Undying Warlord

Dilan's entire body was being invigorated as the Essence of the Tier-2 Thunderbolt Eagle spread through his veins.

His condition improved within seconds and his sight became clearer. All the exhaustion which he had felt from before seemed to have been wiped away. It was an amazing feeling but it astonished Dilan greatly.

'Two level ups and roughly 14 stats points…amazing!' He nearly exclaimed only to say something different, which he had taken note of.

"So pure…"

The Essence he absorbed had been dozens of times purer than the Gold Essence of the Clawed Bears. This was only obvious but it was still shocking because the purity and the humongous amount of Essence he had just absorbed were simply insane.

Under normal circumstances, Dilan would have never gotten so many status points, let alone enough Essence to level up twice. This didn't really make sense, especially not because of the Cursed Blessing [Will of the Primordial].

But the Thunderbolt Eagle was not only a whole Tier higher than Dilan but its level was also much higher.

'If the information I collected is correct, Level 25 is the highest Level an existence at Tier-1 can reach…'

That meant the Thunderbolt Eagle was close to 15 Levels higher than him at Tier-1, it had advanced to Tier-2 and leveled up no less than five times afterward. The Essence it must have accumulated to achieve all of that was tremendous, but sadly, Dilan was the one to have gained the most out of it.

"Tier-2 Essence is truly on a different level…" Dilan mumbled before he got an idea.

"Maybe hunting Tier-2 beasts would be the best?" He wondered, thinking that it would be great to level up quickly and increase his stats with ease. The stronger an opponent, the higher the use of their Essence for the hunter.

"No, that would be stupid. I could barely kill it by sacrificing my weapons and fighting recklessly…" Dilan continued to speak to himself, while Victoria was holding him up.

Dilan took a while to finish his train of thought but once he was done, he noticed that the others had already appeared around him.

All of them looked exhausted but they were calmly waiting for Dilan to give them the next order.

But instead of giving them an order, Dilan merely smiled as he stated the obvious, "We have to get stronger, much faster than our current speed of improvement!"

The others heard when Dilan mentioned that the Thunderbolt Eagle was a Tier-2 monster. They had already expected something like that but it was not as if they could actually believe that they had been facing a Tier-2 monster already.

The Primordial Ascension had happened less than 6 weeks ago, yet, the first Tier-2 monster had already appeared.

"More will come…soon, won't they?" Kuhn asked, his voice quivering with fear. The day when they left the Rian mountainside hospital was clear in his mind as day. Kuhn was haunted by these memories, the memories when the Red Dragon had emerged behind the mountainside. It was scary and a single thought was enough for him to start shuddering.

He didn't want to imagine how things would turn out if more beasts like the Red Dragon were to appear.

"Well, that was a Bronze Tier-2 monster. If we follow a 'normal' and linear process, we should face more ordinary Tier-2 monsters first before Bronze Tier-2 monsters emerge. But it's not like the progress of monsters would come to a stop just because we want them to.

There might already be Gold Tier-2 monsters out there and we were lucky enough not to meet them," Dilan spoke in a calm but serious voice. The Vampires they faced had already been at a high level as well.

It wouldn't have taken them long before reaching the maximum Level at Tier-1. Afterward, they would have advanced to TIer-2, thereby gaining immeasurable strength.

It was impossible to say how much stronger one would become by advancing from Tier-1 to Tier-2 but Dilan predicted that the difference was even higher than the first advancement.

The only difference was that one wouldn't choose an occupation while advancing but that the occupation would probably become stronger. But Dilan could only make predictions. It was not as if he had the ability to see in the future and tell whether or not his thoughts were correct.

"If that was only a Bronze Tier-2 monster, what would happen if there were more of them, or even stronger ones appeared?" Silas mumbled, imagining exactly what would happen. He began to shudder as well and his helpless gaze involuntarily turned over to Dilan.

Their leader looked quite calm, which reassured everyone. However, they also knew that Dilan had barely been strong enough to defeat the Tier-2 Thunderbolt Eagle. His strongest weapons were now destroyed and it was obvious that he wouldn't be able to face another Tier-2 monster right now.

"Looks like we need to grasp the opportunity provided by the Sanctum," Williams said, his gaze lingering on the corpse of the Thunderbolt Eagle.

"Let's go back to Shiron first. We need to plan that out properly, otherwise, we might be the ones who will suffer…" Ailee cautioned, her expression visibly souring at the thought of thousands of Vampires taking them by surprise and attacking them while they were unprepared.

The Sanctum of the Blood Monarch may be useful and considered a great opportunity but the fact that thousands of Vampire would be after their lives soon enough was not something great.

They needed the Sanctum Keys and all five of them were in Dilan's possession.

"Yeah, let's go back. But before that, I will force Clerens to give me what I deserve!" Dilan chuckled lightly to lighten the mood so as to calm everyone around him. Unfortunately, this didn't work well, which was why Dilan shrugged his shoulders before he stored the corpse of the Thunderbolt Eagle before he set off.

The Thunderbolt eagle's talons and beak could be turned into powerful weapons, something that Dilan needed desperately. After all, the strongest weapons they owed were entirely useless against the first Tier-2 monster they encountered!

When Dilan returned to the military base of the Blue Star camp, he was eyed weirdly. Even if the Survivors had not witnessed his fight against the Thunderbolt Eagle they were not stupid either. By connecting the dots, they figured that Dilan and his group had defeated the monster that their own soldiers were too afraid to even face.

The people they had trusted and relied on hadn't even thought about fighting. They had witnessed the terrifying power each of the bolts of lightning had caused and that was enough for the Soldiers to determine that they would die the moment they would face one of the bolts.

Even the three leaders didn't dare to venture outside. Rather than sacrificing their lives, they retreated with their people to save their skin. The Survivors didn't even want to imagine what would have happened to their entire base and their lives if it hadn't been for Dilan.

It was a frightening thought and not something the Survivors wanted to keep thinking about.

"What do you think about this?" Williams suddenly asked as he appeared next to Dilan. Victoria glared at him because she wanted to spend some alone time with Dilan but that was something Williams tried to ignore.

"What do you mean?" Dilan returned the question. Williams could have been a bit more specific, which was why Dilan smiled wryly.

"The Soldiers' behavior. Some of them were the first ones to run away and it looks like they selfishly abandoned their own people just to be the first ones to reach the most secure zones inside the military base," Williams answered Dilan's question while he kept his focus on Dilan.

There was something that intrigued him and Williams wanted to find out whether Dilan had noticed it as well or not.

"Well, isn't it obvious what will happen next? The Survivors won't be able to trust these Soldiers because they abandoned them once. Who says that they won't do it a second time?" Dilan asked a logical question which made everybody pause and think. He shrugged his shoulders before he continued,

"...but they're too weak to leave the Blue Star camp on their own. They will either try to join us, wait for some other group to appear in the white shining armor to take them in, or they will just give up on life and accept the fact that they cannot trust their own people if a powerful monster were to appear." Dilan was still smiling lightly. He pointed out the most likely scenario, while only leaving out one potential outcome..

"So you don't think that they will start fighting for themselves? That they will try to become stronger to prevent being forced to rely on someone else ever again?" Williams asked with a glint in his eyes.

However, Dilan could only shake his head while pointing at the Survivors around them. They were shivering in fright, their eyes were filled with desperation and they could hardly control their body so as to not collapse on the ground.

"Nope, never!"