Minotaur!

'Why is a minotaur this close to the edge of the forest…was it scared of that roar?' Leo thought to himself, looking at the monster in front of him.

Minotaurs were monster/beast hybrids that lived fairly deep in the forest. They had a higher level of intelligence when compared to beasts but lower when compared to pure monsters. Luckily for Leo, they also never ran in groups.

"GRAA!"

"Shit!"

After the minotaur roared once more it charged at Leo with his wooden club in hand. Leo knew he could not take a direct hit from this monster or he would die, so he quickly dodged to the left.

'It's not very fast but it hits hard…' Leo observed, as he began to infuse his aura into his sword.

This technique, Aura Infusion, was something that someone of his level should not be able to do but thanks to his insane talent in combat, he was able to mimic it to some extent.

Taking the opportunity of the Minotaur pulling his club out from the crater which it had caused, Leo sliced down on the monster's arm. The blade went a few inches into its arm before Leo realized that it would not be able to cut through.

The realization caused Leo to attempt to pull out his sword but found it unsuccessful as the Minotaur had tensed up its muscles forcing it to stay in place.

"Hehe, it seems you're not just a muscle head after all!" Leo's smile grew crazed.

Pushing more aura into his blade, he finally pulled it free from the Minotaur right as he got his club unstuck.

As Leo's smile grew deeper, he began to spread out his aura all throughout his body. Every fingernail all the way down to every hair now held his aura. This was the technique that Leo had learned from Albert. Ever since that first day of training, Leo had put the most time into learning this technique, Albert called it, "Primed".

The name really matched this technique as it allowed one to always be prepared no matter the circumstances. Leo had come to be able to use this technique but not very efficiently as it exhausted him quickly.

'But that doesn't matter right now. I couldn't win in a battle of endurance against a Minotaur.' Leo thought to himself as leapt at Minotaur.

'Staying close to him is probably the best bet.'

Running under the Minotaurs legs, Leo sent out a flurry of slashes at its heels but sadly none of them were deep enough for anything substantial.

Then the Minotaur did something that surprised Leo, instead of using its feet in an attempt to stop Leo to death, it tossed its club aside and balled its fist together. Then proceeded to slam down.

*BOOM!*

The fist making contact with the ground caused more of an explosion than a simple shaking of the ground like Leo had expected, causing him to get flung back breaking some trees in the process.

"Damn, I've never felt anything like that!" Leo cheered on the Minotaur with his insane smile. Over the past week Leo had come to like pain, he had engraved the saying "No Pain, No Gain" into his mind.

Leo had protected himself with his aura right before the impact was made so he came out with only a few scratches. But the Minotaur gave him as little time to recover as it possibly could.

Seeing the monster running towards him Leo readied his blade once more, this time with a better understanding of the being called a Minotaur.

"GRAAA!!"

The Minotaur roared as it brought his bare fist down towards Leo. Leo then kept a visible layer of Aura on his blade and met the Minotaurs fist.

Seeing Leo's attempt at matching itself in strength, the Minotaur sneered in arrogance, confident that his fist would smash the bug before him, as a smile crept up on its face.

But unexpectedly, just as his fist was about to make contact with Leo's blade. Leo allowed his blade to be pushed out of the way as he spun to the right, dodging the monster's fist. Then dashed up its arm.

"I guess I can try 'that' out now!" Leo shouted as he began to reach into a portal which appeared over his hand.

This portal was a storage device created by Mages. And what Leo pulled out of it was a sword that looked to be made of crystal. Pushing aura into the sword caused the crystal to glow golden and begin changing shapes.

Suddenly pieces of crystal began falling off of the sword, to reveal a magnificent blade. A longsword shimmered in gold with beautiful carvings all over the weapon. Sadly this blade did not stay pure gold for long as Leo jabbed the blade deep into the Minotaurs neck.

This blade was Leo's Aura Gear. Leo had received this back at the table during dinner the day before. Leo wanted his Aura Gear's first taste of blood to be something worthy of it. So this Minotaur was great for him to try out his new blade.

Aura Gear amplified the Aura put into it so the blade cleanly chopped the Minotaur's head off.

*Crash!*

A loud sound rang out as the monster's body fell to the ground. Leo stood off to the side holding the golden blade satisfied with its performance.

"Gramps told me to give you a name the first time I use you, hmm… Your first taste of blood was that of a Minotaur who was too confident in its strength so….Pride…Ah! Prides Bane! I shall call you Prides Bane." Leo was satisfied with the name he had come up with.

Then an overwhelming sense of exhaustion hit him.

"Ugh…Well I guess I did use "Primed" and this Aura Gear drains me as well. Looks like I'll have to train more." He said, as he slumped down on the nearest tree.

***

Celia's POV

*Bang*

"What's going on!" Celia shouted as she entered the room by slamming open the door.

Inside of the room were many people surrounding a table. Celia had gotten a call using a magic device telling her to come back to the family's mansion immediately. At first she was annoyed as it had interfered with her training but on the way here she saw many people running around panic stricken.

Around the table were Albert, Ida, Alanna, Reford, and Dirk. Reford and Dirk were the leaders of 'The Shield Order' and 'The Spear Order'.

These two orders were the main forces of the Kingsmith Clan. The Shield Order were responsible for defending the Kingsmith Territory, while The Spear Order were tasked with attacking and counter attacking. The two forces have been a force to be reckoned with since their creation.

"Stay calm, Celia. A sudden monster flood happened." Albert spoke in a calm tone as if this had happened before.

"A monster flood…"

These words sent Celia into her thoughts. A monster flood was a big deal especially for a town which bordered such a large area which was infested with mana beast, such as Solon.

A monster flood was when many monsters and mana beast emerged from the forest all at one time. This overwhelmed many smaller cities but a city such as Solon has seen its fair share of them.

"Why did a monster flood happen?" Celia asked. Monster floods have happened in the past but they always had a reason for occurring.

"According to reports, the wyvern deeper in the forest fell into a state of rage causing the other monsters and beast to run away in fear." Albert informed her.

"But wasn't she always passive and gentle? She even helped people on multiple occasions."

"Indeed, we need to figure out why she fell into rage. But more importantly, a large group of monsters are heading towards us as we speak. I want both the Shield and the Spear Orders to take up defensive positions and prepare to meet the monsters." Albert barked out orders.

"My Lord, what about the adventurers? There have been many casualties reported thanks to the monster flood and there will no doubt be more if we just defend." The Leader of the Spear Order spoke.

What Dirk had said was true. There had been many reports of adventurers dying in the past few minutes and they were only going to increase if nothing was done about it.

"..."

This was a hard decision for Albert. He was confident in his men's strength but the number of monsters heading their way was overwhelming. After taking a second to think he ordered once more, "My order stands. The Shield and Spear shall take defensive positions. This shouldn't be a difficult fight but it will most likely be long. Now go!"

"Yes, My Lord!"

"Understood, My Lord!"

Reford and Dirk then ran out of the mansion to prepare. Hearing all of these words made Celia's mind a mess.

'Leo…He's not back yet…and he's like me so he will definitely do something stupid!' She thought.

"I'm going into the forest!" She shouted as she turned towards the exit.

"For what! You are needed here!" Albert shouted in response. He was completely out of this family man persona at the moment and was solely focused on the military aspect of things.

"For what…? For Leo! He's still out there!"

*Slam!*

This time Celia did not waste time to hear Alberts reply and instead just ran out of the room and slammed the door. She then began towards the edge of the forest.

She, like Leo, had a storage ring so she did not have to waste any time to get anything.

"Please be safe, Leo…" She thought, her heart clenching at the thought of something happening to him.

If Leo were able to see his mothers current condition we would not believe it. Celia was normally a strong, confident woman but right now at this moment…she was just a worried woman.