Darius Supreme

Explosive Strength was a vastly superior form of Berserk. No side effects, only draining Stamina while giving significant boosts. If put into potion form, it would certainly shake the entire market! 

Well, this at least explained why Adept fighters were just as feared as Adept mages. That wasn't even accounting for the fact that Adept fighters could have their three physical stats cross over the 50 point threshold. 

Since the basic ability for reaching Adept-stage Strength was a free and overpowered Berserk ability, what about the ones for Agility and Endurance? 

Darius guessed that Agility would either grant one something like Rapid Movement or maybe Sleight of Hand. 

He was willing to bet that for Endurance it would result in an elementless shield or possibly increased regeneration. Whatever the case, Darius would find out in due time. 

With Mikey and Joneson taking the lead, the party continued to traverse the wide-area that made up the Journeyman band. The area was as barren as they came and largely inhospitable. 

Darius had to ingest many Purification Potions to maintain his combat capability. Meanwhile, Gunner was continually burning his mana to keep Earth's Guardian active. 

Fortunately, his mana regen was at the same level as Darius' now, so he still generated a surplus of mana per second. 

Along the way, they encountered pockets of undead every once in a while. Most of them were in the early Journeyman stages due to their position, so Mikey and Joneson straightaway Dominated them instead of fighting. 

After 3 hours of traversal, they saw a small camp in the distance, situated near some dead trees. The camp wasn't large, Darius could make out about 30 or so tents pitched around. 

The undead had no reason to build something like that, so naturally, this had to be an outpost of the living, likely from Journeymen who had come here to farm points. 

Darius could see quite a bit of activity in the camp. Since they had not yet been spotted, he quickly unsummoned Mikey and Joneson, who disappeared together with their accumulated undead. 

After all, it would be foolish to waltz in with them in tow. 

The Andrato Kingdom didn't take too well to necromancers, as had become clearly apparent in his conversation with Jeanne. This largely had to do with how the Plains of Death had been formed in the first place. 

Just as the Insects had once launched a campaign against the entirety of Faust, nearly destroying the world, Fallon's necromancers had been involved in a continent-wide calamity. 

According to what Darius had read, there used to be a fledgling kingdom founded by necromancers on Fallon, which slowly grew into an empire. 

They had arguably been one of the strongest forces of their time for they had wantonly desecrated graves to build up their armies. 

In fact, they had started out as just glorified grave robbers. While this had caused the affected empires and kingdoms to be quite annoyed at them, that had pretty much been the extent of it. 

After all, who would enjoy the sight of their buried loved ones fight for some random necromancer somewhere instead of enjoying peace? 

This 'somewhere' ended up being Armadon. When first reading it, Darius had trouble believing it, but the history book recorded that those necromancers had indeed initially used their sizeable forces to assault the continent of demons and devil. 

This should have generally been perceived as a good thing, garnering the support of the living. 

Alas, politics did not work that way. 

The surrounding kingdoms and empires had felt threatened by the power of the Necromancer Empire. 

Sure, they had been focused on fighting the demons, but what if they ever changed their minds? What if they got bored of the demons and found that their fellowmen were much more pliable? 

As such, they had launched internal smear campaigns against the Necromancer Empire, twisting the truth. The average layman had been led to believe that the Necromancer Empire were raising their family members to come and kill them later when they amassed enough troops. 

Unfortunately, their accusations were mostly on point, for the necromancers had indeed gone out of their way stealing random corpses and robbing graves, which the governments had strung together as quite the believable tale. 

With the support of their people, which was vital for most wars, the various states had marched out their armies and sieged them. The Necromancer Empire had naturally been confused as to why these fellows had been making such a ruckus outside their walls. 

'Yeah, we stole corpses, so what? They were lying in the dirt going to waste, and the soul that inhabited them had long passed onto the next world, never to be disturbed by anything in this one.' 

This train of logic was quite unique for sure, but that was how the necromancers had felt at the time. Seeing as the living brought themselves over, they had been forced to withdraw part of their troops from Armadon to deal with the siege. 

It had ended up as a brutal rout. 

The forces of the various armies had not expected to meet a sea of undead, their numbers almost as numerous as the sand in the desert. In such a situation, even if you could heroically cut down 10 foes, you would still be slain in the end. 

What made things worse was that the Necromancer Empire could easily raise all the slain troops and add them to their fold. Wary of sudden attacks, they kept these ones behind while they went back to their siege of Armadon. 

At this time, the kingdoms and empires had been enraged and distraught at their colossal losses. It was at this time that something unexpected happened, something that had forever changed the balance of power for the kingdoms and empires of Fallon. 

Darius had to cut his mental recount from his Database here as he and Gunner had reached the entrance of the camp. 

As this was a camp in a dangerous zone, there were some sentries around, Darius surprised to note that it was a bunch of Journeymen at the early stages of the rank. 

They had noticed the young duo approaching them and had skeptical expressions on their faces. What were a bunch of kids doing out here in the Plains of Death? 

However, once they felt Gunner and Darius's aura, their faces changed. Darius radiated an Adept mage's Mind Power whereas Gunner's body had the natural aura of Explosive Strength, as if his muscles were ready to explode with maximum power at any time. 

Two Adepts! Two young Adept prodigies had actually come to the Plains of Death! 

Why weren't they in the Adept band and what were they doing here specifically?!