The Rise of the Black Plain

A few days later...

After news of James Cromwell's death had spread throughout the region, Minos had also discovered that his action had been successful.

Earlier, he had attacked that man, having used one of his swords to go through the body of his target. However, Minos had managed to do this on the limit, as at that moment, James was already about to be teleported.

With this, he had not been sure whether his target had only suffered severe damage or had suffered a fatal blow, as was the purpose of the attack.

And so, Minos had been relieved to find that his actions had indeed generated satisfactory results, granting him a good achievement, coupled with greater regional prestige.

Minos naturally did not care what outsiders thought of him. But he was not stupid to think that there was no value in fame, prestige, etc.

Quite the opposite, he understood well that having his actions propagated throughout the region was essential for malicious people to build up a sense of fear towards him and, consequently, the Black Plain.

So, he was satisfied with all of this, even though Thomas, his main objective, was still alive.

He would have preferred to kill that man in the previous 'encounter.' Yet, King Brown had acted more cautiously than everyone else then, something he had learned to do after fighting Minos so many times.

And because of this, since Minos had felt it would be easier to try to eliminate James, he had acted against this individual and not his main objective.

Killing Thomas was important, but eliminating James had been almost as good as that. And as Minos was not the type to trade a bird in the hand for two that were flying, he had done such a thing on that occasion!

In any case, that battle was in the past, and now young Stuart and his army had many things to worry about.

With the beginning of the local operation of the regional soldiers of the Counter-Revolutionary Army, the battles around the Black Plain had increased in frequency and difficulty.

More and more people were dying, and many others were seriously injured, unable to return to the battlefield.

And with so many Spiritual Kings acting in this Black Plain territory, except for Emlyn, that was protecting Dry City right now, all the Spiritual Kings on Minos' side were fighting around this area!

...

Somewhere on the Black Plain...

Minos had just finished exterminating a group of over 7,000 enemy soldiers, where he alone had done such a thing in less than 20 minutes!

Due to the previous battle, none of the regional peak Spiritual Kings had tried to go after Minos, for obvious reasons, of course.

Only one of the assassins had died among those who fought him before. In contrast, the other had managed to escape, badly wounded. As for Linette and Thomas, they were still on the Black Plain, but they would not act until they at least had a more significant number of allies like them.

And because of this general fear, no one capable of stopping Minos on the battlefield had appeared to prevent this young man from traveling through this territory, decimating several groups like the one now.

In just a little over a week after the confirmation of James' death, counting today's numbers, Minos had already killed 31,000 opponents at the 5th stage and 24 Spiritual Kings!

On the other hand, even if the enemy knew that he was not protecting Dry City, no expert had tried to make the foolish move to such a place. That was because the counter-revolutionaries knew that Emlyn was in that city.

And since many had fought against her a few days ago, it was already common knowledge that she was now as powerful as the strongest Spiritual Kings in the region!

Therefore, Minos had had the 'peace of mind' to do this job with the potential to lessen the burden of war for his subordinates and allies.

In any case, whenever he fought over this area, Minos had some weaker soldiers by his side, individuals to clear the battlefield for him and do other necessary procedures.

So, after finishing his work, this brown-haired young man, wearing a simple combatant's outfit, moves through that area, heading towards his following targets.

Minos was reducing the number of enemies little by little. But, he was also trying to stop the enemy's advance under his territory.

After days since the Counter-Revolutionary Army reinforcements from outside the Brown Kingdom, the Black Plain had more than 50% of its territory under enemy control for the first time in this war.

That was not yet the maximum local area under enemy command that Minos had expected. Still, such a thing was already starting to become worrisome.

Therefore, he wanted to act quickly in the areas that had just been taken to slow down the enemy's advance. However, he knew that this work was not efficient since when he left, the enemy troops would probably retake these areas within a few days.

After all, Minos' allied army did not have enough troops to stop the enemy's advance.

Hence, Minos' action was like wiping ice!

But this was something he thought was worth doing, even if it had no lasting effects.

But for Minos, things were going as expected. Obviously, he could not predict all enemy decisions, nor did he like the overall situation.

As someone with a goal and aware of his own strength, he knew that the war would be difficult for the Black Plain until more people in his organization reached his fighting prowess.

However, such a thing would not take long since his soldiers were cultivating much faster than their enemies. Thus, he was trying to keep the situation under control as much as possible, buying time for his forces!

Anyway, as he ran through that area, he was thinking about his cultivation while seeing from afar many people fleeing. 'I'm currently a little beyond the level 52 halfway point...'

'Hmm, I'll probably reach level 53 in three months!'

"When that happens, my strength will be greater than that of..." He was muttering this when he suddenly noticed six powerful auras running in his surroundings as if they were encircling him.

"Oh?" Surprised, Minos let out a sound as he realized these level 58 and 59 Spiritual Kings approaching him.

Immediately after that, he stopped moving around that area to observe who these people were.

'There's something wrong here...' He pondered this as he looked at the people in his surroundings. Each of them was dressed in clothes that completely covered their bodies so that one could not recognize their genders nor identify them.

But what attracted his attention the most was why these people had come to him. That was because, in his view, it made no sense to enemies like that to come here.

After all, the consensus was that death was almost inevitable for people like this who confronted him!

So, he sensed that there was something wrong with this situation.

'Could it be that...' He looked at those people who were already drawing weapons and running towards him, ready to attack at any moment.

"Who are you? What do you want?" He loudly asked while his sword that now already had some cracks appeared in his hand.

However, none of them said any words to young Stuart. Instead, they merely continued what they were doing earlier, with strong intentions to kill such a person.

Upon realizing this, Minos' eyebrows frowned as he prepared to fight. 'Those worms can't be from this region!' He concluded.

To Minos, no one from that region would take such a risk against him.

On the other hand, the silent behavior of his opponents told him that these people probably had nothing against him in particular, as was often the case with assassins hired for missions.

In that case, it was even more crucial for those people not to say anything, as actions like this were not well-liked regionally, even though it was not forbidden.

And as he thought about it, Minos was already wondering who might have hired assassins from outside the region.

But with so many enemies, he just decided to put that aside for a moment.

'I don't know what the techniques of those six are like, so I'll let them attack first.' He thought about running away if those people had techniques as efficient as Silver-grade ones.

If that were the case, then the battle would be challenging, and he could be at a disadvantage because he did not have a proper weapon. So, it would not be worth it for him to stay in this place!

With that, he allowed his enemies to act first!

"All right. No talking!" He said aloud.

"But I hope you guys are good enough. Otherwise, I'm afraid your fates are not promising..."