A Demon's Journey

Noah had made a schedule for himself. He would stay in a village for a few days and then move to the next one.

During the time he stayed in a village, many people would visit him. Mostly to thank him for dealing with one of the two bandit camps of Phantom Tribute near their area.

Since one was destroyed, the other encampment wasn't taking action at all.

Many bandits who escaped had naturally dashed towards their second encampment. They informed their only surviving leader, Angus Wallace, about Noah.

How he had charged into their other encampment from the front gate and even the combined effort of their two leaders wasn't sufficient to stop him.

This caused Angus Wallace to think deeply before attacking Noah.

According to what he had heard from the bandits, Noah was searching for their bandit camp.

He hadn't lost his way and entered their bandit encampment. It appeared that he was here to do a mission.

There were a couple of names that appeared in his head. They were all the individuals who wanted to destroy their Phantom Tribe but couldn't do so.

If someone among them had hired this warrior, then the situation was slightly troublesome. Since the local lord hadn't warned him then either he had joined hands with one of these parties or he was completely uninvolved as well.

Angus Wallace though felt that this local lord had joined hands with the person hiring that child.

He had already noticed the growing dissatisfaction on that man's face every time he met him. It was natural for that man to be dissatisfied. He had assisted Angus Wallace quite a lot but didn't gain much from it.

He was probably thinking Angus would ask his brother in the Wallace Family to help him out. That would increase his prestige in the area greatly and suppress the growing unrest within his town.

But unfortunately, Angus hadn't contacted his brothers to help him at all. The Wallace Family didn't plan to show their support for this lord.

As he continued to think of it, he knew that the mercenary would attack his encampment sooner or later as well.

After thinking deeply about the situation, Angus suddenly released all the people he held captive including the women he had fun with, and escaped the area.

He only brought a few servants and his loyal guards with him.

In this manner, the Phantom Tribe Bandits had dispersed. Without any of their leaders, they were now split into smaller groups under different chiefs.

The hostages who had been released had no idea why Angus had let them go. They however immediately returned back to their villages.

Upon reaching the villages, they understood that it was because of a child named Noah. He had destroyed one of the two bandit camps and freed all the hostages from there.

In fear, the third leader had freed them and escaped.

Once Noah heard that the Phantom Tribe had dispersed, he knew he had accomplished his mission.

After visiting all four villages that had experienced the terror of Phantom Tribe, Noah decided to take his leave.

He planned to return to Kloras Town.

While he had informed the people in the village that he was going to return soon, the information spread around all the four villages extremely quickly.

The people were incomparably anxious. It was because they had heard that although Phantom Tribe had dispersed, it was now divided into several individual groups.

None of them dared to terrorize the people from their villages because of Noah's presence.

The villagers knew that if Noah left, these people would probably wait for a week or so before the situation would turn similar to before.

They had little hope that someone would save them.

And thus, many villagers immediately preached ahead of the village chief's house and asked him to request Noah to stay.

They thought that if the village chief personally requested Noah to stay, there was a chance Noah would respect his request.

The village chief was also scared of the Phantom Tribe's dispersed group. He immediately went to Noah's house and stated his request.

Noah directly rejected his request and stated, "The mission my boss gave me is complete. I will return now."

The village chief was incomparably anxious. He had expected this response from Noah but hearing it from his mouth still scared him. He tried to think of a solution urgently.

"…Sir Noah, you mentioned how people from Droln Village settled in Kloras Town recently. Does that mean that your boss will be willing to accept us as well?" The village chief asked with an anxious look.

Noah replied with a shrug, "Boss did mention one time that he wanted to increase the Kloras Town's population."

Once the village chief heard those words, he visibly relaxed his nerves. He was too tensed earlier.

Noah's response had allowed him to make his final decision. And this entire situation was within Azaroth's expectations.

Within the next few days, all the villagers from the four villages were relocating to Kloras Town with all their belongings.

Naturally, they had gathered at one single village and then moved ahead together with Noah.

No one stayed behind in those four villages. No one wanted to become the target of the Phantom Tribe's dispersed bandit groups.

They soon began their journey towards Kloras Town.

Azaroth planned to continue absorbing more villages into his Kloras Town. He was choosing very small villages for this though.

He had to increase Kloras Town's population and increase his own followers.

Once all these people relocate to Kloras Town, the current residents would inform these people about the god of medicine they prayed to.

Many individuals wouldn't believe in a god when their life was going fine. But would immediately begin praying when someone from their family caught some sort of disease or adversities.

This was something Azaroth didn't need to control since, within each person's life, there would definitely be some struggles. Some difficult situations that they wouldn't be able to solve on their own.

To survive, they would need to lean their faith on an intangible existence such as god.

Whether the god delivered them results or not was secondary. If their life did get better, they would give all the credit to god and possess an enthusiastic faith in him. But if the results weren't delivered then he wouldn't believe in the existence of a god at that time.

There were bound to be multiple times where an individual is caught in troublesome situations and he is bound to lean on god. If even one of them resulted in his favor, then Azaroth would have another zealous follower.

He was doing all this to quickly increase his Celestial Cultivation of his Triquetra Ardor.

While Azaroth was plotting against another village and also creating his personal clone using his Blood Essence, his retainers were trying their best to pass their trial.

Azaroth didn't have any particular mission planned out for Tiana. So he began to teach her Ice Techniques.

Within this one week, she had mastered 2 attacking Ice Techniques and one technique for support.

Finally, Sargan cleared his trial. It took him a long time since his luck was quite bad. His incomplete techniques would hardly hit his opponent and when they did hit, it wouldn't produce the desired result.

He was looking for a fluke and it took quite some time and his effort for that chance to appear.

Finally, he had defeated his counterpart.

Once Sargan was done, Tiana was quite thrilled.

'I can finally meet my parents.'

She immediately went on to inform Azaroth about this.

Azaroth had naturally sensed that Sargan had passed his trial. But he waited for Tiana to come and inform him about it.

He looked at her enthusiastic expression with a neutral look and spoke with an icy tone, "You can accompany Sargan to meet your parents. But do make sure to obey his orders."

Tiana enthusiastically nodded her head.

The two soon walked towards Sargan's spot.

Currently, Sargan was in deep thought as he recalled his whole fight. He was thinking about how he could improve further.

He saw Azaroth and Tiana approaching him.

The serious look on Azaroth's face and the slight excitement on Tiana's face told him something was up.

He first stood up and paid his respects to Azaroth.

Azaroth waved it off before speaking, "Take her to the Prento Village to meet her parents."

"Now?" Sargan asked with a confused look.

"Yes." Azaroth nodded. He then turned towards Tiana and spoke to her, "Go and prepare some horses. You will need to learn to ride them as well."

"Yes, yes, master." Tiana immediately replied before leaving Azaroth and Sargan alone.

Azaroth then told Sargan, "The situation is extremely complicated. There is a high chance that her parents are being watched by some local band in the Prento Village. Just make her meet her parents slyly."

"Take Tiana out of the village quickly after she meets them. Return back inside the village to follow her parents." Azaroth spoke with a serious look.

Sargan looked confused as he asked Azaroth, "Why follow her parents, master? I think we should use this opportunity to escape."

Azaroth responded quickly, "That's because there is a high chance her parents will try to leave the village for the Wrihull City and inform what they know of to my father."

Sargan connected the dots immediately and his eyes widened, "Her parents will betray Tiana?"

"I am mostly sure about it." Azaroth nodded in affirmation.

He had heard from Tiana how her parents were delighted about her relationship with Jonas.

"In fact, now that I think about it, they might have already made a deal with Jonas. If Tiana ever comes to meet them, they are going to give a signal to those local goons in the area who are keeping an eye on them." Azaroth informed him.

Sargan grew serious and asked Azaroth, "What do I need to do, master?"

"Just make sure to hide your presence. Kill all the goons if they begin to track you." Azaroth spoke with a smirk.

~~

Sometime later, before they were about to leave for Prento Village, Azaroth talked to Tiana, "This is what you have to say to your parents."

"Tell them that you are soon going to be in another kingdom and you are doing absolutely fine. The people are taking good care of you. And also show them your Ice Elemental Ability." Azaroth was extremely quick as he told her precisely what she needed to do.