Chapter 69: The Spies

Gibson and Sean were the two individuals tasked with keeping an eye on Azaroth.

"Why do you think the king asked us to keep an eye on a kid?" Gibson began talking coolly.

Sean replied while he moved with a moderate pace, "Maybe he holds some sort of secret. Or the king is feeling threatened by the Rhodes House. Perhaps Marquis Jonas has done something to incur King's suspicion."

"The two of us just returned after completing a 4 months-long mission in Lamhilion Theocracy. Yet, the king orders us to be on the move immediately and keep an eye on a spoiled brat." Gibson rambled for quite a bit, "If not for this job, I would have been spending my time with my cute little daughter."

"It's a challenging job to be a spy. Not only is high sensing skill and concealment skill is required but possessing great patience is also necessary. Any time we let our emotions slip, there is a chance our concealment could fail."

"Yeah, yeah. I know."

The two sped up significantly.

After reaching a certain distance though, they stopped moving forwards.

They grabbed hold of some binoculars like objects and began to observe Azaroth and Kloras Town.

The two split apart and took positions and covered different directions. Gibson covered the north while Sean covered the south.

Since they took their positions in between trees, Laura could sense them now. She understood that Azaroth was truly speaking the truth.

But soon, another question appeared in her head.

Why wasn't he dealing with them? From their auras, they weren't that strong. Once Azaroth takes them down, nobody will find out about her identity.

She decided to talk to him about it later.

First, she had to fill her stomach with lots of food. She had a feeling that today was going to be a long day.

Soon enough, they were done with their lunch.

Azaroth then gathered them up and began drawing some symbols on their hands.

These were array characters and Azaroth then pulled out a few Ardor crystals and tapped them on those characters.

Once the Ardor crystals touched those symbols drawn with blank ink, all the energy within the crystals vanished and they turned into dust.

The same occurred to the other crystals as well.

All of Azaroth's retainers were pinned to the ground as soon as those symbols were triggered.

The ten times gravity was too much for them so suddenly.

"Get up!" Azaroth ordered them with a commanding tone.

Nearly everyone groaned mentally as they tried to force their bodies to get off the ground. They found out that their Ardor was completely suppressed by an unknown force. Perhaps, the only one who could get past that force effortlessly was Noah using his Sword Qi to cut apart the array.

However, Noah didn't do that. Azaroth ordered him that he couldn't use any of his abilities and had to just use his physical body to endure it.

The only one who somewhat succeeded was Ralph. All others were trying without getting any results.

Ralph used all his strength and finally managed to stand upright!

Ralph looked a little proud that he was the first one who managed to accomplish this task.

But soon, his face turned pale as Azaroth ordered him, "Now, help others get on their feet."

Ralph had barely managed to stand on his feet and he now had to help others get on their feet as well. He wanted to cry but had no tears in his eyes.

Azaroth then walked away and continued to form his Array for his personal training.

His training wasn't to increase his Ardor. It was already at the max stage of the 4 Star Rank. He had to fulfill some requirements to break through to the 5 Star Rank.

For this, all he required was some time and Azaroth didn't mind waiting some more.

Azaroth's training consisted more of enhancing his Demon Blood Essence within his body. He planned to use it to flare up his Celestial Bloodline within him.

Maybe it would lead to some unexpected results.

Meanwhile, Sean and Gibson were wondering just what Azaroth was doing. They were surprised to find out Azaroth was knowledgeable about arrays and he could construct them on someone's body without much issue.

Such proficiency in the array was highly valuable even in the Royal Court.

Sean also followed Azaroth and found out he was creating a massive array in a distance as well. It was covering an entire training ground.

He returned and informed Gibson about it.

Gibson was also startled and he grew serious, "It seems that this task assigned to us by the King isn't as lowly as we initially believed. We need to be careful. The array masters possess a refined spiritual mind and can sense much better than an average warrior."

"Keep an eye on this man while I will keep an eye on the individuals he is training. We will change targets after every 3 days."

"Agreed."

~~

It was nighttime now.

All of Azaroth's retainers were finally on their feet because of Ralph's support.

But once they stood on their feet, they felt extraordinarily strong energy acting on their entire body. It felt as if their weight had increased so drastically that their body strength couldn't handle it.

The one who had it the worst was Noah.

His body was hadn't even finish developing and hence he possessed rather weak strength as compared to Azaroth's other retainers. The ten times weight was too much for him.

Yet Noah didn't protest one bit. He used every bit of strength that his little body could muster and try to stand up.

It was only with Ralph's support that he was on his feet.

However, Noah realized that standing up was merely the first step. The true hell began now.

Just remaining still placed considerable pressure on his leg muscles.

He felt that if he continued to remain still, his muscles would burst apart and his body would collapse on its own.

Yet, Noah became stubborn and clenched his fists while planning to endure it.

Suddenly, the muscles in his legs gave out and he collapsed on the ground.

Azaroth saw the scene but didn't offer him any help.

Laura forced her body to move towards Noah. She touched his head and analyzed Noah's body. A frown appeared on her face and she turned towards Azaroth, and spoke, "His muscles are already torn. His body can't handle such training."

'Annoying.' Azaroth sighed out and then turned towards Noah, "Do you want to stop, Noah?"

Noah turned his head and replied immediately, "No! I will continue this training. I won't disappoint you, boss!"

"You heard his answer." Azaroth shrugged and replied to Laura.

Laura grimaced as she heard Noah and ignored Azaroth's comments.

"Why are you pushing yourself so far? If you continue this, you will experience more pain. He isn't training you but torturing you." Laura spoke with a gentle voice to Noah.

Noah weakly smiled and then turned towards Azaroth, "I want to be his sword. To be the man who will kill all my boss's enemies. To do that, I need to become strong very quickly. I will undergo whatever I have to. Also, the boss is really training me. I have already seen how he tortures someone."

Those words made Sargan recall some painful memories.

"Laura, you have only seen a speck of the world, so don't go judging everything according to that little knowledge you possess," Azaroth said.

"What?!" This was the first time Laura had been told such a thing and so she was naturally dumbfounded.

"Amongst everyone here, the one with the greatest ability and value is Noah. Noah's value far surpasses the value of the entire Elf Kingdom. He is special and so his training will be especially difficult as well." Azaroth spoke those words with a completely serious voice.

Once again, Laura was dumbfounded as she heard Azaroth.

He had just stated that Noah was more valuable than the entire Elf Kingdom! It was such a ridiculous statement yet he seemed completely confident about it!

Meanwhile, when Noah heard those words, his morale was boosted to the point that he forced his body to move and stand up.

The adrenaline surge had bolstered his stamina and masked his discomfort to the point where he was able to get up without assistance.

"I promise to never disappoint you, boss."

Perhaps these words could only be considered a light promise from Noah, but every individual around Azaroth sensed the gravity of this promise.

Azaroth lightly patted Noah's head and spoke, "Well, with that said, it's time to eat."

This time, the guards were the ones who cooked the food.

In this one week, they had understood that there was no one to protect Azaroth from. It seemed as if because of the beast raid, even the bandit camps had left the location.

Because of no population here, no one planned to return and set up their base because there was no one to loot from.

The guards understood what Azaroth wanted from them. They were not here for protection but to be cheap labor.

Azaroth deactivated the gravity arrays for everyone to eat their food, "I will only stop the gravity array for the first three days. After that, you will need to eat your food while the gravity arrays are active."

"Todays' dish will be fish. Eat lots of fishes and drink the purple berry juice prepared for you. These will enhance the recovery of your muscles and strengthen your bones."

Azaroth didn't really need to give any description as his retainers would have eaten anything placed ahead of them.

After they drunk the juice, Azaroth activated everyone's gravity arrays.

Each one immediately collapsed on the ground as the gravity arrays activated. Even though they had just eaten so much, they found out they had no strength to move.

Azaroth returned back to constructing his array. He told the guards to not carry them to their beds.

After Azaroth was gone, Ralph began to talk, "This is really hard training."

Yrellea answered his words while rolling her eyes, "No kidding. I don't think I can ever complete or master this training."

"Same." Laura agreed with Yrellea, "However…" She turned her head towards Noah and saw how he was struggling to stand up.

Currently, that weak young kid appeared to be the one inspiring them to keep going with their training.

They reasoned that it would be a disgrace for them to give up when such a small child was not willing to do so.