Theo smirked and kicked Drake in the waist. Drake was taken by surprise, but he jumped back to barely dodge in time.

But this was enough for Theo. He jumped to his feet and sprinted into the distance.

Drake wanted to give chase, but he knew Theo was faster than him and sighed.

“NOOOOOO!” Blaze screamed furiously.

He jumped into the air and slashed at the rock python with all his rage and might. It summoned several layers of earth walls in defence but Blaze broke through them all before slicing it in half. The rock python dissipated into mana as Blaze landed on the ground, digging his sword into the ground and panting for breath.

“How could you let him go?” Blaze asked Drake in disbelief.

They were so close, and yet, he managed to get away. He knew about Drake's reluctance to kill, but wasn’t this too much? Theo had promised to kill them all, and even almost killed Helen. Not to mention that he was extremely dangerous and would greatly increase the competition in these ruins, especially once he rejoined with the other dark mages.

There were so many reasons to kill him and yet… why?

Blaze couldn’t understand.

Drake stared in the direction Theo had disappeared with a complicated look on his face. He wasn’t happy that he had let Theo go, but still, he just couldn’t bring himself to kill someone. He understood that life in this world was very different to Earth, but he still wanted to live his life true to his morals.

Perhaps it was his own naivety to think that the morals and principles of Earth would apply in a world like this. After all, humans in this world could reach a level of strength that would be impossible on Earth. The stronger they were, the more difficult they were to fight and control.

Hence, people with strength could do pretty much whatever they wanted, and rarely would anything happen to them, unless they messed with someone equally or even stronger. In a sense, it was just survival of the fittest, kill or be killed, but on a whole other level.

So, if Drake didn’t have the strength to kill his enemies, it might only be a matter of time before they killed him. Drake understood this, and yet… he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Drake felt that if he killed someone, something about him might fundamentally change, and he would no longer be the same person.

Blaze walked up to Drake and stared at him. Given their height and size difference, Drake had to lift his head high to make eye contact. His complicated emotional state was reflected in his eyes, and Blaze picked up on it.

He sighed.

Sometimes I forget, that he is still young.

…

In a dimly lit room, somewhere in Basindale.

A dark, hooded figure was sitting on a chair next to a table, on top of which a single, dim lantern was placed. There was a window next to the table, through which the figure looked outside while resting its head on its palm, lost in thought.

Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door which disturbed the calm scene.

“Come in,” the figure spoke in a low voice.

The door creaked open. Quick and hurried footsteps echoed across the silent room as someone rapidly approached the figure. When they were within a few feet of the table, the dim lantern revealed them to be a man wearing black robes.

As soon as he arrived, the man knelt down and spoke in a rushed tone.

“My lord, I have received some concerning news.”

“Hm?” the figure turned towards the man curiously. He took a deep breath before speaking.

“A little while ago, one of the Ironheart family’s cargo deliveries was attacked. The attacker was said to be a lone mage, however…” the man hesitated before continuing, “The mage supposedly used our cult’s summoning spells, mainly blood bats.”

The figure was silent. For a few seconds, all you could hear was the fire crackling inside the lantern.

Seeing that the figure didn’t have any questions, the man continued his report.

“Darren Gold, the head of Duskville’s branch of the merchants guild, was the first to arrive on the scene. Unfortunately, he didn’t spot who the mage was. Also, and this is just an unconfirmed rumour, but apparently, he unearthed a piece of evidence on the scene which suggested that the mage was recruited by someone to attack the Ironheart family.”

After a few seconds, the figure asked a question. “Have you investigated our members?”

“Yes my lord,” the man replied. “We have thoroughly investigated all of our members who fit the description of the lone mage and can confirm that no such person was even near that location at that time.”

Once again, the figure was silent.

‘Someone, dares to frame us? And this is not the first time either…’ the figure remembered the report of Cedric Ironheart and his guards discovering a ring with their Hidden Venom Cult’s symbol, during the destruction of the wheatfield.

The figure began releasing a cold aura. Even though the aura was nowhere near its full strength, the man found it suffocating.

“Investigate this!” the figure’s voice bellowed. “No matter what, we must find out who’s responsible. We will make an example out of them and show the world what happens to anyone who wants to mess with us.”

“Ye- yes my lord!”

…

Back in the inheritance grounds.

Blaze, Drake, and Cyrus were running across the vast plains. After Theo fled, demons soon started surrounding them, drawn by the scent of blood. They decided that they couldn’t stay idle and decided to run to the nearest inheritance they had previously spotted. They had to fight numerous demons but, none of them were higher than servant class, so they didn’t have much of a problem.

They were still a little while away from their destination when they began hearing a commotion from the side.

‘Is that another fight?’ Drake thought.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The three looked at each other, came to a silent agreement, and started running in that direction. With their speed, they started getting close quickly, and Drake could pick up the voices with his acute sense.

“Rain! Decimate! Rain!” a girl’s voice sounded out in the distance.

Drake looked at Blaze excitedly. “It’s them!” he shouted.

Blaze’s lips curled into a smile and he readied his sword. The group began moving even faster.

Helen and Sylvia were surrounded by a herd of hundreds of demon boars, while simultaneously getting attacked by a pack of vultures from the skies. Helen was doing her best to hold them back, but even with Sylvia’s support, dealing with so many of them wasn’t easy.

Just as Sylvia finished shooting a rain of arrows towards the vultures to keep them off, a boar charged from behind her. She arced backwards with a powerful jump and shot decimate at the boar midair, before landing next to Helen.

“This is crazy!” Helen exclaimed. “How are we going to deal with so ma-”

“Solar barrage!”

“Firestorm”

“Water assault!”

A bunch of attacks assaulted the herd of boars and started killing them off in dozens. Sylvia and Helen were startled for a second before they recognised the voices.

“Blaze! Drake!” they exclaimed.

Blaze cut through the boars one after another, making a beeline towards the girls. As he came close, he dug his heel into the ground and pivoted, coming to a stop right next to them.

“Good to see you guys doing well,” he smiled.

Drake jumped high into the air.

“Chain lightning!”

A large lightning bolt shot out of his hand into the centre of the herd, killing a bunch of boars. It then released streaks of lightning which struck the surrounding boars as well, killing off a further dozen or more boars.

Sylvia and Helen’s eyes widened in surprise. Drake hadn’t used his improved artifacts before entering the inheritance, so they hadn’t seen his new spells yet. But seeing it kill dozens of boars easily, they were both happy and relieved.

The two also glanced curiously at Cyrus, who they didn’t recognise, but they decided to save the questions for later.

Within a few minutes, the entire herd of boars and vultures were cleared. Drake spent an extra minute gathering any demon materials he wanted, before regrouping with everyone else.

“Master Drake,” Helen exclaimed jogging up to him, her eyes twinkling with joy.

“Good to see you, Helen,” Drake replied.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said and Drake smiled in response.

“Me too.”

Sylvia also walked up to him with a gentle smile. “You’ve grown stronger again,” she said, her voice sounding plain as usual, but carrying a hint of curiosity.

Drake chuckled. Apart from Helen, none of them even knew that he was a mage. And even if they did, being able to summon so many artifacts wasn’t normal. Hence, they thought that he must have bought the artifacts before coming. But, they didn’t know how he managed to get the money to buy so many powerful artifacts, and so they were curious.

“Thank you…” Drake replied, laughing awkwardly while rubbing the back of his head. Seeing that he didn’t want to explain, Sylvia decided to leave it.

“We should get going,” interrupted Cyrus.

Sylvia and Helen looked at him curiously. By this time, Blaze had also caught up and introduced him.

“This is Cyrus Blackthorne. He is a steel body martial artist from the Blackthorne family. We were teleported together, so we’ve been working together since.”

“I see, thanks for helping us,” Sylvia told him with a slight bow.

“Same, thanks for your help,” Helen added as well.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cyrus smiled and then reiterated his point from before. “But we really need to get going. More demons will get attracted by the blood here and appear at any moment. We aren’t too far away from the next ruins, so we should get there as soon as possible.”

Everyone agreed and decided to continue heading towards the inheritance. Sylvia already had her scouting pixies summoned and was able to help them avoid a lot of demons. They still ended up having to fight some demons, but their powerful group made quick work of them.

Soon, they spotted the ruins on the horizon and started running faster. However, just as they reached close, the ruins suddenly began collapsing. Their group came to a stop and watched as a bunch of cultivators jumped out of the collapsing ruins, startled. This must have been the first ruins they cleared since they looked very surprised at its collapse.

The group of cultivators looked at Drake’s party and seemed to recognise them. They immediately turned tail and ran in another direction.

Blaze sighed. “What do we do now?”

“Allow me,” said Sylvia, summoning a large number of scouting pixies and sending them off in all directions.

Drake watched the pixies rise into the sky, turning into specks of light, and dashing into the distance, leaving a trail of specks of light. As they left, Drake noticed the large blood moon hanging in the sky, casting a layer of red over the vast plains.

Many corpses littered the ground, most belonging to demons, and some to cultivators, but they were all being savagely consumed by the endless number of demons indifferently. They travelled from one battlefield to another, consuming every corpse down to its last bone.

Should any cultivator come their way, they would charge mindlessly, even if they knew they had no chance of victory.

Observing this, Drake remembered the poem recited by the mysterious voices upon opening the inheritance.

The red moon shines on the rivers of blood… rising from its waters are the warriors of death.

‘Is this what they meant?’ Drake thought to himself. However, a voice soon brought him back to reality.

“Incoming,” Blaze said in a low voice.

A large group of demons were slowly walking towards them, led by the smell of the demon blood and corpses. As soon as they noticed their group, they charged.

Sylvia was focusing on controlling the large number of pixie spirits so she couldn’t fight or move for a while. Hence, they had to hold the fort.

Blaze, Drake, Cyrus, and Helen covered Sylvia in all four directions. As the horde of demons arrived, they each pounced in a different direction, cleaving a path through the horde, while still staying close enough to Syliva to protect her.

After a few minutes, the horde had almost halved in number, when Sylvia suddenly opened her eyes and spoke out.

“I found another one. It’s a little far, so let’s get going!”

Everyone regrouped and worked together to carve a path through the demons. They were killing dozens and dozens of demons every second.

Although Drake tried to collect demon materials as soon as he killed them, he still couldn’t collect all the materials from so many demons so quickly. He felt a little depressed at leaving behind so many materials, but he knew he couldn’t ask everyone to stay and fight just for him, so he helplessly followed along.

Soon, they cut through the horde and emerged on the other side. Relieved, the group started running quickly, led by Sylvia’s pixies, while Sylvia herself still stayed in the rear, protected closely by Helen and Cyrus, while Blaze and Drake took the front. Some of the demons wanted to give chase, but most of them kept themselves busy consuming the demon corpses and fighting each other for the scraps.

A few hours, and many battles later, the group finally arrived at their destination.

…

At the same time, somewhere else in the vast plains, a young man with emerald hair and blue eyes was fighting against a large demon horde. To his right and left were a young man and woman. All three of them had the insignia of the Myriad Sword Palace stitched into their outfits.

“Cain! Imogen! Cover me!” Elwin yelled. The young man and woman jumped in front of Elwin and held back the demons as he closed his eyes and poured mana into his sword. It began glowing a deep blue and released an icy aura.

Elwin opened his eyes and a fierce determination shone through.

“Spears of winter!” he whispered.

A large number of long, sharp icicles formed behind him. Elwin pointed his sword forward and the icicles rained death upon the demon hordes.

…

Meanwhile, in another location, a red-haired young man was fighting off demons with a sword and chains which were glowing dark red. However, he wasn’t alone. Three figures wearing dark hooded robes were fighting beside him.

In less than a minute, they finished off the demons attacking them and paused for a breath.

“There’s still quite a bit of distance left before the next inheritance, master Theo. Are you sure it's okay to let the dragon party go?”

Theo shot him a dangerous look and he yelped.

“You think I’m letting them go?” he asked coldly.

“No master Theo! I misspoke,” he said with a panicked voice, looking at his feet and cursing himself for speaking without thinking.

“Humph!” Theo snorted. “We will kill them all, but we can’t do it on our own,” he looked into the distance and continued.

“We need him.”

Unbeknownst to the dark mages, far into the distance, in the direction that Theo was looking, another dark hooded figure was slowly walking through the wasteland. Numerous demons were charging at the figure, but over a dozen, rank two spirits in the form of vultures were surrounding and protecting it. They could breathe out toxic gas and spit out extremely powerful poison that caused severe damage to the demons upon contact.

With so many of them working together, they were able to easily kill off the demons in both the air and the ground. Whenever one of the vultures died, the figure easily summoned two more to replace it, as if summoning and controlling rank two spirits was nothing.

As the vultures were finishing off a horde of demons, the figure looked into the distance towards the black structure and mumbled.

“Things are going to get interesting…!”