Chapter 364 - Returning Home 1

After Matheus sprinted off with the Revertia kingdom's high priestess, her guard unit as well as Commander Bart's aerial was naturally deployed to follow after them.

A few days later, Matheus and his party safely arrived at the kingdom's borders. Following them were naturally the dispatched units that were sent to protect Cecilia. During the journey, Matheus had asked Cecilia about what kind of status a high priestess held.

She explained that a High Priestess was similar to that of a queen or princess for a typical kingdom. In the church, she was the most skilled Priestess in terms of divination abilities, which was how she earned the title.

Of course, by abilities, she meant just the pure abilities of a priestess without counting the cultivation stage. Her stage was a little worse than her elder sisters being only at the Early Mana Sea Stage but apparently, the divination skills were what determined the rank of the priests and priestesses, and the use of the skills weren't affected by their cultivation stages.

Matheus wasn't sure what these abilities entailed to but he wasn't too keen on finding out since Cecilia explained that they were abilities that weren't associated with fighting or combat. They were auxiliary abilities that let the user see into the future or divine the weather, ocean conditions, and whatnot.

They were a bit interesting in a different perspective but all Matheus got from the rough explanation about divination arts was that they were only fortune telling-like abilities and accurate predictions of what might happen. His little brother had a similar ability like this so he didn't need any detailed explanations.

On the journey, Matheus found out that Celestina turned out to be quite an accomplished young magus in the kingdom. At her age, she was already leading her mage unit but she stepped down and joined her sister's personal guard unit after she was instated as a high priestess.

Matheus didn't quite understand the power-scaling of the world just yet, but in his opinion, being in the Intermediate Mana Sea Stage must mean something.

Rank D and C monsters were quite prevalent in the kingdom while only some B rank monsters and even lesser A rank monsters roamed around. Normally, a mage of her caliber would be sent to deal with the B and A ranked monsters.

Matheus already knew how powerful those kinds of monsters were so Celestina must be somewhere on the upper or middle spectrum of Alterna's power list.

"Alright, we're about to cross the border. Once again I'll ask, Cecilia, are you sure you want to come with us?" Matheus asked the bubbly girl who was leisurely sun-bathing on the back of their mount.

"Of course!"

"Okay then, but before we head to the checkpoint, I wanna ask why you even tagged along in the first place?"

"Because I want to meet my hero~"

"...come on. That can't be it. There's a chance that my brother might not even BE the 'hero' who rescued you! And let's say he was your 'hero'. I'm pretty sure with how absent-minded my little brother could be at times, he probably wouldn't even recognize who you are!"

"It doesn't matter~ I just want to express my thanks and affection for my hero~"

"...affection huh... just so you know, my little brother is already married."

"W-what?! I-is that true?!" Cecilia asked in shock and horror.

Celestina was also rather surprised to hear this. She didn't think Matheus's little brother would already be married. From the tales that Matheus had been feeding her before they slept at night, his little brother was supposed to be only 20 by the end of this year.

"Yeah, it's true. He's married already and his family is already expecting a baby by the end of the year."

"N-No... The law in our kingdom states that we can't l.u.s.t after a man or woman who is already married... Awww, and I really wanted to get to know your brother! He was so handsome and dashing when he saved me. I was smitten right from the start!"

"Just so you know, it may not be my brother who rescued you..."

"I just know it's him! Your younger brother's voice sounded familiar, he has the same name, AND my woman's intuition just says it's true! Also, I made sure to check it through divination and my hunch was right, the Cecil that I meant was definitely the Cecil who is your younger brother!"

"...You used your divination for something so pointless?"

"It's not pointless! Also, I used divination on you the first time we met and I already found out that you and my sister would fall in love! Eventually, you'll get married, have 3 children, live long enough to see your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, before growing old and dying together!"

"...okay, what the hell—"

"Enough about that! Let's head over to the checkpoint now!"

"..."

Celestina only smiled wryly at Matheus and chuckled. She then took the reins from him and urged their landwyrm to head over to the border checkpoint. Seeing the group move, Oscar and Bart immediately had their units begin moving as well.

They quickly passed the checkpoint and made their way out into the neutral territory. Matheus didn't know a specific place to wait for his brother so he just decided to head in deeper into the neutral area. He wanted to find some monsters to train himself.

During the journey there, they had on times encountered some monsters, but they were quickly taken care of by Matheus who wanted to train his combat skills. He was still rather miffed at the thought of losing to the demon leader, Saravkibah.

If they ever met again, he wanted to have a rematch. Of course, Matheus needed to train even more and raise his cultivation stage. Of course, he didn't try to do things hastily. He didn't want any problems with his cultivation so he continued going at it at his own pace.

Matheus already felt like he was on the threshold of advancing a minor stage in his cultivation so he was trying to catalyze it through combat. He had found out that actual combat helped in training his cultivation.

Before he felt like it would take a long while before he broke through into the next cultivation level but after fighting against the demon, Saravkibah, he felt his cultivation advance by leaps and bounds and it was now at the point where he felt like any moment now he could advance into the High Mana Vapor Stage.

They quickly met up with a few monsters in the neutral territory and Matheus took it upon himself to deal with them himself. Celestina was waiting on the landwyrm just in case something unexpected happened. She was fully ready to support Matheus in the case of the unexpected.

Though, that was unlikely. This was because Matheus noticed something peculiar about his body after he jumped into combat. Whenever he started circulating his mana like normal, a golden aura would always rise from his body and he immediately felt his body grow stronger.

It wasn't like the previous time when he had recklessly injected mana into his body's muscles and almost crippled himself because of it. This time, the enhancement was something he could control, and not only that, it felt much more natural to him than the previous out of control enhancement.

This time, his body wasn't affected in any sort of negative way. It was only enhanced in a positive and controlled manner, much like the Mana Burst skill. Matheus wasn't sure if he was even using Mana Burst, however, the new ability was very much welcomed.

He was able to fight B-A ranked monsters easily due to the new technique despite his cultivation stage being so low. Of course, the only problem would be how long he could sustain the enhancement. With his cultivation stage being so low, Matheus could only keep the skill activated for about 30 minutes before his mana emptied.

Nevertheless, he was advancing his battle techniques and there was no worry about him getting injured or making any mistake. He made sure not to feel too proud of himself because he knew that it would only lead to him making a mistake and getting injured.

Just in case that ever happened, Cecilia was there to act as the group's healer. The guard and aerial units didn't get too close to the group since Cecilia herself ordered for them to stay a few hundred meters away from them, minimally, 300 meters or so.

This continued for 2 more days. They wandered around the neutral territory while combating D to B ranked monsters while making sure that they were traveling in the direction of the neutral city that they had teleported to.

Matheus made sure to keep in contact with his little brother. They were on their MIDs for most of the time just to keep each other's whereabouts known. Cecil was now at the neutral city that he and everyone had first teleported to from the Regulus Kingdom.

As for how fast he got there without using the Regulus kingdom's teleportation formation, it was because Yuna had opened up a gate that led to an area that was close to that city but it was far off to the north. Cecil and his party had been here already so it was easy to get back.

Cecil and his party made their way to the neutral city first to find their bearings before they started their journey to the Revertia Kingdom but after hearing that his brother was so close, he said that he would go and find them.

"Well, apparently my brother is already at that neutral city we first arrived in through teleportation," Matheus said after finishing his call with Cecil.

"Do you mean Larina City, Matty?" Celestina asked.

"That was the name of the city?"

"Yeah, you didn't know that?"

"Well, nobody bothered telling me what the city's name was...I also didn't ask anybody so..."

"Ahaha, it's alright. Well, now we can finally see who this brother of yours is! But I'm telling you, he's definitely my hero!" Cecilia quipped up.

"Sure, sure—"

Matheus was just about to reply to her in a lackadaisical manner but he felt a strong but familiar gaze rest upon him. He quickly looked around and saw something in the air.

"N-no way..."

Matheus immediately grabbed his glaive and jumped down from the landwyrm. Celestina who saw this immediately called out.

"What's wrong, Matty?!"

"Celes, set up a barrier or something. Cecilia, please go call your guard units to come here! There are demons, up there in the sky!" Matheus shouted while pointing his finger into the air.

The two girls raised their heads and saw numerous black dots approaching them from the horizon. They couldn't see what those dots were but after seeing how serious Matheus was acting, they immediately started moving.

Celestina quickly put up a barrier around them while Cecilia quickly fired a Light Bolt into the air, indicating to her guards that were a few hundred meters away to quickly come over. When Oscar and Bart saw the signal, they immediately had their units rush over.

"Lady Priestess, what's wrong?"

"Bart, Oscar, demons are bearing down on us from the horizon!"

"Huh?"

They immediately turned their eyes over in the direction that Cecilia was pointing to and similarly they saw the black dots in the sky that were growing bigger and bigger.

"Demons! Everyone, battle formations, now! Keep Lady High Priestess safe!" Bart immediately roared out.

Oscar similarly began commanding his unit to form a defensive formation around the landwyrm. Unlike before, they had many more people now so even if a group of 10 demons like before came, they would be able to defend against them and fight them off even.

Of course, this time, there were far more demons. Judging by how much dots there were in the sky, there were around 40-50 demons flying towards them.

When they were much closer and also much more visible the people on the ground immediately tensed up. However, they began to notice something odd about the demons. They weren't rushing towards them, but it seemed like they were running away from something.

Before they could see what the demons were trying to run away from, a large golden beam passed through the air followed by multiple bolts of golden energy exploding in the air which quickly felled a few demons from the sky.

Matheus immediately recognized the golden beam of energy as well as the multiple explosions in the sky.

"CECIL?!" He shouted in astonishment before he quickly rushed forward, breaking away from the formation.

"M-Matty?!" Celestina immediately called out.

"Don't worry! I'm just going to take a closer look!"

"W-wait!"

Matheus didn't stop and continued running. After getting closer he finally heard someone's familiar voice.

"Earlier you attacked us thinking that we're prey but now you want to flee? I don't think so!"