding places in Provedence when he did the same there, and got his hands on a rather sizable stash of both gold and jewels of all sorts.

As expected there was nothing of importance here though and Rex proceeded to set up a very small and localized barrier on the village and with that done he set the place on fire. he saw no reason to leave all those corpses lying around for vultures and other predators to come around to clean it all up. The barrier would prevent the fire from spreading to the surroundings, ensuring no wildfires would bestarted and the place would be left nice and clean once it was burned through. Lighting the place on fire Rex got back up on his eagle and dirrected the bird further to his next target- yet another small village on his path towards the second of three major points of Nor. So went by the next few hours of Rex journey. Evey now and then dropping on a village from above, delivering the same line to the villagers "The time to purge your kind for the atrocities you have been performing for centuries had come." and then proceeding to perform his own version of cleansing. And once done, just like the first one today, another barrier was set after the looting part and then put to torch.

It was late night once again when he finally reached the confines of the second major target of the region of Nor and just like before he retired for the night to his shard wolrd where he spent a rather pleasant supper and night with his girls. Mel and Val did inform him that the new servants were integrating quite well, and the four kids were acting just timid and cute enough to ignite Rashuun, her daughters and the elven mother and daughter duo to redouble their efforts in persuading Rex towards their desires. Thankfully, the notable amount of carnage he was delving into helped just enough to not break under the constant effort of his girls. He did ensure they were all satisfied in different ways to offset his stuborness.

Next morning during the breakfast he listened to the report Reigen had for his regarding any notable changes in Blythe, or rumors the S class ex adventurer had heard that could be of interest to him. But besides the reports of the insane barrier around echlisiarchy that had cut said nation off the rest of the continent there was little that had piqued his servants interest. The man however thanked Rex for the chance to be in his employ. The man had grown quite a bit dur to the new diet he was under, and the fact that Rex had told his sucubuss trainers to use Reigen when rewarding Elena for good performance, had made said man almost fanatically loyal, even without taking into the account his brand. The man was aware that Elena was the first of many, and with apropriate service to his lord he might even get a girl of such quality as his personal woman. Rex had not denied the possibility, and even told Reigen to look for a partner of his own, if he so chooses, during his free time. The girl, or girls, he decides to make his family would be branded as well though, both to ensure no spies could infiltrate his forces as well as making said girls eligible to the boons his people are privy to. namely the mansion with its unreasonably higher density of mana in the air, as well as access to Elysium.

Reigen had been there often enough to know that the realm is a treasure trove in and of itself, as well as a perfect place to have ones family safely hidden should a danger of untold proportions threaten Blythe. And with Rex blessing Reigen had actually spent some of his free time looking for possible partners. Now that he had a permanent base of sorts the idea of family sounded more and more appealing. The fact that he also served a blood mage who was more than SS class entity in combat as well just strenghtened his faith of the stability of his home for years to come. It had to be pointed out that the new servants were added to the servant core, thus no acces to heaven grade breakfast, but regardless the earth grade meals every time was far more than they could have ever hoped for.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

With his morning routine dealt with, and a small report from Izumi, about the progress she and Rashuun was having in training Mikoto and Keiko in the matters of diplomacy to be able to stand in for the two, done with, Rex left his shard world and made a quick check on the progress the evacuation of the cities in echlisiarchy had achieved. Sadly, and just as expected, they were much slower than he would like, but also unwilling to do more charity for said escaping people Rex returned his focus to the small villages that were a bit off his way, but still needed a culling.

There was even a single such village that somewhat gave off some weird energy to him. He would leave that for later, just before he finally decided to hit the city, so he spent the next few days in a rather similar routine he had establised. He would reach a village, drop in it from high above as he dived from the back of his eagle, then with the dust settling, he once again delivered the line he had chosen beforehand to the crowd that had gathered, then purged the place of any human life, followed by a quick scan of his surroundings to collect anything valuabe and then setting up a barrier that would dissipate in a couple of days and putting the now dead village to torch.

Thanks to his mounts speed and his efficiency in clearing the villages he was about done once the general population of the foreigners districts had departed the cities. Two long, but productive days had been spent in such a repetitive manner, yet Rex could not complain. His drain had boosted his immense energuy reserves, if even a little, and the region of Nor now only had two remaining cities, and a village he had left for last due to the previous odd feeling he felt coming from it. The people who escaped the cities were heading mostly in the dirrection of Sweith, though there were a few groups that decided to try their luck in the merchant cities of Zharr, Blythe being one of them. Rex had made sure that none of Echlisiarchies citizens could escape the barrier. A mix of blood and soul magic with a certain faith as a bottleneck factor. Similar slow movement could aslo be detected in the other regions of the nation. The warning having quite the levity among the foreigners due to it coming from the adventurers guild.

With his preperatiosn of Nor done, Rex chose to finally confront the odd feeling and the small village that was exuding it. After a while of travel he sent his eagle back to Elysion as he decided to aproach the place all on his own. The odd feeling growing stronger and stronger as he neared the village. It was foreign, yet familiar at the same time. For exactly that reason he was advancing towards the village in a different manner than other villages in his path of destruction. he was now clothed in a rather typical mercenary attire- leather boots, pants, light mail armor and a rather worn rain coat, that covered most of his being. The most important part that was greatly obstructed were his eyes, ensuring no person could recognize him as a Forsaken with just a glance. Just to be sure Rex also deployed his mana to blend with the surroundings, effectively making him more invisible for most of the ordinary people.

The small wooden wall looked shaby, many of the wooden pillars barely holding in place and if Rex had to guess, in just a few years tops, said wall would collapse on itself. The gate was missing as well, and only a rather old and half drunk guardsman was slumping near the entrance, clearly not caring one bit for whoever entered their little village. Rex passed by the drunk man, not caring much, as if called by the odd feeling that was emanated from within.

The houses inside were in a slightly better condition, clearly some life still left in the village, and he would expect a much better state of the place judgeing by the amount of people who were moving back and forth withing the barely holding walls. His senses estimated more than five hundred people, though he cared little for them at the moment. He moved forward, his destination the place that was somehow calling to him. The call was odd, not chilling, but not warm either. It was just there. A gnawing at the back of his mind regarding something that might have mattered once, but was of little importance to teh current you, buut the subconsciousness was still dangling it above your head to finaly solve it, one way or another.

Rex stopped in front of the only house in the village that was entirely abbandoned and in disrepair. The small garden right outside it overgrown with weeds. It was here that he could feel the calling from. Unbothered, and practically unseen he slowly walked inside the half broken building. The door was almost torn out by the hinges, so there was no obstruction to his entrance. What came its his view was what he expected. A place filled with dust, old dried out leaves and other dirt that was brough inside by the unrully wind that had free reign through the building. Its windows were shattered, giving all the more freedom for the nature to do its thing, slowly reclaiming the place back into its fold.

There was nothing of interest he could find in the living room, that was also filled with quite a few weeds that had stared to squeeze through the worn out floor boards, that had been slowly eroding with the wet conditions and no attendence from humans. What drew his attention was the two rooms at the end of the kitchen. One had the remains of a smaller bed, probably that of a child of age up to ten or so, judging by the length of some of the parts. The other room was what should have been the master bedrrom of the house, if one could call it that. Just as the bed in the child room, this one was also broken down, though what grabbed his attention was the crib by the side, almost untouched by the time. It was incredibly odd sight- a single item stood untouched by time, seemingly immune to its erosion.

Rex left the room for a moment, and exited in the backyard of the crumbling house. A small, and unexpectedly quite well maintained small path lead forward, clearly being maintaine by someone. Rex could also see how it moved in a different dirrection where it connected to another house that, while in a much better condition than this wreck, was still close to its own innevitable demise. Deciding to check the other end of the path, since he sensed that a person was doing something at the end of it, he moved with slow steps and both curiosity and determination away from both houses. A minute or tow later he came upon a small clearing that was encompassed by trees. In the middle there were three grave crosses placed firmly in the ground. Two had a clear grave marks, and the third one, much smaller than the other two, seemed more like a symbol, for someone whos remains were not there.

In front the the graves sat a woman with white hair, around twenty in age, though the live she was leading was taking quite a toll on her. Worry and pain etched in her face, as she slowly spoke to the gravestones.

"Im still hanging on. Just like you told me mom." she spoke with grief, almost crying as she stroked one of the crosses. "The people here are looking towards me with more and more hostility as time passes, even though I have healed so many of them. Witch, they say. Spawnblood, they say. I...... I just dont know how much longer I will be able to last. The air has gotten much more stifling lately. I can sense something big is approaching, and I dont think I will live past it."

The woman was now slowly sobbing, slow and painfull tears sliding down her cheeks, and falling on her lap. "It is not fair, you know. I wanted to be be with you both and my brother too, yet you told me to stay here, to wait for someting, but I......, but I dont think I can hold on much longer. I have waited so long............ Let me join you on the other side."

Her words were getting quieter and quieter, her resolve to keep going becoming weaker and weaker with each word.

By now Rex stood just a meter behind her, but he was also clear as to the reason he was drawn here.

"Its okey. Right mom? I can join you now, yes?" she asked as she slowly drew a small blade from her pocket and slowly moved it closer to her wrist. "We will be toghether soon. I have done my duty."

Thought before she could finish what she had decided to do, a voice from just behind her spoke and stopped her actions.

"Why dont you tell me all about it, sister?"