Sam had gone through a lot. His parents had all died at a young age, so he was left to fend for himself. But the world was cruel, and he was young. He would just steal some bread, or eat some food thrown in the trash to survive.

That was until he discovered martial arts cultivation.

Finding cultivation techniques was very difficult. Sometimes even if people find a technique, it may not be suitable for them, but they will cultivate it anyway as they don’t have a choice.

Sam was such a case.

One day as he was running away after stealing, he hid in some dark and quiet street.

However, this time, there were two martial arts cultivators fighting to the death. Sam didn’t know why but they clearly had some deep grudge and so they fought until only one of them was left. The other man spat on the corpse and left immediately, as he was weakened from the fight and didn’t want to get sneak attacked by anyone else.

Sam therefore approached the corpse and looted it, finding more money than he knew what to do with. But more than that, his biggest gain was finding a martial arts cultivation technique.

With this, he knew his life could change.

So, he bore through the pain and cultivated it like a lunatic, eventually reaching the tempered body. This gave him strength that people respected, allowing him to do better jobs and earn more money.

It was at this point in his life when he met Nala, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. It was love at first sight for him, and Nala was equally interested. They had many things in common and shared many wonderful times together.

But all good things must come to an end.

She was sold as a slave in a fit of rage by Henry for a trivial mistake.

He had worked with Astoria to get revenge, but then Astoria was kidnapped.

And now, after coming to Jain village, he finally saved her.

Or at least what was left of her.

As it turned it out, Nala was indeed still alive and was still a slave. He found out that she was bought in an auction by some random man. Sam offered him a large sum of money to buy the girl off her. The man was interested, but he could tell that this was an opportunity to make a fortune so he kept increasing the price to an exorbitant amount, more than what Sam could afford.

Helpless, he could only turn back to the Reynards. Hearing this Drake was extremely furious. He hated the concept of slavery anyway, so he came to see this man. Upon suddenly seeing master Drake appear at his doorstep the man was terrified!

He immediately offered to give the girl free of charge, knowing that he had chosen to mess with the wrong person. Drake scoffed in disdain at this man, but he nevertheless accepted and asked him to bring Nala out.

But what they saw was beyond their expectation.

Nala had been beaten and abused in so many ways for his sick sense of gratification. Her mental state was completely shattered, and she did not speak at all.

No matter what they did or said, she would not respond. Seeing this Sam was furious and was about to beat the man to a pulp but was stopped by Drake.

Sam was an outsider so if he hit a member of Jain village, others would not take kindly to it and will try to seek trouble with Sam.

As for Drake, he could indeed try to take revenge for her and beat that man up, however, how could he? This was the world he lived in now. The man had done nothing wrong in the eyes of everyone. In fact, if she wasn’t related to Sam, Sam himself wouldn’t care at all about what happened to her.

If Drake, the son of the village head, decided to use his position of power to attack a common man for doing ‘nothing wrong’ that would reflect extremely badly upon Holt and everyone else in his family.

Because of this moment of rage, everyone would start thinking that Holt and his family are corrupt. This would in turn affect his father’s life.

Drake couldn’t do that.

As a result, he shot the man a cold gaze and left quietly with Sam.

He may not be able to do anything directly but that didn’t mean he would just let him go.

So, after leaving Sam and the girl alone in their room, Drake sent a servant to find out where that man worked and bribed his boss to fire him. The servant was also tasked with keeping tabs on that man and made sure that whenever he applied for any job, except a select few, extremely horrible and low paid jobs, he would not get it.

Those that could find out behind the scenes information such as the village elders, would not actually be able to prove Drake did anything. Even if they could, they wouldn’t bother to ruin their relationship with him in exchange for protecting some random man.

However, at the same time everyone would realise how much Drake hated slavery.

His family had always known that Drake protested having slaves. But they obviously couldn’t stop just because he said so.

Despite this, Drake tired his best to often feed the slaves good food and treat them with kindness, and even buy and release them whenever he could. This way then, those people would hesitate slightly before buying slaves. After all Drake had the identity of a mage and would become an extremely important person in the future so they wouldn’t want to risk doing anything that Drake would be displeased with.

At the same time, they would also realise that offending Drake, and largely the Reynards, would not go without consequences and so they will be less likely to try and plot against them in the future.

Overall, then, this would improve his and his father’s image slightly in the eyes of elders.

This was how this world’s politics worked, which Drake knew very well.

As for that man, he ended up working for an extremely low salary in a farm doing the worst kinds of jobs under a horrible boss. He had barely enough money to buy food every day.

But that was all for later.

Sam was seeing Nala lying down pathetically.

Eventually, Holt arrived at the scene. He didn’t have high hopes for Nala. He knew how pitiful the lives of slaves were. They could even be killed in a moment of rage and the master would go unpunished. So, he wasn’t too surprised at her condition.

Holt knew healing magic, so he came to help her. He summoned his healing fairy and started healing her wounds. As a warrior mage, his summon would be more powerful than Drake’s, hence he asked his father to come along.

Soon her body was completely recovered.

“This is all I can do,” he said shaking his head. “I have healed her body but her mind, it is unknown when it will recover… if at all.”

“I understand,” Sam said solemnly. “Don’t worry, I don’t intend to go back on my promise.”

Holt sighed gratefully.

“Thank you, I will definitely not forget this favour.”

But Sam didn’t reply, he was holding onto Nala’s hand and reminiscing about some distant memories. Holt decided to leave them alone and returned to his mansion. After some time, Sam appeared.

“I am ready,” he said. “But I have one more condition.”

“Speak,” Holt replied. He already knew what he was going to ask.

“In case I don’t make it through this, I need you take care of Nala for me.”

“Of course, that is only natural. She will be treated with the utmost care; you have nothing to worry about.”

Sam sighed. “Then what do I need to do?”

…

“Quickly run!” Zhao screamed as he led the way.

They were being chased by several dozen blood bats!

These bats were three foot in size. Despite their name, their colour was a brownish green which allowed them to camouflage into the forest. Their fangs were several inches large and extremely sharp and poisonous. They also spat out toxic venom that could shoot out a meter forward.

Worst of all was their blood thirsty nature. Once they set their eyes on a target, they would not easily let go. Since they could fly, they had the advantage in movement, allowing them to easily give chase. If it was only one or two, the group would fight but against several dozen, including a few warrior class blood bats, their chances were slim. There was no need to engage in a death battle here when they hadn’t even reached their goal yet.

“If we go forward a bit more, we can reach the territory of the commander class azure lion. The lion is currently away from its home so we can enter it. However, the bats will be hesitant after sensing its residual aura and stay away. Once they’re gone, we can retreat before the lion comes back.” The investigative elf spoke.

“Keep it together everyone, we’re almost there!” Elwin screamed.

The group rushed with all their strength. Occasionally, one of them would throw a few attacks at the blood bats but the bats easily dodged them all.

They eventually came to the azure lion’s lair. This was a commander class demon and was far more dangerous than the blood bat group. If it was still in its lair, the group wouldn’t dare to approach it at all, let alone when they were so exhausted.

Luckily, the blood bats were not intelligent so after sensing the lion’s aura that marked its territory, they retreated.

The group panted for breath.

They tried their best to be discreet, but two bats were still alerted to their presence. They engaged in a small skirmish which attracted even more bats. Helpless, they could only retreat while fighting against them. Eventually the group of bats chasing them reached a dozen, and then several dozen, but they managed to create some space between them and ran at full speed, finally reaching here.

Everyone was weakened, the healing elf went around to treat people’s wounds.

He stopped before Zhao and sighed helplessly, “I can treat physical wounds, but I don’t know any summons that can treat poison. Your arm is already deeply affected by the poison. To prevent it from spreading further, I can only suggest amputation.”

Zhao heard this but didn’t show any change in expression. He laid his poisoned arm on a rock, took out a sword and gave it to the elf. The elf was amazed at his resolve but took the sword with a sigh.

Then, with one swing, he chopped his arm off.

He didn’t even scream as if he couldn’t feel pain. Everyone was surprised at this determination but immediately worked to seal the wound and stop the bleeding.

Brain was cursing himself.

He had been careless, and a blood bat was about to strike him. If it landed, he would have surely died. But at the crucial moment, Zhao took a risk and pushed Brain out of the way, however, his hand was bit by the bat giving him this wound.

He felt terrible!

This was all his fault.

But he was also a very experienced person, and knew these things were common during dangerous missions like this. People often made mistakes and there was nothing one could do about it.

He told himself that he would pay back this favour if given the chance and calmed himself.

Zhao had suffered the most severe injury so far. But the others were suffering in other ways.

Elwin and Jin were at the front lines and were getting injured constantly. If not for the healing mage, they would have succumbed to their injuries long ago. Elwin’s main sword broke a while back and he was using the sword made by Drake. Though he had practised with it before, he was still surprised at how light and sharp it was, easily able to pierce through anything. Yet it was still extremely durable, even more so than his original sword.

Jin was working closely with him and also had to swap out weapons several times. He was intrigued at seeing Elwin’s weapon and asked him about it. After hearing about his brother, Jin decided that he would remember Drake’s name.

Others were also injured and many of their weapons were broken, and their supplies were dwindling. That tall thin swordsman had an eye injury that stopped him from being able to see temporarily. Luckily, it could still be treated but it would require more advanced magic than the elf could use.

So, if he survived this battle, once that man returned to his village, he would have to request Myra for her help in healing him.

The elves’ magic was extremely useful to everyone.

“We’re almost there everyone, let’s keep going,” Elwin spoke up after some time. Everyone nodded.

Just as they were leaving however, a roar sounded out from behind.

“It’s the azure lion!” they gasped, looking towards the investigative elf.

The elf himself was confused, he naturally had more methods than just the bird but none of them detected the lion.

How was this possible? But there was no time to investigate.

The group started running again.

Though they recovered somewhat, they couldn’t engage a commander class demon.

…

A week later, back in the Jain village.

Sam was placed at the centre of a large inscription that was placed on the ground. The inscription was made of various different runes which Drake did not understand.

He was in extreme agony as the spell reversal began.

Drake looked on with a complex gaze. He had no longer been able to cultivate while being worried about Astoria. So, he decided to use this opportunity to observe the only grand mage he knew of in action.

However, the method to remove the spell surprised him.

“Dark methods can only be most effectively countered with dark methods,” she replied. “The creature embedded in his throat is linked to Astoria’s blood. So, we will need her blood, or the blood of her closest kind. The problem is…” She hesitated for a second before continuing.

“The creature exists by sucking on the boy’s life force. Eventually it will kill him, thereby losing the source of its life and dying alongside him. If we want to draw the creature out, we will need to provide an even stronger life force outside its body to draw its attention. Mixed with the blood of kin, the creature is likely to get attracted and leave the host. However, if it fails, the creature will get very agitated by the changes to its surroundings and its survival instincts will kick in, making it suck the boy’s life force at an exponentially faster rate and kill him.”

This was her analysis. It made sense, they had to provide the creature with strong life force on the outside. How could they do that? To provide life force, they would need a source.

Humans. But can they just sacrifice any old humans?

Of course not. That’s why slaves existed.

Kneeling around Sam were twenty slaves in a circular formation.

They were all completely stripped leaving only their bodies from which their life force was steadily drawn out. This was tricky because as their life force was drawn out, they would of course begin to die, so the life force on the outside is also mixed with death energy whereas inside Sam, there is only a pure life force.

That’s why they decided to make up for quality with quantity, sacrificing a whole twenty human slaves in the process.

Drake was appalled to hear this method, but what could he say?

If he had to choose between Astoria or these twenty people that he didn’t know, how could he possibly give up on Astoria? She had only ended up in this position because she wanted to help him.

If he told everyone that he didn’t want to sacrifice the slaves to save his sister, wouldn’t they think he was insane? Ungrateful? Stupid?

In all his life, Drake never thought he would be in this situation.

So, he just remained silent and let everyone else decide. No one asked for his opinion as everyone knew Drake’s thoughts about slaves. They understood that Drake had left this choice up to them. No one else had any objections of course.

The only problem was that this was a dark ritual, and if others found out that it was being used, it would severely ruin the reputation of their family and Myra. That was why Myra hesitated. Everyone that knew of this task, Drake, Hazezel, Sam, Ray, Holt, and Myra all swore to keep it a secret. All their interests were involved so no one would go and ruin their own reputation.

At this moment, surrounding the spell inscriptions were various insect shaped mana spirits that were powering up the spell. They were all summoned by Myra while she also poured her own mana inside.

Drake and Ray also helped.

The spell was nearing its completion and from the bottom of Ray’s throat, a black leech started appearing. It slowly crawled out, testing its surroundings for danger. After confirming that everything was okay, it wiggled excitedly and left Sam’s body.

The three mages controlled the density of life force inside to form a path with steadily increasing a gradient of mana. The leech followed the path until it reached the body of a slave. The slave was injected with Hazezel’s blood who had the closest blood tie to Astoria, and that slave’s life force was the greatest and so it burrowed in.

“Now!” Myra screamed. They immediately stopped the spell and the life force of the surroundings dissipated. Now the leech will not want to leave the slave’s body anymore.

The spell had succeeded!

Myra walked towards Sam and sighed loudly.

“Is he okay?” Drake asked.

“Yes, he is fine. However, this was not an easy victory. Before the leech left, it sucked away twenty years of his lifespan.”

Drake was stunned. Twenty years? That’s crazy!

Drake was extremely grateful towards Sam.

This stranger had helped his family so much, he didn’t understand why but he was very grateful.

Sam was unconscious. Ray had informed the others about the spell successfully completing and they were overjoyed. Holt came rushing in and ordered people to gently carry Sam away.

As for the slaves, more than half of them were dead. The remaining had many decades sucked out of their lifespan. Due to their lifestyle, slaves had very weak life force anyway, so the spell had to suck out a lot for it to succeed.

Drake was sucking out their life force for the spell to succeed. He was very ashamed of himself.

Myra walked towards the slave that was now the host of the leech and looked at him curiously. The slave had woken up when the leech entered his body and was looking around dumbfounded at having survived that ordeal. Upon seeing Myra, he immediately grovelled on the ground.

Myra looked at him expressionlessly, but her eyes carried excitement.

Myra had demanded a lot of compensation for doing this spell by risking her reputation.

This involved lots of gold, precious materials, and other objects. One of which was the leech spirit itself. Holt had to helplessly agree to all her demands. She had the complete upper hand in this transaction, so he couldn’t do anything.

At the same time, he was happy that he now had the recipe of the Zenith pill. With this, his village could easily become stronger and recover this loss. He was glad that his son had the foresight to not carelessly reveal this information to Ray, else Myra would have asked for the pill formula as well.

“Follow me,” she said to the slave.

He didn’t know that he had already been sold to another village, but he could only do as he was told and stood up to follow her. But he had just lost a lot of his life span and endured a great deal of pain. As a result, he suddenly felt extremely dizzy and fell. He would have landed on Myra herself but was pushed aside by one of her female attendants who had entered with the rest.

“You filthy scum! How dare you try to lay your hands on lady Myra!” she spat and kicked him brutally until he spat out blood. Myra and the rest walked away as if it was nothing and Drake was also helpless as he left the room, trying to ignore the cries of the slave.

With her task complete, Myra soon left, happy at having made quite a fortune.

After a day of rest, Sam woke up and told the Reynard’s everything from how he met Astoria, to how she was kidnapped.

They were all dumbfounded. Not only at her bravery and but also because they were unable to believe that the girl who was always so sweet and caring could come up with such a plan and execute it perfectly.

By this time, information that Henry was a traitor to the Leon village and was exiled had already reached the ears of the likes of Holt and his family. They originally thought that Astoria somehow coerced Henry into selling the recipe, but to think that she so perfectly framed him!

It was absolutely genius!

Holt laughed happily, “She is my daughter after all, she cannot be underestimated!”

“Indeed,” Hazezel said. However, Drake was feeling complex.

He was more empathetic towards others, especially coming from Earth where the societal norms were completely different. He imagined himself in Henry’s shoes, and how horrible it would be to get framed. Though Henry was responsible for ruining Nala’s life and by extension, also Sam, in the eyes of most people, what Henry did wasn’t too bad. It was an accepted demeanour of nobility in this world.

Although Drake didn’t think that was acceptable, he also didn’t know if it meant that he should suffer such fate of being blamed by the whole world for a crime he didn’t commit. Disowned by his own father, losing his status, and exiled from his home to survive God knows where.

It was unthinkable to him.

‘Maybe this is what they call karma,’ he thought.

Henry ruined one person’s life, and so his life was ruined by Astoria, who was then kidnapped by someone else.

They also understood why Sam was so grateful to Astoria and wanted to help her so much. But what no one understood was just who those grand mages were. They couldn’t be natives, as if such grand mages existed before, everyone would know about it. They had to have come from the outside, but why?

They must be plotting something! Considering the timing of their appearance with that of the chaos in Beast Woods, could they have something to do with this?

Holt thought this and subconsciously looked towards the woods, ‘son, please be safe.’

The Jain village also started mass producing the Zenith pills and it was an immense help to Drake.

When Ray heard of this, he was inwardly furious that he had been kept in the dark for so long! However, he calmed down after sometime, realising that he would have done the same in their position and decided not to hold it against them.

At the same time, Myra was hearing a report from a guard with a dark expression.

‘Holt… To think that you hid such a big secret from me. Hehe, not bad!’ she smiled.

…

One week before, back in the Beast woods.

The group had finally managed to escape from the azure lion, but it wasn’t easy. They had to engage in several short fights that injured many people before they started running again. Finally, the burly man wielding a mace had volunteered to hold back the demon to buy everyone time.

Jin Tong wanted to refuse but the tall thin man nodded in confirmation. They didn’t have time to argue as everyone else rushed out.

That man was obviously no match for the demon. He was just sacrificing himself to do his duty of protecting Jin Tong.

They could hear the echoes of their fight for a while before everything quietened down. No one spoke, but they were secretly glad that it wasn’t them who had to be sacrificed.

Everyone except Jin Tong and the tall swordsman.

Soon however, the sounds of chasing arrived again, and everyone’s faces were ashen. Was their comrade’s sacrifice in vain? However, these sounds soon decreased and eventually came to a stop. Clearly, the demon had finally given up.

The group was now panting for breath. They were exhausted physically and mentally. Their supplies were gone, armours were overused, and even their spare equipment were all getting damaged.

At this rate, it would be a nightmare to make it back!

However, they were also happy. Because now, they had finally reached their goal! This was the start of the region marked in the map by Myra.

They rested in a hidden area while some people stood guard and the investigative elf was scouting around. After some time, he reacted as if he found something unbelievable.

“What’s wrong?” Zhao asked.

“It’s so strange. In the nearby area, for at least half a kilometre, there is not a single demon around!”

“What?” everyone gasped.

“But my investigative methods aren’t perfect. If there are demons much stronger than my spirits, they would not detect it.”

The group was silent as they remembered the sudden appearance of the azure lion. It would be terrible if they got ambushed again.

“However, I found a spot, about a quarter of an hour walk away, where there is a cabin.”

“A cabin?” Elwin asked confused.

“Yes. And from the looks of it, it is not an abandoned one.”

Everyone’s expression darkened. This was a group made of the finest warriors in each of their village combined. Yet even they were having such a hard time in this forest. Why was there a cabin here? How could there be anyone living in it? And why were there no demons around?

This was all too strange. There was no doubt that they would find some answers in that cabin.

They had to go there.

However, someone who could live in this deadly zone would not be a simple character. Not to mention that there are no demons around, which suggests that they might have fled from their presence. Who could cause such a reaction in these demons?

Could it be a legendary mage king?

Everyone gulped. That was impossible.

They rested for a while before heading for the cabin. Elwin and Jin lead the way but were now only protected by Zhao. Zhao obviously had a bias towards protecting Elwin, but Jin couldn’t complain.

Soon the group arrived at the cabin. It was a small wooden construction with just two floors and little maintenance. However, there were footprints leading into and out of the house, suggesting that it was recently used.

The group cautiously opened the door.

It was surprisingly unlocked, but after thinking about it, it wasn’t too surprising. The owner might have thought that no one would be willing to come all this way.

The group entered a dark room lit by a few candles. The floor and walls were clean and there were several pieces of furniture lying around.

“We’ll split up to quickly scout this place and meet back here,” Elwin commanded. They all agreed, and naturally split according to their village. The elves search the top floor, Jin and the tall swordsman searched this ground floor, while Elwin, Zhao, and Brain went to the basement.

It was extremely dark; the stray candle rays were unable to penetrate this deep. However, they had all been through many life and death battles, so they wouldn’t be scared by a little darkness.

After a while, Zhao took out a lantern and lit it up before leading the way.

The basement was quite large, however, when they reached the end, they were all completely in shock.

Nailed to a cross was the delicate body of a woman.

It was Astoria!