Chapter 576: Danger
The discovery of fire marked the start of human civilization in Roel’s previous world.
In the Sia Continent, fire used to be worshiped by all intelligent life forms in the ancient era, even predating Sia’s descent. While most legends relating to fire had been lost in the passage of time, humans continued to grow increasingly proficient in the usage of fire.
There were many uses for fire, but the most common one of all was illumination.
The moment Roel noticed the fire from the tree hollow, he widened his eyes in excitement, knowing that fire symbolized the presence of humans. While there was no guarantee that these humans were friendly, it did signify that he wasn’t too far away from human civilization.
The worst-case scenario he had envisioned was for him to have landed at a place far away from human civilization. Survival wouldn’t be an issue for him with the aid of his ancient gods, but he would have to live as a caveman while journeying back.
The Sia Continent was so huge that humans hadn’t even fully explored its vast expanse yet. Should he really land somewhere far away, he could take from years to decades to return to human civilization. This was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
It was fortunate that his worst worries hadn’t become real.
Roel instinctively rose to his feet with the intent to leave this narrow space and call for help, but barely after he took his first step, his movements stalled to a halt. A frown formed on his face.
“Wait a moment; this isn’t right…” Roel murmured.
He had been paying heed to every single detail of his surroundings, and there was one thing that really surprised him: the climate.
It was shortly after New Year’s Day, when the world was still cloaked in snow, that the Fallens attacked Ascart City. Yet, he had landed at a place covered by lush greenery. Such an anomaly naturally caught his attention, but he wasn’t too surprised by it since he knew that different parts of the world had different climates.
For instance, the Austine Empire had a couple of evergreen forests located just south of Rosa.
The difference in climate by itself wasn’t a huge deal, but it became one when it was coupled with such a long trail of flames. Such an army should have never appeared in the evergreen forests of the Austine Empire or the other smaller countries in the vicinity.
Roel was brought up in a military house and had experience fighting on the battlefield. He had the insight to estimate an army’s strength just from its use of fire. Judging from the length of the fire trail, this army had to be at least ten thousand soldiers strong.
This was unusual, as the countries south of Rosa, with the exception of the Austine Empire, were small in terms of population and land mass. None of them boasted a combined national military strength of ten thousand soldiers, not to mention that they wouldn’t have carelessly deployed the limited soldiers they had in such a manner.
The Austine Empire could have been the culprit behind this army, but the circumstantial details made the nature of this maneuver appear shady.
By observing the sun’s movements, Roel deduced that his current location was closer to the south of the continent. As far as he remembered, there was nowhere in the southern region of the Austine Empire that had a plain next to a forest, not to mention that the land there mainly comprised a tropical rainforest that had no strategic importance whatsoever.
With humankind suffering from a dire shortage of manpower and rations from fighting against the deviants, it was unthinkable for any nation to dispatch ten thousand soldiers to a barren land at a time like this!
Doubts surfaced in Roel’s mind, but he decided to watch the situation first. Little did he know that his prudence would save him from a potential calamity.
As the trail of flame slowly approached where Roel was, his face began warping in disbelief. What appeared before his eyes was not a human army but a deviant army.
“Am I at Tark Prairie?” Roel’s heart skipped a beat as alarm bells rang in his mind.
Other than the place where the Savior dwelled, Tark Stronghold was the most dangerous place in the world that Roel knew about. The deviants, in particular, were the nemeses of humankind.
I have to hide right away.
Roel first grabbed the Nine-headed Serpent Staff and channeled his mana into it to order the ancient beast to fully conceal its aura. Then, he pulled over a few nearby vines to block off the tree hollow. Last but not least, he used a couple of concealment spells that were the most effective in the forest.
Presence Weakening. Physical Invisibility. Camouflage Concealment.
Various lights glowed from Roel’s hands as he cast numerous spells to conceal both him and the tree he was hiding in. Seconds later, the detectability of him and this deceased ancient tree had become so weak that they felt no different to a weed in the middle of a forest.
After this was done, he tightly grasped the dagger slotted on his waist as he nervously looked beyond the thick vines to observe the situation outside. Fortunately, the deviants didn’t seem to have noticed his movements or sensed his mana pulsations.
Roel heaved a sigh of relief.
Although he had reached Origin Level 2, it would still be impossible for him to go against an entire army of deviants. It was a relief that he had strong detection ability, much to the Mother Goddess’ credit, allowing him to take pre-emptive maneuvers.
The physical enhancements he had undergone in the Witness State had done more than just grant him the ability ‘Indestructible Body’; his senses had been greatly enhanced as well. Even now, when he was in a poor condition, he could still see farther than the deviants’ scouts.
The thought of that brought a silver-haired figure to Roel’s mind, but he suppressed his yearning and forced himself to focus on the present.
It hadn’t even crossed his mind that the torches could have belonged to the deviants, so it was a relief that he had chosen to first observe the situation instead of investigating it, thus avoiding the worst-case scenario. Even so, he was still curious to know the identity of those deviants and what their goal was.
Thus, he keenly observed the situation as the fire trail slowly came closer and closer to him. Soon, they came close enough for him to spot the finer details amongst them.
These deviants were dressed in coarse beast-skin-leather armor and a helmet crafted from a beast skull. Their weapons came in different shapes and sizes, but every single one of them was carrying a torch, suggesting that it was standard military equipment for them despite the torches’ varying lengths.
What stood out the most among them was a flag with a complicated design on it.
The flag itself was made out of inferior materials, and Roel didn’t understand what the flag’s design meant. Yet, his heart pounded and his eyes narrowed when he saw the flag, for he knew that not all deviant armies were qualified to bear a flag.
This is one of their main armies, Roel thought.
He spotted more supporting evidence as the army came closer.
The army had no elderly or children, comprising solely brawny deviants who were well-equipped by their standards. Some of them were carrying ‘spoils of war’, consisting of human weapons that sharply contrasted the deviants’ shabby weapons, and snatched ‘rations’.
Their ‘rations’ weren’t grain food, unlike those of normal human soldiers, but bloodied meat slices.
Human limbs.
Roel saw that one of the deviants was carrying a human arm that continued to tightly grasp onto its weapon even after death, and it sent a wave of anger through him.
Coming from a renowned military house, he was aware that the deviants would devour corpses on the battlefield that weren’t collected in time, but seeing it in person was a different story. This scene drove home to him that co-existence with the deviants was impossible.
They were an enemy that humankind absolutely had to destroy.
After a moment of staring, Roel lowered his gaze.
I can’t look anymore, or else my killing intent will become too strong.
His revulsion filled him with a strong urge to charge out so as to massacre those monsters, but he knew that it was more likely that he would just become one of their ‘rations’. He was in a poor condition at the moment, but even if not for that, it was sheer foolishness to charge solo against one of the deviants’ main armies.
Each one of the deviants’ flag-bearing main armies represented a large tribe, which possessed military power comparable to a human country.
There were bound to be Origin Level 2 transcendents within such large tribes, not to mention that deviants were far more physically adapted to battle than humans. Even human Race Sovereigns would hesitate to charge into a deviant main army.
In the tree hollow, Roel closed his eyes and tried his best to control his emotions while gripping tightly onto his Nine-headed Serpent Staff. Soon, his mild killing intent, the only factor that could potentially give him away, also vanished without a trace.
The sounds of deep grunts and heavy footsteps crescendoed to a peak before gradually diminishing. By the time he opened his eyes once more, the moonlit prairie had already regained its quietness.
Roel looked at the departing fire trail with severe golden eyes.
As the saying went, vengeance is a dish best served cold. He would imprint the anger he felt today in his heart. However, this wasn’t the time to be absorbed by his feelings of hatred, as he noticed a subtle detail that was worth thinking deeply about: the direction in which the deviants were marching.
Judging by the equipment and ‘rations’ carried by the deviants, this army likely clashed with a human army not too long ago and emerged victorious. Yet, despite their victory, they had chosen to march neither west, where the forces of humankind were, nor east, where most of their tribes were. Instead, they were heading south.
This was intriguing.
The southern area of Tark Prairie was a forested mountainous region that had poor conditions for survival, even for a small tribe. A large tribe with over a thousand people couldn’t possibly survive there. Those monsters must have a deeper purpose for heading there.
So, here was the million-gold-coin question: What could have attracted them there?
If it was a matter of resources, the western human world was a treasure trove waiting to be plundered. If it was a matter of territory, the eastern plain was a hundred times better than here.
If I really have to point out something that this place has that other places don’t…
Roel looked at the silver moon in the sky as he pondered this question. Slowly, his face began to darken. After eliminating the other options, he realized that there was only one answer here.
It’s me.
“…” Roel was rendered speechless.
The more he thought about it, the higher the likelihood of this possibility seemed. The evidence lay in how there were plenty of deviants in the earlier army who were dressed in priest robes.
Humankind had yet to investigate the deviants’ faith thus far, but based on their enigmatic connection with the Savior, they were likely to be one of the races who had served Him back in the ancient era. This meant that the earlier army might be a collusion between the Collector and the deviants’ higher-ups to track Roel down.
“Damn it…”
Just the thought that tens of thousands of deviants might have already encircled this land made Roel’s complexion turn awful. He took a moment to think about his next step before sitting back down and closing his eyes.
I must recover my strength before they find me! Roel thought.
A tinge of mana began to pulsate in the tranquil forest.
…
While Roel was trying to recover his strength in Tark Prairie, in the distant unknown darkness, a man with indistinct facial features was seated alone.
A few hours ago, the Collector had encountered an unexpected intervention that foiled the chance he had been awaiting for a long time. Due to that, his enemy managed to escape the ordeal and flee to a place unbeknownst to him.
This came as a huge frustration to the Collector, as it meant that the meticulous planning he made beforehand had all gone down the drain… but this didn’t mean that he was helpless yet.
Roel might not have fallen into the endless abyss, but he still landed in the wartorn Tark Prairie. Furthermore, he was in an extremely fragile condition, as the Collector had sensed while he was trying to change his landing point.
What the Collector had to do at this juncture was clear.
He began preparing his next step in accordance with what he had previously planned, but as soon as he was exposed to the moonlight, he suddenly felt a tremendous pressure crushing down on him from the sky. It was so great that he couldn’t evoke the thought of fighting back.
It suddenly felt as if the moon had become a divine being with endless power, and the night had transformed into an unbreakable cage.
Even the Collector had to halt his footsteps under this pressure. A gaze from the silver moon induced goosebumps all over his body, rendering him hesitant to move even the slightest bit. The moon seemed to endlessly enlarge behind him, as all colors and sounds in the world drifted away from him.
He instinctively understood the emotions behind the gaze—anger and hatred. It was no different from a dragon having its reverse scale touched. He thought that divine retribution was going to descend from the sky.
Much to his surprise, the sharp gaze lingered for several seconds before abruptly calming down, as if the owner behind the gaze had changed. Shortly thereafter, the heavy gaze vanished as if it had never appeared.
The Collector anxiously retreated into the darkness, for he knew what he had just encountered.
The Mother Goddess’ gaze.
This was a rare phenomenon that hardly anyone had ever experienced, representing both a fortuitous encounter and a harbinger of danger.
However, the Collector was in no mood to decide which of the two it was for him. His mind was occupied by something else.
“What in the world did you do…” the Collector murmured under his breath with a terrifyingly heavy aura.
He instinctively realized that this incident had something to do with Roel, but he had no clue how those two could have been linked. The Ascart Bloodline shouldn’t have been able to interfere with reality. That was the ironclad law derived from countless observations.
Moments later, he shook his head and attributed it to Roel’s Crown’s Stones before proceeding to revise his subsequent plans.
The Collector knew that it was no longer possible for him to personally dispose of Roel after what had happened earlier, but that didn’t worry him in the least.
That territory belonged not to him but to an ancient and powerful existence. With the resurgence of the Savior, that Sovereign had awoken from his deep sleep too.
“You must be desperately hiding right now, but it’s futile… Your fate was already sealed from the moment you stepped onto this soil,” the Collector muttered.
He took one last look at the map laid out before him before slowly fading into the darkness.
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