Chapter 500: Third Region... Again

Lian’s attention, however, fell on the strongest native present.

The native commander had finally understood what had happened.

Eight of his people were on the ground, while two others had been injured by the Awakeneds from the camp.

And the human who had taken most of them out of the battle had not even changed his breathing.

The commander was not stupid, his eyes moved to Lian once, then to Kain, the possible carrier of the Divine of Light’s tear.

If they stayed here, not only would they be unable to capture him, but there was also a high chance that no one would return to deliver the news.

He made his decision.

"Retreat!"

The remaining people immediately moved.

"Send the news! He’s here!" The commander shouted in a louder voice.

Two people ran toward the eastern side of the bridge, one went down the path toward the pass, and the commander chose another path as well.

He did not even look at his unconscious people.

Delivering the news was more important, for greater goals, small sacrifices were not a problem.

"Looks like leaving your friends behind is some kind of tradition." Lian tilted his head slightly and laughed, back in the ruined temple of the Divine of Light, one of the natives had also abandoned his friend and escaped.

And now the other natives had done the same thing, and by leaving their friends behind, they wanted to escape, of course, their decision was not completely wrong either.

They had understood that they had to deliver the news to the rest of their people no matter what.

But unfortunately for them, this time they were not going to escape, the young Vorhelm’s foot stayed firmly on the stone and the air around him became cold for a moment.

[Frost Dominion.]

KRRRRRRRRRK!

Ice came out from the cracks in the stone pavement.

First, it moved toward the right side of the bridge and a thick wall grew within a few seconds, blocking the path of the two escaping people.

One of them tried to jump over the wall, but the ice grew right under his hand and locked his palm in place, then the ice wrapped around his wrist.

His legs.

His knees.

The man was trapped in the same position.

The second escapee turned and moved toward the side, although ice came out from under his feet like teeth and covered both of his lower legs.

"Damn it!"

On the other side, the commander had almost reached the gate, but the stone surface in front of him turned white, a line of ice moved ahead of his steps.

Then several pillars rose and completely blocked the path, the man stopped and looked behind him.

"You’re not going anywhere." Lian calmly walked between the unconscious people.

For several seconds, no one moved, the natives had now realized ...this battle was over.

The young Vorhelm did not let the Earth Awakeneds kill the unconscious people, not because he was worried about them, but because dead people could not answer questions.

Ice caught the hands and feet of the conscious people, and the remaining natives faced the same situation after they woke up.

One slowly came forward from behind the camp, several of the prisoners’ expressions changed when they saw it, even in a world where seeing monsters was normal, a giant ant of that size, with those jaws and Natural Armor, was not a calming sight.

Lian sent a simple command through the Colony Link.

Be scary.

One sent something like confusion for a moment, then it seemed to understand the meaning and lowered its huge body.

Its head moved close to one of the prisoners, its jaws slowly opened.

The distance between those hard teeth was large enough for a human head to easily fit between them.

The native man did not take his eyes off One.

CLACK!

The jaws closed right beside his face, the air created by them moved the man’s hair.

The giant ant then placed one of its front legs on a large stone. ℯ

CRACK!

The stone cracked under its foot, the pressure increased and the stone was completely crushed.

Lian stood beside One.

"Don’t worry, as long as you don’t force me to guess the answers to my questions myself, you won’t be its next meal."

One of the natives spat at his foot with hatred.

"Barbarian thieves!... You think you can scare us with a monster!?"

Lian looked at the spit on the ground, then raised his head...although there was no anger on his face.

Before he could ask another question, a voice came from behind.

"You two came from Base #9?"

He turned around.

A man around thirty years old was approaching with cracked armor. There was a deep cut on his forehead, and his left hand was wrapped in cloth.

He was probably the person currently leading the camp, his eyes kept moving between Lian, Kain, and One.

He still could not fully believe what he had seen.

"Is this the first time they have attacked you?" Lian asked instead of introducing himself.

"No, it has been going on for a while now." The man paused for a moment.

"Oh? How long?"

"Three days. Maybe almost four days."

"Were you here from the beginning?" Lian looked toward the pass.

"Yeah. This is the last forward camp. Several groups passed through here before and went a few kilometers farther, but for the last three or four days, these natives have not let us advance because of their attacks."

Kain came closer, and the man continued.

"Every time we send a group, these bastards appear. One time there were eight of them, another time there were almost twenty, and today there were these guys."

"Always the same number?" The young Vorhelm asked after thinking for a moment.

"No, but there isn’t much difference."

"Did they follow you back to the base or the camps farther behind?"

"Never." The man shook his head.

"Did they try to take this place?"

"No."

"Take your supplies or equipment?"

"No."

"When they had the advantage, did they kill everyone?"

This time the man did not answer immediately, as if he had never thought about this himself before.

"Now that I think about it ...no."

His frown became deeper, as if he was only now putting together the behavior of the last few days.

"Sometimes they could have pushed harder. Especially on the first day, several of us were injured and the front line had completely collapsed, but after they destroyed the equipment we used to check the path, they pulled back."

"How many died?" Lian asked.

"Two people over these few days, we had more injured."

Two people.

No number of deaths could be ignored and called small, lives were valuable, but considering the strength of these groups and the chances they seemed to have, it could have been much more.

The man continued.

"They do the same thing every time. They hurt a few people, destroy the equipment, stop the group from moving forward, and then disappear."

Lian asked nothing else, his eyes moved toward the other side of the pass, he had some guesses.

The way the natives attacked made it clear that their goal was not only to kill, they only wanted to stop the outsiders from moving forward.

The first explanation was simple.

One of the seven Regions of the natives might be located nearby.

If the Earth Awakeneds continued moving forward more every day, it was logical that the people living in that area would not want to let groups of outsiders get too close.

But something did not make sense.

He had limited information about the seven Regions, but he knew one thing.

They had survived in this world for centuries, a world where most of its civilizations had been destroyed under attacks from monsters and demons.

The defensive structures of those regions were so powerful that even demons had not been able to enter them.

So what threat could a few Level twenty and thirty Awakeneds be?

If one of the Regions was really nearby, it was unlikely that they would worry about a few hunters from Earth suddenly entering their city.

Entering such a place was probably almost impossible without permission.

There was another problem as well, if this pass was truly an important border, the behavior of the natives made no sense.

They should have stationed forces, built a fortress, completely blocked the road, or at worst destroyed the forward camp and pushed the Earth Awakeneds dozens of kilometers back.

But they had done none of those things.

They came, caused casualties, destroyed the equipment used for advancing, and then pulled back.

Why?

Lian looked at the burned tents for a few seconds.

The answer slowly took shape, if these natives killed fifty Awakeneds, what would happen?

Base #9 would send a larger group, if that group was also destroyed, the situation would no longer be a small border conflict.

The Federation would get involved.

And eventually, much more powerful Awakeneds would be sent, people who, like him, could kill all fourteen of these natives with one move.

So the natives did not want to make the war bigger, but at the same time, they did not want anyone to move farther forward.

That meant their goal was not to permanently protect the pass, they were buying time, for a few days and maybe a week, until something on the other side of the pass was finished.

"So they’re just keeping us here..." He frowned slightly.

"What do you mean? Why would they need to keep us here?" Kain, who was standing beside him, looked at him.

Lian looked at the broken gate on the other side of the bridge, behind it was the fog and the place where the map’s information ended.

"That is what I want to find out." Then his eyes returned to the prisoners, in fact, there was no reason to spend a long time guessing, they were still alive and he could simply ask them.

He turned toward the prisoners, but before asking the question, something else came together in his mind.

Their reaction to Kain.

An ordinary person could not understand from seeing the light for a few seconds that there was something different about its source.

Even if Lian did not know Kain’s story, he would probably only see it as a Light-based talent, and even then, he himself could not notice any difference in the Light power his friend was using right now.

But these people immediately understood that difference and connected it to the report about the ruin and the stolen Divine’s tear.

So either they had special training about all the Divines, or they came from a place where such knowledge was a normal part of the knowledge of its important forces.

Among the seven Regions, one option made more sense than the others.

The Third Region, which worshipped the Divine of Light, so if his guess was correct, these people were from the Third Region.

’Now that I think about it, I seem to be running into the Third Region too often.’ He thought to himself and laughed, it could not be a coincidence, right?

Lian stopped in front of the prisoners and his eyes passed over all of their faces once.

"You’re from the Third Region, right?"

No one answered, but one of the younger men looked at the commander for only a moment, it was very short, but the young Vorhelm saw it.

A faint smile appeared on his face.

"Thank you, so you really are from the Third Region."