51st of Season of Fire, 59th year of the 32nd cycle

Robbers and looters — those were the two words Newt would use to describe humanity had anyone bothered to ask him on the evening of the fourth day since leaving his clanhold to warn the helpless villagers and homesteaders about their immediate danger.

Newt preferred looters. Anything abandoned was gone - saurians would destroy it in the following weeks. Since that was the case, someone breaking into an abandoned home, taking abandoned stuff, was perfectly fair in his book.

For instance, if he were fleeing his home, abandoning his overly heavy, ornamental chest he couldn't even lift off the ground, he would even buy it from the looters after the onslaught ended.

Because of this view, Newt neither harmed nor interrupted the looters, but any bandits he found he slaughtered without mercy. Preying on others while they were running to save their lives was a vile mockery of human decency and Newt's chivalrous act.

He encountered three more gangs abusing the weak and the distracted, bringing Newt's body count above fifty. And that was on a simple, self-imposed mission of warning backwater villages.

Hard times bring out the worst in people. Newt couldn't help the thought, but then recalled how Lord Twinflower and the Lady pilot, whose name he didn't know, gave their lives to buy time for their students to run before the cultists overwhelmed them.

I wonder what happened. Are Obi, Jas, and Rose safe? What about Lady Alabaster, Lady Woodhopper, and Lord Flameax? The battle between champions was countless times more brutal than the one between lower-realm students.

Newt wasn't sure whether the gatemaster kept things secret on purpose, or lacked time, or didn't know who Newt knew in the order. The last one was a near certainty. Why would an exalt know about Newt's social circle?

And what of Dandelion? Newt shuddered, not from fatigue, he had rested a night in an abandoned village two days ago, but he had a flashback about how Dandelion caught him when he was about to fall six days ago.

Before the heavenly punishment, my body was at the peak of the fourth realm. True, I was exhausted, but that affected my strength, not durability, and Dandelion squeezed my arm like it was nothing, like he could crush it.

Newt entered an abandoned farm. Its residents had left towards a distant town, which they should reach in two weeks. He climbed into a hammock under the clear sky and looked at the stars, connecting the shiny dots in his mind.

He is at the peak of the third realm. I saw that clearly, and yet his body is beyond the fourth realm. He had a reputation of being a savage brute, but suddenly he is a sage, a genius of multiple trades, and his base is conveniently close to the clanhold.

Blood Cult attacked my home, and they attacked the order as well, merely a season after Dandelion had left. An unwanted thought passed through Newt's mind - how much time would the cult need to mobilize once their informant returned? Weeks? Moons?

I'm being ridiculous, Newt scoffed at his rampaging imagination and focused on tracing the lines in the sky, but the thoughts wouldn't leave him.

How much time did a normal person need to reach Dandelion's level of mastery? Probably longer than Dandelion had been alive.

What if the Blood Cult had a method of possessing people through their blood? Transplant the essence of an exalt into a young man and start over, losing your realm, but transferring the knowledge?

The thought frightened Newt. If that were true, they would have conquered the world a long time ago, amassing exalts over the eras.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Even if he scoffed at his own wild thoughts, a part still worried, when he found one pillar of confidence, which absolved Dandelion.

Lady Frostgrave, the gatemaster, and many others have seen and scanned him. There's no way he could have hidden himself from their scrutiny.

Newt forced himself to stop exploring the unwelcome line of thought. There was nothing to gain by doubting Dandelion. The man knew all his secrets, even about Magmin's realm. Had he wanted to, he could have destroyed Newt without resorting to the Blood Cult. Unless the cult really planned to sacrifice him, and needed him to reach a certain realm, but if that were the case, why reveal themselves so early?

Newt ran his fingers through his messy hair, then combed it the best he could. The homestead must have had an abandoned hairbrush inside, but Newt stuck to using his fingers. Looting non-awakened was beneath him.

"I'll ask him." Newt realized how stupid he was the moment he uttered the words.

I can see it now - "Hey Dandelion! Are you perhaps a cultist?" He would either think something was wrong with my head, or kill me if he was. That said, should I trust him?

It was a difficult question. Dandelion obviously hid a major secret, one so major even the gatemaster wondered about it.

Sleep found Newt while he was still searching for an answer. Fortunately, morning proved wiser than the evening, and well rested, Newt had reached a conclusion.

I'll trust my big brother, and if he betrays me to the cultists, so be it.

The decision shed a weight, and Newt continued running back towards the clanhold. He would have to run through the night, but he should make it in the early morning of the next day.

Newt passed abandoned village after abandoned village, sighting neither bandits nor looters. He didn't delude himself that he had exterminated the brigands. If anything, Newt was keenly aware he was killing ants one at a time to exterminate an ant colony, a futile job in the grand scheme of things, but wasn't his life also insignificant on a cosmic scale?

I'm getting too philosophical when life calls for practical solutions. And so, Newt continued being practical, running in an optimal route to return home, when he caught hisses and shrieks ahead.

He sped up, flames bursting beneath his feet, and he soon reached an abandoned homestead.

Before him, five longclaws were demolishing a barn, blood and inhuman screams coming from inside. Before rushing in, Newt scanned them, but the touch of mana was light on them, all of them at the first realm.

Non-awakened longclaws could pose a threat to third realm knights. The difference in strength granted by mana before they reached the third realm was negligible, so Newt decided to treat them like regular beasts, and charged in.

Once upon a time, he had fought three such beasts, and that fight had his heart racing. After years of training, fighting saurians, and tempering his body, regular longclaws seemed tame and timid.

Newt jumped before the beasts had even heard him, his entire body shrouded in Granite Crust, and smashed his flaming fist into the nearest saurian's temple. Skull gave with a thunder of snapped wood, and the longclaw slumped to the ground without a sound.

Two longclaws snapped their heads towards him, while the other two were too occupied with their butchery to react. Newt leaped again as the two longclaws stared at him in confusion. His fist smashed one right between the eyes, killing the beast, and the third one finally roared in anger.

Saber-like talons swiped at Newt, but they were slow. He ducked under them and shot towards the monstrous saurian. In a single bound, he was right beneath the monster, and with a light jump he reached its chest, planting a bone-shattering fist where he estimated the monster's heart was.

The longclaw croaked and collapsed, blood spewing from its massive maw. The other two were stuck in the building, breaking and smashing as they tried to disentangle themselves, but Newt killed them before they could pose a threat.

Newt walked over the corpses, checked out the inside of the barn, and sighed with relief. Instead of human victims, he found a massacred trudger, which had been abandoned by its owners for some reason.

The poor creature was still alive, and Newt put it out of its misery before resuming his journey back home. He ran with his eyes wide open, looking out for saurians, and he saw a number of packs in the distance.

They weren't causing intentional destruction, just collateral damage as they followed their instincts - herbivores by consuming nutritious grain and vegetables, carnivores by hunting. If saurian were left to their own devices, the property damage would have been significant, but not total.

However, the state of random wandering wouldn't last. Once the more intelligent saurians arrived to coordinate them and execute their exalt's will, a true extermination would begin. Until then, humans fleeing far away or hiding behind the walls were safe.

We've still got a week or two before the conflict escalates. I hope the reinforcements from the order arrive by then.

Newt wasn't worried for himself. In fact, unless a fifth realm manabeasts arrived, he could defend the castle's central keep all by himself, protecting around one or two hundred people. But to protect all the civilians in his care, he needed allies.

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