Om

"You ready?" Sachihiro asks to my left looking up at me, I grunt my ascent and he keeps looking around checking our entire group.

There are 26 of us making our way home from the Den but it isn't just tribesmen going back to Sandaria. Lager has a new mate that he met here and a 5 year old son with them, he is one of the first Barbarians to come here years ago with Ava's group and he hasn't been home since.

Fouler is a human from Tigana, born and raised in Pangaea but is now sort of mated to Cecilia and will follow her back to her homeland and her people. Gerard is an explorer type from Creece who dabbles in cartography and the only fully Awakened in our party, and of course I have Volvox to my right as silent as can be but still seeming arrogant.

We've all said our goodbyes and spoken to the ruling body of the compound of our intentions to one day return with maybe some of our other friends. We trudge through the mist as we leave the compound grounds and directly into the thick Igurian forest. Gerard leads since he is the most durable and most experienced traveller.

We trudge behind him with a moderate pace, the magical mist somehow clearing any trail we leave behind us on top of its primary use of confusing anyone that doesn't live or have authority to be at the compound. I don't know how claimed territory works but depending on the person or a group claimed lands seem to have varying benefits.

It takes us nearly an hour to finally break through the mist as we walk mostly in silence, not that the mist itself affects us much. But it symbolizes Conclave claimed land and it takes us an hour of walking to get into the wilder unclaimed forest and we are all vigilant even as we increase our pace.

And of course our course takes us through territory claimed by an Ancient beast.

When traveling through the territory of another beast its important to not have a threatening aura or hunt the beast of prey within said territory, and its best not to linger more than is necessary. The Igurian forest is home to many preditory beasts and some of the forest is claimed by territorial beasts that are strong enough to defend that claim.

Everyone besides the kid can feel, sense, taste, touch or see aura so we all know when our route takes us into claimed territories but the beasts aren't an immediate threat to us from the compound. Negotiations with them for construction and relatively safe passage were done decades ago and of course the conclave leaders demonstrated their strength for all would be challengers to feel.

But we don't linger as we pass through Eldredgingred's territory at a respectable jog. We are all individually capable of mostly silent forest travel but at varying degrees of proficiency, and we've spread out enough not to get in each others way but be able to defend each other at a moments notice.

It's a travel formation that is ideal for silent travel of a large group but it isn't very fast as everyone has to make their own path through the foliage.

The way becomes slightly steeper as we start climbing the forested ridge, a small mountain that isn't just rock but grass, trees and rocks. Going gets tough here for many of the less trained individuals and I notice Gaia has the kid on his shoulders now, the kid has a solid grip on his locks of hair and is whispering to Gaia quietly by incessantly.

The climb takes us nearly 2 hours to reach the top of the nameless ridge, its not a very difficult ridge to climb with lots of animal trails for us to follow but it's high and steep at places. The smart animals mostly ignore us during the climb, we are using our aura's to convey our power levels and keep some of the pack hunters at bay. And the more powerful individual beasts are mostly kept at bay by our numbers even though we aren't particularly strong individually against them.

At the peak we stop to make sure everyone is still well and accounted for before heading down to the Academy side of the mountain to collect the rest of our group, from this side it truly becomes a mountain and the descent takes longer than the climb did from the Den's side.

There could be as many as a hundred or more of us heading home once we include the Academy guys/girls. I'm sure Teà isn't the only one that wants to see her kids and still lives at the Academy.

We hardly stop at the Academy grounds since the travelling group is already packed and ready to go. We meet them at the new fields that have been cleared and developed for voluptates, war games and other competitions. The has been two different influxes of large groups of strange people at the Den since I've been there.

People who apparently come from another world with less mana and no Awakenings, a world that has lost most of it's magic and is slowly losing all of it's ether. The world that was born during the War With The South whose appearance saved Sachi's life if you hear him tell it.

They are a strange and innovative people with a pass time they developed to help stem the human need for conflict so they could survive longer and replenish their numbers after every war. They call this past time 'sports' and introducing it to the Conclave seems to be actually helping a lot of people release their aggression out on the fields without fear of going too far and cutting someone's arm or head off, a mistake that has been known to happen during spars.

We meet at the fields and are immediately off at a quick jog as we now have open dirt roads that charts, trolleys and other vehicles use to move to and from the Academy to the rest of Iguria and Pangaea. The going is much easier here and we make good time as we travel, making salutations as we move.

The Academy grounds are vast as well and the structure of the buildings is one of a series of palaces instead of homes, stores, training halls and administrative buildings like the Den compound is made to be. The grounds are warded in a different way to the Den done by a different group of ritualists, warded so people that have never been here don't find the place on their own.

Our group has swelled to a little over 80 people, a lot of them people that were apparently unsuited for the Compound stage of Conclave recruitment for whatever reason. I know Teà isn't suited for Conclave life because she wants to be home with her child and mate, the rest I'm not sure about. It makes me wonder about their trustworthiness since I know the is some sort of test of trust needed to qualify.

We keep running until dusk, not a very difficult thing to do since we've been moving at the slowest person's pace. A woman I'm not familiar with who is sticking close to Astrid, Ava's friend. Everyone at the compound has to have a minimum level of training, its mandatory so I know everyone is at least fit enough to keep up or they should be.

Gerard signals a stop eventually after nearly 40 hours of straight hiking and jogging for most of us. We've covered a lot of ground and we need to get rested and setup for the Underworld creatures that will definitely try to stalk us as night falls, unlike other weaker creatures they aren't intimidated by aura.

After resting for nearly the whole 10 hours of dusk we are off again but at a much slower pace because of the defensive formation even as night falls around us. Its a beautiful night with a soothing cool breeze that rustles the leaves and brings the scents and sounds of nature.

I'm at the back with some of the other warriors discouraging the scavenger beasts that roam the periphery of our route instinctively looking to finish off the weak or wounded. For some reason some of the natural beasts of the forest are not directly affected by the underworld invaders, being almost completely ignored as they pursue humanoid prey to stalk.

And it isn't long into the night in our light jog before our defensive formation is tested by the shadowy black skinned humanoid nuggets with their razor sharp claws and teeth.

They mostly stand at 3 to 4 feet tall with no fur or natural armour but there are always hundreds of them like they sporn from flowers or something. The little buggers seem to melt into shadows becoming almost invisible in the narrowest of dark corners without needing to move for hours at a time making them perfect ambush hunters.

On top of that they have a very sophisticated hive mind that let's them co-ordinate their movements flawlessly, they don't mind suicide attacks either when they are really pissed or desperate.

We keep them at bay for hours while still travelling at a walk, night time travel is not to be wasted. It takes about a dozen hours but eventually they get the picture and leave us alone as we travel across the Pangaea continent towards the coast.

We make good time travelling day and night, keeping most predictors at bay with just our aura's or numbers but still running afoul of a pack of dog-wolves desperate or crazy enough to try their luck with us. I collect some of their pelts to be cured and gifted to my mate back home.

We encounter several more nightmare attacks but we notice other Underworld creatures around but don't pursue them, enjoying the journey even as we stop at beautiful places to take in the sights or have little picnics.

From Iguria we move into the unclaimed unnamed lands of Pangaea, places vaguely referred to as transitory. Where the trees, hills, boulders and everything in nature moves positions from time to time without anyone ever being able to see how. Even animals don't make their homes there, usually only going for visits and if animals avoid a place all smart people do as well.

Past the transitory we move through Uber, a small town that is quickly growing with agents of the Conclave building homes and opening businesses here. Slowly portanting the future importance of the sleepy town to the Academy and maybe the continent.

We resupply our depleted travel rations and get news of the goings on in the rest of Pangaea from some of the Conclave safe houses and the local taverns. We only stay a day in Uber enjoying hot baths before moving on the the next town Hermis, smaller than Uber but still peripherally benefiting from Conclave patronage.

*

Sachihiro

I take a step left as my foot shoots forward like a whip already turning my hips into the shot and using the momentum to spin myself around curving my nodachi under and up. My foot connects with something soft with a grunt from my opponent and my blade cuts through empty air with a woosh that parts the raindrops as they fall.

I duck under a blade and twist around with my nodachi cutting through the leg of the idiot that tried to embush me. He cries out pitifully with shock as he tumbles dropping his weapons seemingly in despair. If I was facing a true warrior I'd finish him off but this sorry excuse of a man doesn't deserve the honour of my blade.

I step over him and deflect a blade left and deflect a blade right as I pull a reverse swing and take a head off at the shoulders.

I stab left through the kidney and out the back then shred the organ as I pull the blade out by cutting diagonally. The is ringing of sword on sword everywhere as the people that have attacked us aren't messing around.

There are close to 200 of them, probably even 300 and they just keep falling from the tall, straight, widely spaced trees that blotch most of the sun from reaching the floor making it soggy and moist. They have well made steel swords and daggers with flaxible shoes made of clothe like ninjas.

Everything considered they are reasonably good swordsmen, good enough such that they would have killed a normal party of unawakened warriors by now. Good such that even we with all our hours of training, multitudes of experience and unleashed powers be they spirit or aura we are being hard pressed.

I swing and duck and roll and come up in and undercut slash that rips another one of them from groin to chin in a stpray of guts and blood.

I reverse sweep my blade in a circle around me catching an axe to the back with a little flare of my enhance aura, and yes I can use aura. I duck down and turn with a sweep of my legs taking out the 'fucken' coward that nearly backstabbed me from below.

It takes nearly 20 minutes of constant battle before they retreat like smoke, disappearing behind trees and shadows. These people are definitely well trained I think to myself as I look around for any of our dead or injured even as I keep an eye on our opponents with soul detect.

"Anyone know what that was about?" Wagner asks loudly with sword and shield still in hand bringing us fully out of our respective battle mindsets with his question.

No one responds though, 'cause we don't know why the Espara, the assassin's based in the Wales monarchy would be attacking us.