85 Chapter 85. Tribulation draws near

Morning came and the group were having breakfast on the tree branch with Mars. Vanessa was on the campfire as she brewed some vegetables into a somewhat both unique and tasty drink.

Garrick was busy training at the silk threaded leaves as he grasped his axe tightly and stood a distance away and swung his axe towards them, creating a sharp burst of wind that tore through half of the leaves.

"That helps a lot more," Garrick laughed as a smile appeared on his face as he began to collect new leaves and hung them up again.

Last night, Leo came to him and told him about the inscription on his axe. It had turned out that the inscriptions were indeed a language. It was a language called Nahuatl, an extremely ancient language that used to be native to the western lands of the continent but it's speakers were soon killed in countless wars so it was said to have been lost in history. Luckily, Leo had learnt about this language from the book that he was able to loot from the Golden Wraith. On the axe was written:

"In totomeh kuas sepa in youalyotl uala"

Which was translated to:

The crows will feast once the darkness comes.

There was an obvious correlation of the inscription of this axe to what Garrick's grandfather told him. And Leo's curiosity only grew after he found out that once the words appeared, they seemed to glow with a weird violet energy once Garrick touched the handle. That night, Leo spent sometime with him as they tried to find a way to see if they could find a way to activate this and managed to succeed a little bit as Garrick managed to be able to use a small amount of the energy. But Garrick's battle prowess had risen at an alarming rate and he was now able to battle someone at refinement stage five.

Next to Vanessa, sitting around the campfire was Wenella and Mars who were conversing about how to deal with the Darkness party.

"Wenella, how do you plan to do things now?" Mars asked curiously as he was badly pressured by George's party which had at least a hundred member while his Sword party only had about forty people.

"I honestly don't know. Leo left yesterday and I trust that he will come back in a few weeks, just before the treaty ends. The situation is worse for you so we should be figuring out a solution for you first," Wenella answered with a difficult expression.

There had been no movements from the Darkness party so it was hard to decide what had happened. But just to be safe, Leo had left secretly so that no one would know that he left.

"Indeed. Do you have any propositions?" Mars asked as he agreed with Wenella.

"I have two propositions. We can either form an alliance and you can get your members to camp here. Or why don't you guys join our mercenary? Our mercenary is not that bad," Wenella suggested with a serious expression after pausing for a few second to think it over.

"Hmm... That's very direct but they do seem like good options," Mars commented as he fell into deep thought. Witnessing Leo and Wenella and how their fighting ability was extremely abnormal, it might be a good reason to join their mercenary. But then, he had members in his party and if he joined then the members might think badly of him.

Seeing that he was extremely conflicted, Wenella also began to think of other options but the safest and more probable option was to stick with their group for now.

"You don't have to join our mercenary if you don't want to. I think an alliance would be the best option for you if you want to keep your party," Wenella added.

"Sigh... I think I'll go and talk it over to the people. I want to break off my party and join you guys. Our fight helped me realize how weak I was and how much more I can improve. I'll see if there are any of my members who are willing to join me," Mars suddenly cut it as he boldly decided.

"Oh, great! Don't worry, you can still have your party, your party can be a branch group of this party. Our main members do not have any desire of owning subordinates yet so your group can be our main force for now," Wenella spoke happily as a smile appeared on her face.

"Food is ready!" Vanessa's voice sounded loudly as she called out to the rest of them.

North west from the battlefield, Leo was quickly making his way past countless trees and water bodies, stopping only to recover his energy for a few minutes.

"Finally! Back here again," Leo shouted in relief as he had been travelling non-stop for seven hours at full speed. He made it to a large opening but this was not his destination. In front of him was a tall dense forest that marked the start of the Southern mountain ranges.

He was almost there.

He took in a deep breath of air before rushing into the forest while activating is heavenly eyes to avoid any magic beasts that were roaming nearby. Fortunately, he was still on the inside so it was easy to avoid these beasts but as he slowly got closer and closer, the density of these animals per area slowly increased as well as their unit strength.

Leo had decided to come here due to this being the one place where his killing intent behaved weirdly and the first place where his killing intent backlashed against him, mount Ketumati. This is the best place to carry out his tribulation because it was extremely close to the battlefield and he was quite familiar and sure that there would be no passersby would witness this.

As he slowly made his way through the forest, he saw that there was something weird about the animals. They seemed more irritated as he slowly got closer and closer to the actual mountains.

"I don't have time, I'll worry about this later, I need to go and get this over with as soon as possible," Leo convinced himself not to go and check out what was happening as his main concern was over the group who were currently having food happily and he quickly made his way up to the mountain.

In the battlefield, the Lapis generals were all alerted and called to their meeting tent. News had come directly from the king.

Three men sat down on a round table, two who looked like they were in their thirties and one who looked like he was in his fifties.

"What is the going on, commander Tyson?" a man who was dressed extremely simply asked as he came into the tent. He had been enjoying the rest that he got during these three weeks of peace.

"An envoy from the king has arrived to send us a message, Zane" the oldest looking man replied as he pointed towards a luxuriously dressed man who stepped out proudly.

"Hurry up your late,"

"Took your time didn't you,"

The other two commanders joked as Zane sat down.

"Fellow generals and commander, I bring direct news from the king," the envoy introduced as he brought out a scroll, "Let me read it to you."

"Commander Tyson, I have written this message to give you a task. How you accomplish it is up to you but it must be carried out immediately by hook or by crook. I have received news that the Ruby army is in possession of a legendary weapon, I require you to start a scouting operation straight away to validate this."

The envoy then took out a piece of paper and gave it to the commander.

Curious, Tyson took the paper and slowly opened it.

Immediately, as he looked at it, a face of shock and fear appeared on his face.

Seeing this, the atmosphere inside the tent grew berserk as expressions of shock and fear appeared on all of the generals' faces. They had never seen their commander with such a shocked expression on his face.

"The situation has gotten a lot worse," Tyson began speaking with a louder tone. He then looked up at the generals, "How much men do you all have that are at refinement stage that are able to mobilize right now?"

"Uhh..." confusion appeared on all the generals faces.

"This is no use. We don't have enough men to defend the frontlines incase of a surprise attack. Call the reinforcements team immediately!" Tyson sighed as his face grew more and more conflicted.

"You called sir," an old man around his sixties walked into the tent a few minutes after.

"Yes, I have a job for you. We need to create a new assignment for all reinforcements above refinement realm, so get your pen out and write this down immediately" Tyson informed in a rushed tone.

Immediately, the old man took out a piece of paper and some ink and he began to write as Tyson spoke:

"We need a group of twenty cultivators at at least refinement realm. The task is to go and infiltrate the Ruby frontlines and find news on an object. If you are interested, please make your way to the Lapis meeting tent tomorrow at three in the afternoon. The reward is a hundred thousand ranking points."

"A HUNDRED THOUSAND?!" the generals all exclaimed in shock.

"Yes. Please go and paste this now, we need this to get out urgently," Tyson answered as he sent the old man out.

"Commander, what weapon is it? It is really that legendary?" one of the generals asked cautiously.

"Roman, have a look at the drawing," Tyson replied as he took the paper and shared it around the table for them all to see.

"The Frost King's scepter?" Zane asked bewildered as he saw with and his eyebrows practically flew off his face.