When the middle-aged man sword hit the ground, he quickly backed away from his opponent.

As he does, he looked at his opponent with bewilderment.

'Not only did he not get burned, but he caught my sword?!' He thought. Never in his life that he thought it would be possible. Even the hunters he knew could not do something casually as the young man before him just did. At best, they could block with their heat resistance aretisites.

"What's your name? I'm Cho Kyung. I seat on the 5th position of the Hwangsaechi."

"Lyden Willwalker… Why don't you go pick up your sword?" He noticed that Cho Kyung was looking back and forth for his sword.

Cho Kyung slowly went back for his sword without losing sight of Lyden.

Even Cho Kyung's team was prepared to jump in to save him when necessary.

After picking it up, Cho Kyung did not charge at him recklessly this time. Instead, he wanted to probe Lyden.

"How many stars are on you?" Cho Kyung asked.

Seeing Lyden was not responding, Cho Kyung showed his black star that was on his left arm.

"I'm a 1-star hunter, but unlike many others, I do not have a sigil along with it."

"So you are not awakened? Then how did you obtain a star on your body?"

He felt like the star had something with the strength the aretisite he could assimilate with. Since he had no stars in his body, the aretisite, Muscle's Muscle, must have rejected him.

He also had questions about their multiple copies of aretisites on their side, but now was not the time to ask.

Seeing how Lyden was not answering his question, Cho Kyung assumed that he was as strong as the first four seats with his strength. He knew that winning against him was difficult and even impossible. Even if all the hunters here attacked, they will surely lose.

Cho Kyung did not want to make any rash decision that would bring harm to his teammate.

"I'll tell you..." Cho Kyung said as he lowered his sword. "But let me ask you first, why did you attack our men?"

"Because they attacked me first."

Cho Kyung released a regretful sigh when he heard that. Next, he walked to the three hunters who were fully armored with aretisites.

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They were all speaking Korean, and occasionally, the female would stomp her foot and point at Lyden.

Lyden could not see her face, but she was obviously angry from her exaggerated movement.

The other two seemed to agree with what Cho Kyung had to say, but not her.

"She looked so stupid." As soon as Lyden said that, the grass beneath her began to burn. "If it were not for that helmet hiding her face, I would mistake her for a primate," Lyden said out loud that even Sim Chul-Soo and Cho Kyung could hear him.

Cho Kyung quickly tried to calm her down by telling her that Lyden was complimenting her as she could not completely understand English.

It worked for a bit until Lyden smirked at her. Now she knew that Lyden was mocking her.

Before she can leap towards Lyden, the other two held her back while Cho Kyung went up to Lyden.

"Lyden tried not to upset her, ok?"

"Why not? She had a problem with me ever since she saw me… "

"Even so, it will be a problem if something happened to her."

"A problem? For you or me?" Lyden took that response as a threat. He gave Cho Kyung a menacing look that made Cho Kyung's heart beat faster.

Cho Kyung soon regretted his choice of words. English was his first language, so it was hard for him to convey the right words.

"I meant to say that we will get in trouble if she gets injure."

Lyden relaxed his expression when Cho Kyung said that.

Cho Kyung sighed. He felt that those two together would be a ticking time bomb.

"Lyden, let's head inside the tower. I'm sure the leader would like to meet with you, and you can ask him any question you have, I'm positive." He decided to pass on the problem to his leader.

Besides, having Lyden as an enemy was not the best outcome. They still need to reactivate the barrier every twelve hours so that the monsters from inside would not be able to reach the outside. And most importantly was the enemies from the outside won't be able to go inside.

And If Lyden were to to become an enemy, it will be a huge problem.

The two fully armored hunters told the angry woman to head back first and other hunters that came with them to go with her except for the two hunters that ran away from Lyden. They had to stay behind to activate the barrier.

Cho Kyung had the normal people, the one who guarded the tower, to follow them inside. Sim Chul-Soo was one of them.

Thus, leaving behind Cho Kyung, the two men who ran away from before, and the two red hunters. Of course, Lyden was with them.

"Those two will follow behind us. We do not have the sigil to activate the barrier."

Lyden remembered that there was a connection between the sigil and the towers. No one knew why it is so, but Lyden had a hint about them from the mysterious man.

Lyden and the rest of them entered the tower.

He once again walked through the fog of darkness. Not even his enhanced eyes can peer through it the fog.

It was not before long until he reached the exit. As soon as he does, a burst of hot air blew past him.

The floor beneath him was filled with ashes.

"Welcome to the Tower of the Black Ash" Cho Kyung said to Lyden.

From as far as he can see, the ground was made out of dense black ashes.

There were even black mountains covered in ashes.

From above, the sky was red-brown instead of blue.

"How do you guys survive in this world? Isn't the ashes toxic to the human body" Lyden could not imagine someone surviving here for very long.

"You're right. These ashes would destroy the human lungs shortly after living here. However, we found aretisites that can absorb these ashes and its toxicity from within our body."

Lyden recalled Cho Kyung's aretisites.

"So your aretisites can absorb these ashes?"

"Yes. I see if I can provide you one for your stay here."

Lyden thought if they were casually given away aretisites than they must have a lot of supplies.