Chapter 50: Gray

At least a thousand kilometers south of Meliora, where Nolan and Gael fought, Nolan appeared with the unconscious Gage on his back.

He dropped him on the ground and fell on his knees while coughing out a mouthful of blood.

"Ngrgh..." He groaned and grabbed his chest.

'F*cking d*ckhead, I'll get even one of these days...' He thought begrudgingly.

After taking out a high-grade healing pill under his cloak, Nolan swallowed it and collapsed on the ground. He let the pill's effect circulate into his bloodstream and immediately felt something wrong.

The wound on his chest was not healing.

'Argh! I knew that last attack was not simple!' He groaned and sat up slowly.

Although they were in the middle of the forest, and there was a greater possibility that forest beasts might appear, Nolan did not bother to create any defensive arrays. He was more concerned about what effect the attack of the white shadow had.

Nolan closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling the wound on his chest.

Almost at once, he found traces of poison on the wound. And it was a potent one. The poison probably amounted to only a drop, but it would spread in a few minutes and reach his heart if left alone.

Fortunately, Nolan's magic made him almost immune to any form of poison. It was not because his magic had poison attributes but because of what poison was partially made of.

However, though he could use his magic to remove it, an artery where the poison was concentrated had been damaged. If he removed it, then that artery would rupture.

'And I just took a pill!' He groaned.

He belatedly regretted taking the pill before realizing the poison.

This was the downside of taking a high-grade pill. A person could only take it once a day, or else it would harm the body. The reason of the high-grade pill high effectiveness was due to its concentrated mixture of magic and herbs. Once it enters the body, it stimulates every cell and nerve to increase its natural healing abilities. However, a stimulated body needed proper rest, or else the body would break down.

Nolan opened his eyes and looked around. He thought of enduring the pain and go to the nearest town.

After three seconds, however, he immediately rejected the idea.

'Where the f*ck am I? And because of the time, even if I find a town to recuperate, there's no telling when that d*ckhead will come. Besides,' he turned to look at baldie, who was still unconscious. 'If this guy wakes up, he'll probably think I'm an enemy and will try to escape. It's best to go back to Starhorn,' he thought.

Nolan took out a scroll under his robes, and his face instantly turned sour. This was a rare transmission scroll once used; he would be transported to the location he thought of instantly. Nolan planned to use this scroll to return to the ruins he discovered and even thought of bringing Kyran with him. It cost him a fortune to buy three of these scrolls, but he did not mind. Because of his poor sense of direction, Nolan knew it would take him months to go back to that ruin. And he would not be able to explore the ruin in one day. Thus, he decided to buy three.

And now.

'I really will charge Missy for every item I've wasted,' Nolan thought through gritted teeth.

He remembered how many teleportation tokens he broke just to get away from Gael. Before that, when he searched for baldie in the forest, he got lost and had to break more than a dozen tokens to locate the main road. Of course, if he were not in a hurry, he would not do that.

With a sigh of resignation, Nolan tried to think of the best place he should go.

At first, he thought of the Tower of Conclave, but he remembered that the transmission scroll had its own magic signature. If Gael was able to trace his location here, and he was able to sense the scroll's signature, Gael might use it to continue tracking him.

'I'll have to go to a different location first.'

Nolan thought of another location. His face turned sour once again.

'She'd probably kick my ass if I go there but... argh.' His chest throbbed from the pain again.

"Getting kicked in the ass is better than kicking the bucket," he finally decided.

He poured his magic into the scroll, and a light-golden array appeared beneath him and Gage.

The scroll burned, and the array lit up.

In a blink of an eye, the two of them disappeared in thin air.

====================

Gael arrived a thousand kilometers south of Meliora.

He looked around and used his magic sense to find the trace of his magic left by the attack he inflicted on Gray.

Gray was the alias of the cloaked man he just fought, and he was wanted by the Royal Army more than twenty years ago. He had committed a sin where he killed a man who possessed a Legendary Badge issued by the Royal Family.

Gael did not know the specifics because the Royal Family awarded the Legendary Badge was highly confidential.

Of course, killing the man who possessed the badge was only part of the reason why Gray was a wanted man. The biggest reason was the highly confidential information he took from the man.

However, almost ten years ago, Gray's body was found inside a ruin that the Royal Family discovered in Chaos Palace.

The Chaos Palace was located between the boundary of the Ylfaen Empire and Arcadia, one of the empire's rival nations from the South. Neither of the two nations owned the palace because it belonged to the Dark Sage and was still owned.

Though the Dark Sage had fallen a long time ago, Chaos Palace remained unconquered.

When the Royal Family's expedition team discovered the ruin, they already suspected that they were not the first ones who entered. They found traces of Arcadian mages inside the ruins and even found their dead mages. After a few days of exploration, they discovered Gray's body.

They believed that Gray might have encountered the Arcadian mages and was killed.

Gael suddenly frowned as he remembered this detail. From the report, Gray did not stand a chance and was easily killed by the Arcadian mages.

But after fighting Gray today, Gael knew how powerful Gray's magic was.

In the past, Gael only encountered Gray while he was on the run and could not gauge his strength.

'More importantly, why is he alive? And why did he come back here? Why did he save that man?'

Questions kept popping inside Gael's mind.

Taking a deep breath, Gael finally turned and decided to return to headquarters.

'I'll have to report this to the Emperor first, and...' he raised his right hand, and his scythe appeared.

He scowled and returned his scythe inside his space storage.

'I have to visit Seanne and let him check my weapon.'

He took out a teleportation token and he disappeared after breaking it.

====================

Jax and Luka arrived at the Regis estate a few hours ago, and after their initial briefing, the two had scouted the inner walls for possible ways to get in. Unfortunately, just like their initial findings, the defensive array within the inner walls was the main culprit why they could not find any means to destroy it.

The army previously bombarded the front gates of the inner wall; however, there had been no visible cracks appearing on the defensive array. Some army officers even forced their way in, but their bodies burst out without leaving anything behind after stepping in at a certain distance.

After that, Jax ordered to stay put and had all lieutenant ranked officers find information about the array.

While waiting for the lieutenants to finish their investigation, Luka went with the rest of his team to scout the estate's outer wall and created a camouflage array. The array they created blocks noises inside the estate as well as any sightings of explosions. It could also mask any magic pressure unleashed within the walls.

'Three days,' Luka thought as they returned to the makeshift camp of the army near the Regis Estate Inner Wall. 'Just three days to destroy the Regis's defensive array.'

His brows creased, thinking about their overall workforce.

'What's the Grand Marshal thinking? Major Jax is only an Adept, while me and Vera are Paiges. The Regis's defensive array is not something our level can break in three days. We probably needed at least a Master mage to deal with it.'

Luka was not entirely clueless about the power struggle within the Royal Army. He was aware that currently, Gael's power within the army had started to decline over the year. One of the reasons for his decline was the inheritance Deputy Marshal Imman of the West had acquired almost a year ago. There was a rumor that Imman was now a step away from being promoted to a Magus.

If that happened, the Emperor would have to reassess both Gael's and Imman's accomplishments over the past three years, and a change in leadership might occur.

Quite a lot of medium factions inside the army favoured Imman because he was younger than Gael and his accomplishments for the past three years were outstanding. He had also recruited quite a several talented mages and combat mages.

Of course, Deputy Marshal Mannick of the East would not sit idle.

Mannick had been very active in ruin exploration lately. Most likely, he was searching for an inheritance to break through the Magus level.

Deputy Marshal Ingrid of the North was the only one who had not been interested in being the Grand Marshal. She was only interested in dealing with her affairs in the northern area of the empire while keeping the Gelida Sovereign from attacking their borders.

Luka could not understand why Gael wanted to keep their operation a secret. Wouldn't the Emperor recognize their effort because they found a very rare forbidden magic-user?

Then there was Gael's order not to kill the target.

In the past, they had an order to kill on sight a mage practising forbidden magic classified as low risk. This time's target was far more dangerous than that time, yet Gael ordered to catch the target alive.

Even if the target were a Regis, if the whole army was involved, would the Regis Clan had the power to retaliate?

Shaking his head, Luka pushed all these thoughts at the back of his mind. As a low ranked officer, he could only follow orders. If he started to question his leaders, it would only bring harm to his plans in moving up the army ladder.

'If we failed to break the Regis's defensive array in three days, will the Grand Marshal finally bring in more high-ranked officers? Or will he cut us all off? I really hope not.' He thought with a sigh.