Undying Warlord

Of course, Dilan couldn't be certain that the Ascenders, who joined his group, were actually evil, or that they had ill intentions.

They hadn't attacked his group before, and they seemed to be rather kind.

One wouldn't actually think badly of them, considering that they had survived the attack of a Bronze Tier-1 monster, while half of their people died.

A week earlier, their team had had more than 10 Ascenders, and all of them had been unscathed.

But when they came this morning, the group of Ascenders had been reduced to just four injured Ascenders.

Just by looking at this, one would usually feel pity but Dilan was quite sharp and saw right through them.

He knew that the four Ascenders were lying about the incident because a Bronze Tier-1 monster was not even enough to fill the gap between their teeth. These monsters were simply too weak to do actual damage to the Ascenders!

'They have something to hide, but it doesn't actually feel like it will endanger us…weird.'

Dilan's gut feeling was going haywire. He could tell whether someone was dangerous or not. But while looking at the four injured Ascenders, Dilan felt a bit uncomfortable but it was not to the extent that they were actually dangerous to him or his group.

Because he didn't feel threatened, Dilan agreed to Sven's earlier comment.

"I also believe that they should just do what they want to do. If they want to receive a fair share of food, they should do something to help the community. What they want to do is up to them and not for us to decide.

Rather than bothering about them, we should discuss how things are progressing with the Gates. I have yet to receive detailed reports about their environment, the monster types, all the treasures you can obtain within them and so on."

Dilan was the first one to have started to circulate reports about the Gates. Everyone could read them, correct what was wrong, and add their own comments.

Though the file might look a little bit messy at one time due to this, the details written in the reports were usually quite decent.

However, Dilan could also tell that everyone had slacked off a little bit when it came to working meticulously.

Only for the sake of receiving hot food did everyone give their best to contribute, which was a little bit funny. But mostly it was frustrating because the report about the Gates was supposed to help everyone survive.

'I also made a report on the Pagoda of Time, but nobody seems to dare to enter it anymore.' Dilan thought gloomily, not mentioning it out loud.

Somehow, the Pagoda of Time had become a taboo word, and Dilan had no idea how he should convince his people that the Pagoda of Time was a great opportunity, not a death sentence.

"Ah, well…about that. It looks like most Ascenders are becoming a little bit lax because Shiron seems to be quite safe. They're still doing everything they've been told to do and they will slowly fill the reports but I guess everyone is currently in need of a small break.

We are humans and not machines, after all. The last few days were very helpful to allow everyone to calm down and to cope with the Pagoda of Time's incident." Sarah said, honestly acknowledging that many, including her, had become a little bit lax during the last few days.

The dangers around them turned out to be minuscule, and the only threats came from potentially powerful monsters that might appear somewhere, and take them by surprise.

"Well, as long as everyone continues to work, I guess that's fine. I don't expect anyone to become powerful in a single day."

Dilan knew that not everyone could be like him, and grasp every single opportunity to become stronger. He was aware that the dangers on Milarn would only increase, that there would be more foreign races coming for them and that the Red Dragon was just one of the many legendary monsters they would encounter in the future.

In the end, the others knew about the dangers but not to the extent Dilan had gotten to know about the Sun temple, the Ligrav and Rasnian race, the fact that a Sun God had brought the Sun temple to the Shikan plains, and that Milarn was merely at the nascent stage of awakening its mana.

It would take some time, but sooner or later various stronger existences, whether it was other races or monsters would appear.

And even if a few would be peaceful, and attempt to build a neutral bond with them, or potentially a bond of friendship, Dilan could tell that the Universe was a lot more dangerous and hostile than one might believe.

He wanted to become stronger and he would give his best, to achieve what he wanted at any possible moment.

With that in mind, Dilan wanted to leave the base to enter one of the permanent Gates that harbored numerous powerful monsters; monsters, whose Essence Crystals he had yet to absorb.

However, even before he could make the first step to excuse himself, Yvonne's expression changed and she flinched.

"25 Deaths." That was the only thing she said as her eyes flicked to a specific direction.

While everyone would usually look weirdly at a person saying these two words, hearing Yvonne say them indicated great danger.

Dilan was the first to react. He didn't hesitate to activate [Thunder Step] and [Second Acceleration] to burst forth in the direction Yvonne was looking at.

The Blazing Serpentine Blade had already emerged in his left hand and Dilan was ready to fight with all his might if that were to be necessary.

'Outside the base.' He realized, emerging in the open where he could hear the sound of gunfire.

This astonished him a little bit because nobody in their group used guns anymore. They might have guns stored in the warehouse but they didn't use them.

The use of guns was insignificant after the bodies of Tier-1 monsters reached a certain threshold, which made their hide tough enough to block bullets of rifles.

'Do they belong to our group?' Dilan wondered before he jumped over the fence that was erected around their base.

Afterward, he rushed in the direction of the gunfire. His speed was extremely fast and Dilan reached the origin of the commotion just a moment later.

However, what he saw astonished Dilan greatly.

'Soldiers? The military?'

More than two hundred armed men and women, all of whom were wearing the same cargo uniform, were shooting at a group of Huge Hyenas, who were entirely unfazed about the rainstorm of bullets that impacted on them.

They were tearing apart a few Ascenders, who were at Tier-1.

In a single glance, Dilan could tell that the Ascenders might be at Tier-1, but that the occupation they chose in their ancient path of advancement was merely a common one.

The Soldiers' presence was weak and every single one of Dilan's Tier-1 Ascenders was strong enough to bash the entire group of Soldiers easily.

But the Soldiers' weak strength was not something he should be concerned about right now because the huge Hyenas were tearing apart the Soldiers, one after another. The beast's fur was silver in color and spiked, puncturing the poor Soldiers to death

'Well, I might not like the military or the government, but it's not like the Soldiers did something to me.'