23. End of Curse

Ast created another 10 standard cooperation contracts and handed them to Chris, later to be signed by all the people that were going to gather here. It was Dave, Tim, Tom, Karl and the other 6 were the adventurers that Karl hired.

First to arrive were Karl and the adventurers, everything went as planned and now Ast had 7 new slaves. Ast checked and didn't find any talent worth his time so he gave them the order to wait for the rest to arrive.

Dave came with Tim and Tom and was made to sign the contract as well, whose content was later changed and now all 10 of them were Ast's slaves. Now Ast started asking questions about their respective factions and to what extent would they intervene in this mission of theirs.

Ast came to know about the ins and outs of this mission and how each faction was going to betray one another. He also came to know about how Tim and Tom were given the task to eliminate Dave. Ast was first surprised by the infighting among the vampire faction, but this news also meant that the opposing faction known as 'The Order' was aware of this vampire ancestor. Ast felt that now it was a race against time for him as at any moment the peace of the orient forest could be broken.

Ast had to quickly move his tribe away from this soon-to-be war zone. Ast hurried over to his tribe and only took Chris inside with him leaving others outside.

Ast entered Edwin's residency and explained to him that he had found the cure for the tribe's curse and then lied to him that Chris was a soul contractor who owed him a life-saving grace and would help his tribe.

Edwin was startled on learning about Chris's abilities and skills and he too knew that his tribe's curse could be alleviated if Chris helped but he was wary of Chris's intention and declined Ast's plan.

Ast knew he was in a race against time, so he told him that Chris was his slave. He made up a story in which he tricked Chris into signing a slave contract(not made by Chris). Seeing this Edwin was shocked at how capable this young man in front of him has become.

Firstly Ast ordered Chris to begin removing the curse from each of the tribe members. He asked Edwin to help Chris and instructed Chris to heed Edwin's orders. Ast had also warned Edwin about the upcoming dangers for the orient forest and asked him to quickly evacuate with the Fero tribe.

Ast then started moving towards the Fero tribe. Ast had a good relationship with the Fero tribe and they have been very welcoming toward him throughout the years. Ast told Alena the gist of things mixed with certain lies to keep his secrets.

Ast handed her 200 soul contracts that he and Chris had created while coming back from the forest. Alena was sceptical at first, but she knew it was also an opportunity to rid of the biggest crisis that plagued her tribe, so she volunteered and signed the contract. After that, she noticed that at first the curse was removed and then the contract itself became void/null. She thanked Ast from the bottom of her heart and promised to be forever indebted to him. Ast also warned her about the dangers and then left quickly.

Ast instructed the other to safeguard his tribe with their lives and then he went towards the central regions of the forest together with only Dave.

He was planning to use his skill 'Absolute servitude' on this ancestor of the vampires and only Dave knew the proper procedures to move ahead with his plan.

Although Ast was very delighted and a huge burden has been removed from his mind and what he wanted the most right now was to run outside the forest and see the new world. But he and his tribe had no backing outside and a huge war was coming their way. He needed the power and expertise of the vampire ancestor to survive.

Ast had earlier traversed through the forest while in the 'zero dimension' and knew the safe passage towards the central region, but still many beasts were able to detect them and he had to kill them quickly.

While on the way to the central part, Ast tried his best to avoid the swarm of bats that he had seen previously therefore he took a roundabout path, avoiding the colony of bats. Whilst doing that he came across a nest with an egg placed in the centre. The peculiar thing was that the egg was the size of the blood devil itself.

Ast remembered that there was this 14-year-old girl Anna in his tribe, like Ast she was an orphan and she had awakened an S grade talent 'beast taming'. So he kept the egg to give to Anna. In hurry, Ast didn't even check the talent of the occupant of this peculiar egg, because if he had he would be surprised.