Kapitel 20: Coyotes

It was now dawn in Dry City, and three carriages were heading to the west of the Black Plain territory. It was very early as the sun was still rising on the horizon, creating a very beautiful view to see.

The group slowly moved away from the city and passed through the crops planted on this side of the territory, leaving them behind gradually as they moved ahead.

In the second carriage, Minos was enjoying the early morning as the wind hit his face.

He truly liked this feeling of how the wind felt right. The temperature was pleasant, in front of him was a beautiful view, and only the sounds that could be heard were of the beasts pulling the carriages.

Time slowly passed when Corporal Pyke approached Minos and informed, "Young master, it will take us about two days to reach Maritime City and as there is no other city on the way, we will have to camp overnight."

"Hmm, I know. Tell me about this Maritime City," Minos asked curiously.

Pyke then started to tell everything he knew about the Maritime City, "The Maritime City is a place within the Black Plain, it is very crucial since this is where all the deals made between the Brown Kingdom and the Stone Island must pass.

And because the Black Plain covers the entire coastline of the kingdom, thousands of years ago, the Maritime City was established there to provide a stable structure for traders who come from the island along with their products, as well as for those who leave the kingdom on ships."

After that, Pyke added, "But although this city is a part of the Black Plain, it is managed directly by the capital, the City of the Setting Sun.

Because of this, the city is much stronger than our Dry City, with at least one Spiritual King guarding the city for the kingdom!"

"Hmm, but wouldn't that be too bad for someone at this level to be in such a poor region?" Minos asked curiously.

Pyke nodded, "It normally would be, but since the kingdom gives a lot of importance to this place, the capital has made a major investment in arrays for improving the spiritual concentration of that city.

And those guardians who stay in the Maritime City are also always replaced from time to time. So, it's not such a bad thing for them."

After talking for a while, Minos had already got a basic understanding of this place which they would have to pass.

However, there was a possibility that this area could disrupt his plans.

If the Brown Kingdom found out about the Black Plain business, without a doubt the noble families would try to get a slice.

But Minos definitely had no intention of letting others reap the rewards of his labor. Therefore, to stop this there were two options for him to follow: first was to establish his own port city, or the other was to take over the Maritime City.

However, choosing the latter option would mark him as a rebel within the kingdom. And as a rebel… he would have to fight the entire state.

But that kind of strength was not something that he could achieve in the short term as even the guardian of the Maritime City could wipe out all of Minos' forces!

'Hmm, we will have to build our port at a considerable distance from the Maritime City.' Minos calculated his next steps, at least this option would delay the kingdom from taking an interest in the Black Plain.

...

Time passed and the night finally fell. By now, the ten soldiers had already set up a small camp.

Meanwhile, Minos was cultivating with the help of spiritual crystals in his tent. And while he was cultivating, a sudden scream from one of the soldiers broke the night's silence.

"Ahhh!"

Everyone rushed to see what had happened and found one of the soldiers holding a sword in his hand, as he faced a pack of 30 coyotes in front of him!

These spiritual beasts were all in the fourth stage of cultivation, and had bloody red eyes and a string of drool dripping from their mouths as if they were hungry and ready to pounce on their prey after not having food for a long time.

The Spiritual beasts in the Spiritual World also had similar ranks in cultivation as humans. The only difference was that they couldn't learn techniques. Instead, they just had ridiculously high physical strength, while some of them could have strange abilities…

Therefore, beasts with the same cultivation stage as humans were usually stronger and that was why the soldier shouted before, as seeing such a pack of beasts had scared him a lot!

"Are you okay, Nedo?" One of the soldiers who arrived first at the scene asked promptly.

"Hmmm, I was just a little scared," the guard nodded but still continued to stare at the beasts.

Minos also arrived at the scene after a few seconds and reassured the soldiers after seeing the pack of beasts before them, "Everyone, calm down. This group may be large, but…"

'Hehe, this situation is perfect for testing my new technique.' Minos added in his mind as a wide smile appeared on his face.

As for this technique he was thinking about, it was the technique he had chosen after reaching level 30. It was called the Devouring Art, a Golden-grade classification with 8 phases.

When activated, unless the enemy's power was not greater than the user's power by more than 100%, a part of the enemy's energy would continuously be sucked due to this technique within a specific area and then would convert some of the absorbed energy to supply the energy to the user's attacks.

This technique had a limitation with a radius of up to 50 meters around the user and a conversion factor of 20% in lower phases, but in the final realization of the technique, the conversion factor would be 100%, and the area the user would be able to influence would be up to 50 kilometers!

This meant that, while being in the initial phase, if 100 points of spiritual power were devoured from the enemy, then the 20 points would become the power for the user of the technique to make use of.

The only disadvantage of this 'divine' cheat-like technique was that Minos could not absorb this spiritual power to increase his own level!

If not then it would have been a real cheat for increasing his own cultivation.

A technique that might have just defied the heavens.

Minos then activated the Devouring Art and told the soldiers, "Follow me and let's kill them all. This will be good training."

Just as Minos said, a ring-like illusionary structure started to form around the pack with a radius of 50 meters and then started to fill with a dense black fog.

After seeing this strange occurrence before them, all the soldiers felt as if they had seen a technique that was directly passed hell was being activated.

Zumm!

A strange noise also started to buzz as soon as the technique was activated.

At this stage, Minos did not have control over whom he would absorb the spiritual energy from and whom he would not, so if the soldiers were inside the affected area, they would suffer too!

Thinking of this he turned to the soldiers and warned.

"All of you, do not enter this space. Instead, use your techniques to send long-range attacks," after that, he prepared to activate his other two techniques.

The soldiers obliged and began to release their attack techniques in the direction of the beasts.

Boom! Boom!

Several explosions echoed through the air. Minos had already activated the Spatial Sword and Indestructible Body simultaneously and was now sealing the movements of ten beasts.

The space around these ten coyotes froze, and in another split second, Minos made several sword attacks.

Each movement of his was like a dance and was performed with great skill and precision to the viewer's eyes.

Swooish!

Sounds of air being cut filled the air, and a second later, ten bodies fell to the ground with severed heads.

Blood spilled from the neck of the coyotes that were killed by Minos, creating a small puddle of blood.

It was a magnificent scene to see!

Not only were the soldiers amazed at how skillful this young man was in killing, but even the other beasts that were defending themselves from the soldiers' attacks were frightened.

But at that moment, one of the strongest beasts of the pack attacked Minos from the back!

Grrr!!

However, this sneak attack had little to no effect on Minos. His Indestructible Body was still active for the next eight seconds.

Vuuup!

With another swift sword blow, the beast was also thrown away.

It was uncertain whether it was alive or dead, but would pose a further threat.

...

Time passed slowly as the fight between the soldiers and the coyotes continued, by now the number of beasts had dwindled to less than 10 as Minos' soldiers were killing each of them in the meantime, reaching this result.

Though beasts were trying to escape, continuously losing their energy to Minos and at the same time dodging the soldiers' continuous attacks was exhausting for them.

Soon they all died!

"Hmm, very well, guys. You can collect the corpses and sell them when we get to Maritime City.

But the value is not high, you can divide the crystals earned between yourselves," Minos said before heading back to his tent.

After hearing this, all the soldiers were pleased.

After all, even if these corpses were not very valuable to Minos, this could still yield more than 1,000 spiritual crystals for each of them, which was more than 200% of what they earned monthly as Corporals of the Black Plain Army!

…

The night passed quickly, and as soon as the sun started to rise on the horizon, the group prepared to leave the temporary camp. They would finally arrive in Maritime City tonight!