Chapter 189: Departure (2)

Elena’s nagging lasted for an unknown amount of time.

By the end, Aurelius felt a sharp headache, as though someone had sneak-attacked him, targeting his soul.

Thankfully, he had ample experience dealing with this from his two lives.

Thus, he recovered quickly.

After saying goodbye to Elena and leaving behind a few letters, asking her to deliver them to several people like Mia and Professor Anna, he showed no hesitation and departed.

Besides Elena, no one knew of his decision for now.

Even the new guards who watched him go didn’t suspect anything, merely thinking that Aurelius was going about his day as usual. 𝔣𝖗ⅇℯ

Suppressing his curiosity about why the guards had changed, Aurelius turned around and looked at the mansion behind him with reluctance.

According to his original plan, he was planning to strengthen the Sol family as much as he could before his departure.

He had even decided to help one or two Awakeners advance.

Unfortunately, the sudden change left him with no time to do so.

Besides leaving a few Relics and Potions to Elena, he had done nothing else that could protect them.

’Thankfully, my mother appears to be extraordinary too. I doubt she will face any danger. Even if she can’t deal with the threats, she should be able to escape unscathed...’

As for the other people in the mansion, Aurelius could only pray silently for them.

He looked at the mansion for several minutes.

Then, suppressing his turbulent feelings, he finally left.

He didn’t realize that on the second floor of the mansion, a beautiful woman was looking out of the window with clear reluctance.

"He’s gone..." Elena whispered, raising her hand as though trying to grasp his figure.

Unfortunately, the distance between them made this action impossible.

It felt as though Aurelius had escaped right through her fingers.

Suppressing the tears in her eyes, Elena steeled herself. She turned around and hurriedly returned to her room to deal with the aftermath.

--

Although Aurelius did not know what Elena was thinking, he knew her emotions very well.

Had he been a transmigrator, he likely wouldn’t have had many attachments to his mother in this life.

However, Aurelius had not transmigrated but had instead reincarnated.

The unawakened Aurelius and the awakened Aurelius were the same person.

This meant that all the feelings of the "original" Aurelius were his too.

His bond with Elena remained the same.

Exactly because of this, he was reluctant to leave Blood Sun City.

Unfortunately, he also knew full well that he had no other choice.

Now was his only opportunity to leave.

Once the truly powerful assassins arrived and began monitoring his movements, escaping would become many times more difficult.

Therefore, even though leaving his mother behind was difficult, Aurelius knew that hesitation would only make things worse.

--

Aurelius did not exit the city with his real identity.

Not long after leaving the Sol mansion, he purposely disguised himself as an ordinary young man.

Then, he easily passed through the city’s gates, entering the wilderness outside human civilization.

The moment he left the city behind him, Aurelius subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.

He wiped the faint sweat off his forehead.

’I didn’t expect that there were already so many people looking for me. It seems that my decision to leave as soon as possible was undoubtedly correct.’ He mumbled inwardly.

He had noticed several detection methods sweeping past him just now, trying to investigate his true identity.

From the fact that the city previously did not possess such methods, Aurelius strongly suspected that they did not belong to native Awakeners, but to the assassins targeting him.

Thankfully, his disguise capabilities were extraordinary, allowing him to conceal himself perfectly. Otherwise, he would have needed to clash with them before he could even leave the city.

Shaking his head, Aurelius no longer thought about it.

He glanced at the vast wilderness in front of him, which stretched endlessly into the distance, and for a moment, he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of freedom.

The happiness of being free and the sorrow of leaving one’s home clashed inside his mind, giving birth to a peculiar emotion.

He had spent a long time in Blood Sun City.

Although his feelings for it were not as deep as one would expect, he had still formed many connections there.

Now, he was leaving without knowing when he would return.

Suppressing these emotions, Aurelius took one last look at Blood Sun City before diving deeper into the wilderness.

--

Aurelius’ destination when leaving the city was none other than the capital in the south.

Yet if one were to observe his current route, they would discover that he was heading in the opposite direction, moving toward the north.

That was not because he had lost his way.

Rather, it was because he planned to deal with one last matter before leaving the northern border.

Aurelius raised his head and faced the vast forest before him.

Compared to the last time he had seen it, the Mana in the surroundings had dropped significantly, causing the monsters residing within it to panic.

Although the arrival of the Players before had curbed their momentum, it was obvious that it was only a matter of time before these monsters left the forest, creating a giant monster riot.

That was only the situation in the outskirts.

Aurelius knew that the truly powerful monsters near the center of the forest must be even more alarmed.

’Since I’m the person responsible for the destruction of the Dryad Forest, I should take the initiative to deal with the future trouble as well.’ Aurelius thought.

He didn’t trust that the Awakeners arriving in the city would take action to stop the monster riot. It was already good if they didn’t try to take advantage of it to force him out.

With that thought, Aurelius soon entered the forest and rushed straight into its depths.

--

Just as Aurelius suspected, the Rank 2 monsters residing in the Dryad Forest had long since noticed the decrease in the density of Mana.

At first, they believed it was the result of a natural phenomenon and did not really panic, believing everything would soon return to normal.

Yet as time passed and the " natural phenomenon" showed no signs of stopping, instead becoming even more serious, they realized that something was wrong.

With their intelligence, they understood the gravity of this matter very well.

Although they were usually unwilling to cooperate with one another, the sudden disappearance of Mana posed a threat to every monster living within the forest.

If things continued like this, they would eventually have no choice but to leave their territory.

Thus, they set aside their differences and hatred and decided to investigate the source of this change.

Upon arriving at the core area of the forest and discovering that the Undead Evil Spirits had disappeared, the monsters couldn’t help but have a bad feeling.

--

Aurelius’ speed was rapid, but his actions were equally ruthless.

Wherever he passed, the Arcane Domain would unfold, engulfing the area around him.

Then, his Spirit would stir and launch a Spirit Storm, targeting every monster that dared to block his way.

The gap between them was already massive.

Under the combination of these two abilities, even the most powerful Rank 1 monsters would drop dead a split second later, their souls shattered.

Aurelius paid them no heed.

He didn’t even stop to pick up their corpses. Instead, he continued moving toward the center of the forest.

What surprised him, however, was that he faced no obstruction.

Until he reached the center of the forest, no Rank 2 monster had appeared to stop him, despite him making no attempt to hide his aura.

For a moment, Aurelius became worried.

Could it be that the Rank 2 monsters had sensed something and had already run away?

If that was the case, he would have to exert considerable effort to track them down and kill them all.

Aurelius slowed down slightly, his expression becoming more serious.

Fortunately, his worries soon proved meaningless.

Not long after he entered the core area of the forest, he sensed several powerful auras gathered together.

Some of them were familiar, belonging to monsters he had encountered during his last venture into the forest. They were the ones who had been scared away by the Thief back then.

Others were auras he had never sensed before. Even so, from their ferocious momentum, it was clear that they belonged to monsters too.

In total, there were more than twenty powerful auras gathered there.

Seeing this, Aurelius’ expression became strange.

He nearly laughed out loud.

He had originally anticipated that he would have to spend some time in order to hunt down all these monsters, visiting their nests one by one.

Now, though, they had actually gathered together. It was almost as though they were waiting for him to come and kill them.

Aurelius couldn’t help but feel amused.

Since when were monsters so cooperative?