Supreme Monarch

In one of the safe zones located in the Darknar forest.

Sitting around the campfire the four men kept staring in the same direction, Along with the cloaked man standing behind them. None of them had made any sounds for over 5 minutes. "Is it over? W-what, what the hell was that?"

A well-built man said hurriedly before the two brothers could ask. He had Greenish Grey skin but had no other outstanding features, he was well built and tall, and he carried a large brown Axe on his back.

The other three men simultaneously turned around to see the person who spoke, they then turned to look at the cloaked man with an expectant gaze, looking at the man behind them, he was tall, but his figure was hidden under his cloak. Sigh! The man sighed loudly and walked to take sit at one of the logs around the campfire.

After sitting down he looked at the four men and asked. "What do you guys think that was?" "A monster." The last man spoke first this time, he was a thin short man that looked human, he had green spiky hair and green eyes.

The cloaked man looked at him and shook his head in disbelief as he mumbled under his breath. "How did I get stuck with such idiots." He then raised his head and spoke. "I told you before that was not a monster, did I stutter."

The green-haired man was flustered as he nervously replied. "Ah, sorry boss."

Rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, he looked away and stared at the ground.

The cloaked man sighed and spoke again. "That was most likely a demon noble."

Gasp! Gasps! Gasps! Gasps!

The four men gasped in shock and couldn't hide their nerves.

"I-Isn't this bad, shouldn't we be doing something."

Bam the two-horned brother said those words without confidence.

The cloaked man looked at all four of them and chuckled,

"Relax, They most likely encountered a high-level monster and had to fight using their full power or something close. Even if they were trying to sneak into the castle for some reason, they would leave immediately after that display as they know there are scouts in all the safe zones in the forest around the castle. They would not risk their identities or family identity revealed."

The man looked at the two brothers for a second, then he smiled, he continued

"Still we need to report this to Lord Aur. Bam and Bor you two can deliver the message. Make sure you repeat what I just told you." glancing at the two brothers again to finish his sentence.

The brothers were startled when they heard their names. "Ah yes boss!" they replied hurriedly as they hurriedly stood up in fright.

The cloaked man looked up at them nodding in approval. "What are you waiting for, leave now," he commanded, as he watch the brothers stumble around as they left the forest.

He turned his head back in the direction they were all looking at. "I wonder who that was, they might even be stronger than Lord Aur." even though he said that in a low voice the two men still heard him clearly as they gulped their saliva, trembling in silence.

•••••••••••

The area that was frozen rapidly defrost, even though the Rykir was still frozen in place.

Rain slowly opened her eyes, she took in the view in front of her. There was ice all around her, as far as she could see, they were melting away at an abnormal pace, there were several melting ice walls around her, they must have protected her when she passed out.

She felt a sharp pain on her shoulder snap her out of her daze, placing her hand on the spot, she noticed she was bleeding, the blade-like horn that had impaled her was still lodged in her shoulder. she struggled to stand on her own two feet as she tried to get a sense of what had happened after she had passed out.

Looking at the ice around her she had a bad feeling, she hurriedly dragged herself forwards as she search for something.

Walking a couple of steps she saw a lady crouched down by a tree looking at some wildflowers in front of her, the lady had long bluish white hair her skin was as white as snow, she looked a little pale, the flowers around her had little specks of ice on them, the scene made her look like she just walked out of a fairy tale.

Rain almost didn't recognize her, if it wasn't for the clothes she was wearing. Everything finally clicked for her, she hesitated for a minute, then she walked slowly towards the lady and qsked in hesitation.

"Liz is that you______ Are you okay?" as she said those words the lady turned her head to look at Rain.

Looking at the lady cold and emotionless eyes rein paused, she stood there for more than 30 seconds, she took a step forward, then another, then another, she walked faster and approached the white-haired lady.

She knelt and hugged the lady from behind and tears rushed down her face, she cried as she apologized deeply to her friend. "Am so sorry, this is all my fault. I wasn't strong enough to protect you. Forgive me... sob... sob... sob..."

As she knelt weeping, her friend did not respond, she remain in her original position undisturbed by the extra weight on her shoulders as she turned back to stare at the ground in front of her, watching the flowers as they slowly froze with an emotionless expression on her face.

••••••••••

In the Darknar forest.

Tyler carefully walked in the general direction he had felt the strange feeling coming from. For some reason, he could tell it wasn't a beast so it was probably a humanoid creature.

He planned to observe whatever it was from afar and asertain their danger level. If they were demons he would immediately flee and try to observe the castle from a distance to know if that was their destination, which was his main objective.

However, if they were humans and sub races, he would try to approach them for information, do long as they were not mercenaries.

Tyler had just entered the forest from the same direction he came out of, he could think more clearly now so he noticed certain things he hadn't before. The trees were huge and the ground was covered in roots and vines but there were occasionally some strange wildflowers he had never seen before, growing at the base of some trees.

Although there wasn't any monsters or magic beast, he saw some wild birds perched up on the trees. They were brown large hawk-like birds that occasionally flew away the moment they saw him.

The birds were neither monsters nor magic beasts, he had seen them before on the outskirts of the human continent. They were rare creatures adventurers would hunt to make a decent sum of money as they were considered exotic.

Looking at the amount of wild Hawks here he could see that there were a lot of them, this meant they originated from the demon continent and migrated at least one season a year. Tyler kept walking in a slightly different direction than he did last time.

As he got deeper into the forest he notice the wild Hawks were no longer in the trees and thought. "I guess they only live in the perimeters" he mumbled to himself silently.

As he got deeper into the forest, the atmosphere became more dark and gloomy. ' Am starting to get creeped out here, why am I even doing this? is this the type of dump shit Characters in a horror movie do right before one of them gets dragged away into the dark.'

Tyler was seriously doubting his brain's capabilities as he had a huge urge to turn around, in the end staying alive was more important than making a dumb confirmation just because of a library.

Just as he was about to give in to his nerves he notice something from the corner of his peripheral vision.

To the right, there was a tree that had been frozen solid. It was rapidly starting to defrost as if there was a large source of heat next to it.

Tyler looked at the tree with piqued interest as he got closer and closer to it, he could now see the ice visibly melting in front of him. He turned his head and notice similar situations were occurring up ahead, creating puddles of water on the ground. "What happened here?" he said to himself in a low voice as he followed the trees and puddles towards the depts of the forest. ' I've been making a dumb decision like this for a while now something must be wrong with me.' Tyler thought as he continued walking.

He walked randomly for about 5 minutes before he finally saw something else apart from defrosting the tree, he saw two figures in the corner of a tree. he was too far to see what they were doing, but not wanting to be careless he hid by the bushes and slowly approached them in other to get a better view of what was going on and if they were responsible for the strange situation.

As he got close enough to observe, he noticed one of them was crouched down staring at some kind of frozen wildflowers while the other wrapped her hands around the former for some reason.

He couldn't see their faces but he could tell that both of them were women, one had dark skin and the other was as white as snow. He felt something was off as he turned his head left and right to get a general sense of what happened.

That's when he noticed something else, there was another figure several meters away from the ladies, although the figure wasn't moving and seemed to be stuck in place, he could still sense an imposing aura coming from it even without any extraordinary senses.

He concentrated and tried to identify what he was looking at, it looked like a statue, or maybe a sculpture. In an ice sculpture, there was a part of the sculpture's body that was glowing, but whatever it was, it wasn't a humanoid creature.

He could only think of one thing based on the current situation ' Is that? A magic beast... Did those two ladies kill that magic beast? is that what I sensed before?' Tyler was alarmed and shocked. A magic beast was at least Tier 3, a level at the peak of human strength, and he doubted the possibility of the magic beast in the center region of the Demon continent being weak, that was most likely an ultra-rare and extremely dangerous Tier 4 Magic Beast.

He had never seen a magic beast in person, he didn't know much about them except for the ones reported by the Adventurer Guild, he knew they were stronger and more intelligent than other monsters at the same tier.

Since this was the demon continent, if the two ladies were able to kill a magic beast of that level then they would have to be a Tier 4 Mage, magic Swordsmen, or warrior. Either way, this might not be a good thing for him.

The only mages and magic swordsmen around would be high-level demons. And with that, all his optimistic plans went out the window. If those two wanted to take the castle there was no way his measily tier 1 spells would stop them.

Having no idea what the relationship between humans and demons was in this period he didn't think it was a good idea to hang around any longer. He needed to retreat back to the underground tunnels for now before he could even attempt to keep an eye on the castle later on.

However...

Rustle...

How unlucky.

Just as he took a step, the bushes and dried leaves on the ground around him startled him, his first reaction was to hide, but before he could even do anything the white-haired lady turned her gaze towards him, her stare penetrated the distance and landed right on him.

The moment he saw her face he was stunned, she had snow-like skin her lips were blueish purple, and it was like they had been frozen in time but all they did was accentuate her other features.

Her blue eyes were dazzling to behold, almost breathtaking, even though she was a little pale she was incredibly beautiful, almost godly.

As Tyler stared dumbly at the white-haired lady, she slowly stood up and stared at him with an emotionless expression. At this point, Rain realized that someone was standing there at some point in time.

Her first reaction was that it was a monster, she no longer had any weapons as she had dropped her remaining dagger when the Rykir attacked her with the blade-like horns.

Reacting fast she quickly pulled out the horn lodged at her left shoulder, blood gushed out of the wound as she fought back her pain. "Groan..." as she pulled the horn out she held it in a reverse grip prepared to defend against any sudden attack.

Rain finally noticed the figure standing in front of her, over ten meters away was a tall young man. He was wearing an ordinary dark brown shirt with brown pants and a pair of brown leather boots, He had short black hair neatly cut in a fade, hazel-colored eyes and no distinct features although with the amount of blood she had lost it was simply a miracle for her to be standing on her feet.

Not to mention the gloomy and dark atmosphere made it impossible to tell his appearance from where she was standing, all she could see was his hazel eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.

Her actions froze as she stared at the young man, even though she couldn't feel a presence from him she had a nagging feeling that he was dangerous. She looked at the white-haired lady by her side, she was surprised she hadn't attacked the man the moment she saw him.