After 15 minutes of intense combat with the level 16, 15, and 14 beasts in the area where he was searching for the leaf of his interest, Lothur finally defeated the last of them.
As Lothur did so, he was sweating considerably, breathing heavily, as he felt his heart pounding in his left chest like he hadn't felt in a long time.
He had worked hard to defeat his opponents to the point that he had thought he couldn't take all those beings oppressing him at some point in the fight.
But he remained inflexible in fighting the various races of beasts in this place, slowly defeating these creatures until this moment.
eaglesnov?1,сoМ Now he had several bloodstains on his clothes, more from his opponents than his own, but he had some wounds all over his body.
In a battle like that, it was tough to come out of it unscathed, even when you won!
Most of Lothur's opponents died in battle for him, but some managed to escape while others sacrificed themselves for them.
Others lay unconscious on the outskirts, waiting to find out if they would be killed by him right now or if they would have a chance to live after this confrontation.
Lothur could see the statuses of the beings still alive, but he pretended he wasn't seeing most of them since they were weak beings that wouldn't give him any glory if he killed them. But he chose one of those creatures to interrogate.
He strolled through the broken bodies in that area, not caring to step on the brains of his opponents, making his way to his goal.
He passed the body of the beast he had enslaved earlier, which had died, of course, and now looked like a brutalized carcass, bones showing how much service it had.
Lothur didn't even blink to look at it and simply stooped down beside a fallen beast breathing hard.
"I know you are alive. Don't pretend to be dead to me." Lothur said in a low voice so that only the two of them could hear his words. "If you do not obey me, I will kill all the other beasts still alive in the surrounding area."
"What do you want?" That level 16 creature, the only one of that level to survive up to this point, asked, full of bitterness over its current situation.
Lothur got straight to the point. "Simple, tell me something that might help me find the object of my interest. If you do, I will not kill the survivors and set off toward it without seeking revenge for what you did."
'Seek revenge?' That creature wondered, feeling wronged. 'We are the ones who should seek revenge!'
But it was wrong in its thinking. Any side in a conflict could seek revenge, including the victor. After all, not every conflict was initiated willingly, so sometimes, the winner was initially the oppressed side...
In any case, as a loser, this creature did not see things from a just point of view but rather one that took preference from its side. Unfortunately for it, a loser had no right to express their nonconformity!
Either it acted, or everyone in the vicinity, including some of its descendants, would die.
At the same time, if this young man sought such revenge, he might even eradicate some of the beast tribes that attacked him today!
To avoid a catastrophe, it had to make a different decision!
'In any case, we would need all our strength to beat him, so I may as well send him to where our strongest warriors are!' It made up its mind before saying. "Very well, I will tell you how to get to where we keep the sacred object.
As long as you keep your promise."
Lothur didn't need to play games and nodded at that creature, showing that he wouldn't waste his time there if he got what he wanted.
"Okay, the Golden Leaf is on the last level of the labyrinth. The labyrinth is an underground area with an entrance 500 meters in that direction." It indicated with one of its blood-stained feathers. "There, you will find the entrance to a cave, where there is a small altar. That's the place you have to enter."
"A labyrinth?" Lothur looked in the direction the beast pointed in, sensing that this creature was not lying to him.
He turned his back to it, thinking of leaving, but before he did, that beast that shouldn't live much longer told him. "But human, let me tell you something first."
"Oh? What is it? You are already dying... Do you want to waste your energy on me?" Lothur asked.
That beast wanted to scare this human a little in its last moments in this world in an attempt to help those inside the labyrinth. So it said. "It doesn't matter. I will only tell you this. This place was built in the remote past to hold something evil, something coming from far away to desecrate these lands.
The Golden Leaf is what keeps this evil trapped. If removed from here by someone like you, the worst could happen, and its consequences could reach even to where you came from."
Lothur knew some of the histories about Peters City, the Morning Star Academy, and the Secret Realm. He had been studying it at that institution for some time and had access to privileged information from the Koch family.
Because of this, Lothur was aware of the founding of Peters City by a demon hunter who, alongside his group, defeated a powerful demon leader.
Morning Star had been a demon who had had its tribe in the area where Peters City now stood. But after one of its trusted demons razed a village, it attracted the attention of a powerful human group.
This group had hired and paid bounties for demon hunters to clean up the area and avenge the village, something that had ended when the one who was to found Peters City appeared in this region.
But demons were tricky creatures to kill. Demon hunters used various techniques to seal off possible remnants when eliminating one.
Sometimes the demon didn't die entirely, and it managed to keep a reserve 'alternate consciousness' waiting for a host.
That was not a simple ability to use, but some of these high-ranking beings in the demon world could do things like this even after generating a Soul Bone!
The Secret Realm was created for two reasons. One, the motivation that only the weak knew was to train and give an opportunity to young talents. But the main motivation for this place to exist, which only the strongest knew, was to keep the seal on the area where Morning Star had been killed!
That was an old piece of Peters City, where the city's founder had folded the space to keep it intact and prevent Morning Star from emerging again.
Lothur knew this, so he was not surprised by the words of that beast.
He then said. "Don't worry. I am prepared for the consequences."
After those words, he no longer listened to that being in his final moments and set off toward the place that the bird had indicated to him.
It was time for him to enter the labyrinth in front of him!
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺