'Well, at least the investment didn't go to waste.' Benimaru happily thought, very satisfied with the results. 'Also, it looks like something is going on in the first floor of the Demon Realm that is making just the meatscrapers or other demons mutate.'
'Forget it, I will see it in the future when I have the chance.' Benimaru sat cross-legged and decided to cultivate his mana, so that he could break through to the next major realm. 'I will cultivate till Ravenna arrives.'
Time passed gradually, and Benimaru was also close to breaking through, he was feeling it calling him to break open the gate.
But for some reason, a frown could be seen on Benimaru's forehead.
"Tsk, can't cultivate like this." Benimaru stood up and looked in a certain direction. "Why is she this long? No, I can't wait any longer. I have to go check." Benimau walked outside and saw that the sun had just started to set. 'Didn't expect so much time have passed. Going into cultivation makes me almost forget about everything.'
"Ragnar, Lagnir, follow me!" Benimaru headed toward the direction they came from earlier.
Ragnar, who was sparring and teaching Fiain about everything he knew, left the work in his hands and quickly followed behind Benimaru. However, he gave an order to Fiain before leaving. "Take care of the site and the meatscrapers."
"I will." Fiain firmly said so, vowing to fulfill this duty to the fullest.
Meanwhile, Lagnir, who was patrolling the perimeter with the meatscrapers, quickly abandoned the work in the meatscrapers hands and went to follow Benimaru.
Benimaru and others dashed in full throttle, arriving at the site where Ravenna separated from them. They then ran in the direction she went.
Along the way, he pulled out three blue gems and handed them one each. "Just pour some of your power into it and you will be able to send messages to others with just a thought. So, spread out, when you find Ravenna, no matter which situation she might be in. Send a message."
Ragnar and Lagnir nodded their heads. They separated from Benimaru, going in other directions.
While Benimaru ran straight, contemplating and blaming himself. 'This is my fault. I should have given her the Short Distance Communication Jade the first time, but I didn't think she would stumble into a dangerous situation just to hunt a small prey, or I might be wrong too. She is fine and just stuck in the middle of something. No matter what, I just hope nothing bad happens to her.'
Minutes passed by, but Benimaru didn't find a single trace left by Ravenna, and no message had been sent by others.
This made Benimaru nervous and mad at himself. 'Did I lose someone again? Just like that?"
When Benimaru started having dreadful thoughts in his mind, the Short Distance Communication Jade began to vibrate.
He quickly put his thoughts into it and got the massage, He could tell from the voice that it was Ragnar.
–Lord, I have found her. I think you guys should arrive here in a hurry; the situation is bad, and I will try to stall till then–
Without further thought, Benimaru sprang toward Ragnar's direction, knowing it was worse than he had expected.
Lagnir also ran as fast as he could. He was the farthest away, but with his speed, he didn't have to worry.
…
On Ragnar's side, two minutes earlier, before Ragnar sent the massage.
"Huh?" Ragnar's eyes widened in surprise as the smell of blood entered his sharp nose. He halted in his sprint and walked to the source of that smell.
He saw an open space with trees piled up on one another – probably from getting destroyed by strong force – making a chaotic place, also a clue for Rangar.
Ragnar came before the blood stains and rubbed it with his finger, taking a closer and deeper smell. Ragnar got shocked the moment he sniffed the blood on his finger. 'I guessed it. It has the same scent as Miss Ravenna's blood.'
Ragnar was able to know that because he had memorized it when Ravenna fought the Swinefiends. He quickly followed the trace of the scent of the blood and the small drops sprinkled here and there.
Within a minute, he arrived at another open space, but this was a big one, and it had nothing piled in the middle except some wooden houses.
He looked ahead and saw something that made his blood boil and worried him at the same time.
In the center of the houses, a woman could be seen tied down to a long stick. She was surrounded by various demons, and this woman was none other than Ravenna. She was bruised and probably unconscious.
At that moment. A man arrived with wings, horns, and a tail like a demon's. No! He was indeed a demon, just like Benimaru, Ragnar, and Ravenna, indicating his high-ranking bloodline.
This made Ragnar, who wanted to jump in, very hesitant. There were already close to twenty demons below the Health Seeker Realm, and two were at Fleshcrafting Realm. Lastly, the man himself, who was giving the same feeling as Benimaru, A being that he had a low chance of going against.
"My soldiers! I welcome you all to the coronation of your queen. A eternal beauty and a strong warrior that the whole world will envy!" The man said it loudly, and the demons in front of him yelled along too.
"Kraaaa!"
"ARGGG!"
The man had a striking feature as his dark green hair swayed in the air while his ebony eyes reflected his confidence and arrogance. He had a pair of wings that had feathers like leaves, which were a dark greenish color.
"Good, Let me consummate my queen today that will bear the kings of the world that will be ruled by me in the future." The man grinned, walking beside Ravenna. He gave her a greedy look as if he couldn't wait for the future she would uphold.
Ragnar, who was in the middle of sending the message, had his veins pop off. The words from that man meant a lot of things to Ragnar, but the main thing was that he was disrespecting someone very close to his lord.
How could Ragnar bear that?
He left a last sentence, saying he would go try to stall for time, knowing he wouldn't be able to beat them.
The man before Ravenna looked at her with glee, as he could not believe he had found such an exquisite woman who had beauty that could rival many and strength that was hard to find in the early stages of a demon girl.
So, the moment he spotted her in the forest with his underlings, he quickly fought her, testing her worth. When he felt satisfied, he quickly suppressed her.
'I guess I will be ahead of you assholes in the competition.' With that thought, he began to perform a ritual to bring Ravenna completely under his control.
But at that moment, a loud scream came from behind the pack, catching everyone's attention.
The man and his underlings looked behind them just to see a human-like demon killing a Swinefiend but smashing its head like a watermelon.
The man raised his eyebrows, not caring about the deaths of his men. He was most concerned about the demon in front of him. 'Who is he? There was supposed to be no one spawning in this area. I have engraved everyone's faces in my mind. He is definitely not one of them. Who is he?'
The man decided to question Ragnar about his identity. "Stranger, tell me who you are and why did you kill my man?"
Ragnar, who had the mentality of going on a rampage, got a bit dumbfounded, but the next second he got ecstatic. 'This is an opportunity!'
Ragnar calmed himself down and spoke proudly. "I am Ragnar, general of Lord Benimaru."
'Ragnar…Benimaru… What is happening? Nothing rings a bell in my head! There is clearly no one with that name who was supposed to spawn here, or someone tweaked the transportation spell?' Ragnar's introduction put a deep frown on the man's face, as he felt everything was unknown to him.
The reason he didn't get this much suspicion when he saw Ravenna was because their clan leaders told them that some girls with good potential would be thrown in too. That information was confidential, and who would get them, depended on their luck. He had waited seventeen years, eventually finding Ravenna.
'And this guy is a general of someone else. A high ranking demon like him is listening to someone else's words. This Lord Benimaru might be as strong as me or might be even better.' The man was in deep thought when Ragnar suddenly interrupted him.
"Care to introduce yourself now?" Ragnar said, respectively, not showing his hostility.
The man held down his hostility too, as he wanted to get more information before ensuring his safety. "I am Garner, also known as Lord of the Fallen Leaves."