"Huff, Huff." Reign leaned against a boulder as he panted heavily. His two swords were stabbed into the ground in front of him as his weak and injured body barely kept standing. Multiple cuts could be seen on his body and bruises were present as well, none of the injuries, however, were serious and he would heal after a day.
"Want to continue?" A deep voice could be heard in front of Reign who simply waved his hand left and right.
"No, that's it for me."
"Hahahaha, it was good thought, I have to say that for someone that has just managed to go through the first evolution, you are much more powerful compared to others, with a bit of time you will be able to beat this old man with ease." The man standing in front of Reign said. The armor the man was wearing was battered up a bit while some cuts could be seen on his body, all of the cuts were shallow as Reign was only able to deal insignificant damage to the man in front of him.
"Your highness overestimates me." Reign said as he looked at the king of Riplas. The man was powerful, incredibly powerful. It was no wonder that the coalition needed to send out 2 first evolution combatants in order to contain him, even though Reign and he didn't go all out, he knew that his chances of winning a battle against the man were slim, perhaps nonexistent.
Even after battling the king for the whole day, Reign was still unable to deal any significant damage to the man, of course, neither of the two used their full power, and neither one used their hardest hitting skills, but Reign never expected the king to actually be so powerful.
He even wondered if the king ever went all out during the war as he found it a bit difficult to believe that two first evolution combatants such as the king of Older were able to fight evenly against him. The two slowly made their way back to the capital, the mountain range was where Reign did all of his sparring sessions, and luckily he was able to spar with all of the first evolution fighters of the kingdom more than once, that was of course except the king with whom this was the first time Reign had sparred with.
Compared to the others, the king was definitely a notch above them. Lisea was powerful and Reign had trouble fighting against her thanks to the woman's experience and great spearmanship. Lios on the other hand was incredibly fast and his stealth ability was very tricky to counter, Reign almost lost to the man multiple times during the spar thanks to that.
Contrary to how most assassins fought, Lios didn't use daggers but a pair of claws. The claws had a mechanism inside of them that allowed Lios to make them longer or shorter at will, this was extremely tricky to go against as Reign never knew whether or not he was going to successfully block an attack, or if Lios was going to make his weapon shorter and attack him from a different side.
Reign also fought against Licht one more time, the mage was excited to fight Reign again, mostly because he could pay him back for chocking him out. The battle was a bit more intense compared to the others but the end result was that both men heavily panted at the end, neither one managing to come on top.
It wasn't a bad outcome for Reign, but for Licht it was demoralizing. He knew that Reign had just gone through the first evolution and yet he was able to fight evenly against him, compared to the first time they fought however, Reign was even more powerful as his mana had definitely increased.
In the end, however, Reign was glad he had the sparring sessions. First evolution combatants were much stronger compared to those that hadn't gone through the evolution and having more experience fighting against such people was valuable.
Monsters as well were able to go through an evolution and from what Reign knew, they also gained a lot more power after doing so. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to fight against any first evolution monsters during his stay. He thought about going deep inside the mountain range in order to fight some, but after the king had told him about how even a second evolution combatant lost his life inside the mountain range, Reign decided against it.
As for the others, Reign would check their progress every day, Wolf and Tank had already gone through their evolution, and Shadow seemed to be on the verge of evolving as well as his missions were almost finished.
Reign wasn't able to see exactly what missions each of his friends had, but he could still see the progress they had made. Laura and Beast were still doing the missions and slowly they were completing them, from their speed, Reign inferred that they would need a couple more days to finish them up.
As for Wolf and Tank, even though both of them had gone through the first evolution, neither one had returned back to Earth. They were probably either doing the same thing Reign was, sparring and training a bit more before coming back, or they were currently in the midst of something that was making it hard or impossible to get back.
Reign knew that the time for him to go back home was approaching. Soon all of his teammates would be back and as the one that went through the evolution first, he should be there to welcome them with Greenie.
Reign continued keeping in touch with Greenie, he wanted to know if anything noteworthy had happened, but Greenie weirdly kept silent, saying that he doesn't want to spoil anything for Reign before he comes back and sees everything. Reign could only shake his head and smile, it seemed that things were going quite well for the territory right now.
As Reign arrived back in his room he took a shower before resting a bit. The kingdom had managed to successfully build outposts and military bases in the areas they had conquered, so far none of the neighboring kingdoms were doing anything. It seemed that everyone was content with what they gained and were now solidifying their gains.
Even though the other kingdoms used the excuse of helping their neighbors in order to march their armies in the territories, none of them had any notions of getting out and allowing the kingdoms that lost the war to regain their power. All of them quickly occupied the strategic places of the various territories and took control over the capital cities.
There was nothing the kingdoms could do to protect themselves at this point. They had no one to blame for this except for themselves, they were the ones that formed a coalition and attacked Riplas in order to gain more territory and become stronger after all.
The royal families of the three kingdoms that were taken by others were quickly forced to sign an agreement where they will allow the kingdoms to occupy their territory in the guise of "military help" in case Riplas decided to attack them. It didn't help matters that most of the citizens were praising the kingdoms for their help either.
Most of the citizens were incredibly happy and shouted praise at the occupying soldiers. In their minds, they had lost a war and then these men selflessly arrived here in order to help them, if any of the remaining royal families or higher-ups tried to do something, they would first have to face the fury of the people that didn't want war.
It was an impossible situation to get out of and the royal families and ministers had to resign to their fate. At least they were still in their positions, as puppets of course, but they were alive and they could still enjoy similar benefits as before. The other kingdoms knew not to overstep their bounds as what they had managed to achieve was delicate and could easily be broken.
Earning trust was hard, but losing the trust of the people was an incredibly easy thing to do. They made sure to use a soft approach to slowly bring over the citizens to their side before completely swallowing up the kingdoms.
As for Riplas, the kingdom opted for a different way, with Licht still alive, they were able to easily bind the two kingdoms together, the other territories they had conquered were taken quickly and the army constructed perimeters around them. Watchtowers, walls, outposts, all were quickly constructed so that the other kingdoms wouldn't be able to attack them.
As morning came in the kingdom of Riplas, Reign opened his eyes before staring at Lieara who was sleeping next to him. The woman had woken up shortly after and the two put on their clothes before going to the castle. Reign had previously announced that he would be returning home today and everyone wanted to see him one last time.
Reign arrived in the throne room which was filled with people, he mingled and spoke with all of them for about 2 hours before finally stepping into the center of the room. He smiled at the people he had met in the kingdom before he disappeared in a flash of light.
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