Chapter 42: Leon Ashward

As the two opposing factions clashed in the middle of wide open streets, a small distance away on a rooftop, a young man could be seen leaning back against the stone wall.

His heart was racing, practically jumping out of his chest as the battle between the spider faction and the monster faction raged on behind him.

Every now and then he could feel the ground shake and the air tremble from the shockwaves of the battle.

This man was Leon Ashward, a young man in his twenties who was also a mid rank martial apprentice.

He spent most of his days exploring various hunting fields, documenting any new magical plants or low rank creatures he stumbled upon.

Today was supposed to be the same as when he came to the Ruins of Star City, an area with a variety of mythical plants that mutated under the dense mana in the surroundings. While he explored he would also document some of the small low rank creatures he saw.

The reason he did this was because he was also a journalist who also ran a small online blog with a few consistent followers. Since he was young he always had a dream of wanting to be a big time journalist who worked for one of the big media companies and when he grew up and graduated from school he decided to follow it. However, life doesn't always follow the path we want.

The posts he usually wrote about and updated were regular daily news that no one really took interest in. Feeling down he decided to research what was a hot topic nowadays and that's when he found it, Hunters.

Even though most people weren't martial artists, they still took a great interest in them. All the big news companies mostly posted information talking all about hunters and the reactions they got from the public was great. People loved to hear tales about hunters' heroics and compare top ranking hunters and getting a glimpse into their lives.

Unfortunately, Leon never had the chance to interact with those top ranking hunters as they would never give the time of day to a small journalist like him. Instead, he would focus on several small hunters, doing various interviews and recording their daily hunting.

When he started doing this he noticed a small boom in the popularity of his blogs and journals as more and more people started to follow his posts. Feeling like he found the method to success he started thinking more and more about how he could improve his work.

Since a young age, Leon had known about his talent in analysis and decided to use it in conjunction with his mid rank martial apprentice cultivation to explore ruins and begin to document various monsters and useful herbs that could be found inside low ranking fields.

To Leon's elation, this had worked to great success as his fan base had increased greatly once again with the addition of a small group of low ranking hunters that started to follow his blog.

Leon felt that his work had finally begun to move on the right track and decided to strike while the iron was hot and visited the Ruins of Star City as his next destination.

While exploring the ruins, Leon had recorded various small plants and monsters. Unknowingly, he got immersed in his work and ventured deeper and deeper into the ruins until he stumbled upon the amazing sight of a group of monsters seemingly relaxing in the middle of an open square.

This had initially deeply frightened Leon as there were at least a few hundred monsters in this group, maybe closer to a thousand. When he initially saw this he immediately jumped into the cover of a small four story building beside him.

Thankfully, the group of monsters didn't seem to notice him, causing Leon to release a soft sigh of relief. When he was thinking of passing through the backdoor of the building to escape he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

In all of Leon's time exploring various Ruins, never had Leon seen a sight as strange as this. He could already picture the making of a great story.

After some internal struggles for a few moments, Leon eventually gritted his teeth and made his way to the roof of the building, throwing caution to the wind.

"As a great journalist like myself, how could I possibly miss the chance to record such a huge piece of news?"

With this thought in mind, Leon took out his modified camera as he began to record the activities of the beast from atop the roof in secret. Since most technology doesn't work in a field due to the mana concentration, the camera he was using was a uniquely designed camera that uses a mix of film and mana to record videos on an extremely small film inside the camera. Most reporters and journalists use these types of cameras nowadays as most of the time when they're recording, they will have to be in places with high mana density resulting in most technology not working. They were very high tech, very new, and very expensive. Leon still remembers how his heart, and wallet, bled when he made the tough decision to purchase one.

While Leon was recording, he noticed how strange of a sight the situation before him really was. There was a wide variety of creatures who were all resting in this one area all from different races with varying strengths.

While it isn't strange for a creature to be grouped up with members of its own species, it is extremely strange for so many creatures from different races to be gathered up like this.

While Leon was observing this and trying to figure out the meaning behind this, he was suddenly startled as he felt the ground start to tremble.

Looking into the distance Leon could see an black mob of spiders rushing towards the group of monsters shocking him into his current situation of hiding.

With his head lowered behind the stone half wall, he could occasionally hear the loud roars of the beast fighting against the army of spiders.

Right now, Leon was deeply regretting his rash decision. Why didn't I just run away when I had the chance?

The building Leon was on shook again as he felt the collision of something running into it. Immediately after, Leon could hear a loud roar, similar to that of a bear.

Gritting his teeth, Leon slowly turned around as he poked his camera out. Right now, Leon knows he wouldn't be able to escape if he were to leave right now so he decided to risk it and took the chance to record this epic scene that has been discovered before.

Even if he ran, his chances of survival were low, so he might as well make the most of this situation and try to make a profit. Who knows, If he manages to get out of this situation alive with the recording of this battle, wouldn't he blow up in popularity if he were to post it?

With this thought as comfort, Leon carefully began to record the ongoing battle.

…

Lake wasn't aware of the hidden camera on the rooftop. Right now, he was immersing himself deeply in the slaughter.

With a swing of his sword to the right, he decapitated a snake that had lunged at him. When a giant dog attacked him from the left, he grabbed it by the jaw before flipping it over, ruthlessly stomping down on its head, splitting its skull open.

When he realized that his side was losing a confrontation, he would raise his sword as his King's Aura spread across the battlefield, boosting his allies and weakening his enemies.

The battle had been going on for almost an hour now and Lake had been moving all over the battlefield like a ghost, claiming the lives of countless monsters while collecting the loose strands of fate from both allies and enemies.

In this short time period, Lake's RP points had been skyrocketing to his profound delight.

[RP Points = 623.031 → 992.503]

When Lake took a glance at the RP points that had almost crossed a thousand, he felt extremely excited as he began to attack the enemy even more viciously.

The Empress, who was standing in the back of the army, saw all of this and nodded in satisfaction. To her, Lake's viciousness in attacking and moving about the battlefield to attack enemies from all sides showed his willingness to participate in this battle.

If she knew that Lake was only fighting so hard to collect the strand of fates that were scattered across the battlefield, her anger would have been immeasurable.

While the battle was proceeding, the Empress felt that it was finally time for her to make a move. Taking a glance at the three Rank Two creatures on the battlefield that had been greatly weakened under the constant assault of the Spider Army, the Empress knew that this battle would come to an end soon.

Knowing this, she turned around as she silently made her way towards the underground subway station.

Lake, who had just killed another rank one creature, turned his head in the direction of the Spider Empress.

"So she's finally making a move…" Lake thought to himself.

It was at that moment, when Lake subconsciously reached out his hand to grab the strand of fate that several system notifications popped up as his RP points crossed a thousand.

Lake saw this but decided to ignore them for now as he had more important matters. Turning his head to the three weakened Rank Two creatures, a cruel glint flashed in his eyes.