บท 29: Chapter 29 - Kingdom

Nearly two decades have gone by since the expansion of Spencer's tribe commenced. At the bottom of a mountain range, a massive kingdom covered a large portion of the land surrounding it. A castle at its center encircled by houses made of wood and many other materials, farms made with irrigation systems were spread out at the edge of the kingdom. Many of the inhabitants walked the structured streets leading to many sections of the kingdom, guards located at every corner kept the kingdoms order maintained, and people could be observed exchanging resources for a variety of commodities in the small tents on the edge of the kingdom's streets.

The once small tribe had grown to be massive in its size, subjugating all neighboring tribes in the area long ago, and growing rapidly into what it is now. The kingdom was cut off from the outer world by the walls that were erected around every edge of its borders.

After the brief contact with the Atlanteans, they did not appear again. However, Spencer was not in a hurry. Through absorbing them, he gained their memories as well and had a general understanding of their situation. The gains he could get from them was too little at the time. They needed more time in 'incubation' so to say.

After meeting them and he recalled their wondrous abilities and technology they had in the distant future, he had started formulation a plan. His tribe, -or better to say a small kingdom-, would benefit greatly from them, keep them safe and protected.

The children of the kingdom are required to go through extensive training under the watchful eyes of Cassius once they have reached puberty, trained in combat to strengthen the kingdom's power as a whole. The kingdom's numbers were abundant from the number of children conceived in the years prior, making the population quite large.

All was well in the current times, the people were protected and the area had become more manageable even without the guidance of Spencer keeping a constant eye on them. As the years went by, and rivers of blood were spilled Spencer calmed down, and managed to rake in his predatory desires.

Spencer was now stuck in his castle with nothing to do, the people could now maintain themselves in peace. Even if they couldn't maintain the peace for long, Quintus, Hagen, Cassius along with Dinah and Mishka, was now perfectly capable of keeping the small kingdom in order by following his example.

Over the years, Quintus still looked as strong as intimidating as ever, despite being older. However, the others were now showing signs of the cruelty of time. Looking at them, they looked to be around in their forties. While Hagen could still take part in the hunts, although not on all of them, the rest of the group were bedridden with fatigue and strange illnesses.

Quintus was the proud father of three strong children going by the names, Hopi, Yurok, and

Castor. Two of Quintus's children were males and Castor was the only female. Hopi was the eldest of the bunch, he would focus his time and effort in helping his father with his role in the kingdom. He would often learn from his father to make his life as easy as possible over the years.

Yurok was the second eldest of the children, he would mainly focus on training himself to be stronger, he would often be around Cassius and learn from him as much as he could.

The youngest of the children, Castor was a special case when compared to the others, she was rather smart in comparison to her brothers and she would focus her time in learning about the kingdom and its structure, she would often go around the tribe and explore every corner she could.

The bunch was aware of Spencer's existence, each of them holding their own opinion of his character, but they lived most of their lives oblivious to what Spencer was capable of, not knowing how this entire empire was made by his hands. Hopi would constantly think in his mind that his father Quintus should be the leader instead, he held no respect for Spencer and only looked up to his father.

Yarok did not pay any mind to Spencer as he believed that he was no one special. In his mind, Spencer was only the weakling leader of the tribe who had to be constantly protected by his guards, a weakling who couldn't even protect himself from danger if his guards weren't there to protect him.

Castor, the youngest thought differently than her brothers. In her eyes Spencer was a mysterious figure, he would rarely ever leave his home and his house was constantly surrounded by guards, but she had a feeling that they were too at ease. They would rarely check on him, they only stood outside of the structure, it was as if their main role wasn't to protect Spencer but to keep people from entering his home, Castor was confused by this concept.

Spencer never gave the three children a clear representation of what he was and what he could do; he was always within the confines of his castle.

Within the castle, Spencer could be seen sitting on his bed with his eyes closed. For a week straight he has not moved an inch from this position, he was in the process of reaching another point in his evolution. The entirety of the room from the pedestal to the walls was scorched from the heat he was releasing constantly. Anyone who would have tried to enter the room would have been immediately blinded by a bright golden hue being emanated from his body.

Spencer was currently located in a separate room from his bedroom. He made this one personally to meditate in. His bed kept catching on fire from all the heat he emanated.

Opening his eyes, Spencer was visibly annoyed by something, whenever he went into meditation it would last for a week at most. Each time he came out of his meditation he would have better control over his abilities than the last, but he could never get to that point where he could enhance them to a truly supernatural degree without the need for him to die. Even though he could already cause massive damage, that was only his physical strength, he wanted some form of supernatural ability to make himself stronger.

For months, he has been doing this and nothing came from it, no matter what he did. His abilities did not change any further, they occasionally grew stronger, but not in the way that he wanted them to, he finally decided that he was tired of just sitting in his castle meditating.

Spencer left the scorched room and went into his bedroom. Reaching there he put on a robe made from the skin of a sabertooth tiger that he killed himself and began making his way outside of his castle. When Spencer stepped out of his castle, the guards were shocked by his sudden decision to leave. They have not seen him leave his home in months, and now he suddenly walked past them without any warning. They were confused, but ultimately but they said nothing.

Making his way to the kingdom's training grounds, Spencer strolled through the streets casually as he made his way. Reaching the grounds he soon came to see the field cleared with only two silhouettes visible, at its center was Cassius training a young individual vigorously.

Cassius seemed to be giving his all against the individual, not holding back in the slightest when training the person. The two fought at a near superhuman level against each other, quickly running around the field and attacking each other in a variety of patterns.

Spencer who was observing from the sidelines only watched as they fought each other. Cassius rushed at the individual thrusting his spear forward, twisting as he extended his arm. The youthful figure quickly dodged the spear and jumped back and separated from Cassius. Taking a closer look, the individual seen fighting Cassius was no other than Yarok, the training maniac of the three brothers and the second eldest son of Quintus.

"Oh?"

Spencer looking at this scene was surprised, Cassius was seeming to have a hard time fighting this child who hasn't even lived half as long as he did. Sitting down on a wooden log, Spencer continued to watch the two fight with everything they had.

Eventually, after a long sparring session, the two were sprawled out on the floor from their exhaustion, breathing heavily, covered in beads of sweat from head to toe. Seeing that they had finished their little sparing session, Spencer got up and began walking over to them, Cassius happened to catch his figure approaching from the corner of his eyes.

Cassius quickly got up from the floor and looked at Spencer with nothing but respect in his eyes, kneeling in his direction as he approached, Yarok who was next to Cassius did not kneel and only watched as Spencer arrived with contempt in his eyes.

"Pathetic." Yarok thought.

Spencer reached in front of the two to see Cassius kneeling, he raised his hand and spoke.

"You don't need to do that Cassius…"

Hearing Spencer's words, Cassius got up from the floor and looked at him.

"Sorry, it's a bad habit of mine" Cassius said scratching the back of his head with a smile.

Spencer returned the smile and looked down at Yarok, he could immediately see the contempt that he held in his eyes. Smiling at the child, Spencer looked back at Cassius.

"I was watching your spar with the boy. It was surprising to see him be your match."

Cassius only looked at Spencer with an awkward smile plastered on his face without saying anything in response. Yarok, who was next to Cassius wanted to talk down to Spencer since the moment he arrived, but he held himself back for now.

Spencer could tell that the boy held something against him even though he doesn't remember doing anything to warrant such contempt from this youth. As he wanted to know why this child held such animosity against him, he looked at the boy and spoke with a smile on his face.

"Is there something you want to say, young Yarok?"

"No!" Yarok answered with a hostile tone.

Hearing Yaroks tone, Cassius slapped him across the back of the head and tried to reprimand him for how he is speaking.

Spencer raised his hand, stopping Cassius while he continued to keep his gaze on the youth.

"It's okay Cassius. Tell me, boy, are you sure you have nothing to say?"

Yarok was still scratching his head from his father's slap. He looked up, glaring at Spencer, deciding that he would speak his thoughts on Spencer's worthlessness of being the leader of the kingdom.

"I don't believe that you deserve to be the leader of our people! You are weak, and you constantly hide behind your guards! I don't think this tribe should be lead by such a pathetic weakling!" Yarok said glaring at Spencer.

Upon hearing Yaroks words and seeing his expression, Spencer was shocked, but he also felt insulted by this child's words.

"Is that so? Who do you believe should be the leader then?" Spencer asked with a forced smile, showing his annoyance.

Yarok continued.

"Cassius, obviously! He is more fit to lead our people than you are!"

"Oh, why do you say that?" Spencer continued his questions.

"Cassius is stronger than you are, he is the reason our people can continue to take over the other tribes!" - Yarok defiantly shouted.

Hearing the last part made Spencer extremely annoyed. His annoyance was plastered on his face which Cassius could notice. Cassius attempted to shut Yaroks mouth by placing his hand over his.

Seeing Cassius trying to stop Yarok from talking, Spencer was already upset at this child for talking to him as if he was some weakling that needed to be protected by these ants that surround him. He wasn't going to let this happen without any form of punishment.

"Yarok, Yarok… you gravely misunderstand something. The guards aren't there to keep me from harm. They are to keep other members of the tribe from disturbing me. But since you have such a big arrogant mouth, let me show you why I am the leader." Spencer answered with an increasingly angered tone.

Yarok was not fazed by Spencer's words and continued to look down on him.

Spencer took off his robe and threw it to the side, leaving him in animal skin pants and revealing his body that was far beyond the peak of physical power. His muscles radiating durability and strength to those who witness it. Yarok was utterly surprised when Spencer removed his robe, he was not expecting the "weak" leader to have such a massive and intimidating body.

"Now then, let's have a spar, boy!" Spencer spat in a cold tone.

Seeing that the boy greatly angered Spencer tried talking to the hot-headed youth, and tell him to apologize before it's too late, but he refused and took up his spear in anticipation of defeating the leader in a fight, as he was very confident in his combat skills.

Spencer watched as the boy got into a battle stance and prepared to attack.

"We can begin, whenever you see fit." Spencer coldly said.

Taking the invitation, Yarok rocketed himself towards Spencer thrusting his spear forward. Which Spencer leisurely dodged, without making any move. Yarok immediately followed up by spinning his spear and sending a barrage of thrusts towards him.

It has only been a few seconds in and Yarok was sending a barrage of attacks towards Spencer in an attempt to impale him with his spear. What he failed to notice however, was that how spencer didn't even make a move from the very beginning of the match. He continued to redirect Yarok's attacks causing him to miss all of his advances.

Yarok was visibly annoyed by all of his attacks being cast aside casually by Spencer, he jumped back to recollect himself due to being out of breath.

"After all that arrogancy, is this all you can muster? Pathetic." Spencer spat in a provoking tone.

Yarok was angered by his taunts and lunged at him to continue his assault. Spencer only glared at the boy and extended his arm, holding back his middle finger with his thumb. When Yarok reached in front of him, he released his middle finger and flicked Yarok out of the air, sending him flying back and bouncing on the soil violently.

His body finally coming to a stop, Yarok was knocked unconscious, his body covered in bruises and cuts from his body slamming into the ground repeatedly. Spencer looked at the youth one last time, then turned around to pick up his robe. Placing it over his body, he walked over the boy's body and placed him over his shoulder.

"I'll bring him to Quintus myself, you can go home for now."

Saying this, he casually walked towards Quintus's house, leaving the heavily sighing Cassius behind.

Dropping the kid back home, he explained that he only taught him a lesson, before bringing him home. After chatting with Quintus for a bit, he eventually returned home and laid in his bed to pass the time. Looking up at his roof, Spencer couldn't help but think.

"It's almost time…"