Few kilometers away from the dungeon was an area devoid of any tree or animals. The reason being, the whole land was covered with lava pools making it almost inhabitable to anyone. Copious amount of smoke and steam was floating in the air, making the whole territory look hazy and dangerous.

Spread over few miles, these pools were formed during the Fallen Star Disaster. The disaster had melted rocks around it creating magma around it. After the Great Storm, lava in most places had cooled down. But in few areas, the magma instead of cooling had joined to the magma near the core of the planet through cracks and fault lines, creating such pools.

Small lizards ranging from few inches to few meters in size and completely red in color could be seen moving from one pool to another. In some pools, large islands could be seen. These islands were completely made of jagged black rocks with red glowing cracks, showing the magma flowing beneath them. One of the islands suddenly started moving, revealing a large turtle. The body of the turtle was completely made of rocks and lava. Two bright embers like were visible from his large head. It slowly came out from the pool and moved to another. The islands were gigantic turtle-like monsters!

Snake-like scaly reptiles were breathing fire out while basking near steam vents. Although they were all curled up, their size was easily over ten meters.

Each of the monster here was easily stronger than an avaerage C-Rank.

Deep down the largest pool was another monster. This monster was the unclaimed king of this area. It looked like a large lizard made completely of living fire. Usually, it would simply sleep inside the magma for years while absorbing fire elemental mana, but today something woke it up.

He sensed a large amount of mana fluctuation. The mana was being absorbed by something quite near to his territory. He would usually ignore this, but the thing absorbing his mana dared to it near his territory!

But the thing wasn’t a monster. He didn’t sense any presence of monster from its source. In fact, he could sense nothing. And this made him extremely curious. Who had such courage? Such audacity? Every human and monster knew that ‘this’ territory belonged to him, and it was better to stay away. Not even those so-called S-Rankers would like to annoy him…

So was it a treasure being born?

Or was some human evolving, while hiding from his presence? Did he really think that no one could find it?

This made him curious. He really wanted to go and see, who was so stupid! But he was too lazy to move. Moving and traveling would be extremely bothersome. He didn’t want to leave his comfortable lair. Anyway, he would be using a dragon to kill a fly, if he personally went.

Therefore he called his subordinate. A foot long newt swam towards him and bowed once it reached him. Although the newt wasn’t exactly the biggest and the most dangerous of his subordinate, he would be perfect for this task. The newt was a rare variant. It had intelligence above an average human, so it would make the perfect spy.

“ Go and see what caused this disturbance.” he lazily ordered. Once done, he yawned and was once again snoring, while his body slowly absorbed a large amount of fire mana.

The lizard or newt to be exact ignored this and rapidly moved towards the surface.

He had an order to follow.

Leo and his team finally reached the city after five tiresome days. They had been continuously running since they found that monster.Nobody dared to talk, throughout the journey. They didn’t have the energy to do so. They had simply been running and running.

The reason was, a B-Class or above monster was basically a walking disaster. It would easily destroy everything in its way. Even fighting it was a headache as the collateral damage would be too heavy. The easiest thing would be to kill it before it adapted to its evolution and left the forest.

Usually, they would have informed the guild through Long Distance Communication Crystals. But mana fluctuations had badly disturbed the mana particles, making such communications impossible. Therefore ignoring everything in their way they were running back. They didn’t stop to rest, to kill silly monsters or even to refresh. This task was of utmost importance.

The Group was finally able to see the city.

The Sun was almost setting, casting an ominous shadow over the large city. Spread over almost hundred kilometers, the city was busily preparing itself for the enjoyable nightlife. Day shops were closing shutting their shutters, while city guards were preparing for another sleepless night. Adventurers were rushing into taverns and inns, for their dinners and drinks. Brothels were coming alive everywhere, while scantily clad women were calling men in. Workers were busily waiting for their pay, while the paymasters were once again nitpicking over daily wages. Farmers were coming back home and had made lines outside the wall, waiting to be admitted. Following them were businessmen, caravans, nomads, and miners.

Fifty meters tall black walls defended the city. The city was regularly attacked by monster hordes every few months, making such tall walls essential and the only means for survival. Shields weren't exactly cut out for battling twenty to thirty-meter tall mammoths or Gorillas, while spear would barely penetrate large armored animals skin. This tall black wall was covered with carmine colored blotches on the lower end. Drak red to almost brown and black covered the rest of the wall. These were the blood of millions of monsters and humans that had died here. The soil around the wall had already been dyed a blood red. Skeletons were littered around the wall as if stones. Skeletons of particularly strong monsters were hung from the wall. Monsters above A-rank were honored by mounting their heads on the wall, for all to see. This made the wall a particularly creepy and intimidating site.

Above the wall stood magic canons at every ten meters. Each cannon packed enough power to kill a C-Rank monster on the spot and heavily injure a B-Rank. Squads of ten, consisting of Pikemen and Archer patrolled the top regularly. Every hundred meter, a tower was built, alternating between Cannon Towers, Archer’s Tower and Watch Tower.

The wall had four gates, aligning with the cardinal directions. The gates were made up of wood covered with hammered metal riveted on it. In front of the gates, a long line was waiting for their turn to enter, while the Guards checked their I-D.

The group rushed towards the city, and past through the line waiting to enter the city, passing through the door.They flashed their I-Cards and rushed towards the Guild Hall. Seeing their I-Cards and the Guild Sign the guards ignored their slight, and once again focused on the line.

Ignoring the shouts of annoyed pedestrians and hawker who were pushed away, they finally reached the Guild. Situated in the second sector, the Guild was constructed near the Three Organisations.

Six Storey high, the Guild was constructed of Wood and Stone, giving it a Gothic look. It was more of a fort than a building. Guards continuously manned the Black Door, keeping away all the nosy civilians and adventurers.

Leo and his team-mates were well known in the guild. Seeing them rushing towards them, the Guards greeted them happily and opened the doors.They possibly asked something, but it was ignored, leaving behind few surprised Guards and Adventurers. The team was well known for their polite manners, and such thing was a first. Most of them understood it was possibly something serious, for them to do so.

Ofocurse few adventurers jealous of the Group’s high fame and strength didn't miss the chance to bad talk them.

Ignoring the surprise voices of adventurers and servants which were shoved out of the way, they ran up to the top floor. The top floor was occupied by the Guild Elders and The Guild Leader. The entrance was guarded by two guards, dressed in full metal armor, with a large halberd in their hands.

“Yes ?” asked one of the Guards. His face wasn’t visible under the helmet, but he seemed to be around 40-50. Both of the guards were surprised by the unexpected visitors and also their unexpected state. They were dirty, covered in sweat while barely managing to stand

“ It’s…It’s an...” said Leo while gasping for his breath.

“ It’s an Emergency!” replied Trunks instead. His giant body and great endurance still allowed him to talk, despite the cross-country sprint.

” We need to talk to Sir Ryan!” he continued. Sir Ryan was an elder, but also their team’s leader. Due to their great potential, the elder had taken them under his tutelage.

“ What emergency?” The Guard patiently asked. He couldn’t simply allow them to enter this floor.

Trunks tried to say something, but before he could, Leo held their team tokenin front of them. The tokenwas Sir Ryan’s personal insignia, representing that they belonged to him.

The guard was surprised by such action a immediately brought up his halberd up to defend, while other guard prepared for an attack.

“ Wait! Wait! See the token!” screamed Leo, while backing off. Rest of his teammates apart from Aswin were still panting for breath.

The Guard stopped his action, and finally noticed the token, on which Sir Ryan’s Insignia was carved.

He looked at the team again and opened the door without saying anything. He gestured them to enter and closed the door once they were in.

The floor wasn't much different from other floors, except it was eerily quiet. It didn’t have the hustle and bustle of the other floors. Similarly, it was missing the smell of excitement, blood, and sweat.

But they didn’t notice this, or the lush carpet made of Elderbrown Deer, or the mounted heads of several S-Rank monsters. They directly barged into Sir Ryan’s office.

“ Manners Boys! Manners!” said a white-haired man sitting on a sofa, while looking at some reports. His other hand held a tea-cup from which he was elegantly sipping tea. Dressed in black silk clothes embroidered with silver, he looked the perfect gentleman. The office floors were made of some type of wood, which Leo and his team didn’t have any idea of. The walls were similarly covered with wooden planks. The wall on right side of the door was taken over by a large bookcase completely filled with books, many of them in unknown languages. Few paintings decorated the opposite wall, except for the large fireplace. The wall which held the door was covered by few swords of various makes and types. The wall in front of the door, had a large gilded window looking at the square where the Three Organisations were settled. All in all, the whole office looked like a Scholar’s Office rather than a warrior’s except for the swords.

The sofa was in middle of the room around a small table, facing the fireplace.

“ So what bring’s you here gentlemen. Please don’t tell me that you wanted to spend some time with this old man.” He said gently while looking at them. The reports had vanished.

Seeing the relaxed look of Sir Ryan, they unconsciously relaxed.

Calming down Leo replied, “ Probable B-class monster evolution on the outskirts.”

The line was short but clearly conveyed everything.

For the first time, Sir Ryan frowned. The B-Class monster was a trouble. Alone they weren't much, but if they managed to call upon a horde, they became a terrifying nightmare. A B-class monster didn’t lack in intelligence compared to any human.

“ Tell me everything.” He asked in a serious tone. His teacup was snow sitting on the table, while his hands were folded. The relaxed look was gone.

And so Leo described the whole event, while his teammates added few important points here and there.

“ Well, we will deal with the monster. But why did you miss the goblin tribe?” he asked seriously. After hearing the story he was sure that the Chief was some kind of rare variant. Although weak now but it could later turn into a potential danger. And now since it had identified humans as the enemy it would do everything to bring human’s down.

“ The reports didn’t mention anything about thirty variants being present. It talked about only one. If we knew about it earlier, we would have simply bombed them and killed off the rest.” Said Leo, putting the blame on the scout team.

“ Leo, the scout data clearly mentioned more than thirty variants. Please don’t ever dare to lie to me..and next time chose a better lie. Pushing your mistakes on other’s isn't what a knight is supposed to do…” scolded Sir Ryan

“But the report clearly said one!” interrupted Lea.

“ Lea…even you?” said Ryan while looking at them disappointingly.

Suddenly as if remembering something, Lep took out the scout papers and passed them to Sir Ryan.

“What’s that?” asked Sir Ryan.

“ See it yourself!” replied Leo with a bit of anger. Not even his own leader believed him, which particularly pissed him off.

Ryan looked at Leo and sighed before turning back to the paper. The more he read the deeper his frown got. By the end of the paper, his hands were clenched and trembling.

“Is this the original report?” he asked while controlling his anger.

“Yes.” A quiet voice replied. The voice turned out to be Aswin.

“ If what you are saying is true…someone changed the report.”

Hearing this all of their face’s turned weird. Status reports played an extremely important role for a team. They could be the difference between life and death. And the guild clearly forbade such actions. If caught the result could be worse than death. In fact, even mistakes were not allowed in a status report, and could be punishable by death. Therefore most of the times the report would mention approximate data instead of a perfect one. So no one dared to play with such reports.

“ Someone wanted to kill us?” asked Leo in surprise. The only reason such a large error would be present, if someone wanted them badly hurt or killed.

“Yes.” Replied Sir Ryan.