It was late at night when Michael and the citizens of his territory made a memorial for the deceased. Their corpses were burned and tributes were made to cleanse their souls and offer them some last words hoping for a safe journey to the afterlife.
Michael made a long speech to honor the deceased and praise the survivors. He feasted with the survivors and spent hours with them near the big campfire to have one last meal together with the souls of the deceased. Being with the other subjects and warriors didn't make him forget the deceased, but it showed him clearly that his Summons were no different from real human beings.
The Origin Expanse might have resurrected them from death in order to turn them into loyal subjects of their Lords, but that didn't make them any less humane.
Everyone knew that they had already died once and that the Origin Expanse's Will created the Link of Loyalty with their Lord to make sure that they had to obey and couldn't run away from their fate. But with someone like Michael as their Lord that was fine. They would love to grow stronger alongside their Lord and follow him anywhere, even if that meant they would die in the quest.
Their Links of Loyalty grew stronger during the last few hours, telling him that they would join him in battle once again if he said the word.
Once again, Michael realized how important it was for his subjects to trust him. His words were their command. It was a great feeling that caused goosebumps to spread all over his body.
However, it was also terrifying.
A single wrong command was enough to lead his subjects straight to death.
This made Michael think a lot.
The pain and anguish caused by the Lionhearts were still apparent in his heart, but Michael knew that he couldn't have done much to change the outcome of the battle. His battle against the Lionhearts had already been suicidal – stupid even if one could say.
He charged straight into a blazing sea of flames just because he was angry and because he didn't want more subjects to die for his sake. But had that been the best move?
It was only obvious that Michael didn't want to see his subjects die for him, but sacrificing himself for them wasn't an ideal solution either.
Today he was lucky. Only bits of his skin were scorched, and he had received minor burns. It was not serious and had mostly healed after he used a potion and ointment to relieve himself of the ache and heal his skin quickly.
But what if he wasn't that lucky next time?
If he thought about the consequences of his suicidal actions only after he did them, Michael would die sooner or later. That was certainly not something he wanted to happen.
It made him contemplate his actions a lot.
How many people had found out about his territory? Who was the backer of the Lionhearts? Would the backer take revenge on him? If so, when would he attack him?
Too many questions flooded his mind, but Michael couldn't answer any of them. Lilica was not in his territory anymore, and he didn't have enough time to travel to Xiltra and question her.
Michael was not even sure if Lilica would answer his questions, in the first place.
'She is trying to maintain a neutral status with us, but without exposing herself or her team to others. She is a sly Elven woman, who keeps all possibilities open…that's dangerous.'
Once again, Michael understood a crucial point; He and his territory had to grow stronger. The Temple of the Forgotten and the Saphirelake Military Academy were two ways to achieve that.
However, before he could enter the Temple of the Forgotten, he required more information about it. To be precise, he needed records about the old languages, raids of other temples to find out what dangers awaited him, and so on.
But before he could acquire information, Michael got up. He walked over to the warehouse where the corpses of the Lionhearts had been stored.
'Their corpses will be worth more if I leave them intact. The research department of the government pays a small fortune for corpses of monster races with innate abilities. But that doesn't mean, I cannot extract everything else, right?' Michael thought to himself.
His hands began to glow golden as streams of golden light emerged from the inside of his palms.
Michael used Extraction on the corpses of the Lionhearts Adventurers. There were a total of 43 corpses, each of them being a Tier-1 Adventurer.
Michael first extracted their War Runes, and the Artifacts bound to their War Runes. The moment the Adventurers attacked him, their fate had been sealed, and so was their War Runes' spatial storage ownership waiting to be claimed by Michael.
In the following minutes, more than 30 Tier-1 Artifacts ended up in Michael's possession. Most of them were Weapon Artifacts, which the Lionhearts had wielded in the battle before.
Each Tier-1 Weapon Artifact was worth a small fortune, however, Michael's facial expression didn't change in the slightest. He didn't bat an eye at the sight of the Artifacts, nor did he feel elated. The gains he made today didn't make up for the pain he and his subjects went through and the losses they sustained.
Other than the Artifacts, Michael procured various potions, sets of clothes, and other objects from the storage of the 43 Adventurers.
Michael stored everything inside his War Rune's storage space. Now that he was a Tier-1 Lord his storage space was much bigger than before. If he squeezed everything inside, the Lionheart corpses would all fit inside. He had that much space!
'To think that the strong Links of Loyalty from more than 400 Summons can result in an enlargement of the War Rune's storage space.' Michael thought, slightly surprised.
He knew that a War Rune's storage space could be expanded with external means such as the number of Links of Loyalty. However, it usually required thousands of Links of Loyalty from Starless Summons to make a significant change. Michael was still quite far away from a thousand subjects, which is why it was so surprising that his War Rune's space was bigger than it should be.
Once he finished extracting the Artifacts and some stored goods from the War Rune's storage space, Michael extracted the SoulStar Fragments of the 43 Adventurers.
Each of the Adventurers had a War Rune, and they had either awoken a complete Soultrait or were gathering enough energy to finish their incomplete Soultraits.
Michael used Extraction on one Lionheart Adventurer after another to see how many SoulStar Fragments every Adventurer would drop. He wanted to find out which Lionheart Adventurer would drop a complete Soultrait Symbol, and how the number of SoulStar Fragments was related to their strength and other factors.
As he extracted the SoulStar Fragments, he restrained the white streams of energy that shot out of his War Rune. The greedy tentacle-like strands of energy desired to devour the SoulStar Fragments. However, Michael didn't allow them to do so.
He wanted to test something.
Ten minutes later, a small pile of SoulStar Fragments and two Soultrait Symbols were spread out in front of him.
The Soultrait Symbols had been extracted immediately. He also knew from which Lionhearts the Soultraits came from, which was also how he knew the power behind the Soultraits.
'Now I can finally figure out how weak Soultraits are at first immediately after extraction!' Michael thought before something else attracted his attention.
The small pile of SoulStar Fragments trembled while the fragments were pulling each other closer. A third Soultrait Symbol was about to form!
"You want to form a Soultrait out of my hard-earned SoulStar Fragments?! Forget it!" Michael declared, unleashing the tentacle-like streams of energy of his War Rune.
The tentacles shot forward and tore the SoulStar Fragments apart, preventing the creation of a third Soultrait Symbol.
Afterward, the tentacles coiled around the SoulStar Fragments, and pulled them inside the War Rune, without leaving a single fragment or Soultrait Symbol aside.
**
