Holt returned to the village a few hours after Drake and the rest. During this time, they all rested and recovered from the various battles.

At this moment, Drake, Hazezel, Astoria, Elwin, Sam, Ray, and Holt were all gathered together in a meeting room, discussing what happened.

First Drake and Elwin explained their experiences.

“You are sure that it was Jin Tong? And he was an undead?” asked Holt.

“One hundred per cent,” Elwin nodded.

Holt frowned. If the dark mages had a method to create such powerful undead, it was not a good thing.

As they explained the way they faced one ambush after another, Hazezel was confused.

‘Was this all… just a coincidence?’

When they described the inheritance grounds, everyone was stupefied.

“Oh my god, the inheritance of a mage emperor!” Ray slammed the table and got up in excitement. For a person who was generally stoic, this level of excitement was surprising. But Ray didn’t care about their thoughts.

“And you really let the inheritance get away! How could you!?”

Drake was also upset about this, but he realised that he didn’t mind it too much. The new summons, pill recipes, and most of all, the second part of the twelve-star body transformation arts was all a huge gain for him already.

Though he mentioned the new summoning spells, he kept the martials arts technique a secret for now.

“What could we do? The ancestor’s will chose the random man who showed up as his successor,” Elwin said helplessly.

They described the appearance of the man, and combined with the purple light, Sam immediately guessed his identity.

“That must be Henry,” Sam sighed.

Sam then explained everything that happened from their side of the story. When he got to the ritual, Astoria explained how she became a mage.

“WHAT!?”

Everyone was flabbergasted. She didn’t tell them that she formed three mana cores. She wanted to keep that a secret. If they knew, she honestly thought that their heads would explode.

“This is incredible, I’m so proud of you!” Holt exclaimed, then he sighed. “Still, it will not make any difference to this war.”

Everyone looked towards Holt. He then described the appearance of the mage king, and how he decimated their entire army with a single spell.

Everyone was speechless.

This was not a foe they could win!

“Then what do we do, father?” Astoria asked worried. She could not accept that they just had to die. Not after everything they’ve been through.

“What can we do?” Holt asked depressingly. “We will just fight as much as we can…”

The whole room was silent.

Hazezel frowned. ‘Something was not right…’

The meeting adjourned and everyone went to sleep.

…

At the same time, in the Beast Woods.

Damon Rogue and the two dark grand mages were staring at Henry who was kneeling on the floor.

“So, you’re telling me, that after all the preparation we did, you let some girl, take everything?” asked Damon with a low voice.

A chillness spread across the room and Henry shivered.

“Yes… I’m very sorry my lord. However, I found something that I know would be very valuable for you,” Henry looked up at Damon excitedly and continued, “I got the inheritance of a mage emperor!”

Damon looked at Henry with a sharp glint in his eyes.

…

The next morning.

Everyone walked with a foreboding tone. Although there were gains and losses during the past few days, it was all meaningless. When thinking about the big picture, they could not win the war for as long as the mage king existed.

They didn’t know when he would attack, or why he hadn’t attacked already. But as soon as he did, it would be all over.

They also lost a large number of troops during these ambushes, which caused their front lines to be pushed back. The demon raids started to occur much closer to the villages now.

Since the Leon village didn’t participate in the activities of the past few days, their strength was still preserved, so they sent out more troops to reinforce the others and stabilise the situation.

But how much longer could they hold on, weeks? Months?

It was only a matter of time before they all died.

In the meantime, Hazezel was in his office, staring at his desk.

He was pondering one question.

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‘Was it all a coincidence?’ The ambush by Jin Tong, then the demon tide, then dark mages, then the mage king. They all occurred at the worst possible time, almost as if they were planned out. But how could the dark mages know their movements? Or could they all be just a coincidence?

Hazezel began to wonder if there was a spy. But who could it be? Very few people were aware of the details of the missions. Apart from his family, it was just a few very trusted soldiers. Could one of them have sold out?

It was possible. Facing the might of the mage king, no one would have any choice but to submit.

The question was who? Who could it be?

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Hazezel commanded. A cloaked, hooded figure walked in and bowed before him.

“I want you to follow and investigate these people and let me know everything they’re doing,” Hazezel ordered, handing the man a list.

The man accepted the list and glanced at it briefly, before bowing towards Hazezel and exiting the room.

For the next few days, while Hazezel was conducting his investigations, everyone else was attending to their own matters.

As usual, Elwin was fighting on the front lines after he recovered. Drake would not participate unless they were severely short on manpower.

Instead, Drake continued his cultivation; except now, he was joined by Astoria. That’s right, Astoria also began to take lessons from Ray.

Originally, Ray offered her many cultivation techniques to choose from but none of them seemed suitable for her. She was dismayed, but then Drake brought out some of the cultivation techniques he got from the ancestor’s inheritance, and luckily, one of them suited her very well.

Drake had an idea and took out a few martial arts cultivation techniques he had learnt too.

To everyone’s surprise, one of them suited her as well.

She could now cultivate both mana and martial arts!

Delighted, she began cultivating with Drake.

Drake focused more of his cultivation on martial arts for the time being. With the completed twelve-star supreme body transformation arts, he could learn some of the martial techniques and take his battle strength to another level.

He had learnt a total of twelve martial techniques and several new spirit summons as well!

Similar to spirits, martial techniques were also ranked from one to five. In the tempered body stage, he could only learn rank one martial techniques.

Out of the twelve martial techniques that was in his mind, five of those techniques became understandable to him. These were the rank one martial techniques.

Drake quickly made a plan. He was close to breaking through to the late stage tempered body stage, so he wanted to cultivate first. After breaking through, he would learn the five rank one martial techniques, and then learn the rank one spirit summons.

Drake took a deep breath and started cultivating.

After two weeks, he broke through to the late stage tempered body!

Within the same two weeks, Astoria also broke through to the true mage realm!

Ray was astonished. This is a family of freaks…

Astoria giggled. Unlike Drake who cultivated diligently, Astoria spent a good deal of time with Sam too, which made her rapid progression even more bizarre to Drake and Ray. However, Astoria just said that the ancestor’s cultivation technique was incredible. Since it was from a mage emperor, Drake and Ray though that it made sense.

After breaking through, Drake recollected the martial techniques, and focused on one that caught his interest.

Shadow steps was a technique that allowed the user to experience a short burst of speed. It could triple their speed for a few seconds, allowing them to quickly arrive at enemy, or retreat from an attack. After using it once, they just had to wait for a few more seconds before they could use it again. It was very useful!

Drake didn’t want everyone else to find out about his martial techniques, so he started practising it in alone, far away in a spot where no one could see him.

“Nothing?” Hazezel asked, reading the report the hooded man presented him. The only thing unusual in the report was how much time Astoria and Sam spent with each other.

He realised that their relationship was more than just ‘friends’ and knew father wouldn’t approve, but so did Astoria.

‘Leave it, it’s not important right now,’ he thought to himself.

He had to know if there was a spy.

Maybe they were using some magical methods? These were the times he hated not being a mage. There were a lot of ways magic could be used and he didn’t know any of them. He decided to consult an expert.

“Are you sure?” Hazezel asked, looking at Ray.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Ray replied calmly. “I have never heard of a spirit that can spy through huge distances and report information instantly. There are investigative spirits, but they often take the form of small animals and birds that would scout the distance and report back to you.”

Hazezel went into deep thought. He then remembered something.

“What about mind control?” Hazezel asked. “Sam was controlled by a parasitic spirit, right? Is it possible for a mage use a parasitic spirit to control someone’s mind and make them report to them? Perhaps even without their conscious awareness?”

Ray held his chin and thought for a moment.

“I’m not very familiar with the methods of dark mages, but that might be possible. However, if so, you would have discovered strange movements in your investigations, right?”

Hazazel thought again.

“What if it was just spying? So instead of controlling the person’s mind to report back to them, they could instead use the parasitic spirit inside to spy from afar. Is that possible?”

Ray furrowed his brows.

“That would be tricky, but I think theoretically that can be possible. However, I don’t know of any spirits that have that ability. But given the existence of the mage king, who knows what he is capable of.”

“Then would you be able to detect the presence of any of these spirits?” Hazezel asked.

“Maybe, but if it is very well hidden, then no.”

Hazezel frowned, then gave him a list of suspects. Ray took the list and read through it. His eyes widened at the final suspect, and he looked at Hazezel with a raised eyebrow, as if to ask ‘really?’

Hazezel nodded, “Those are all my suspects. Investigate them and let me know.”

Hazezel watched Ray leave. Of course, he considered the possibility of Ray being a spy himself, however the chances of that were low. Ray didn’t know the details of the mission, and it was unlikely that he would do something to hurt his own master, given how much he obsessed over her.

He looked through the window to see their beautiful back garden.

Am I just overthinking things?

A few days later, Ray returned, saying he couldn’t find anything strange with any of them.

“Thank you for your efforts,” Hazezel said, and sent Ray off.

Then there’s only thing I could try…

A few days later.

Hazezel, Elwin, and Astoria were together in Hazezel’s office. Astoria was helping Hazezel with some documents while he was talking to Elwin.

“Elwin, our medicine field to the south requires reinforcement. I need you to go there tomorrow morning with a hundred men. It is being attacked by…” Hazezel read out a list, giving details of demons attacking the herb field.

“Okay,” Elwin replied after listening carefully, and left.

Hazezel resumed his work.

The next morning, Hazezel approached Elwin while he was preparing to leave.

“Elwin, I need to talk to you,” he said.

“Yes?”

“About the mission I gave you yesterday. There’s been a change of plans. A response unit close to the herb field got freed up and I sent them for reinforcement. Instead, I need to you to reinforce the elves who are being overwhelmed by repeated raids on their side. They will update you with the relevant information once you go there.”

“Okay,” Elwin replied, before marching out on his horse.

Hazezel stared in his direction for a long time, before returning to his office. Astoria was working there.

“Astoria, you should take a break. You’ve been working so hard.”

“That’s okay Hazezel, I can work for a few hours before going for breakfast.”

Hazezel smiled and got back to work.

The siblings worked hard throughout the day, but being together meant they would often joke around which lifted the mood and made the work easier.

But happiness never lasts.

That evening, a guard barged into the office.

“Master Hazezel, urgent news!”

“What is it?” Hazezel asked.

“Our medicine field to the south has been destroyed by a beast tide!”

“What!?” Hazezel stood up horrified.

He slowly creaked his head towards Astoria.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.