In the south continent...
Alice was monitoring Torkez and Franklin's actions.
The Noxious, the assassin group formed by Franklin, became the strongest underground organization of the Numan Country. It developed very fast and it alerted a lot of people. So most of the underground organizations tried to stop Noxious but all of them were demolished.
Franklin personally annihilated those people with Isabella's help. Compared to the central continent, the people in south continent were weaker. The only people that could be a threat to them were the Annihilation Realm masters. In other words, the S-rank experts that controlled the Numan Country.
The Noxious swallowed various underground organizations in just a month and they finally extend their hand on the neighboring countries to expand their influence and strength.
It became a powerful force with five A-rank experts, one hundred twenty B-rank experts, five hundred sixty C-rank experts, and thousands of below C-rank experts. It will continue to rise and Franklin was confident in his abilities.
The Clautus Group was pretty much normal compared to Noxious. It just became a city-scale organization as it completely replaced the Red Witch and Nine Lives in the Blue Ray City.
The Clautus Group wasn't an underground organization so they had to be careful about their reputation and action. After all, they didn't want to challenge the ruling forces of the Numan Country with their current strength. They will suffer an instant defeat if they fight one of the ruling forces as they didn't have an Annihilation Realm master in their ranks.
Alice was satisfied with their works as they were close in conquering a Numan Country. She's the one who's in charge here as she was the only one who could contact Souta. Souta didn't have any spare transmission talisman with him so Torkez and the rest didn't have a way to contact him.
They didn't want to use the Great Astley Empire's technology in the Guardian Fortress as there's a high possibility that someone from the central continent could detect the wavelength. It's too risky compared to the transmission talisman.
About Yuko and Doranjan, Alice had no news about them. She could only hope that the two were doing well in the Monster Kingdom.
"Those two are strong so they are going to be fine..."
She muttered as she looked through the window. The city looks peaceful but she knew that various organizations were competing hidden in the shadows.
"I will continue my training. I completely liquefied all the mana in my mana pool and reached the limit of A-rank. The next process is solidifying. Just a little bit more and I will attain S-rank."
...
Two weeks had passed since the incident in the Paultry City. Souta and the others hide in Eilish's mansion. They were safe here and no one would forcefully barge inside the house of an Extinction Realm master.
The situation became intense as Night Watch decided to pressure the Monster Dungeon by sending a few elites. A monster was involved in the incident so most of the people thought that it was related to the Monster Dungeon.
Even the Union Peace decided to move and pressure the Monster Dungeon. The atmosphere was intense as war could break out at any moment.
The nearby monster around it was eradicated and it could be seen as Night Watch wouldn't stop until they learned the inside story of the incident. But then the Monster Dungeon denied everything and said that they didn't send a monster in that place much less a monster that could use best feram.
The Monster Dungeon wasn't afraid of them. They literally came out of their nest and fought the people from the Night Watch and Union Peace. They pushed them back with a dominant attitude.
"It will turn into a war," Eilish said.
"Who do you think will win?" Souta asked as he glanced at Eilish.
"Of course, the Union Peace. If the Monster Dungeon is going to fight Night Watch then they would have a chance but sadly, the Union Peace is present. It's the effect of your action in Paultry City." Eilish smiled faintly.
"Yeah," Souta nodded. He didn't expect that his simple action in the city would cause a chain reaction that would lead to war.
Well, he didn't care about them. He was glad that they would fight each other as it would give him an opportunity to move freely. An opportunity to find the hidden base.
Eilish turned to Gragas and asked, "Are you going to join them?"
"Ugh, what can I do? I've gotten involved in this trouble so I don't think that I could get away with this easily." Gragas said with a sigh.
Since the Night Watch and Union Peace were prepared for a war then he was sure that the two giant organizations would hunt him down if they knew that he was involved in the incident.
"That's good to hear." Souta smiled faintly.
"What's good about it?" Gragas asked with an annoyed expression.
"It means that you have a chance to learn more about the soul weapon. If it's your dream then isn't it normal to take the risk? Don't tell me you are afraid of them?"
"No, I'm not afraid of them! I just want to leave peacefully and create a masterpiece!" Gragas said in a loud voice.
"Hehe~ leave peacefully..." Souta laughed and he shook his head. Then, he added, "You wouldn't be able to leave peacefully if you had a huge dream of replicating a soul weapon. In any case, you will face various challenges in order to achieve it. As you know, a lot of blacksmiths tried to replicate soul weapons but none of them achieve it."
"I know! You don't have to tell me about it!"
Souta shook his head and he turned his attention on Eilish.
"Anyway, we will leave this city tomorrow to go back to the hidden base." He said.
"Oh, you're leaving?" Eilish raised her eyebrows.
"Yes, I can't wait any longer. Plus, the Night Watch and Union Peace are busy dealing with Monster Dungeon so we will sneak inside the hidden base." Souta nodded at her.
"You have a point but you said that there are people guarding the hidden base, right? So, how do you plan to deal with them?" Eilish asked.
"The usual way without any scheme. Just utterly crush them since I don't have to worry about reinforcement." Souta's tone was chilly as the atmosphere around him turned cold.
"It seems that you are confident. You've escaped before so why did you think that you can take them right now?"
"I didn't retreat because I don't have a chance to take them down. I retreat because I don't want to attract attention, but I don't have to worry about it right now. The Monster Dungeon solved all of my problems as it took all of the attention of the huge organizations in this land."
The Union Peace must have thought that he was going to hide for a while and they wouldn't guess that he was going to attack the hidden base. It's not entirely that they were going to lower their security because of this reason. In fact, the security of the hidden base must be higher than the last time. Anyone who was in their right mind would tighten the defense of their base after an unknown people sneak inside it.
So Souta already expected to fight some S-rank once again.
In the past two weeks, Souta didn't just sit idly waiting for the opportunity. He trained hard in the last two weeks to increase the mastery of his Archetype. He also increased the capacity of his monster orb using the monster orb of a fifth evolution monster.
In the battle, he wasted some of the energy inside it. He used it as a fuel to fire his [Bestrou] and charged his monster orb to increase the duration of his release form. So those energies didn't improve his energy capacity at all.
His energy had reached 2,000 points. The improvement kept increasing after he learned the Archetype. The third form of Archetype was really helpful as it could enhance his training speed by several times. It could also help him hide his energy inside his body without a single leak so that no one could sense his best feram unless a powerful sensory type appeared in front of him.
It was called [Third Form: Serenity of the Vajra].
The fourth form of the Archetype was a defensive ability. It would be helpful to him but he didn't use it in the last battle. Just like the fifth form, he could hardly control this form. It would forcefully cancel some of the activated skills in his body. So unless he's in a dire that he absolutely needs to block an attack, he wouldn't use it for the time being.
[Fourth Form: Bridal Lotus Benevolent Rose].
That's the name of the fourth form of his Archetype.
"That settles it. We will leave tomorrow." Souta said before he stood up and left the room. Amanda and Yenxa followed him closely.
