Chapter 51: Fires in the Voidwoods
High above the Voidwoods, two figures raced through the air side by side; they were going so fast they broke the sound barrier long ago.
Arthur and Valerian weren’t going in a specific direction; they just moved through the forest on the search for a suitable opponent for Arthur to test his new bloodline on.
"This is amazing!" Arthur exclaimed in pure excitement, his voice carried over to Valerian through the mana.
When he heard his friend’s excited shout, he smiled because he had reacted the same way when he first tried to fly.
Accelerating, Valerian overtook Arthur with a shockwave that made the trees down below groan in resistance.
As Arthur watched Valerian zoom past him, his competitive spark bloomed and he also accelerated.
As he began to catch up, Valerian looked back at him with a grin.
Before Arthur could think about the reason for the grin, he suddenly found himself hundreds of meters back.
’This bastard!’
After the displacement, Valerian’s head snapped to the side, his playful attitude disappeared, and he stopped in the air.
Arthur moved to Valerian and came to a stop next to him.
"Maybe don’t use your teleportation in a race, that’s called cheating."
Not looking at his friend or answering the complaint, Valerian pointed with his finger in the direction he was looking at.
Arthur’s gaze turned to the side to see why Valerian was so silent, and there in the distance, he saw smoke rising in the air.
Normally that’s not that weird; some parts of the Voidwoods were constantly on fire caused by the beasts living there.
So normally they wouldn’t bat an eye at some smoke.
But there was something weird about this particular smoke, and that was that it wasn’t just one pillar rising in the air; it was dozens, not one big, but dozens of smaller ones.
There is no way just normal beasts would create dozens of small fires; that was something else.
"People? Or maybe a settlement of smarter monsters?"
Valerian looked at the pillars of smoke; normally he would just use his spatial perception to see what was going on, but if this was really a settlement of intelligent beings, and they had enough confidence in their strength to light up campfires in the Voidwoods, then it was not a good idea to send a wave of mana into their camp.
"I’m not sure, we have to get closer to find out."
Arthur nodded without talking back; together they descended into the trees and slowly flew between the treetops.
As they got closer, Valerian felt that surrounding the camp was a thin layer of mana; it was a barrier, but to know the exact function of it, he would need to get closer.
But as they got closer, Valerian also felt the large amounts of mana coming from the camp; it was the beings inside and they were strong, there were at least 100, and none of them were below S-.
And the highest were two large mana signatures; both were at the SS- rank, but unlike the cave goblin chief who had just achieved SS- before the battle with Valerian, they both had been in the middle of SS- for quite some time now, so they had managed to get completely used to their strength.
Moving through the treetops, nervousness seeped into Valerian; he knew that both he and Arthur could fight above their rank, but fighting someone at SS- wasn’t going to be easy at all.
It would be Valerian’s hardest fight yet.
Once they got close enough, they saw a large dome; it glowed faintly in a light blue light with runes running down the dome.
It was partially see-through; without getting closer, Valerian saw the campfires and the figures sitting around them.
It was a group made up of beastmen, not the kind that are native to the Voidwoods.
Valerian could somewhat see a crest on the tents and armor that was lying around; it was the head of a howling wolf, with two swords framing the head.
Thanks to his education in the castle, Valerian knew exactly to what nation these soldiers belonged.
"Feralis Confederacy."
The Feralis Confederacy was a nation that was founded by the beastfolk to live together in unity.
Because of their animalistic appearances, a lot of people treated them as lesser beings, even though they, like everyone else, had moved away from the path of wild evolution and created cities and nations.
So to keep the beastfolk safe, a wolfman had created the Confederacy thousands of years ago, but why would they be here now and so close to the borders of the Solaria Kingdom?
Arthur looked at Valerian at the mention of the nation.
"Why are they here? This doesn’t look like a simple hunting trip."
The large group was armed to the teeth, like they were ready to go to war at any second.
Valerian looked at Arthur with eyes so cold it gave him goosebumps and made his heart beat faster.
Meeting the slitted cosmic purple eyes, Arthur felt small, like a small child standing before the eternal emperor of the cosmos; it didn’t help that the small galaxy in Valerian’s eyes glowed and the mana in the air pressed down on the surroundings.
"Because they want to invade the Solaria Kingdom, and I won’t let that happen, ever."
Seeing his horned friend so serious, Arthur swallowed hard, and he felt his new bloodline beginning to fight back and adapt to the pressure.
Finally being able to breathe normally, Arthur looked at the serious Valerian.
"Then we stop them."
The simple answer of Arthur caused the cold edge to disappear from Valerian’s eyes and he smiled.
"That’s exactly what we are going to do, my friend, but we can’t go in and fight everyone at once. Even though we are stronger than we should be, their leaders would still be a problem."
"So, what’s the plan then?"
Turning back to the barrier protecting and concealing the camp, a wicked grin spread across Valerian’s beautiful face.
Valerian jumped down from the tree he and Arthur were hiding on; when he landed, his feet turned pitch-black and absorbed all the noise of the fall.
With leisurely steps, he walked up to the barrier; he took a second to look at the runes inscribed on the barrier.
After a few seconds, he waved his hand, gesturing for Arthur to come closer; still unsure, Arthur gently flew down and walked to Valerian on his tiptoes, trying not to make a sound.
When Arthur was standing next to him, Valerian placed his right hand on the barrier, and in a low voice, he whispered to Arthur.
"It was cast by one of the leaders, so I can only disrupt it for a second without them noticing. During that time, we move in, then we split and take them out one by one. If you have to wait for one to leave the group, then wait. Not getting caught is the most important thing right now. After we take out most, if not all, of the weaker ones, we take on the leaders together."
Arthur nodded, but inside he was nervous because this would be the first time he would kill a person.
He knew the time would come where he had to kill someone and he was ready to do so, but it still made him fidget with his daggers.
Valerian saw the shaking but left Arthur to deal with this himself; after all, it was something that had to be done, and coddling him would only do him harm later.
Weirdly, he himself didn’t feel anything at the thought of killing an intelligent being; it was surprising to him, but he already guessed that his bloodline had changed his way of thinking when it came to humans and the like.
It was like the ancient and primordial power within him pushed him into a version of himself that didn’t care about mortals, while he could still fight against it, it only grew stronger every day.
Wanting to finally get started, Valerian began to channel mana into his unique skill [Law Breaker]; it was probably the strongest thing in his arsenal, but due to his low rank, he could barely use the most basic applications of it.
But these basic abilities were all he needed here; normally, to destroy a barrier created by a rune, one would need to destroy the origin of the barrier, which was most of the time a slate engraved with the rune.
The other method was only reserved for runemasters, people who dedicated their lives to runes, and could therefore destroy them without interacting with the origin.
But Valerian didn’t need to get to the origin of the rune or be a runemaster; his hands began to glow in a soft violet light as the skill activated.
Softly weaving the unique skill into the folds within the barrier, Valerian rewrote the very function of it; it was a difficult process, especially because he had to be careful not to destroy it, but open a small passage.
But his title [Child of Mana] enabled him flawless mana control; after a minute of applying the skill, a small rift appeared in the barrier.
When it grew barely big enough to fit them in, Arthur immediately took the chance and dashed in; Valerian followed closely, behind them the barrier closed again and they began their cleaning of the camp.