The southern region of the Mulan Kingdom

Black Mist forest was situated behind Ozuna city, and it was boundlessly vast, with tall and ancient trees. These ancient trees were extremely thick to the point of requiring at least five or six people to join hands around it, and the crown of the trees was over 200 meters away from the ground.

Under the covering of the towering ancient trees and dense leaves, the boundless forest on the mountains seemed extremely dark and quiet. A place like that was very suitable for many criminals to hide or a group of bandits.

The Black Mist forest was just an extension of the Dark Forest in the southern region of the Mulan kingdom and the Nicholas empire. It was like a buffer zone between the two countries.

Somewhere within the black mist forest, stood a youth with long purple-black hair with a length that reached his waist without being tied up in any way, allowing it to float freely in the wind as if it was dancing.

Both of his hands were behind his back as his eyes, that was like a bottomless pool of darkness, were infused with an icy cold killing intent. Behind him were numerous shadows that flickered about, and then about a hundred men in blue cloaks stood solemnly and respectfully as they awaited their orders.

~Fwoosh~

Suddenly a black hole appeared next to the youth, and then a young girl in black came out from it. The girl was like a kingdom toppling demoness, one smile was enough to shake all living beings.

The peerless beauty appeared before the youth like a specter, then bowered and said in a low and sad voice. " Young master, they have already burned the third village and like the other two, they didn't leave any survivors, children, man, woman, old people, they killed them all. They didn't even spare the newborn babies."

Listening to Monalisa's reports, Shad felt like he has been stabbed by a thousand blades. Suddenly, red lightning bolts started to swirl around his body like snakes as he clenched his fists.

At this moment, he was truly enraged by deeds committed by these bandits. At the same time, he began to hate and despise the 3rd imperial prince of the Nicholas empire because he knew that he was behind all these.

' Don't tell me he was doing all these because of the magic stones and the weapons that I seized from the mountain tigers den when I raided it.' He thought.

A week ago, after he had killed Chris, Shad had gone deep within the small village and found where the bandits had kept all their treasures. However, what he found inside gave him a huge surprise. There were many high-quality weapons inside and even magic stones which were pretty rare and expansive.

After thinking a bit, he came to realize that these kinds of stuff did not belong to the bandits but for the person that supported them from behind the scene, Klaus.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Nonetheless, Shad happily took everything inside and emptied the treasure vault. He had more than a hundred subordinates that he needed to take care of. With these weapons and magic stones, he could drastically increase their strength.

After cleaning out the treasure vault of the mountain tigers bandits group, he came down the mountain to meet his troops and then continued his journey. Also, one thing that surprised him was the fact that none of them had witnessed the phenomenon that happened when he found the eye of the red lightning dragon emperor.

None of them saw when the sky turned red and the nine lightning dragons that had appeared in the sky. It was as if he was the only one that saw it. Even though he did not understand what really happened, he was still very happy about it. If all the people within the continent had seen it, it would have be very bad for him as he would have attracted too much unwanted attention.

After traveling for half a day, he had finally made it to Ozuna city where he was warmly received that the current Marquis of the city and the population. The marquis had even thrown him a huge banquet to celebrate his arrival.

He spent two days within the city and tried his best to get a clear picture of the southern region. The Marquis was very cooperative, he has given him a detailed map of the southern region and also marked every spot where there was a bandits' group lair, the name of the bandit's group and how many men they had.

Unfortunately, on the 3rd day, before Shad could really grasp everything, something inconceivable happened. All the bandits' group that usually seemed to be hostile with one another suddenly formed an alliance.

To celebrate their alliance, they burned a small town to ashes and killed everyone within it indiscriminately. That piece of news shook the whole southern region, especially the people from Ozuna city.

With all the bandits allied themselves together, they had the manpower to stand up against a big city such as the Ozuna city, not to mention the other small towns and villages.

As soon as Shad heard that news, he knew something was amiss. He thought that they had joined forces to attack Ozuna city where he was saying, However, it wasn't the case.

He realized that when they suddenly burned the second village and killed everyone in it as well. Seeing this, Shad quickly left Ozuna city to hunt them down before they could make any more damages.

However, it seemed like he has been a step too late, and couldn't prevent the third village to be burned and all the people in it to be killed.

After calming himself down, Shad turned around to look at the people behind him and said in low voice. " All you form a group of four and go to nearby villages and towns. Once you notice the targets, killed them brutally without mercy and leave only one for questioning. If you can't handle them by yourselves, crush this tracking magic talisman and I will come to your aid."

Shad's voice was filled with anger and hatred. There was an extreme killing intent in his eyes as well when he was looking at the members of the Lightning Corps, but the killing intent wasn't directed to them but for the culprit behind the scene. Nonetheless, the hearts of the Lightning Corps including the four imperial knights jerked when being stared at by a gaze like this, and for no reason, they felt their entire bodies go cold as if they'd fallen into an icy pit as boundless terror gushed throughout their bodies.

The members of the Lightning Corps as well the four imperial knights possessed extremely abundant experience in killing, and they were able to discern the killing intent emitted by their supreme commander was so piercingly cold that it was even denser than their own killing intent by a hundred times. Their supreme commander was like a devil of slaughter that had walked in the mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

" Yes." Nonetheless, everyone mustered their courage and accepted their orders solemnly, and then they formed a total of four groups with an imperial knight as the leader before they disappeared in the forest leaving the supreme commander with the young lady.