"The bats are coming!” Nobody knew who yelled those words as they stared at the shadow looming over them.
The soldiers’ teeth rattled as they shook heavily, but in the end, they could only grit their teeth and point their spears at the danger in front of them.
At that moment, they heard the snap of fingers.
Aziro, who had been silent the entire time, snapped his fingers, releasing a green wave of unbearable heat at the enemies.
The shadow of the bats immediately fell apart as screeches of pain resounded.
Every bat flew in a different direction, trying to escape the fire, but only a few managed to do so.
However, at that time, some of the soldiers started to move at high speed toward the bats.
They moved unnaturally, as if not caring about the anatomy of their bodies, and hurled themselves at the bats, which were still several meters above the ground. Because of that, their legs broke, but they didn’t care at all.
The other soldiers were aghast seeing this but soon calmed down, as they had seen this once already during the attack of the wendigo.
These were the undead creatures that Aziro raised!
Now they attacked the bats in full force.
They scratched at the eyes and bit the flesh off their bodies.
The bats, however, didn’t just wait for their doom and bit the attackers back!
Unfortunately, the little blood that was still within these undead had long been rotten and full of death energy, which caused the bats to fall dead before even realizing what had happened to them!
Soon, the ancient city fell silent once again. Only the steps of Aziro resounded as he got closer to the bodies of these bats.
“High-quality material…” A few who had acute senses heard his muttering and realized that he planned to use these bodies to raise new undead.
“Varel. Take care of the rest.” Aziro’s cold and indifferent voice came out of his mouth as he played with the corpse.
Varel sighed while others were confused. No bats could be seen anymore. Who or what was he talking about?
“Hyia!” The war screech resounded through the city.
Before anyone could realize what was happening, several heads of the soldiers burst apart!
One of them was right in front of Terren, who was now covered in blood and brain matter.
He stood there in a stupor before his instincts kicked in, and he defended his head with a shield against any possible attack.
“Rhar!”
Another wave came in. This time, the ambushers attacked personally.
The gray blurs lunged at the closest soldiers and started to stab them with knives in whatever body part they could reach.
“These are goblins?” Terren muttered to himself.
Seeing the creatures, he immediately guessed their nature. However, some of them were quite huge, almost as big as a regular person but much more muscular.
Farther back, there were smaller goblins holding onto some rope that strapped stones at the end and flung them at high speed at the people.
These were the slings that goblins created.
When soldiers realized it was an attack of goblins, they roared in anger as the closest goblins were immediately impaled by the spears.
The other goblins roared in rage but couldn’t avenge their comrades as the members of the Venomous Viper Gang finally made a move.
They didn’t use magic like acolytes and the Heart Bearers. They used mere daggers and knives or maybe short swords.
But nobody underestimated them for it, as their elites reached the peak of skill.
The blades phased through the bodies of the goblins like a hot knife through butter. The vile creatures didn’t even have time to scream in pain before they died under their blades.
“Grwaaa!”
The huge goblins didn’t like that at all, as they growled and unleashed their maces at these gang members.
Unfortunately for them, before they could hit them, their bodies swayed as if their balance was off.
Soon, they began to bleed from their noses before falling to the ground while making guttural noises.
“Hmph, filthy hobgoblins…” One of the members sneered at the creatures as they harvested their lives like livestock.
There was a reason why the Venomous Viper Gang was named as such. Not only did their fighting style resemble that of a treacherous viper, but they also specialized in poisons.
The sleeping powder from the underground arena was actually their own creation, and it was on par with the concoctions of strong acolytes.
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Meanwhile, the goblins in the dark realized that this prey was a larger mouthful than they thought they could swallow. Normally, they wouldn’t attack armies.
But since they disturbed the blood-sucking bats, the goblins expected them to be considerably weakened.
That didn’t happen, though, as Aziro dispatched them easily.
The goblins didn’t even have time to process that, as the less intelligent ones attacked the moment the bats were gone.
Now, the goblins knew their plan had failed and started to retreat.
But it was at that time when the gang members of the Heart Bearer Gang raised their crossbows and shot their bolts in volleys at the escaping vermin.
“Argh?!” The screams of pain resounded throughout the otherwise silent city as they ran for their lives.
In the end, the goblins couldn’t survive the barrage at all, as most of them died miserably. On the other hand, the few lucky ones were confused and scared and disappeared into the shadows of the abandoned buildings.
The soldiers could finally sigh in relief when the danger disappeared.
Unfortunately, the leaders didn’t allow them to let their guard down for even a second.
“Don’t relax! Until every corner of the city is purged by us, we can’t rest here! Before, we didn’t meet the trolls on our way, but that was mostly because they seldom go to the edge of the mountains. But now, we are deep in their territory. If we can’t make this city our safe haven, then there is a big chance we will perish under their attacks outside. So focus!”
Awur shouted loudly, not caring to hide his voice anymore. The noise they made through fighting revealed their position already long ago.
This little speech invigorated the soldiers as they raised their spears in a battle cry.
“Yeah!” Terren, who was fear-stricken, felt his blood boil as he yelled out loudly.
Huart just sighed at these naive little boys and shook his head.
‘Hopefully, we won’t encounter anything too dangerous…’
And so, the scouting was uninterrupted by any wild creatures as they continued to search every corner and eliminate anything that could be a threat to the convoy…
……..
Meanwhile, people outside were anxiously waiting for the victorious return of their elites.
Of course, there were also people who were completely at ease, like Illyan.
He decided to use this time, when Brynjar wasn’t close to Aurelia, to finally prepare for his first cultivation session.
While Aurelia was a gang member of the Heart Bearer Gang, she wasn’t needed in the scouting group and instead was responsible for the members that didn’t participate and waited outside.
However, Aurelia’s stance towards the gang was dubious, so she didn’t hesitate to use her time to lecture him. The time spent with Illyan was quite enjoyable thanks to his diligent nature and natural curiosity, as they both strived to achieve their own goals without any distractions.
For example, while she didn’t think that her appearance should be given much attention, there were many who would turn their heads just from seeing her red hair and then be completely smitten by her face.
These people were mostly young men, but they were not the only ones.
However, in the end, in most cases, no beauty would be this fawned upon by others in this world.
This world was too grim, and the people were too focused on improving their lives to actually care about the appearances of strangers.
Unfortunately for her, her ability was acting up, turning her into something ‘perfect.’
Almost perfect. Because nothing was perfect. Even Aurelia didn’t know how to define perfection.
The only thing she knew about perfection was that no matter how good something was, it was never enough. Without giving up on perfection, she couldn’t live her life properly.
So, her appearance had no meaning to her.
However, others thought differently.
Because of that, she felt disconnected from all these people complimenting her. She couldn’t understand them and felt uncomfortable in their presence.
Illyan, though, was someone who was absorbed in himself and his training, which made him more likable to her.
He didn’t ask questions that didn’t have anything to do with their transaction and didn’t bother her if there was no need.
“When do we start?” The sudden voice awakened her from her reverie.
It was obviously Illyan, who was sitting in the lotus position waiting for her instructions.
Normally, no one would allow someone they barely knew for a few months to oversee their cultivation of internal energy. If anything wrong happened, then internal bleeding was one of the lighter options, while your body exploding into bits of flesh was the harsher one.
But to Illyan, this was no problem. He was confident in his gauge of her personality and that she wouldn’t do anything. But at the same time, he was aware of her acting skills that allowed her to sneak attack the acolyte trio back then.
However, Illyan believed that if she really tried anything, then he would be able to survive and kill her, or escape even if the wound was grievous enough.
Even if his heart burst open, Illyan felt that his regeneration was already advanced enough to survive such a grievous wound. Or at least, Illyan had such feelings. He had his heart injured several times already, but it was never a severe wound.
And Illyan didn’t plan to test it out either until he found some safe way to test the limit of his ability.
“We can do it now. Start meditating to clear your mind,” Aurelia said as she sat behind him with a palm on his back.
Illyan did as she said as he sat there for ten minutes straight in silence before he finally heard her words.
“Now, use the chant from the scripture in your mind and breathe fast to agitate the potential inside your body,” Aurelia said calmly.
Illyan once again listened to her words as he started chanting inside his head.
The chants were esoteric and didn’t make sense to Illyan, but at the same time, he felt as if his body’s primordial instinct had awakened.
His blood felt as if it was boiling as his veins showed up on his body.
With the breathing as the guide, he started to breathe in the essences hidden in the air, be it spiritual energy or mana.
The infusion of worldly energies caused his dormant blood energy to shine a bit as his veins showed a magical sight.
“Hmm? You already have blood energy? I didn’t even notice…” Aurelia noticed the anomaly and was surprised to see he already had a bit of blood energy in his body.
“It is quite pure. And infused in the blood… Ah, I see.” She suddenly nodded in realization.
“What?” Illyan was focusing on his meditation, but with her talking, his mind veered off. That wasn’t because he was inept but simply thanks to his mind power, which allowed him to take in more information into his head.
It also allowed him to barely do two slightly complicated things at the same time.
“The blood energy you have is a little different from the one I applied in my scripture. My blood energy is the power source of sorcerers, also known as innate mages. Their magic is dormant within their bodies since birth, and because of that, they adopted the power of blood energy, which could be said to be semi-innate. This type of blood energy is usually rampant in the energy pathways in the body and is infused with mana for better results.”
“On the other hand, the blood energy within your bloodstream is the result of martial artists and body refiners accidentally finding this energy after breaking the limits of their bodies. If that is the case, then the blood energy would manifest in the blood, thus creating the name blood energy. Martial artists infuse the blood energy with spiritual energy and then create scriptures that mainly depend on willpower and intent. Pure blood refiners use only blood energy. It is quite rare to see such people, though.”
Her eyes shone with curiosity, but she didn’t ask as she observed the blood energy move alongside his blood.
“Is that bad?” Illyan finally confirmed his suspicion about [Blood Feeding Technique]. But it made him feel uneasy as he was wondering whether this would negatively affect the [Thirteen Layers of Blood Energy].
“No. Actually, this is an even better outcome. Begin!” Aurelia’s eyes shone with passion as she said that. Illyan didn’t understand her, but was happy to be lucky once in a while…