The trio continued this training till the nightfall and right after the sunrise they resumed it again. The Qi consumption was even larger than the consumption of the swords, thus they spent a decent amount of time replenishing their strength as well. Still, their training gave the results they hoped for, just not as fast, but they still could help out the tired servants to move the largest rocks and earned quite a lot of respect from the common people in the caravan.

Although these were not slaves, but a hired help, it was unimaginable for higher ranked mercenaries or aristocrats to meddle with commoners. But these three didn’t bother about class restrictions at all and sometimes chatted and laughed alongside the simple workers.

Clayton had a lot of experience leading simple sailors and he didn’t care, but this was a new world for YunYun. In her mind she instinctively put Nick in the same social status as hers already before meeting him since the other three girls called him their friend while telling stories on the way.

With big eyes she watched Nick move boulders together with dirty workers and then clap their shoulders and praise for the job well done. He didn’t even hesitate to give out bottles of clean water, pretending to take them out of his bag.

But then YunYun understood. Nick never even considered these class differences. That was also the reason Scarlet liked him – he maintained similar attitude when speaking to her and she, being a high rank beast, felt his sincerity. Even if he could trick people, may be even experienced Qi masters, he could never trick a beast like her.

At first YunYun honestly doubted in the existence of Angel. The logical explanation was for a young boy to believe in some deity like creature saving him and hence the name as well. But now she understood that her fiance really had two rank six beast as his friends.

Nick was extremely intelligent, gifted and skillful. But in addition he was simple, honest and loyal as well.

‘Mom! I picked the right one!’ YunYun smiled to herself watching him with side glances from time to time.

Nick, on the other hand, didn’t think of such things at all. His mind was filled with confusion on how this training could be so hard. He was quite proud of his Qi skills, but that was up until now. Seeing the large pile of scrap metal at the side, he understood how long the road ahead of him was and continued with even more enthusiasm.

When in the evening of the second day they finally removed the last rock from the road, the tired trio went back to their position, but vice caravan leader shook his head, ‘How the hell they managed to cut blackrock stones with common weapons? This stone has higher quality iron particles in it than the weapons they used! Even emperor’s palace is mostly constructed from simple black stones since the blackrock is too heavy and too hard to process.’

Nick didn’t know what material were the large rocks in the landslide made of. They looked the same as any other rock around these parts, therefore he suggested this training. All three of them were not disappointed with their slow progress and it only made them better realize their shortcomings.

Finally they left the Dark road and arrived at the next town. Unfortunately the rain was still falling albeit it was not as bad as before. Thus the caravan settled down, but the fair would start only after the rain stopped.

Southern mercenaries continued their practices until two days later sun finally managed to fight its way through the thick layer of clouds. Its first rays were received with loud cheers not only from the caravan, but from the locals in town as well.

The Lochi town was located at the side of a wild mountain river that had the same name. This, usually small, fifty meter wide river was currently threatening to flood the closest buildings on the riverbank because during the long rainy days water level had risen several meters and now it was almost hundred and fifty meters wide.

Water still kept flowing down the surrounding mountain ranges and gathered in the river forming a wide quick wild stream in a color of mud. The townsfolk wasn’t worried much since this was a yearly occurrence during this period, it just usually happened around fifteen, twenty days later. This was also the main reason for Rushdi’s annoyance.

Besides hunting, the ferrying of the caravans over the wild Lochi river was the biggest source of income and therefore townspeople gladly welcomed their new guests. Many of them already knew each other and the atmosphere in the fair was lively and joyful.

Nick settled his horse dept and made the purchases around the town and, since there was nothing else to do, proceeded with his usual routine.

The town was not big and fair was planned to be held only for one day, thus early morning on the second day caravan gathered on the riverbank awaiting for the local ferrymen to carry them over.

Because of the wide and wild waters, the usual rafts were too big to use, therefore smaller ones were crafted that could only hold a single carriage and may be another horse. Even though the ferrying process would take almost the whole day, there was no way around it and everyone patiently waited for their turn.

Before the start, ferrymen tested out the ropes they had to hold their raft from being carried away and the raft itself, and only then slowly proceeded on carrying out the first party over. Four strong men were needed to perform this service and two packs of four were already waiting back on the shore to switch – this way they could continue till the whole caravan was carried over.

The job was not easy, but there were no unexpected incidents. After the first carriage was carried over and the raft came back, next four energetic lads jumped on it and welcomed three horses with two servants who were looking after them.

They didn’t manage to get to the middle of the stream when suddenly a huge mouth opened behind them and two of the horses got grabbed in it. Between those monstrous jaws sturdy ropes got torn as if they were cotton threads and the raft, spinning in the waters, rushed down the stream. From the impact the six people and the remaining horse fell off and under the shocked eyes of onlookers soon disappeared in the same mouth one after another. The only thing they could discern was the enormous head of a snake which swallowed everyone and parts of its body that surfaced from time to time.

For few seconds only the splashing sounds of the Lochi river were heard, but after the first scream many others followed and more than two thousand people who were in this caravan in total panic and disorder tried to get as far from the river as possible. The horses and the mules got panicked as well and made the chaos even worse.

Hysterical shouts ‘monster!’, ‘dragon!’ and ‘demon!’ echoed around accompanied by panicked neighs and even screams of pain from those who were pushed to the ground and trampled over.

Nick and the rest of the ‘Southern mercenaries’ were not in a rush to cross the river and were practicing at the side as usual when the panic broke out. Luckily they were far enough and didn’t get caught in the chaos, therefore not understanding the confusion Nick quickly scaled the closest tree to take a look around.

What he saw made his heart almost stop. It was no the chaos and panicked people who ran while screaming, but the huge dark gray, almost black snake that suddenly shot out from the turbid waters and grabbed two horses on the riverbank in one go. Swallowing them alive, it dashed to the side where few more panicked animals were stuck between trees and swallowed them as well. Behind its head on the body were formed few lumps that even moved from time to time proving that the swallowed victims were dying in agony.

Nick watched in shock as the huge reptile glanced at the panicking crowd and then reluctantly slid back in the stream. During the whole process it didn’t come out fully and he couldn’t even calculate the size if it. The head alone was not smaller than a truck and the body was at least three, may be even four meters in diameter. From these proportions it was obvious that the snake might be over fifty meters long and it was no wonder it easily managed to swallow few horses in one go while still wanting more.

Nick jumped down from the tree and, while throwing nervous glances at the river over the shoulder from time to time, darted towards his comrades.

“Let’s fall back! I’ll explain in a minute!”

Everyone followed as he led them to the side only to ask questions later.

The great chaos ended only an hour later and after another hour the caravan leaders finally started to organize the evacuation of wares while guards were busy running around, herding the horses and mules that were still in panic.

There was no marauding or looting from the townspeople and the local hunters and guards were currently ‘securing’ the riverside, but only in a form of forming a thin defensive line fifty to hundred meters away from the riverbank. The closest homes were already evacuated and people were gathered behind their ‘defenders’ while everyone stared in the turbid waters in panic and disbelief.

After seeing that the beast didn’t resume its attack, caravan guards got more courageous and after two more hours there were no more carriages near the former ferry post. Unfortunately more people met their end or got crippled under the feet of the panicked mob than in the jaws of the monster, but everyone unanimously blamed the huge snake for these casualties.

There was nothing much for Nick and others to do, but to not stand out. They provided some help to the merchants they usually protected and then fell back to observe the following events. Fortunately or not, nothing happened, except later in the afternoon Nick and Clayton along with caravan’s Qi masters were called to join a meeting in the governor’s residence.

They already discussed their options and decided that for now the smartest would be to simply wait out. They were only a bit over half way and, even if the next part of the road was the easiest, their cover as the caravan guards was too good to loose. Ulun, being the biggest port town on the west coast, will definitely have the news of the emperor dying long before their arrival and the castle guards in black or other forces surely will be looking for them. Group’s hope was that, may be because of the caravan’s slow movement speed, they will arrive so late that the search for the princesses might already be over or the involved forces would become careless thus the danger would lessen as well.

In the biggest hall of the governor’s mansion were gathered twenty odd people. Nick recognized only the Qi masters from the caravan as well as the caravan leaders, but the rest were probably some local powerhouses. The one who sat in the main seat was obviously the governor and, since he was not in a good mood, he went directly to the point.

“Thank you for agreeing to lend your assistance, caravan leader Solomon. I regret that your people suffered such losses this morning, but we are surprised by this event as much as you are. Everyone of those gathered here is interested in getting rid of this … monster as soon as possible, so let’s discuss our options. First, I want to know what that thing is, does anyone have any idea?”

After a brief period of silence a local Qi master slowly spoke, “Although I didn’t see it myself, from the descriptions we can definitely say it is a rank six water snake or python that came down from the mountains with the recent flood.”

Most others had this guess as well, but hearing someone say it out loud made them all hold their breaths.

“Then … then what can we even do about it?” Governor weakly said. There was no way for such small town to deal with a legendary being and he would need a small army for that.