The glowing crystal shattered into countless pieces right before Leon. Before the shards could fall to the ground, the were directly turned into wisps of mana and pulled into Leon’s core, absorbed and processed almost immediately.
Whoosh!
A heavy pressure instantly burst out from Leon, and his aura became denser and heavier, signifying another increase in strength for him.
[You have absorbed <Shard of the Paragon of Undeath>!]
A notification appeared in front of Leon and he was snapped out of his meditative state. He stared at the notification with shock and confusion. Just what was happening? What was this? What was this <Shard of the Paragon of Undeath>?
‘This reeks of divine meddling. I need to ask Michael what this is.’ Leon immediately had a hunch and decided to follow through with this hunch.
Immediately, he stood up and was about to leave the room when a thought crossed his mind. It had something to do with his summons, and had been a mystery for quite some time.
“Even after becoming A rank, I haven’t been able to summon them…” Leon muttered to himself.
He was speaking of the ten dark knights that he had accidentally summoned on the third floor of the Tower of Trials, and when fighting the final boss of the tower. Ever since then, he had tried summoning them many times, but he had found out that while he felt as if he was going to lose a lot of mana to summon just a single one intentionally, for some reason, he was still not able to summon the dark knights.
“Could these be somehow related?” He tried to think about it, but he came up short. There was too much he did not know, but for some reason, his intuition told him that his line of thought was correct.
He quickly left the training room and rushed to the throne room within the temple. While he was sure that he could get Michael’s attention from anywhere, as long as the God was not paying attention to him, it would be much harder. But if he were to step into the throne room, it would be much easier.
The moment Leon stepped into the throne room, Michael got the alert. He was currently in a meeting with Fazir, though, so he did not go over to see what Leon wanted. Instead, he shunted the thought to the back of his mind and focused on what Fazir was explaining to him.
“Michael!” Leon called out for the tenth time in a row. His tone was exasperated, and he felt that Michael was intentionally ignoring him.
“Does he think he can show up when he wants and hand me missions, and then when he arrives, I will come running?!” Leon was pissed off at being ignored and quickly came to the decision that when next Michael came looking for him, he would also ignore the God.
Fuming, he stomped out of the throne room and temple. As he stepped out of the temple, he was met with the bright light of the sun shining down on him.
Leon paused as he took a look up at the bright and clear sky. There were clouds in the sky, but not too many. The temperature had dropped quite a bit, and Leon felt that winter was approaching in this world. He could already feel the change in the atmosphere.
As Leon was thinking of the changing weather, a commotion at the gate of the town caught his attention. The people and summons working there began to gather and prepare themselves for a fight if necessary, because of the sudden appearance of strangers.
A large, golden portal had manifested out of thin air a mile away from the town’s edges. The portal was as tall and wide as ten meters on each side, and a great amount of mana constantly swirled around it.
Whoosh!
With a gust of wind, Leon landed right in front of the portal. Almost a hundred of his summons in the surroundings had already gathered, and many more were on their way, along with the men under Eric.
“Someone’s coming out!” Leon took a step forward, and his summons prepared to fight.
Crunch.
A foot stepped out of the golden portal and the stones under were crushed against each other. Tension morphed to surprise when Leon saw who it was that had stepped out of the portal.
“We meet again, Leon.” Kai smiled curtly at Leon. He nodded and stepped forward a bit more as more people emerged after him.
Silver hair flashed and Leon was once again surprised at the person who stepped out of the portal. Richard grinned at Leon and walked over.
“I hear you’ve been busy since the last time we saw each other. Why don’t you give me an update?” The man threw an arm over Leon’s shoulders and chuckled. He was already familiar with Leon and was very casual with him because of that.
After Richard, a host of people began to pour out of the portal. The first thirty people were chatting amongst themselves the moment they passed through. Leon noticed that they all had the insignia of the Silver Tooth Guild on the left side of their chests, and figured that they were members of the guild and had come with Richard.
After them, more and more people poured out of the portal. In a few short moments, the number of people that had emerged from the portal had reached a hundred!
“Hold on, what’s going on?” Leon turned to Richard who still had his arm around his shoulders. He did not have any problems with the man and did not feel any hint of hostility, so he assumed that these people had come here on Richard’s instruction.𝑶𝐕𝐿xt.𝔠𝒪
“I will be the one to explain that.”
At that moment, another person stepped out of the portal and Leon immediately felt all his senses begin to tingle. His mind swept over the large statured Beastkin that had emerged from the portal and he immediately realized that he could not feel the strength of that person. All he knew was that the man was incredibly strong!
The man stepped forward, garbed in ceremonial armor and surrounded on all sides by a host of powerful guards. Leon could feel the strength of a Mid B rank from all four guards that surrounded the man. He instantly put two and two together and made a realization.
‘This man must be the Emperor of the Gublin Empire.’ Leon thought to himself and turned to give Kai a look. The young Beastkin had a smile on his face.
“To what do I owe the Emperor of the Gublin Empire visiting my humble territory?” Leon decided to go along with the flow and asked, crossing his arms with a plain face.
“Leon Cromwell. I did some digging about you from Fort Bender on the way here. I am shocked, to say the least.” Leonidas smiled slightly. He stretched out his hand to shake Leon while introducing himself. “I am Leonidas Gublin, Emperor of the Gublin Empire.”
Leon shook the man’s hand hesitantly. “You already know my name. What are you doing here?” He asked, taking back his hand.
“I am here for multiple reasons, which you already know. Can we move this discussion to a better disclosed place?” Leonidas asked with a calm smile.
Leon looked around for a moment before coming to a decision. “Fine, but your people will have to stay here for now.”
“That is fine with me. Please lead the way.” Leonidas nodded his head. He then turned to Richard while Leonidas turned to Kai. After that, the four of them began to leave the place. Leonidas passed some instructions to one of his guards, who stayed back to handle the people that were still passing through the portal.
Whoosh!
Overhead, Oris and the bird summons under him soared through the sky, watching over the empty patch of land where the portal had appeared. Hundreds of other summons began to arrive, presenting a rather scary scene to the people who had come from the Gublin Empire.
“Your summons are quite good. They are also very strong.” Leonidas made an observation with his sharp eyes as he studied the various summons that made up Leon’s army.
“Thank you. I got most of them during Divinity’s Bout.” Leon smirked slightly.