Rise of the Blood Sovereign

77  The Caravan Moves, Lyle's Doubts

With the apes gone, the caravan resumed their travel. The apes were some of the most powerful enemies one could encounter, but after encountering them, one could be certain that they wouldn't come across a bunch of monsters for a while thanks to the apes being highly territorial.

Still, there were monsters that continued attacking the caravan along the way. They only had about 1 hour free before the first group arrived. It was the usual monsters that one would encounter here, most of them being below the Bronze Core realm, with some groups having some amongst their ranks.

The situation perplexed the caravan. Such weak monsters would usually keep far away from the apes and wouldn't be so near them thanks to the apes being able to rip them apart with ease. They still continued moving, but the atmosphere was definitely changing among the people present.

As for Lyle, he was one of the members of the caravan that was currently looking the worst.

The reason for that was that he was now even more certain that his previous guess was true.

A Golden Core monster had appeared in the forest.

With such power, the monster would pretty much be the unofficial king of the forest, and other monsters would flee from the area and make sure to keep a distance from it.

Since the changes were only noticeable after they had cleared half of the distance to Orsvald, Lyle was sure that the Golden Core monster would be found somewhere in this part of the forest, he only hoped that they wouldn't come across it, otherwise the only thing waiting for them was death.

Since leaving the caravan was out of the question, Lyle was forced to simply stay and observe his surroundings.

He still had a way out.

He had not used his second transformation at all, and he knew that once he did that, the aura from a Tier VI being would be enough to allow him to get out of the area safely. He would use the caravan as scapegoats and leave them to the monster if that was necessary.

The caravan's speed slowed down thanks to the attacks. The monsters were weak, and it only took them a short period of time to defeat them, but the speed at which they traveled suffered thanks to that.

The Bronze Knights didn't join the battle if there were no Bronze Core enemies amongst the monsters. They wouldn't go out of their way to help out and spend their energy when there was no need to do so after all.

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Their job was to deal with the Bronze Core monsters and perhaps save the lives of some of the weaker adventurers if the situation called for it. Otherwise, they would simply stand by and wait for the monsters to be defeated.

Lyle could see that the faces of some of the knights were tense, but the one he was most interested in, the lightning user, did not take his helmet off at any point in time, which made it impossible for Lyle to gauge his response to what was happening.

The Bronze Knights that had tense expressions were all parts of the group the lightning-type knight was leading. They seemed to be the only ones amongst the Bronze Knights that realized what might be happening and that they were potentially in grave danger.

Lyle wouldn't tell that to anyone as nobody would really take the words of an adventurer that had not reached the Bronze Knight realm seriously.

Lyle shared his thoughts with Adam, and he made sure that nobody around them was able to hear 14:04

them. Upon listening to Lyle and finding out that they might come across a Golden Core monster, Adam was visibly upset, but he did his best not to show his emotions and simply nodded at Lyle.

Memories of when they made their way to Linston came to Adam. He remembered how he and Lyle had abandoned the caravan they were traveling with, and he had no doubt in his mind that Lyle would do the same again if it meant preserving their lives.

He understood that there was nothing any of them could do when faced with such an enemy. Even Silver Core monsters were beings that were impossible to even be touched by the current them.

Adam and Lyle simply continued doing their job as the party made their way around the mountain. It was a couple of hours later that they finally made it around.

The path started leading them down, which was a sign that they would now be going inside the forest. The sun was no longer high up in the air and was slowly setting as the adventurers all got ready to light the lanterns and resume their journey through the forest.

They had already managed to cross a large distance and only a bit was left before they would get out of the forest and reach Orsvald. The only thing on their mind currently was the hope that no powerful monster would appear.

The forest was after all home to many powerful creatures. Amongst them, the one that worried the adventurers the most was the tiger. It was an incredibly powerful monster that could kill them before any of the knew what was happening.

Suddenly, as the sun slowly went down, the door to a carriage opened and the three Silver Knights all went out. The mage had changed her clothes. She removed her previous robe and was now wearing one that was clearly of much greater quality.

With the three Silver Knights being outside and keeping a lookout during the last stretch of their trip, the adventurers and mercenaries were able to relax a bit.

Even if a Silver Core monster was to appear, it would still be defeated by the trio.

The mage quickly started casting some sort of spell. It took her a while and when she finished, all the carriages and people were suddenly enveloped in a green glow.

The spell was a detection spell of sorts. The mage had used it to cover all the people and if a Silver Core monster truly was to appear, she would quickly find out before the enemy had a chance to attack.

Not only that, but the spell would also increase the detection ability of each adventurer and allowed them to see better in the dark. It was one that used up a lot of mana and the mage had to expend quite the effort to cast it, but it would be worth it in the long run.

One of the biggest reasons the spell had a high requirement when it came to mana was the fact that once it was cast, it would stay active for 10 hours and would require no further mana. To cast it for so many people was definitely not easy, and even Lyle was impressed by the mage.

He knew of similar spells and knew that it was no small feat to learn such a spell, much less to cast it on so many people.

'She's a talented one as well, even above the Bronze Knight.' Lyle thought to himself as he glanced at the mage before switching his gaze to his surroundings.

'A young peak Bronze Knight with the lightning element, and a young elven mage that has this much power, none of these two are simple, and yet I have no idea who either one of them is.' Lyle told himself as he leaned back against the carriage railing.

'Something is going on, there is no way that all of this is simple coincidence.'

'First, we have a Bronze Knight of unknown origins that is powerful enough to deal with any Bronze Core monster with relative ease, and no adventurer here knows him, and neither do the mercenaries.'

'Then an elven Silver Mage appears, a pure-blooded one from what I can tell, and she is also a mystery to me and everyone else.'

'Their power, their young age, and the lack of any knowledge I or anyone here has of them are suspicious, are they perhaps members of the same organization?" Lyle suddenly thought back on the people he felt inside one of the main carriages.

'Were they hired especially because of those people, or are those people parts of their organization as well?'

There were many organizations in the empire, and even Lyle was unable to find out who the members of all of the organizations were. Some were incredibly mysterious and finding any info on them was practically impossible, while others were a bit less of a mystery, but the higher-ups were.

Amongst those organizations were assassin guilds, spy guilds, thieves, and even mercenaries and merchants.

Some were hostile to the empire, and the empire did all it could to deal with them but was unable to even after a long period of time. Most, however, were not hostile and were largely tolerated by the empire, leading to them being able to rise to power a bit quicker than the others.

Lyle was now certain that whoever these people were, they were members of one of those organizations.