Unlimited Power - The Arcane Path

"The second great war... I guess some people considered the first attack of dragons the start of the first war. Regardless, it looks like it stayed relatively peaceful for a little than thirty years. I guess my actions alone didn't speed up the assimilation process..."

"The new species of monsters proved themselves to be much more difficult to deal with," Ryoko said. "Although many people learned magic over the last three decades, humanity suffered many losses... it looks like it was around that time that Your Majesty began to fight up close. Your healing skills were powerful, so you decided to join the frontlines in order to heal as many as you could."

"Really? As far as I can remember, I always fought on the frontlines," Yuki frowned.

"It was also around that time that you received your nickname," Ryoko added.

"What nickname?" Leon asked.

"The immortal empress," Ryoko answered.

"I think the imprudent empress would be more fitting," Leon smirked. ���Immortal... just because you heal your wounds faster than you can suffer mortal wounds?"

"Why, you..." Ren said, annoyed.

"I think the beggar sorcerer would suit you," Yuki said. "The mage who doesn't take showers would also be good... What do you think of the title: swamp creature?"

"I think you lack creativity, but that is to be expected considering that you punch strangers first and ask questions later," Leon frowned. "Continue."

"... Although the new monsters caused some problems, most countries managed to suppress them, those who didn't receive help from others," Ryoko said. "However, ten years after they disappeared... the fallen returned and cause massive dungeon breaks. The small nations started to fall from those dungeon breaks. Even big countries suffered many losses, so many started to hunt the fallen."

"That I remember, India and China suffered a lot back then," Yuki said. "Although they had some survivors who could, to some extent, read the minds of others, they failed in finding those bastards. It was discovered that some people had lapses of memory, so it became clear someone who could erase memories and control other survivors was using other people to do their dirty work."

Leon clicked his tongue, that would make things much tricky. He already found monsters that could control others using illusions and Donan had the power to erase memories, Leon had no intention of learning that since he didn't want anyone doing what he wanted to do for him. It was disgusting to erase people's memories, even using that on enemies. Although he could resist and counter both, it didn't mean that it couldn't cause problems.

"The people of both countries got tired of losing so many friends and relatives, so they demanded that the authorities to arrest those who had lost some of their memories since they obviously were the ones who caused the dungeon breaks," Ryoko said. "That didn't solve the problem, so soon they started to demand their execution... from there, things turned south, and both countries suffered more problems due to the rebellions than from monsters."

In the end, it wasn't that surprising... they had the numbers and people could get powerful even without fighting a single monster. So, it was only evident that something would happen sooner or later. The chances of the lizard not being involved in the fall of both China and India were big, but Leon would never be one hundred percent sure.

"Some individuals managed to seize power for themselves in China and India, so both countries were divided into many parts," Ryoko said. "Those who didn't want to take part in any more conflict between humans fled to other countries. However, even after fleeing to other places, many of them got kidnapped and brought back to their countries, they also kidnapped many civilians of other countries to use them."

"It has been so long that I even forgot about them..." Ren said. "So, that battle started like that, huh."

"Yes, same here..." Yuki nodded. "After so many years, my only memory remaining of that time was the cowardice of our pathetic allies."

"I am expecting to hear details of this..." Leon said.

"Although many people got kidnapped, many managed to escape and get rescued..." Ryoko furrowed her eyebrows. "At least that was we thought... we ignored those confinements camps for a while because they had unexpected powerful soldiers. So, the allied nations worked together to free them in quiet operations. We succeeded so many times that many started to worry that something was wrong, but we never figured out what it was... until some people started to get sick."

"Sick?" Leon frowned.

"Yes, forty years after the new monsters appeared, people started to collapse," Ryoko answered. "They had symptoms of ordinary flu... but suddenly those sick people started to explode, and one could compare the damage of such explosion to strategic missiles. In the beginning, we thought that was an alien disease. But after suffering many attacks at the same time several people exploded, we understood that wasn't a disease. It was a spell that was put on some survivors that makes their mana concentrate for a few days at a small point. After the mana reaches a certain level, it would explode."

"Let me guess, those who seized power to themselves after the unrest in India and China caused that," Leon said.

"Yes, since they have the power to erase memories and control people, we would only notice who was being used by them when it was too late," Ryoko explained. "After suffering many losses, Your Majesty decided to exterminate those people and their small kingdoms."

"I didn't think you would be able to take such a decision," Leon looked at Yuki.

"I still remember that time," Yuki closed her eyes. "I endured my anger even when some of my most loyal advisors died, but after seeing kids exploding and survivors losing their friends and relatives in front of them and like that, I made my choice. I will never let terrorists make my people suffer ever again. I decided to crush them to bits, and so I did."