Chapter 360: Campfire Gathering
Chapter 360: Campfire Gathering
Within the hidden cave.
"We... we almost died," Karsten shuddered, his eyes still wide with lingering fear. "A Level 8 Domain Master beast... just its spiritual pressure nearly shattered my soul into pieces!"
"I thought we were done for," another mercenary wept, wiping the tears from his face. "If Lady Lyra hadn’t deflected that lightning feather... I would have been a dead meat by now."
Karsten looked at the unconscious girl resting against the wall, a look of profound gratitude and immense guilt flashing in his eyes.
"She saved my life too," Karsten murmured bitterly. "We are nothing but burdens to you, Lord Rhain."
Rhain looked at Karsten and others.
"Save your self-pity," Rhain stated coldly, crossing his arms over his chest. "In this primeval forest, a single moment of hesitation means death. We were careless, and we paid the price for it."
He swept his gaze across the battered, exhausted group, finally letting it rest on Lyra’s weakened form.
Even with the flawless pills, the group was in no condition to face even an early-stage Domain Master beast, let alone continue their grueling daily quota.
Lyra’s combat strength, which had been crucial to their hunting strategy, was temporarily crippled.
"The hunt is suspended for today," Rhain declared, "Focus entirely on absorbing the medicinal essence and recovering your strength."
"We... we cannot stop."
A weak and trembling voice suddenly came at this moment.
Rhain turned his head.
Lyra’s long eyelashes fluttered as she slowly opened her crimson eyes.
Her beautiful face was still pale, but she stubbornly pressed her good hand against the cave wall, trying to push herself up forcefully.
"Ten days..." Lyra gasped, her chest heaving as she forced herself to look at Rhain. "Ten days have already passed, Rhain. We have only hunted two hundred and thirty beasts. We are falling behind the quota... If we stop now, we will never reach a thousand in time!"
She gritted her teeth, reaching weakly for her rapier. "I can still fight. I just need a moment—"
Rhain looked at her frail and trembling posture.
"Sit down," Rhain commanded sternly.
Lyra looked at him stubbornly, shaking her head, "No, I want...."
Rhain simply walked over to Lyra.
Without a single word, he placed his hand firmly on her uninjured shoulder and pushed her back down onto the floor.
"I said, sit down," Rhain stated with an unquestionable tone. "In your current state, If you step outside this cave, you will only slow me down and get yourself killed."
Lyra glared up at him, her crimson eyes welling with frustrated tears.
Her pride was hurt by the brutal truth of his words.
She wanted to curse him for his bluntness, but the overwhelming weakness in her meridians left her utterly powerless.
She released her grip on her rapier, slumping back against the cave wall with a defeated look.
"Rest," Rhain instructed, turning his back. "Leave the trial to me."
With Lyra finally subdued, Rhain walked over to a corner and sat down cross-legged.
He closed his dark grey eyes, instantly sinking his consciousness deep into his dantian.
For the past ten days, it had been a continuous cycle of slaughter, evasion, and life-and-death encounters.
The constant fighting was like a hammer, perfectly tempering his foundation.
The bottleneck that had firmly capped his cultivation finally began to loosen.
"It is time,’ Rhain murmured inwardly.
The Abyssal Sovereign Technique was channeled at full speed. The surrounding spiritual essence in the cave aggressively rushed toward him, funneled directly into his meridians.
Within his dantian, the pitch-black void spun with a ravenous hunger, devouring the residual energies of the flawless pills he had consumed earlier.
His three supermassive cores vibrated, expanding under an unimaginable pressure.
CRACK!
A sound like shattering glass echoed within his body.
Core Formation Realm—Level 4!
Buzz—!
Beside his three existing cores, a brand new, crystallized black core materialized, hovering stably alongside the others.
Four cores!
At the exact same time, the mysterious seed mark on his forehead awakened.
Absorbing the qualitative leap in his essence, the Origin Seed of Darkness and the Origin Seed of Fire simultaneously flooded his mind with profound law fragments.
His comprehension of the laws soared rapidly.
Fifty-six percent!
Fifty-seven percent!
The profound mysteries of both the Law of Darkness and the Law of Fire settled firmly at a staggering fifty-seven percent.
Rhain slowly opened his eyes, letting out a long exhale.
As Rhain’s senses returned to the physical world, a rich, savory aroma suddenly drifted into his nose.
He blinked, glancing across the cave.
A warm campfire had been started near the entrance.
Sitting around the crackling flames were Karsten and the five mercenaries.
They had butchered one of the early-stage Domain Master beasts they had hunted earlier and were currently roasting thick, juicy slabs of meat over the fire.
And sitting right next to them, completely discarding her usual aristocratic elegance was Lyra.
She was holding a massive skewer of roasted meat in her hands, chewing on it as hungrily as a starved wolf.
The mercenaries were in a state of euphoria.
"Eat up, brothers!" Karsten laughed, tearing off a chunk for himself. "This is Domain Master Realm beast meat! We’ve scavenged the basin for years, but we never dreamed we’d actually get to taste flesh of this level!"
The other mercenaries were stuffing their faces eagerly.
"My meridians are burning..." one of the mercenaries gasped with awe as he swallowed a massive bite. "The essence in this meat is incredibly dense! I can actually feel my bottleneck loosening!"
𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮
"Of course it is!" another laughed heartily. "This is Domain Master Realm meat! In the outside world, this stuff is reserved exclusively for Patriarchs of Noble clans! Who would have thought we’d be eating it today?"
Seeing Rhain open his eyes and look their way, Karsten immediately stood up, hastily cutting the choicest, most tender cut of the roasted meat.
He walked over respectfully, offering it with both hands.
"Lord Rhain," Karsten grinned, "You’ve been meditating for hours. You must be starving. Please, try some."
Rhain didn’t refuse. He accepted the meat and took a bite.
A rich, perfectly spiced flavor exploded in his mouth, accompanied by a soothing wave of pure essence.
"This is surprisingly good," Rhain said, genuinely impressed. He gave a nod of approval. "You have some real skill, Karsten."
Karsten scratched the back of his head, looking extremely honored. "Haha, you are too kind, Lord Rhain! We are just humble mercenaries who spend most of their lives out in the wild, if we hadn’t learnt how to prepare and cook our own food properly, we would have starved to death long ago."
Rhain gave a faint smile and walked over to join the group by the fire.
Sitting in the dim light of the cave, sharing a meal over a crackling fire, the usual social barriers slowly melted away.
"I still can’t believe we’re sitting here eating this," one of the mercenaries chuckled, "If my old brothers could see me now, dining on a Level 2 Domain Master beast, they would die of envy."
"If they saw what we had to run from to get it, they would just die of fright," another mercenary laughed, though a shudder ran through his body as he remembered the Six-Winged Terror Wyrm.
Karsten smiled bitterly, tossing another piece of dry wood into the fire.
"It wasn’t always this bad, though," he chuckled, though his scarred face carried a tinge of melancholy. He stared into the dancing flames. "Before our sect was wiped out, we actually had it pretty good. Decent pavilions, a steady supply of low-tier pills. But once you lose your backing in this dynasty... you’re just as good as stray dogs."
Lyra paused her chewing.
She elegantly wiped a smudge of grease from her lips with the back of her hand.
"You aren’t entirely useless," Lyra said softly, "Without you acting as bait, we wouldn’t have hunted even half as many beasts. You did your part."
Coming from the notoriously proud and arrogant Lyra, it was the highest form of praise.
The mercenaries exchanged surprised glances, smiles breaking out on their scarred faces.
Rhain simply ate his portion in silence, listening to their idle chatter.
"Lord Rhain!"
At this moment, of the mercenaries looked at Lyra, then at Rhain, his eyes filled with lingering curiosity.
"Lord Rhain, Lady Lyra..." the mercenary hesitated, but finally asked. "Who exactly are you two? We’ve seen noble geniuses before, but none of them could slaughter Domain Master beasts like chickens. Where do you come from?"
The other mercenaries stopped eating, their expressions turning serious as they looked toward Rhain and Lyra.
Lyra swallowed her bite of meat before she spoke up.
"I am Lyra," she said, her voice quiet but clear. "Lyra Emberford."
"Emberford?!" Karsten gasped, "The Emberford Noble Family of Stormveil City?! You are the Stormveil Queen?!"
Every man in the Inner Province knew the legend of the Stormveil queen. But seeing her here, covered in mud and ash, roasting beast meat with them, was completely surreal.
"Well," Karsten swallowed hard, a look of profound awe replacing his shock. "That... actually makes a lot of sense. Only the legendary Stormveil Queen could be this monstrous."
The mercenaries immediately shifted their wide-eyed gazes toward Rhain.
"Lord Rhain, are you also the hidden heir of a Noble Family?"
They all were eager to know the identity of the dark-robed demon who could casually bludgeon beasts to death with his bare hands.
If the girl was a peerless noble prodigy, then the identity of this monstrous youth had to be something even more terrifying.