Chapter 422 - The One

Cecil, Ren, and the other people from Silvaria started to retreat in haste after they were informed by Xin, Marylyn, and the others who were always around Ren who had taken the leadership position of their camp.

Cecilia also shot up a Light Spark in the air and the church's knights who were at the frontlines immediately began retreating after seeing the signal.

The others in their group also started hesitating and it didn't take long before the priests who Cecilia had sent out earlier relayed their message over to the other forces' leaders. The leaders didn't hesitate when the priests reported Cecilia's message and promptly sent out a signal for retreat.

Only the Empire's forces continued rushing forwards in pursuit of the monsters, but they soon stopped after seeing everyone else turning back.

"W-what's wrong?! Why are they retreating?!"

"It's because it's our best course of action, Crown Prince!" Luke said in an obviously sarcastic manner.

"What were you even thinking by ordering everyone to pursue the monsters? Our objective was to run away from them, not fight them! Now that we were given the opportunity to retreat, you instead had us chase after them!"

"Ugh—" Maximus flinched at Luke's words.

He was about to apologize but his sister quickly spoke up, "Enough, its best we follow after them! The call to retreat was the best decision. We have to stick with them for now. Who knows whether or not those monsters will regroup and come surging back at us again!"

"R-right! Everyone, retreat!" Maximus quickly ordered.

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief, especially the mages. All of their mana levels were too low right now. If the battle had continued on any longer, they would have soon depleted all of their remaining mana, and everyone would be in dire straits from there.

The golden rain of destruction had annihilated all of the monsters that were attacking them and it had even struck fear in the monsters. The remaining monsters were all scattered so it was the best time to retreat and not push for the attack.

Once the Crimson Blaze Foxes that were still alive quickly recomposed themselves, it wouldn't take long before their mind-control technique was able to quickly regroup all of the scattered monsters.

After they recovered from their fear and regrouped, it was no doubt that the Crimson Foxes would send their brain-washed minions at them again.

Once everyone made a full retreat after listening to Cecilia's suggestion, they all thought back as to why the priestess urged for them to retreat. They believed in her suggestions because ten out of ten times she ever gave one, it would always work out to their benefit.

It wasn't until everyone moved farther and farther away from their previous position did they understand why after the loud and enraged howls of the monsters erupted in the direction from where they fled.

If they had stayed behind earlier or pursued after the monsters, they would have landed themselves in the same sticky situation that they were previously in when the monsters had surrounded them.

Once again, everyone was grateful to the priestess, but if they all stopped and thought deeply about it for a moment, anyone of them would be able to come to the same conclusion if they all had calmly and rationally thought about it instead of going along with the words that someone had thoughtlessly spewed out.

Seeing that everyone was retreating and no monsters were chasing after them, Cecil decided that his work was done. He was now going to passively protect all of the people of his kingdom.

Cecil only promised to help them this once. Any further mishaps or dangerous situations would have to be resolved by themselves. He wouldn't take any part in it unless it was a life-threatening situation.

"Ren, I'll leave the rest to you. Sister-in-law, try to keep everyone safe. I'll fade into the background and just passively protect you all. As long as none of you are in mortal danger, remember, I won't step in," Cecil reminded before he suddenly disappeared and reappeared in the middle of the non-combatant unit whose members were carrying the injured.

Cecil spread his senses and began administrating his healing arts on the mortally wounded people. For the ones that had lighter injuries with their lives not in danger, he decided that it was best to leave them for the priests.

He wasn't going to be their chaperone in these trials. Cecil deduced that this trial, just like the previous World Tree's Trial, both had a purpose. And that purpose was to forge these young talents from the continent through life and death situations to stimulate their growth.

He hadn't once forgotten that the Fallen may have appeared near his friend Fina's Empire. If he didn't let the trial grind these youths and force out their latent talents, it would cause more harm than good when the Fallen truly descend and wreak havoc on this planet.

Alterna had more or less become his home by now. He had seen the unimaginable future due to the World Tree's intervention so it was only wise of him to begin preparing not only himself and his family, but everyone else that was part of this world.

The danger wasn't known right now, but when it did surface, it was better for these cultivators who were similar in age to him, but so far in strength, to be prepared.

Cecil still hadn't found his sister, brother, and disciple just yet, but if this continental trial was the same as the World Tree's Trial, then there was no way they were forced in here through malicious intent.

The guardian deity of Midgard who was in the same league as Urrugdrasil's guardian deity, the World Tree, had undoubtedly seen potential in the 3 individuals and had thus pulled them into the trial much earlier than the rest.

Even though he wasn't quite sure of it, Cecil was trying to think optimistically because he couldn't find them before in the ruined tower. He only came to this thought after finding out the true nature behind the ruins he had previously explored.

'Yes, there's no way the guardian deity of this continent would do anything malicious to its future warriors...the only mystery I can't solve or speculate about is the discrepancy between the time I, and a few others were taken in here, and the ones who say that they came in after a few weeks or months after clearing the 'tower'...'

If everyone who had entered the true continental trials started at the same time despite there being others finishing and entering the trials first, then why was it that his family wasn't here with them?

No matter how Cecil thought about it, he just couldn't understand. Perhaps they got a head start, or maybe it was because of something else.

******

Somewhere inside one of the many subspaces of the Myriad Tower of Strife, a small ball of light was flying erratically in the air, and before that ball of light was a large screen with multiple smaller screens surrounding it that showed the many groups and people currently participating in the tower's trials.

The ball of light was moving erratically as if it was excited about something and a voice began filling up the empty void in the subspace.

"Hah...HAHAHAHAHAHA! I've found it, this is the one! He's the one!"

The voice originated from the ball of light and it stopped moving right in front of the large screen. On the screen was a cloaked individual who was discreetly using some kind of arts to heal the person they were carrying.

"I know those arts anywhere! That's the World Tree's Nature Life Arts! He's the one!"

The ball of light started checking the other screens besides the larger one and turned its attention to a particular one.

"I guess these 3 aren't the one I was looking for. I felt the familiar healing arts coming from them, but it was most likely because this guy had been constantly using it on them so the aura lingered!"

The ball fell silent for a moment before it started speaking again, "Hmmm, what should I do with these three then? I already gave them a head start and they sure are powerful, but they won't be able to clear the fifth stage by themselves... Although that little hydra was quite a surprise, it won't do them any good on that stage..."

"Heh, I guess, I'll just leave them there. Whether they die or not, is none of my concern now. I just hope this precious fellow gets past all 8 stages~"

*****

Over on the fifth stage of the trials, Angelia, Gabriel, and Kira were currently moving through an endlessly vast desert. The hot sun in the sky scorched their bodies and the three looked worse for wear.

The three had the same black crystals that everyone else in the trials had hovering around the top of their heads. While they were walking, Angelia's foot suddenly sunk into the sands and she stumbled, nearly toppling herself over.

"B-Brother...I-I don't think I can go on..." Angelia said with complete exhaustion in her voice.

"Hang in there, Angie...We'll find a way out just as we did before..."

"But...there's nothing in sight...we've been walking for almost 2 days—"

Gabriel quickly cut her off and began encouraging her instead, "Whether it be days or weeks, we have to stay strong, Angie. Don't worry. I'm sure by now that Cecil and everyone else is already aware of our disappearance. We just need to survive until the rescue team finds us..."

Angelia nodded in understanding before she asked, "Alright brother...d-do you need more water?"

"...Kira, do you need any?"

The little boy who was following after them listlessly immediately perked up and replied, "N-No, Captain, I just had some not too long ago. You should drink some!"

Gabriel looked around and saw a sandstorm heading their way. He frowned and quickly grabbed onto Angelia and Kira. He tied a rope around their waist and quickly looked for a tall sand dune.

"Let's go, we have to take shelter by digging under one of those sand dunes. Angie, have one of your monsters use Earth magic to help us dig and create a shelter. We'll wait out that sandstorm before moving forwards again."

"Yes, brother!"

"Yes, Captain!"

"We'll dig first before we have your monster help. We don't want to waste their mana."

Angelia nodded before saying, "Y-Yeah... If we had known, it would probably have been best to stay on the previous stage before we continued."

"It's too late now. The only thing we can do is conserve our mana. The battle on the previous floor left us with no choice but to quickly pass through the transfer gate..."

The unique feature or disadvantage of the fifth stage of the Myriad Tower of Strife's trial was the manaless atmosphere. The entire stage was completely devoid of mana. Once you used up your mana, you wouldn't be able to recover it at all.