A few days later, the group departed from the town. The Werewolves and Vampires were working well with the humans to repair the damage. All the races involved were not happy, but the threat of being punched into oblivion by Wolfenstine caused them to think otherwise.

“I hope they fix the damage soon. Otherwise, I’ll have to grill them!” Wolfenstine said and he bumped his fist into his palm.

“Yes, but I think they’ll do fine. They know how bad it’ll be for them when you lash out punishment!” Darian said with a smile.

As they both laughed, Rumble slowly said “Yes, but more importantly... Why the hell are you here?!”

He pointed at Wolfenstine, who was sitting inside the carriage. Darian had the leashes to the horses and drove them on.

Wolfenstine smiled and said “Didn’t I tell you I’ll be joining you guys?”

“No...!” Rumble said and he looked angry.

Wolfenstine laughed and said “I thought I did. Maybe I just forgot to tell you since you’re not... so... special.”

He smiled sweetly and Rumble suddenly snapped. He reached over and tried to punch at him, but Marilia held him back.

“Dammit! Darian, get this idiot out of here!” Rumble complained when Marilia finally let go of him.

“Why? He’ll come in handy if we get into a tricky situation,” Darian said in a concerned voice.

“I don’t care! He’s a pain and needs to get out of here!” Rumble shouted angrily.

“You are so childish, Rumble. Just because I’m teasing you, you want me out of here. You really are a man with no brains,” Wolfenstine said and he chuckled.

“GRRR!!!” Rumble said and he glared fiercely at Wolfestine.

Marilia watched them arguing and sighed. She knew this would happen and asked Darian beforehand what to do. He simply smiled and said “Do what you have to do.”

“What am I, the disciplinary lady?” she thought before becoming serious.

“You two! If you don’t stop arguing, I’m going to seriously get mad and not make food for both of you!” Marilia told them.

They looked at her in panic, but saw no mercy in those eyes. That was when they realised their argument and their rivalry will have to wait. They sighed and became silent. Watching this, Lakshman laughed.

“Marilia, you really are good at disciplining people. You somehow remind me of my mum,” Lakshman said cheerfully.

Marilia smiled at him and said “Women should be good at handling this sort of thing. Otherwise, we’d have beast wars on our hands. It also doesn’t help when the King ranked warriors fight it out like some three year olds!”

“Eh? Wolfenstine is King ranked?”

“That’s right! He is a warrior, but since he mainly does scientific things, he is called the Scientific King!”

“Wow...! You must really like to do scientific stuff,” Lakshman said in amazement as he turned and asked Wolfenstine.

Wolfenstine nodded and said “I am good at studies and the science stuff interested me. I get to do a lot of experiments, test out different things daily and... be helpful to society, I guess.”

“Be helpful to society? All you do is use people as your experimental sacrifices! That’s how he got use to test out most of his initial experiments which ended in disaster,” Rumble said and he started to shake a little.

Wolfenstine quickly said “I just made a slight error in mixing the substances when I gave to you and Darian. I didn’t mean to make you so sick that you were bed ridden for months! So I’m sorry! Really sorry!”

As Wolfenstine continued to apologise, Lakshman quietly said “Nasty...!”

He saw the cold expression on both Darian’s and Rumble’s faces. That itself told him just how bad the experiments were back then. Then he wondered if Alchemist and Scientist are the same kind of people. He wanted to ask, but something else was bothering him.

Lakshman looked over to the corner of the carriage. Sitting there quietly was Sevedant, the Death Titan. Even since they left town, Sevedant had remained silent. He was just staring at his sword which made him wonder what that sword was. Sevedant had called it Soul Slayer.

“What’s the matter, master?” Ondine asked him when she noticed the puzzled expression on his face.

“Oh...! Just about to speak to Sevedant about something,” Lakshman said and he moved over while saying “Hey! Sevedant! What are you doing?”

When he sat down next to him, Sevedant slowly said “Just... investigating.”

“Investigating?”

Sevedant nodded and they became silent. He was staring at the sword intently and Lakshman asked “Is that sword something special?”

Nodding his head, Sevedant looked at him and said “Special sword. Soul Slayer. Sacred Spirit.”

“Oh...” Lakshman said slowly and nodded his head. Then he realised what he heard and said “Mmm?! Sacred Spirit? So this sword is like... the Phoenix Blade? Like Tetra?”

Sevedant nodded and said “If memory serves... Tetra’s name is... Ashtetra Blazkin Jenes Forin Sekinat.”

“I-Is it?” Lakshman asked hesitantly.

Lakshman looked at Tetra with a confused expression and asked “Tetra... Is that your full name?”

Tetra nodded and said “Yes, but master said the name was too long. So you shortened it to Tetra which we’re used to now.”

“Ah...!” Lakshman said as he finally remembered.

It had been several months since Tetra became his Contract Spirit. At that time, he remembered vaguely Tetra telling him some ridiculously long name. Because he could not remember it, he shortened it and Tetra agreed to go by the shortened version of her name.

Now Lakshman became curious about Sevedant’s sword and asked “What’s its name then?”

“Devastrator.”

“Huh?” Just that? It isn’t something as long as Tetra’s name?”

“Master, the names of Spirits can wary. Some have longer names than me while others just have one or two words as their names. It was just how we were named,” Tetra explained.

Lakshman understood what she meant. The Elemental Lords are the lords of the elements that dwell in the Spirit World. He learnt they respectively name each spirit based on something he did not know about.

Getting back to the point, he asked “So? Why are you having a staring content with your sword, Sevedant?”

“Investigating the shadows,” Sevedant said quietly.

“Shadows? Do you mean those things that your sword absorbed? What about them?”

“Filled with darkness. Ugly. Twisted. Corrupted.”

“Yikes. Sounds terrible, but isn’t darkness something like the night sky or how it becomes dark in the night or is it to do with elements?”

“Elements. Corruption. Twistedness. Evil.”

“Evil? Then it’s most likely there are demons that are corrupting this part of the region!” Darian said in an extremely serious voice.

“That’s not good! This place should be filled with light and hope. That is the symbol of the Phoenix Clan,” Marilia said in an anxious voice.

“Not necessarily. It’s most probable that there are Demons around spreading the darkness. They are corrupting the Elemental Spirits into becoming corrupted and twisted,” Wolfenstine said as he made a face as he thought about it.

“Wait, wait! Isn’t that bad then? Isn’t it bad for Ondine if she gets affected by that twisted stuff?” Lakshman asked apprehensively.

At his words, Ondine laughed and said “Master, you do not need to worry. I am a Physical Spirit and will not be so easily corrupted by the twisted darkness. However, the Elemental Spirits are not that lucky. They coexist with nature and that makes them vulnerable to corruption.”

“Elemental Spirits? So you mean like the spells and stuff that we use? The spirits gather to form the spells and such?”

“That’s right, master. We provide the energy and the Elemental Spirits provide you with the execution of magic spells. They also interact with a living being by providing them with a sense of presence and such. That is why nature is very important to everyone!”

Understanding, Lakshman became very angry and said “Damn them...! How could they do this?!”

Ondine shrugged her shoulders and shook her head to state that she did not know. However, she thought of the hypothesis of the Demons beginning their attempts to start a Racial War. If such a thing happened, the very world they live in will fall into chaos and utter destruction will ravage the lands.

Darian was also thinking in the same lines as he said “We need to hurry! We’re very close to reaching the Floria region and all this darkness is spreading! I’ll take it as bad news and be prepared for the worse!”

“Let’s go then! I can’t wait to show those bastards who they are messing with!” Rumble said and he smiled excitedly.

Darian made the horses go faster. From here on out, they took little breaks. They would only stop in the night to get rest and set off early in the morning. The quicker they reach the region, the better they can do to stop this.

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