“She’s coming with me,” the dark mage said casually.

“Bastard, let her go!” Sylvia cried. She regretted not activating her dryad’s avatar before, but it was too late as she didn’t have enough mana now.

“Ha!” the dark mage chuckled. “You’re in no position to be making demands.”

“You!” Drake yelled, but the dark mage ignored him.

“Don’t worry. Once I take the inheritance here and we leave, I’ll release her back into the outside world. Whether that’s dead or alive… depends on you!” he said with a wicked smile.

Drake and Sylvia clenched their fists, but they were helpless. A line of ten vulture spirits and three rank three lightning beetle spirits blocked their way. They were all so exhausted and had to protect the unconscious Blaze. They couldn’t continue fighting him anymore.

“You… bastard!” Drake cried. He had never felt this weak and powerless before.

The dark mage smiled. “Humph. Since you all understand your situation, I will leave now. I’ll see you all at the main inheritance!”

“Hahahahaha!” The dark mage laughed as he started walking off into the distance. The lightning beetles followed closely. Soon, the vulture spirits also turned back and flew into the distance.

Drake felt an immense sense of gloom. He glared at the dark mage’s back as he left.

‘I am still… too weak…’

For a moment, no one spoke.

Blaze was still unconscious and Farisa was busy healing her wounds as she had suffered the most after Blaze.

Sylvia and Drake continued staring at the dark mage. After forming their party, they had never suffered such a defeat before. Even when Theo had ambushed them, they had managed to save Helen. Beyond that, they didn’t feel completely helpless against Theo. If they hadn’t exhausted themselves against the pseudo-commander class arachne before, they might have even beaten him.

But now, it was different. Even if they were at full strength, they weren’t sure they could beat this dark mage.

‘And if he joins with Theo and the other dark mages…?’ Drake thought. He clenched his fist, ‘We cannot let that happen.’

As they were lost in thought, Farisa took some high ranked healing pills given to her from her sect and managed to recover from most of her injuries. With a sigh, she finally broke the silence.

“You two!” she spoke loudly.

Drake and Sylvia were brought back from their thoughts and turned to face her.

“I know it must be painful to lose your party member. However, all hope is not yet lost. The dark mage, like everyone else, must be moving towards the black structure, so, we will most likely meet him again. At that time, we might get an opportunity to rescue your friend.”

“How?” cried Sylvia. “If we couldn’t beat him before with all of us working together, how could we beat him now when Helen is not even here?”

Farisa smiled. “Did you forget? The rest of my sect’s disciples are still scattered throughout this inheritance grounds. Although that dark mage is powerful, if we all work together, then even he won’t be able to beat us.”

But Drake shook his head. “Maybe, but there are other dark mages here too. Although they may not be as strong as the one we just fought, some of them are no pushovers. Especially him…” his voice trailed off, as he recollected the image of Theo.

Farisa was taken aback. She didn’t know there were even more dark mages here, but now that she thought about it, it made sense. After a moment, she responded.

“Well, let’s not forget that we still have the Silver Crane Sect, and the Blackthorne and Ironheart families too. All of their disciples must also be very strong, not to mention the rest of the lone cultivators. If we can meet up with the others and rally them all against the dark mages, there is no way they will be able to escape.”

Drake calmed down and sighed.

Normally that might be the case, but the dark mage had captured Helen. And his words continued to ring in his ears, ‘I’ll release her back into the outside world. Whether that’s dead or alive… depends on you…’

Wasn’t that basically blackmail?

Drake shook his head. “For as long as Helen is in his custody, he can use her against us and we won’t be able to go against him so easily,” he explained.

“That’s… true…” replied Farisa, furrowing her brows.

Drake looked at Sylvia and spoke. “There is only one option.”

Sylvia looked at him confused, along with Farisa, but Drake smirked in response.

“We need to go on the offensive.”

“But we are no match for him!” Sylvia complained.

“No, not against him, but Theo on the other hand…” Drake’s voice trailed off.

Sylvia stared at Drake, not breaking eye contact. After a few seconds, her eyes twinkled.

“I see…” she spoke softly. “That might be our only option.”

“What?” asked Farisa, confused.

Drake smiled. “Since they took one of us, we’ll take one of them,” he explained simply.

Exchanging hostages would be the only guaranteed way to rescue Helen and have a chance at securing the inheritance. Otherwise, even if Drake obtained the final inheritance, the dark mage could demand him to hand over the inheritance in exchange for Helen.

What a joke!

Drake couldn’t do that. And moreover, he had no way to ensure that the dark mage would hold up his end up the bargain and release Helen safely even if they were to cooperate with him. So this was the only option.

Theo, given his strength, must be someone important for the dark mages. Hence, Drake wanted to find and capture him, then force the dark grand mage to exchange him for Helen.

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Sylvia was silent for a moment, before exhaling deeply as well. She looked at Blaze lying on the ground and then remembered Helen again. A painful and burning feeling rose in her chest, but she used all her willpower to suppress it and sighed.

“You’re right, let’s do that.”

Everyone agreed.

At the same time, a group of young men were standing together in another village ruin. One of them stood out amongst the group. He was wearing black and white leather armour with a sword strapped on either side of his waist and was emitting peak, steel body, and late-stage warrior mage cultivation aura.

He was Corvus Fang, the number one ranked disciple of the Myriad Sword Palace.

Everyone else was standing around him, watching him with respect and mild fear in their eyes.

One of them was closer to Corvus than the rest. He was dressed in white robes which carried the same insignia that was also stitched into Corvus’ outfit, indicating that they belonged to the same sect. He was Alistair Lockwood, ranked fifth among the Myriad Sword Palace disciples, and he emitted an early-stage steel body cultivation aura.

Out of the other three, two were also steel body martial artists, and one was a warrior mage. They were lone cultivators who were initially working together, before meeting Corvus and Alistair. Seeing their strength, they all decided to team up and came to this inheritance.

At this moment, a black vortex appeared in front of them and they all watched it intently. Several artifacts radiating a rank two aura were slowly rising from the vortex.

Corvus watched the artifacts rise, his eyes carrying a glint.

At the same time, another group were fighting through a demon horde, trying to make their way towards a different village ruin which was very close to them.

One of them was a young man with emerald hair and blue eyes. He was carrying a rank three sword artifact that he used to slice through the demons like butter, with a fiery determination burning in his eyes.

Next to him were a young man and woman, who also fought fiercely. The three were unstoppable as they carved a path straight through the large demon horde, heading towards the village ruin.

Meanwhile, in another location not too far from where the dark grand mage had fought Drake’s party, a red-haired young man was running across the plains with three dark, hooded figures by his side. He was carrying a sword in one hand while wrapping chains around his other which were glowing dark red.

The light of the blood moon highlighted their dark aura as the group sprinted across the plains, into the distance.

At the same time, four Silver Crane Sect disciples were also running in a different direction. However, they were carrying more injuries than Theo and the dark mages. Soon, they crossed paths with a pair of cultivators. They seemed excited to meet and continued forward as a group six.

On the other side, Cyrus Blackthorne had reunited with his family and they were all travelling together as a group of six as well.

The other families and lone cultivators were also travelling through the inheritance grounds. They were all clearing various village ruins while slowly inching closer and closer towards the black structure.

From above, one could see that the cultivators scattered all around the black structure, which was at the end of the plains. An endless number of demons swarmed the plains, forcing the cultivators to always be on edge.

Most were in small groups of three to six. Almost no one travelled alone, as trying to resist the relentless onslaught of demons alone would be the same as suicide for most people. And even then, only warrior mages and steel body martial artists could hope to survive the demon hordes. Most tempered body martial artists and true mages who had entered the inheritance grounds had already become food for the demons.

Three hours later.

Drake’s party were on the move.

Sylvia had sent her pixies out to look for Theo. Firstly, Drake pointed out to her where he and Blaze had met Theo initially and which direction he had fled in. Using Sylvia’s map, they also knew the distribution of village ruins in their area. Combining those two pieces of information, they made a few educated guesses on which paths Theo was most likely to have taken, and then sent the pixie spirits out to scout those directions.

However, it would still take some time to find him. Hence, they decided to steel their hearts and continue towards the next inheritance without Helen. If they were lucky, they might meet other disciples from the Myriad Sword Palace and be able to use their help to fight against the dark mages too.

Blaze had woken up a while ago and everyone filled him in on the events after he became unconscious. Learning that Helen had been kidnapped made him furious. He wanted to chase after the dark grand mage immediately but was stopped by the others.

After a long time, they finally convinced Blaze that their plan to rescue Helen was the best option they had, even though it might take some time. Eventually, Blaze gave in and agreed, and the group started running towards the next inheritance.

They had just finished fighting off a horde of demons and were getting close to another village ruin on Sylvia’s map.

An indistinct blur appeared on the horizon, which soon expanded wide. As they got closer, the blur quickly transformed into a large fence, behind which were numerous buildings cracked and worn by time.

With their speed, they quickly reached the village gates and entered.

‘Aaahhh...’

Everyone sighed with relief as warm air relieved them of the bitter, outside cold.

The party had travelled and fought for a long time and wanted to rest, however, they felt several powerful auras near the centre of the village and became wary. They shared a glance before swiftly running towards the centre.

The centre of the village had a large, stone building. Standing just outside of it were six, large, lean and muscular men radiating powerful auras. All of their attention was focused in a particular direction which they were observing warily.

Soon, four shadows rapidly approached them before coming to a stop a few metres away. Once they stopped moving, the shadows revealed themselves to be Drake, Blaze, Sylvia, and Farisa, and each of them was radiating their own powerful aura.

The two groups silently stared at each other, building a tense atmosphere.

One of the six men in particular was much taller and bigger than the rest, almost at Blaze’s size. He observed each member of Drake’s party keenly. His eyes first fell upon Blaze. The man scanned his red hair, and, upon noticing the black, spiral horns in his head, his jaw slightly dropped open. His eyes then moved to Farisa and he saw the insignia of the Myriad Sword Palace stitched onto her robe, underneath her neck.

For a moment, his eyes became distant as if he was trying to remember something. A vague image of six individuals appeared in his mind, one of whom was very similar to Farisa. Recognising who she was, the man was slightly taken aback. He then turned his attention to Sylvia. Noticing her pure green eyes and hair, as well as her bow artifact which gave off a powerful aura, his jaw dropped further.

Finally, his attention fell onto the short and young, Drake. He didn’t recognise Drake or sense a particularly powerful aura from him, however, he soon noticed that almost every part of Drake’s attire was an artifact and his jaw dropped further.

The man sighed and stepped forward. Everyone’s attention turned towards him.

“Welcome everyone. You must be the famous party of a dragon and dryad from Basindale that we heard of?” he said questioningly looking towards Blaze, Sylvia, and Drake.

They nodded slowly and the man continued, looking at Farisa. “And you must be Farisa Heartwood from the Myriad Sword Palace, correct?”

Farisa also nodded. “Yes… and you all must be Silver Crane Sect disciples, right?” she asked, eyeing them one by one.

“Indeed,” the man replied. “I am Kurt Falon, and I’m currently leading our party. We just arrived at this village a little while before you did.”

“I see,” Blaze interrupted. “In that case, this building must have this village’s inheritance right?”

The Silver Crane Sect members shared a glance and had unsightly expressions.

After coming to this inheritance grounds, they hadn’t been very lucky. They only managed to get two inheritances which only had rank one artifacts. When they found an inheritance with rank two artifacts, it was taken by some random, yet extremely powerful, dark mages. Now that they had arrived at this village, they thought they could at least get this inheritance for themselves, but it seemed like that would not be possible.

For a moment, they all looked at Drake’s party and had the same thought.

‘There are six of us and only four of them…’

Tension filled the air once more. Blaze clenched his sword while Farisa and Sylvia tightened their grip around their hammer and bow.

“Aha!” Kurt laughed awkwardly, trying to diffuse the situation. “How about this? All of us will enter and try to unlock the inheritance first. After we see what it is, we can discuss the best way to… proceed.”

Drake’s party looked at each other. Since Kurt was their leader, the rest of the Silver Crane Sect disciples would obey his decision, so it was just up to them.

Drake thought it made sense to work together to unlock the inheritance first. Once they saw what it was, they could decide whether it was worth it to fight over, or if they could share it instead.

Moreover, all of them still wanted to find other strong cultivators to team up with to fight against the dark mages. Hence, fighting them now would not be ideal.

After a few moments, they came to a silent understanding.

Blaze spoke up for everyone. “Alright, we agree.”