Sleep didn't come easily, nor did it come suddenly. It was such a subtle feeling that one moment Tenur felt a part of his body burning, the next he was aware that he was in town, trying to find work or do some chores. Yet, that illusion broke when he heard someone calling his name.

"Tenur! We've got some serious problems." The voice came from Laura, who now occupied his vision. His eyes gradually opened, the troll still seemingly fuzzy from the lack of focus of his eyes. The wooziness called out to him, attempting to send him back to the dreamland.

"Wake up!" With that, a hard slap landed on his face. The force was of such magnitude it sent him rolling down the otherside of his bed. His head knocked against the floor board and his body soon followed, a dull thump echoing throughout the room. Both the pain and suddeness of the situation sent his body into high alert as he quickly stood up and guarded his crotch while scanning his surroundings for potential threats.

"Relax, though I'm not sure if you would be able to after hearing what I have to say," Laura spoke as if an impending doom was coming. "Andrew said he sensed something coming from within the forest. He's been setting up a perimeter with your other children to protect the town."

Tenur lowered his guard as he stared at her, confused. "Not sure what you're talking about."

"Something's coming from the forest direction, I'm sure of it." Denka spoke out. "Laura probably senses it too, since manabornes are sensitive to the changes of mana in the environment."

"Yep. And they're relying on me to relay the information to you."

Tenur looked deep in thought when Denka spoke up. "It's here. At the edge of the forest."

""What?""

"Why didn't you say anything sooner Laura?" Denka asked questioningly. The fact the creatures are at the border of the forest right now means the warning should've come much earlier. It was undoubtedly risky to postpone the information.

"Eh, I forgot."

"How can you forget something so important? We don't even know what the creatures at the perimeter are!" Denka yelled so loud that, for a moment, Tenur thought the troll was back in his original form.

"So what now? What am I supposed to do with the information at hand now?" Tenur still couldn't piece together what this meant for him. How is he related to any of this, he wondered.

Laura looked slightly amused as she snickered, while Denka sighed heavily. "Think about it. You're the only fertility mage in this area excluding me and Laura. The unknown creatures at the perimeter are currently exuding fertility mana. Don't you think these coincidences definitely have something to do with you?"

Tenur gave it some thought, but shrugged. "Nope. I definitely didn't fuck a forest animal or something."

Another sigh from Denka as Laura chuckled at her host's ignorance. "Come on, let's go to the perimeter to have a look." Denka said aloud as he thought of the struggles of being with an irresponsible dimwit who was going to become a prophesized 'king'.

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The perimeter was all set up, thanks to Andrew himself and his mates. They were ready to face whatever was heading their way, and he was sure the perimeter would hold until his father arrived to supply the mana.

That was what Andrew thought before he saw the creatures themselves.

Humanoid beings with partially overgrown flesh here and there waltz through the forest, leaking fertility mana and leaving a trail through wherever they went. It was not a sight to behold, and to say it in more direct terms, it was disgusting even for Andrew and his mates.

"What... are they?" Jeral muttered unconsciously as he stood beside Andrew, observing the perimeter.

"This... they're abominations of our kind!" Nikolas yelled as he pointed at the creatures heading their way. He was horrified beyond belief since even manabornes seemed more normal than those hybrid creatures.

"Shut it, they've been contaminated with untamed fertility mana. Only we can cure those men," Andrew said as he narrowed his eyes. He looked at the perimeter made by chaining spell circles as doubt began to bloom within his mind.

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The perimeter was essentially a directional mana drainer, and with a few modifications, would selectively drain fertility mana. However, circumstances caused Andrew and his mates to be able to only create a selective drainer with limited capacity, meaning they had to constantly draw the stored mana out or else the spell circles would explode and taint everything else. That was why Andrew and his mates had to stand guard over there, to drain, filter and release the cleansed mana back into the surroundings after decontaminating the infected individuals. As to why Tenur was needed, it was because he was the only one capable of powering the entire perimeter while they drained it.

Would've been great if we could power the circuit with the excess mana, Andrew mumbled inwardly as he focused.

"Right... Since Tenur's not here yet, we'll have to execute plan B," Andrew raised his arms, facing his palms against the creatures. A little focus and a mana channel was opened between him and the perimeter. Other children follow suit. As some of the children pumped pure mana into the circuit, the others, including Andrew, felt raging torrents of fertility mana gushing into their channels, causing the invisible channels to glow and reveal themselves.

The forward momentum of the creatures were slowed down, and for a moment, it seemed like they stopped moving altogether, but then children on the other side of the perimeter began to fall and vomit blue liquid, and the horde gradually moved again. The horde consisted of animals and fallen human soldiers, yet both share the same characteristic of having strange lumps here and there overgrown on their bodies. The creatures would split into two groups, charging alternately against the perimeter that pulsed every so often and causing one or few children to fall. For every child that fell, the horde could move an inch deeper into the perimeter, dealing more and more damage to the opposition.

Just when the thirteeth child fell, Tenur and Laura approached Andrew, along with Denka.

"What...?" Bewildered, Tenur couldn't help but drop Denka onto the ground. He was too stunted to hear Denka swearing in multiple languages.

"Tsk, they must be the ones we sensed."

Andrew kept his concentration as he yelled to the trio at the back. "Help filter the mana! As for dad, help power the circuit!"

The shout didn't go unnoticed among the other children as they glanced at the trio and focused even harder. As a result, not only did their morale increase, but the function of the spell circuit as well. There were also noticeable results among the horde as few of them began to falter and fall flat onto the ground.

"Quick!"

Laura and Denka opened mana channels with the spell circles, amplifying the noticeable results. However, Tenur stood still as he stared at one of the spell circles.

"What're you doing? Do something already!" Andrew yelled in frustration, confusion slightly evident on his face. "The faltering ones are beginning to get dragged back into the horde!" As he said that, more lumps emerged on the bodies of the fallen horde members. It didn't take long for them to stand back up and join their teammates in charging the perimeter.

"I-I..." Tenur stretched out his hands and focused. Nothing happened despite his will exerting force on his mana.

Realisation dawned on Andrew as he stared at his father in horror. "Oh no, oh god..."

"FUCK!!!" Andrew's voice permeated the night sky. Some curious gazes from nearby residences fell on him, but retreated immediately when they saw the horde members. Some even when as far as to run from their houses, heading for the nearest guard station. It was evident guards would be storming this place soon.

"Denka, teach-" The sentence was cut off when an extremely mutated creature charged towards the perimeter and more than a dozen kids fell. The few powering the circuit were forced to abandon their given role and help in the filtering.

"We need to fall back, they'll die out of natural causes if we leave them be and make sure no more infecteds appear!"

"Just what I was thinking!" After replying to Denka, Andrew disconnected his filtering channels and focused on powering the circuit. It was evident a lot of stress was placed on him as he began drawing mana from the surroundings to help support the load.

"The conversion rate's too low!" Laura shouted as she focused on filtering more mana.

"Retreat! We'll hold the line where the city and town intersect!" The words caused a ripple among the children. Some of them forcefully closed their channels, causing the raging torrents of tainted mana to gush out into the surroundings before there was time for the spell circle to hold on to them. But the worst part was the backlash caused by the reverse flowing mana. It pumped more mana back into the spell chain's storage and temporarily overloaded the circuit, causing even more tainted mana to flow into the surroundings.

"Don't close it suddenly dumbass!" Andrew shouted as he finally closed his supply channel. Laura and Denka didn't open much channels to begin with, so they were already standing aside, waiting for Andrew to finish up.

"What do we do?" Laura couldn't help but throw out the question.

"You-" A roar interrupted Andrew's reply. Dozens of eyes fell upon the large, overgrown, tumour-covered creature as it roared out loud, enough to shake the trees. For a second there, nobody's believed their eyes as they saw what happened.

"It's replicating! Run!" Andrew turned and ran as fast as he could. Laura was about to run too when he saw Tenur still trying to open a mana channel.

"Give it up, you can't learn that right now." Despite that, she could feel Tenur's desperation and regret at not having learned something so basic. She decided Tenur was in no shape to run and carried him on her back.

"Let's go." Every step she took shook the nearby earth, each one leaving a shallow foot print in the road and some pebbles flying. There were plenty of company as Tenur's children ran alongside them, heading towards the intersection that was supposed to host a new line.

"Bloody hell," Laura muttered as she saw a troop of guards rushing towards her.