Chapter 1532: 1532. Captains

The group didn't immediately leave the sea. The white waters contained chaotic laws, which made them one of the best resources in the entire higher plane.

Noah and the others remained on the shores for a while. They even fought the many packs that arrived to challenge them for the ownership of those regions. Those attacks eventually featured a rank 8 magical beast in the middle tier, which forced them to run away before that force reached those lands.

The group took a different route to return to the human domain. They still wanted to fight and improve, so they decided to avoid the regions already conquered in the first part of their journey.

Most of them now had new packs since the Foolery made every region that they inhabited irresistible. Still, Noah wanted to find more troops and valuable resources, so their return led them into unexplored areas.

Noah and the others couldn't go wherever they wanted. Many packs along their way featured magical beasts that they couldn't approach. They were a powerful force, but that domain contained proper overlords.

The group always had to approach their advance carefully. Noah had to inspect every region before deciding their route. He and Fergie also needed breaks from the white sky every once in a while. Their return wasn't any faster than the first part of their journey.

Many of the various magical beasts in the group faced breakthroughs during the journey. They also reproduced often, and that process happened more frequently once their number surpassed one thousand.

It was rare for packs led by existences at the bottom of the eighth rank to have so many underlings, but Noah's influence had no limit over the number of followers that he could gather. NovelsToday

That feature of his existence improved quickly. Noah's law had always given him a predisposition to lead, but he had started to use it properly only recently.

Noah quickly gathered experience in that ability, but his improvements didn't involve his leadership skills. They mainly concerned his capability to submit stronger underlings and the nourishing properties of his influence.

The magical beasts in his group grew far faster than normal creatures, and the same applied to Fergie. Even the Foolery benefitted from that influence.

Noah's law could express its true potential now that he had accepted his position as a leader. That unleashed his ability to taint his underlings with his ambition, which led to faster growth.

The process involved far more than the simple power level. Most of the magical beasts experienced spontaneous mutations and sudden improvements in their intelligence.

Their innate abilities grew stronger. Their skin thickened, and their organs began to work faster. Their minds also improved to the point when it was hard to distinguish them from hybrids.

Noah had no control over those improvements. His ambition only gave his underlings the potential to evolve, but they had to make that leap on their own. Still, most of them managed to accumulate enough energy for that growth due to the countless battles that they had to face.

The pack went through a few transformations. The many battles thinned the number of underlings, but Noah kept submitting more creatures. Their fertility diminished after their growth, but the size of his army continued to increase.

A few specimens also managed to reach Fergie's position in terms of power over the troops. They remained under the expert, but they gained the ability to control large platoons and handle different sides of every battle.

Noah eventually granted them names to mark their arrival in a state that surpassed ordinary magical beasts. Those creatures were still in the upper tier, but they had already shown that their potential could lead them toward the higher ranks.

'We should be near by now,' Noah thought at some point during the journey.

It was hard to keep track of his position inside that wilderness, so Noah used the growth of his companions to quantify how long had passed since the departure from the sea.

His eyes inevitably fell on Fergie. The expert had obtained a rank 7 body in the upper tier recently, and his dantian was also nearing the breakthrough.

'I must have spent a few millennia here already,' Noah concluded in his mind.

The three captains of the army flew under Fergie. A tall white eagle with its beak and claws made of a transparent crystal handled the bird-like beast. A giant winged elephant managed the vanguard, and a flying wolf took care of the troops that couldn't soar through the sky.

The elephant and the wolf had gained their wings after mutations. The same went for the crystal beak and claws of the eagle. Those three magical beasts also had great intelligence, which led Noah to appoint them as captains.

"White, Greeny, Grey, silence the others," Fergie shouted to the three captains. "The boss needs to explore the next region safely."

Noah had named the three leaders after the color of their skin, fur, and feathers for lack of a better choice. The eagle was White, the elephant Greeny, and the wolf Grey.

"The next area only features magical plants," Noah said after shooting a glance at the region ahead. "I can't sense anything dangerous. Even my instincts are strangely silent."

"Are we about to reach the human domain?" Fergie asked with a tinge of excitement.

"It appears so," Noah replied, "But I have never seen these areas. They aren't even close to the Outer Lands."

The magical beasts' domain was immense, so it made sense that Noah didn't find anything familiar in those regions. Yet, he was waiting for something that he could recognize to appear in front of him. There was a chance that the group could enter the human domain unprepared otherwise.

"Let's try to reorganize after conquering this region," Noah said before shooting ahead.

Greeny trumpeted as soon as it saw Noah move. Grey ordered the troops on the ground to charge ahead, and White didn't fall behind the two captains.

The Foolery charged ahead with Noah's army. Their squeals filled the sky and warned every creature in the area of their arrival.

Noah flew above the region filled with dark-green trees. Those plants had sharp leaves that they didn't hesitate to launch when they sensed that danger approaching.

The region featured three rank 8 magical plants in the lower tier and countless rank 7 beings. Their storm of leaves filled the sky and killed many invaders, but they didn't manage to do anything to the leaders.

Noah sat cross-legged on the air while he waited for the storm to end. Duanlong was under him, and it kept its massive mouth open to shred and absorbed all the leaves flying in his direction.

'Greedy dragon,' Noah said through the mental connection when a faint wave of energy flowed inside his body.

Duanlong was sending part of the absorbed energy to Noah, but it kept most of it for itself. Still, Noah couldn't blame his Blood Companion since he had used his greed as the meaning for the Elemental Forging method with that creature.

The dragon gave voice to a proud roar while continuing to absorb those leaves. It felt no shame in seizing most of that energy, and Noah didn't even try to complain since he had learnt how that creature thought.

Then, a dangerous sensation suddenly reached his mind. Noah wasn't the only one who felt that threat. Fergie and the rank 8 Foolery also stopped fighting and turned toward one corner of the region.

Their pupils shrunk when they focused on the figures that had appeared in the distance. A series of massive snakes were slithering on the ground while spatting a silver liquid that froze everything it touched.

Noah couldn't fail to recognize those creatures. He had lived in a world where they were the overlords. The magical beasts that had appeared in the distance were Eternal Snakes.