“...EEEEY!”

In the searing heat with his awakening consciousness, Zieg felt hands on his back, rocking him back and forth.

“HEEEEY! WAKE UUUUUUUUP!”

He heard a voice constantly calling out to him, the owner of the one shaking his body.

Although he wanted to rise, his body felt extremely heavy. He hadn’t rested at all after expending nearly all of his energy in his fight with Gyro, then unconsciously walking forward aimlessly with sheer will power for days until he finally collapsed.

Opening his eyes, he saw a small pair of feet next to his body, and sand as far as his eyes could see. He had unknowingly left the boundaries of the Weiss highlands, and had walked into the Arad Kingdom’s Saha desert.

Vibrations suddenly reverberated from the ground, and sand was splashed about as something rose from the ground next to his fallen body.

It was a strange worm-like creature. It’s beige-skin blended together well with the sand, and its circular rows of teeth made it look more like a leech than a worm. A Sand Worm, a beast indigenous to the Saha desert that preyed on exhausted and unsuspecting prey.

Zieg heard a sound of someone clicking their tongue, and the grown continuously shake.

There was an inhuman screech of agony, and the ground shook once more as the body of the worm hit the ground, dead. The impact of the worm falling sent sand flying over to cover Zieg’s body that was sprawled out on the ground.

Zieg groaned. He forced himself to stay awake and used his hands as support to get up.

What he saw when he stood was a dead worm with a hole punctured in the middle of its body, its green-colored blood was sprayed all over the yellow sand. Standing next to its dead body was a small girl whose hands were covered in its green blood.

“You’re finally up!” said the girl, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Zieg vaguely recognized the girl. He had seen her fleeing together with Gyro’s group a few days before at the Weiss mountain chain.

“Who?” Zieg groaned. He sounded utterly exhausted. At this point, all he wanted was some well-deserved sleep and rest.

“I’m Levia! Let’s go on an adventure together!” the small girl, Levia said.

“Haaah?” an incredibly stupid sound came out of Zieg’s mouth due to his muddle-headedness and confusion.

“Gyro promised! He said he’d take me on an adventure to see things I’ve never seen before, and show me the entire continent! Since you killed him, you have to take responsibility and do it for him!” Levia explained.

Zieg felt a headache coming on. The ringing in his head due to the fatigue and lack of sleep was overwhelming. He shook his head to clear his mind.

What now? He couldn’t go around sulking over Gyro’s death forever. He reaffirmed his goals. His first priority was to grow stronger, then eliminate the remaining members of Paragon. As far as he knew there were still five members of Paragon still roaming around the world and wreaking havoc. If he still couldn’t find him in the process of his journey, then the most likely chance he had of encountering the remaining members was during the Heaven Arena, information of which he obtained from some of the memories of his god fragment, and to enter that he needed…

A guild. At least five people to enter the Heaven Arena with. He still had approximately eight years before the dimensional rift to the Heaven Arena opened. During the time he had left, he needed to begin looking for at least four more people to join him in the creation of a guild. So why not start now? Tiandiyu was the prime place to begin searching and recruiting for guild members. If he went on an ‘adventure’ in Tiandiyu, he could recruit some members along the way. There were no disadvantages to the idea.

With his objective decided, Zieg nodded, “Alright. Let’s go on an adventure, but only if you join my guild.”

“Guild? Like Sphinx? Okay!” Levia replied cheerfully. It didn’t matter much to her. It was simply swapping the Jaeger group Sphinx with another guild.

Zieg didn’t think recruiting her would go that smoothly, at this rate all he needed was three more members.

“The first place to start when going on an adventure is the adventurer’s association, follow me!” Levia dashed off happily.

Zieg found himself caught in her pace, but he didn’t dislike her bubbly, typhoon-like personality. He followed her, trekking across the sand while feeling something gnaw at the back of his mind. He had a feeling that he had forgotten something important, something that had to do with Levia’s last words, but was unable to recall it due to his drowsiness.

Feeling helpless, he ran after her. He was practically lost within Tiandiyu anyway. He needed a guide to bring him to the closest settlement where he could get a map of the continent.

The desert’s heat was truly unbearable, but Zieg was much more suited to this environment than the cold of the Weiss highlands. He had come across a few deserts in his past life in the Grandiel continent.

He talked with Levia along the way, and learned about the seven spheres of power within Tiandiyu, along with the fact that she had come from the Marsh of Oblivion, where she had been picked up by Gyro. The Marsh of Oblivion was the South-Western portion of Tiandiyu, and was the only region that wasn’t under the rule of a sphere of influence. It was an extremely harsh environment where immortal beasts roamed freely, and most aside from a few supreme experts feared to enter.

After walking across the desert for some time, they had finally arrived at the capital city of the Arad Kingdom.

“We’re here!” Levia said with all-smiles. Although the little girl puffed out her chest proudly when explaining things to Zieg, she had only ever been to the Marsh of Oblivion and Kingdom of Arad, the South-Western and South regions of Tiandiyu respectively, and this was only because Gyro’s Jaeger group, Sphinx, was based in the capital city of Arad. It was because of these reasons that she knew the desert like the back of her hand.

“To the adventurer’s association!” she shouted, and shuffled off. Her loud remarks caught the attention of several citizens that sent her strange looks.

Zieg followed after her while feeling that the strange gnawing that he felt before continuously grow stronger. It was a premonition of danger. Although he didn’t know what it was, he trusted his sharpened instincts and chased her.

“Wait!” Zieg called after her, to no avail.

He sighed and chased her into the large building within the city that was the adventurer’s association.

Levia blasted through the doors of the association, causing them to swing open in a violent and conspicuous manner as she made an extravagant entrance into the building.

She shouted out loudly to everyone within the building, “I want to be an adventurer!”

The adventurers, staff, and those putting up commissions all paused. They stopped what they were doing, all conversations stopped as their line of sight ended up on the little girl standing at the center of the building.

It was at this point that Zieg caught up to her. He finally arrived to stand next to her while huffing and puffing. He barely had any energy to spare after his fight with Gyro, and now he walked for days before going on a goose chase after what could be considered a former enemy. He was practically defenseless due to his exhaustion and could only put up a token resistance if anything unexpected happened.

All sights were glued to the duo, making Zieg feel extremely uncomfortable. He realized instantaneously that something was wrong when he felt the gnawing feeling he felt before grow louder and louder.

A shiver ran up his spine, and he hastily looked around the various bulletin boards of the guild. At the same time he did this, many other adventurers in the building had the same thoughts as him and did the same. Their eyes landed decisively on a single, conspicuous bulletin board.

The top of the bulletin board had the large, bolded words, “WANTED JAEGER GROUPS,” followed by pictures of notorious Jaegers within the area. Near the top of the bulletin board were the pictures of four individuals under the bolded name “SPHINX.”

The adventurers were shocked, they looked back and forth between one of the pictures on the bulletin board and the duo, almost as if they were making a visual comparison.

There was only silence within the building for a moment.

It was at this moment that Zieg finally knew what the gnawing feeling from before was, and it was at this moment that Zieg knew that he had fucked up.

Despite this, Levia stood next to him with her chest puffed out, almost as if she were proud of herself and her adventurer debut.

“Run!” Zieg shouted and grabbed onto Levia’s hand.

His shout seemed to be the trigger for action, and all the adventurers pounced at them with red eyes filled with greed.

The sudden action filled Levia with confusion, but she reacted quickly and transformed into a giant serpent, her true form.

The sudden transformation broke a large hole through the roof where the two escaped.

“YOU CAN’T BE A FUCKING JAEGER AND ADVENTURER AT THE SAME TIME!” Zieg shouted while holding onto her fin with his life.

“GYRO NEVER TOLD ME THAT!” Levia shouted back.

They were arguing, holding a conversation in shouts in an attempt to be heard over the sound of the wind.

“CHANGE BACK! WE STAND OUT TOO MUCH LIKE THIS! WE CAN LOSE THEM IN THE CITY!” Zieg shouted. He looked behind them to see dozens of adventurers wildly chasing them over the space of the city.

Levia abruptly transformed back into a little girl, and the two fell downward.

It was a few minutes after this that Aquila and his grandfather had entered the adventurer’s association.

…

Two immortals leisurely walked North-West towards their selected destination. The region ruled by the Selien Empire.

“Aquila, you said the worst-case scenario was the survivor of Sphinx reappearing, right? It isn’t like you to leave something like that go unchecked,” Asher said.

If the last remaining member of Sphinx appeared, there was a possibility that she could disclose to the public that the other members, and most importantly Gyro had died and wasn’t in possession of Aegis. If that was made known, their plans could be ruined completely.

Aquila only chuckled.

“Do you know the best way to kill a Jaeger, grandpa?” Aquila asked.

“,,,” Asher stayed quiet. He had noticed his grandson’s confidence. He should have never brought the topic up, when he had already known: Aquila did not leave loose ends.

“With another Jaeger,” Aquila smirked sinisterly.

Aquila had already made plans to silence Levia.

Jaegers had many enemies. Not only were they wanted by adventurers, they naturally had competition, rivalry, and enmity with other Jaegers through their line of work. Using this knowledge, Aquila had enlisted the help of a Jaeger group that were enemies of Sphinx to hunt down Levia.

As far as Aquila was concerned, Levia, and everyone around her was already as good as dead.