"What have you found?"

In a dusky room, a big figure stood by the window with his hands behind his back, looking at the city outside. The person to whom the question was directed took a look at the reports in his hand and sighed deeply.

"Crobus… Guildmaster, it's-" Javiar closed his eyes in sorrow and took a deep breath to steady his mind.

"Fifteen villages were attacked in total while four coastal towns in the east were ravaged in a single night… Five villages have ceased to exist and a town became a ghost town." Javiar spoke in a solemn voice and his fingers squeezed the papers hard as he read the reports.

After a moment of silence, Crobus spoke, "How many?"

His voice was filled with pain and sorrow and he couldn't even prevent himself from trembling.

"Ah~ Based on the recent reports... there are ten thousand dead, and the number is increasing every day. At least five thousand women under the age of forty are missing, and the amount of wounded victims is immeasurable."

Javiar lifted his gaze and wiped away tears that clouded his eyes. "Those unholy beasts deserve a life that is worse than death!"

The Guildmaster trembled and his hands formed giant fists, barely keeping his emotions in check. "So many… In a single night…" he quietly whispered. "Have the gods forsaken us? Do they have no mercy?!"

He then suddenly turned around, with hatred and fury written all over his face.

"Well? Did the scouts come back already?! What did they find?"

Javiar sighed again and shook his head, "They weren't able to find anything, and not for the lack of trying… It is as if the devilish beasts disappeared from the face of the world. I know it sounds crazy, but there was no way we would miss such an enormous increase in Goblin population, not with all the cleaning we are doing…"

He continued, "Back to the scouts… They did not have trouble finding and following the footsteps of these monsters, but once they entered the forest, they were simply helpless. It was as if an ocean of these beasts washed over the land, thousands upon thousands of tracks, layered one on top of the other, it was simply impossible to follow a single one!"

"They already abandoned the conventional tracking methods and have decided to simply deploy a manual search across the land… But that will take time, the area of land is simply too vast and we don't have the manpower needed for something like this!"

The area the scouting parties had to search through was more than half a million hectares! It was simply impossible for a few hundred people to comb through in less than a year. And that was unacceptable.

If they wanted to have a chance in saving a few lives, they had to find the victims before the end of the week, a task seemingly impossible to complete.

"Cancel all miscellaneous jobs we are currently offering and get all our warriors to focus on searching! And if they find any Goblins, kill them! We will be paying double!" Crobus ordered with a deep voice and a dark frown on his face.

"Yes, sir!" Javiar saluted and left the room to put the order in place immediately. Time was of the essence.

***

In the following days, the search parties from Geldern increased tenfold, but that was still nowhere enough for the Guildmaster. And he was not alone in these thoughts.

The rest of the cities in the north-eastern part of the kingdom suffered similar incidents, and many more towns were destroyed before anyone even knew what happened.

The dead already exceeded fifty thousand and there were many more wounded and maimed. The small infirmaries were suddenly overloaded and the demand for potions and medicine skyrocketed.

The news, although it traveled slowly, soon reached every corner of the kingdom and the King had his hands full with dealing with the headache-inducing situation.

"Your Excellency, the report just came in, it's from Lord Omar from Freka! The villages and farms north of it were also attacked, and they suffered massive casualties, at least one thousand dead! They are requesting help in dealing with the corpses and the wounded!"

"Your Majesty, a sudden disease outburst began in Ironhog Village! The rotting corpses attracted many wild animals and they can't deal with them fast enough. They are begging for a few Fire Mages to help them dispose of the problem!"

"Your Majesty, the Guildmaster from Geldern organized a massive search party of more than a thousand people, but they still couldn't find any clues in the last three days. They require more manpower and are requesting for powerful Earth Mages to help them search the massive underground caverns!"

"Your Majesty…!"

"Your Excellency…!"

"My King…!"

The royal advisors and ministers of the royal court shouted over each other unceasingly. The king was pinching the bridge of his nose with closed eyes and a deep frown on his face.

"Alright, enough!" he shouted.

A deathly silence washed over the throne room in an instant.

"When I said I'll listen to you all, I didn't mean it like this! I understand all your problems, but there is something much more serious going on! We have received an accusation of kidnapping the princess from the Empire! The messenger came a week ago carrying the letter with the Emperor's seal in which he threatened with war if we don't immediately return his daughter!"

The King angrily snorted, "That old bastard thinks he can do whatever he wants just because he is slightly stronger! Not to mention that I had no idea his daughter was even missing, even if we truly kidnapped her, threatening with war would be a terrible idea!"

"That's right!"

"You tell him, your Majesty!"

"Who would even want his ugly daughter?!"

"Fuck the Emperor!"

"Yeah!"

The room once again erupted in loud shouts as the blood boiled in all people present, making them look like some sort of savage animals.

"I'm just wondering if this is truly just a coincidence or if these two things are somehow connected. I wouldn't be surprised if those dogs from Blood Sun Viper Sect had something to do with it! They originate from the Empire after all!" The King spoke through gritted teeth and the aura around him turned menacing.

"Those bastards!"

"Apparently we didn't kill enough of them, the cowards."

"Right, always committing suicide at the first possible moment, don't they value their life at all?!"

As the royal court ministers conversed, the King lifted his hand to silence them.

"I want you to help our people as much as you can, but you should also investigate the Blood Sun Viper Sect at the same time. I want to know exactly what they are up to!"

He paused for a moment and then said, "Also, send a message to my generals! We need to be ready for a possible war!"

***

Although the news already spread across the Kingdom of Myrtana, Gerald was completely oblivious to the things that were happening.

He was having fun hunting and slowly growing stronger.

Although the animals he stole the Essence from weren't that strong, all of them being in the Iron Ranks, it was still quite helpful to his growth.

He unknowingly traveled further south towards the unfamiliar lands. As he sat down on a thick tree branch to recover, he suddenly lifted his brows in surprise.

"Huh? Is this…?" He took out his pocket watch and then measured his Mana regeneration rate. "It went up again?"

He scratched his head and frowned. It wasn't like this an hour ago. It was weird because it didn't increase just a little, it went up by more than 30%!

"There is something wrong…" Gerald opened his Magic Eyes and observed the nature around him.

"I see," he mumbled, "As expected, the Mana around here is denser than usual!"

After recovering completely, he rose to the skies and observed the ground from a higher vantage point. The Mana was indeed denser in that place, but that was not all.

It appeared that the density increased quite rapidly in one direction and the denser Mana formed a line while gradually growing stronger that way.

Anything that concerned magic and Mana would attract Gerald's attention, so, of course, he followed the line while flying close to the ground.

After flying at least a dozen kilometers, the change in environment was already quite noticeable to the naked eye.

The plants grew tall and lush, much more than those outside the unnaturally dense Mana. Even trees were at least twice as tall and the amount of life that lived in that narrow belt was at least tripled compared to the outside.

Weirdly enough, the beasts avoided conflict as much as possible, almost as if they were afraid they would have to leave after losing a fight.

The Mana concentration in the air already reached ten times the density, and Gerald could now stay afloat for hours!