33 Risen#re

A shadow raced through the forests at a rapid speed, it seemed to go from shadow to shadow in the forest faster than one could blink their eyes.

Soon the shadow came to a halt in small clearing and the shadow rose up like a liquid taking the shape of a woman, the only thing revealing her gender were the slight curves her body held that could not be hidden behind the black clothing that covered her entire body.

As she appeared so to did a hundred other shadows, all of them slowly rising in the little clearing, or on the branches of surrounding trees.

"Was the plan successful number 3?" one of the rising shadows asked.

The woman called 'Number 3', didn't care for the name she had been given for the mission, 'Number 1 and Number 2 were assigned to the leaders that came from both side, and since she did the first important mission, she was called 'Number 3' on this mission.

"No it was a failure, I stirred a guardian of the forest into taking action but the prince candidate managed to kill it, he is quite troublesome, I understand now why our masters want him dead," she said in an orderly manner.

The zealot in front of her frowned, "It is not for you to understand the intentions of our masters, your only duty is to do as our masters command," he said coldly, he didn't mind to much about the failure, but as zealots thinking was unnecessary, there only duty was to serve, thinking could get in the way of serving efficiently.

Number 3 shrunk back and lowered her head in shame, "Forgive me it will not happen again, also we may have to move quickly, the prince candidate has found a set of ancient cave's, he can order the return to happen at any point in time now that his main objective is achieved," she added quickly.

Number 2 nodded his head, "The second plan will commence, however, if it should fail we will have to act personally," he said in a grievous tone.

Even as zealots that wished to serve their masters whole heartedly, they did not want to die unless it was absolutely necessary, their deaths would affect their masters hidden powers, however should they act personally it would give them away and in that case, they would have to take their own lives, to ensure there was no connecting thread to their masters.

The main reason however that they didn't attack Lirian directly, was because they wanted the entire assassination to look like a natural accident, Lirian being killed by the rock drake wouldn't raise any brow in the way, that his head being chopped of would.

"Also be careful in your movements from now on number three, another shadow discovered an elite of the Jane family traveling through the forests, we don't know why such a person is here but it can only be rouble for us if we are found out," number 2 said gravely and pulled everyone back into his shadow before sinking into it himself.

---

Lirian sat by his lonesome self he was perched on a rock facing the limbless reptilian mystic beast he had captured during the night assault.

It lay in a limbless heap unable to move an inch and stared at Lirian hatefully. It screeched loudly clicked its two mandibles together at Lirian.

It could sense its capture's building up blood lust it was a thousand time stronger than when they fought, and aimed to provoke its capture into killing it, so it cared little for the oppressive feeling and continued clicking its mandibles wildly.

"You are starting to annoy me!" Lirian muttered in an irritated tone, and delivered a fatal punch to the creature's head, making it splatter all over the place.

His watch rang with a beep, which only served to annoy him further, it had been ringing like this continuously for hours on end, by now he knew what it was so he didn't bother to have the watch read the messages aloud.

Lirian knew what the creature was trying to make him do, but he granted it, its wish anyway, he was in a foul mood, and his expedition already had a perfect score after the ruins were found, so he didn't need the beast any more.

This recent success coupled with his discovery had put a thought in his head that he had never considered before, 'Retreat!'.

The plans were already in place, he had ordered Tobias's group to return to base camp, for the exploration of the caves, but for Media's group it was a little different.

Her group had found a surprising amount of success in the swamps, there were hundreds of undiscovered creatures in the swamps, and Media had come up with a few good methods to improve the effectiveness of the search.

Most importantly, was that due to the slow movements of the exploration groups, Media's group wasn't to far away, it was a 12 hour march away, which would make any retreat of theirs quick, if they had to rush themselves, they could clear the space in 4 hours, they were all cultivators, even the none body cultivators had a huge reserve of stamina.

The reason that Lirian thought such things was because for the first time in this life of his, he saw something that terrified him, and that was Hinata's heaven chosen boon that was 100 times greater than his own.

He cursed himself internally, 'The system warned me from the first I met her that she could become an enemy, but the danger warning was low,'

'Was it the plains boon on her that effected the system to lower the warning level?' he wondered, 'Is that the effect of her boon? To lower one's thoughts and expectations of her so they never take her as a real threat, but with a boon so large that can't be all it does?'

'But she isn't the real problem, she couldn't truly harm me even if I'm on my last legs, she's far too weak, but if Telamon and Efrideet sent their people here and she is on their side, it could spell my defeat,' he thought with gritted teeth and smashed his fist in to the boulder he was perched on, causing a web of cracks to cover it.

With every second his blood lust was only increasing due this situation, 'How could a puny mortal girl, make me feel panicked!' he cursed with tightly clenched fists.

'And that damn beeping is not helping, why the hell is the watch beeping so frequently did they find a horde of creatures or something!' He wondered stomping his foot against the ground.

'Maybe I should sound the retreat, while exposed like this they can find a way to kill me, but once I get back to Xelia I'll be untouchable, unless this is a part of plains plans, that boon is probably placed on Hinata to freak me out, so I should proceed with the expedition and kill her in that time,'

'She's already trying to find ways to kill me so I shouldn't be struck with the heavens chosen curse if I kill her even if I do get hit with the curse, I can just constitute a new body with a revival embryo and kill myself to release the curse, it will be a waste of a revival embryo. No, it won't, to get rid of a threat with such a great boon it's worth the price.'

"Unless this is the plains plan to make me waste my revival embryo's,' he thought madly with a hundred of possible scenarios flashing through his head.

"STOP!" he shouted loudly and forced himself to take a deep breath, "All of those insecurities, it's just the voices in my head," he muttered aloud, and slowly calmed his raging blood.

'If the worst comes to happen and I'm surrounded by enemies I still have two methods to escape, I can use the genesis world, from my soul chamber in the throne world, it will be a waste of its remaining power but all that matters is that I survive, as for the other method it's even more wasteful so I'd rather not consider it.'

Lirian breathed out a sigh of relief as he pushed the voices aside, they were getting worse, they were getting invasive, and half the time in the recent days he was struggling to tell them apart from his own.

Especially when his blood lust grew, their thoughts became indistinguishable from his own, and this current frustration was growing even worse, and this beeping watch was only fuelling it, by now it was beeping so much that his entire hand was vibrating from the messages.

'Even if they found a god damned swarm of new creatures, this is too much,' he thought and switched on the read aloud function.

The things he heard made him suck in a breath of cold air, as the commander, his watch would alert him if any thing bad happened to any of the students under his command.

The function worked for anyone in a leading role, captains would be alerted if something happened to a member of their squad and the generals would be alerted if something happened to any of the students under them, and as the commander, all such things would pop up on his watch.

The communication function was only limited to five hundred yards, to make communication a challenge for the students.

The watch began to read aloud with a monotone voice.

<Emergency Alert>

<[..] of exploration group 1 has been killed>

<[..] of exploration group 1 has been killed>

<[..] of exploration group 1 has been killed>

<[...] of exploration group 1 has been killed>