The Rise of the Black Plain

It was sunny in the city of Hadia right now. Not a single cloud was in the sky above this place.

It was a little hot at the moment, but not uncomfortable. Just that heat that makes you feel energized at the start of the day.

And while the population of the city of Hadia continued their daily affairs, in the midst of this common climate of this region, on the east side of the town, at one of the entrances, there was a group of carriages approaching from there.

Seeing a group of two carriages arriving in the city together, the local guards who guarded that place were not even interested in it, as they saw part of the group of Minos entering the town.

Not all cities in the Spiritual World had an entry/exit post, as in the Dry City. After all, not all rulers were interested in knowing exactly who enters and leaves their territories.

As in the case of Hadia, many criminals came and went through the streets of this town, so it would make no sense to have a barrier of entry, which checks the background of each visitor...

If even criminals could come and go, who would they prevent from entering the city?

One would think that the defenders of order and justice would come to destroy places like this. But that would be naive. There were no heroes in the Spiritual World. And surely, no one would dedicate his life just to help others without receiving anything in return.

Even families like that of the young Davy even helped the standard population, as long as it didn't harm them in any way...

Minos was like that too, he was against slavery, but would he fight this system without gaining anything in return? No.

And with such a reality, cities where there  housed Black Market branches generally did not limit people's entry into those territories. There was no need. It would be a waste of resources!

But of course, there was surveillance and local forces that protected this place. But this only served to maintain order and keep a minimum level of information about what was happening locally.

Those local guards who were there, at the most, would take note of the strength and the amount of people who were entering and leaving that city. And precisely because of that, Minos had divided his group so that they wouldn't attract too much attention when entering this place.

If he entered the city with too many people at once, as Kevin had done when leaving this place, he would end up attracting the attention of the local leaders. And that would be dangerous for him, who wanted to hide his strength for the time being!

And as for groups of small ones, like those that formed with the subdivision done by the young Stuart, it was widespread for groups like that to enter and leave Hadia.

Because of this, Minos had quietly entered this city, without drawing any attention from the local forces who watched and the entrances to this place, where the Black Market was located.

After this, he immediately gave his orders to what soldiers had to do here. All of them had to go out through the city of Hadia and find the 16 Sergeants who should have been around by now so that they would receive whatever information had been gathered in the meantime.

They had a deadline to do this until tomorrow when they could meet at a pre-arranged location on a secluded side of Hadia.

Minos didn't know this place, but luckily his friend Abby's bodyguard had come along with the group. Eda had been through this town before, so she knew how best the young Stuart should behave around here.

In the old part of town, where most of the criminals were, was the best place for them to gather without attracting attention. After all, entire bands of pirates and bandits passed through those places, so it wouldn't be so strange if more than 40 people did the same there.

Anyway, the blue sky of the city of Hadia was starting to lose its splendor as night slowly began to fall.

The movement of the city continued at full steam, at the same time in which the soldiers of Minos spread there, starting the missions passed by the young Stuart.

At this time, Minos had only stayed with the two women of the Miller family while they were looking for a hotel to spend the night in this city.

Traveling by carriage was not pleasant, especially when one had to do it in a hurry, without much time to stop and rest during the journey.

And as much as they didn't get so tired, the physical tiredness wasn't the only one that existed on their respective levels. The mind played as important a role as the body, needing rest from time to time.

Hence, even powerful cultivators didn't stop doing things like sleeping, having fun, eating, having sex, etc., whenever they had time to spare. All of this could relax everyday stress and help people on their cultivation journeys.

As they walked towards the place where they would be staying, Minos then looked at the blue-haired girl who was beside him and then said, looking into her eyes. "Abby, when we go to attack the pirate group that kidnapped Peter, I want you and madam Eda not to get involved and just watch."

He had already talked about many things regarding this rescue mission with Abby, including the fact that he believed Peter would no longer be around.

And because of that, Minos believed that when he arrived here in Hadia, the first thing to do would be to eliminate those individuals from Del's group.

It would certainly be easier to find information about a pirate group than the noble family who might have bought the young Peter.

Therefore, while solving the mystery of the young Sergeant's location, Minos intended to take care of that other matter.

Abby then looked at Minos with interest and nodded. She knew that this friend of hers probably wanted to demonstrate his power to the two of them since he had already made that offer before.

And as much as Abby was curious about the strength of Minos' soldiers and wanted to see it, she didn't have high expectations. She had already said that she wanted to help before, but since he was asking her not to do this, the Miller girl could stop Eda from acting, at least until the army soldiers had problems...

...

While things were developing in the city of Hadia, in another part of the Cromwell Kingdom, Kevin's group was almost reaching the base of the Chambers family, which was in this region.

If anyone looked at the state of the young Kevin's group right now, they would have an impression on their minds, which was misery.

When examined closely, the guards escorting that young man's group's carriages were dressed in mud-stained clothes, had pale faces, bruises of varying severity, and dark circles under their eyes.

They had constantly been fighting in recent days, either with spiritual beasts who had caused them problems or with some of their previous persecutors.

Because of this, these people had barely had time to rest, having run as fast as they could when they weren't fighting, so they could get to that base as soon as possible.

As for the captives being carried in those cells attached to the carriages, they were the same as before.

In these past days, they hadn't faced anything problematic other than not being fed. But that each one of them had already got used to, from the time when they had been in the hands of pirates or bandits, before being transferred to the Black Market.

As for the beatings they got from time to time, well, Kevin and his group didn't have time to think about doing such a thing. They were on the run to get to the Chambers family's base, so there was no time to make life miserable for these captives.

And for these people, they had been delighted to see Kevin's team having so much trouble. Even if they didn't have much hope of being saved, it was nice to see a damn person like Kevin not having peace, not even to rest!

Anyway, at that moment, Kevin was sitting inside his carriage, with an unfriendly appearance on his face. He hadn't thought it would be so challenging to have something like the Spring of Life in his hands.

In fact, he almost regretted buying it, as he didn't really care how long the old man's life would be if he drank this liquid.

Could this be beneficial to Kevin's morale? Yes, but was that crucial, to the point where Kevin had to go through all this trouble? Nope!

Because of this, the young master of the Chambers family felt quite uncomfortable at this point.

'That bitch even attacked me twice!' He thought to himself as he ran a hand over a scar on his face.

Vivian had attacked him by surprise during one of the fights, leaving a notable mark on this young man's face. In fact, he had almost died from it, but luckily for him, that young woman's attack had missed!

"One day, I will enslave that bitch!" He muttered, feeling intense anger towards Vivian. Unfortunately, the scar she had left on him could not be undone with standard resources. Most likely, Kevin would only regain his noble appearance after reaching level 50!

But that would still take years for him, and for someone as full of himself as Kevin, it would be tough to have to live with part of his face disfigured...