Immediately, Tilon pulled the shield from his back, placing it in front of him with a large grunting sound.
“I don’t think talking is really an option. The one thing we need to do is to make sure that the Dark Magus is protected, and his current state is a secret!” Tilon declared.
“It looks like I have received my answer!” Amir stated, pushing off one foot from his position. A giant wave of sand exploded behind him.
It looked like the sea of sand was being split in half. When he got in position, he lifted his foot forward and stuck it out like a spear, hardened and encased in Qi. The attack shot straight ahead, hitting the shield with force.
‘Argh, there’s so much power and force, is this person really a stage 8 warrior? Is it possible that they could be a stage 9!’ Tilon was using his own Qi to push back, but his whole body still slid right across the sand.
He needed to be ready for a follow-up attack, but that was when Lilly came in with her spear. She spun it in a circle in the air before thrusting it forward.
The Qi lingered, creating a visual circle that pushed forward along with the tip of the spear.
Seeing this, Amir lifted his leg up high, to the point where the tip of his foot was right next to his face. He then slammed it down, slicing through the visual Qi and landing on the tip of the weapon, causing Lilly’s spear point to hit the floor.
“Shield rush!” Tilon shouted as he came from the side and bashed Amir right off Lilly’s spear tip.
Amir stumbled but quickly started to do somersaults in the air and landed back on his two feet, with his hands behind his back standing there.
“Be careful, Lilly, this guy, he’s incredibly strong,” Tilon commented.
With the two of them, they thought if they had come across someone at the same strength as Feebie, that they would be able to make do, but it didn’t seem to be the case at all.
“It looks like you were wrong about your guess from before as well. It wasn’t a small group, but just a single man that dealt with all of that,” Lilly replied.
“So what do you suggest we do?” Tilon asked. “If the situation was too tough, we were asked to head back.”
Lilly, with her spear in her hand, started to spin it rapidly. It was blowing the sand all over the place, and the spear itself was lighting up as well.
“The thing is, I don’t think he’s just going to let us go!” Lilly shouted as she slammed her spear on the floor.
The attack shot out, and even though Amir was over ten meters away, the attack sent a surge of energy his way.
Amir moved to the side, jumping out of the way of the attack, and jumped from side to side. It was hard for the two of them to follow with their eyes.
“You guys are pretty strong; you’re not just some low-rate middle-stage warriors!” Amir exclaimed as he finally went for the attack, sending out a kick.
Tilon blocked it with his shield, and Lilly thrust her spear forward.
The spear was kicked out of the way as Amir’s leg was just as strong, or if not stronger than the spear itself. When going in for an attack on Lilly, though, Tilon was there with his shield blocking each attack one after the other.
The two of them were doing just enough to hold back Amir, but there was a clear difference in facial expressions between the two.
While Tilon and Lilly were struggling with what was going on, Amir looked calm. They were being pushed back, and it was obvious who would get worn out first.
“I need to break this stalemate!” Tilon shouted as he placed the shield underneath his feet and then jumped on it.
The shield slammed into the floor, creating a large field of sand to be kicked up.
“Lilly, get out of here and call the others for help; I’ll hold him back for as long as possible!” Tilon shouted.
Usually, she would argue, but she knew it would be pointless, and Tilon’s sacrifice would be in vain if she were to do such a thing.
So she decided to rush off, running as fast as she could. She even placed her spear on the ground and then vaulted herself forward a large distance across the sand.
When the dust finally settled, Tilon was there looking at Amir, who was still standing in his confident state.
“Who are you? You’re not one of the Clan Heads, are you? How are you so strong?” Tilon asked.
Amir smiled in response.
“I could ask you the same thing. I know every Clan Head, and those that might be able to give me trouble in the Dark Faction, and yet I don’t recognize you or your friend.”
“Anyway, it’s interesting to know that there are others.”
“Well, a word of advice.” Tilon kicked the edge of his shield, lifting it in the air, and he caught it, bracing his shoulder against it. “You should finish me off before they arrive; otherwise, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”
Amir then jumped back, and as he did, he continued on until he was standing in front of the portal. He wasn’t directly in front of the portal, but still around fifty meters in front of it.
“Me attack you? No, it’s fine; go ahead and follow that girl, go to the others, and bring back your friends, however many of them there are.”
“This is the reason why I’m here in the first place. I want to see who is exactly here and why,” Amir stated.
The distance between the two was large; if Tilon ran now, it would be hard for the other to catch up. It seemed as if the stranger’s offer was a serious one, but why?
A feeling of dread was felt inside Tilon’s body.
Was he so confident that he believed he could take down the whole Crimson Crane members on his own?
“Who are you?” Tilon shouted.
Chapter 419 Information on DM
Back in the city of Repton, in the three-tiered red-roofed restaurant, a staff worker dressed in cloth had decided to pay one of the VIP rooms on the second floor a visit.
“This rowdy bunch, they usually are making a new order every thirty minutes until around 2 in the morning!” the woman claimed, standing just outside the sliding doors.
“It’s been well over an hour since they’ve ordered anything. I wonder if something happened. I better check up on them; they do tend to leave quite a bit of coin behind,” she grinned on her face.
“Excuse me, but I was just wondering if you would like some extra snacks or beverages,” the woman asked after giving a polite knock, but there was no answer at the door.
She knocked again, but still, there was no answer, and that’s when she started to find the whole thing a little strange.
There was no loud noise coming from the other side, no slamming tables, or foul language being used as the group cursed each other.
“They couldn’t have slipped out, right? I would have seen them exiting, and they’ve never left without paying the bill before.”
The woman’s name was Shirley, and in the VIP rooms, they had their own dedicated server. Shirley had been serving them for some time now, and recently she had been paying extra attention to them. That was why she found the whole thing odd. In the end, she had decided to slide the door open herself, and her eyes were met with a room filled with no life at all.
“They’re gone, they’re all gone!” Shirley almost screamed. The drinks weren’t empty, and there were still snacks out on the table. There was also no sign of a forced exit of sorts, which made her wonder how they had even disappeared.
Quickly, she went to talk to the other workers, asking if they had seen any of the Crimson Crane, but not a single one of them had seen a thing.
“Is this going to come out of my pay?” Shirley started to nervously think, but before that, she thought that there was something else she needed to do.
Heading downstairs to the main dining area that was filled with a number of tables, she went to the corner of the room where there was a man sitting on a table on his own.
He only had one dish in front of him that looked to be untouched and one drink as well. When she arrived, she quickly knelt down and whispered into his ear.
“That certainly is odd,” the man said. “I will contact the others and see if they know anything, but I’ve been keeping an eye on the exit; they can’t have just disappeared.”
Some time had passed since the Crimson Crane had been missing, and after a search had started across the city, the news had eventually reached a certain person’s ears who went far and wide.
In the tallest tower in Repton, there was a man, in his extravagant silk clothing, sitting in his chair with his view of the city.
“So you’re telling me the Crimson Crane just vanished like that!” Bubble commented.
“Yes, sir, we had been keeping an eye on them like you suggested, and they have been staying in the city and had gathered just recently, but now all of them are gone, and not a single person has seen them.”
Bubble was thinking; it all seemed strange. Why did the Crimson Crane gather in Repton and do nothing? What Bubble was interested in was the new member, the Demon that had taken down the Behemoth Clan and the Dark Magus.
He wanted to know if the two were the same, and so many people wanted to know about the Dark Magus. So what better way than to keep an eye out on the people that knew him.
“There are reports that a young man with white hair had visited them just before, but it appears that they are missing as well.”
It was quite clear that they had no information at all. In the middle of his thoughts, Bubble and his worker could hear a commotion going on outside.
The sound of loud grunting and destruction going on in his building. Just as Bubble stood up to try and find out what it was, his doors were burst open.
They had broken off their hinges and slammed into the side of the wall.
“Gentlemen, is there really a need for such an entrance,” Bubble said, holding up his hands by his face, worried that he was going to be attacked at any moment.
Bubble, with his wealth, had hired some strong wanderers outside to protect him, and now looking at the doorway that led outside, they had all been defeated.
Now standing there instead were two men, dressed in thick clothing, one with a dignified beard covering his face, looking relatively old.
It was the same for the man next to him. They were dressed quite oddly with their boots and trousers, and both of them were even wearing a shirt.
The whole thing looked quite uncomfortable, and what was even more worrying for Bubble was he didn’t even know who these people were.
Surely, someone strong enough to take out his hired guards he would know, yet they were unrecognizable.
“We have a request. We have been told that you are the one that knows the most information in this world, which is why we are here to ask about the Dark Magus!” the old man with ash-
gray hair asked.
“I can tell that rejection is not an answer by how crudely you dealt with my guards,” Bubble said, still in a relatively calm manner.
“But if you wished, you should have simply just asked me. You see, I am not one to keep information. I gain my wealth by spreading it. What you know about the Dark Magus is what I know.
“Everything is in the reports I have given. I am afraid I might have disappointed you.”
The one thing Bubble didn’t want to happen was for these two to force their hand on him, to try and get information.
But what he was telling was the honest truth. “It seems we have made a mistake then,” the gray-haired man said, looking at his partner.
As quickly as they had come in, they were quickly going to leave. Bubble found it surprising that they would believe him just like that.
“Could I ask you a question?” Bubble called out.
His worker by his side stared at him with his large eyes, thinking he must have been a madman. The people who had just killed all of their guards were leaving, so why call out to them?
“From your actions, if you are looking for the Dark Magus, do you plan to recruit him, or get rid of him?”
“If you knew the answer to that, then we would have to kill you,” the man replied.
“Well, I must say then, you have a lot of competition. A lot of people are looking to do both; you aren’t the only one, and you aren’t the only ones that have requested information about the Dark Magus from me.”
Chapter 420 Every one want’s the Dark Magus
Bubble and his workers had checked the whole tower to see what damage had been left. Nearly every guard looked to have been dealt with swiftly.
There was next to no damage at all done to the tower. Which was strange because for one to be able to finish off another so easily, it meant there needed to be a large difference in power between the two.
What Bubble did find out through his investigation was the fact that quite a few people from the tower as well as his other means of work had been asked the same questions.
They had even paid his factories where he would print the newspapers out to spread across the town and city, asking them the same thing, for information on the Dark Magus.
Finally, after a tiring few hours of trying to get things back to normal, Bubble had returned to his seat.
“The Crimson Crane missing, several mysterious groups asking me about the Dark Magus, but at least with the other groups, I knew who they were, those two old men, I had no idea who they were!” Bubble complained.
“Based on their power, do you think they might have come from a different realm?” Charles, one of Bubble’s closest assistants, asked.
“You mean, those two, you think they were Divine stage beings?” Bubble scratched his head. “We would have to look into it if they were.”
“But then that begs the question right, why would Divine stage beings be looking for the Dark Magus? Is there some fight going on above?”
“Have they realized that the items he creates will even help them? Or maybe they just see large potential and are trying to get a head start.”
Thinking about it more, if Bubble wanted to look into it, he would have to try and find out about the Divine beings that had transcended into the upper realm recently.
However, recently for something like that could be several hundreds of years. As it took a long time for one to reach the Divine Stage.
“The Dark Magus, the Dark Magus, everyone wants to know about the Dark Magus, heck even I want to know about the Dark Magus, who is he!” Bubble shouted.
At that moment, the doors, which had just been fixed, were slammed open again. They didn’t quite come off their hinges, but they did hit the wall.
“Tell me what you know about the Dark Magus!” a voice immediately said.
To which Bubble just slapped his head and dragged his hands until his eyes nearly fell out. However, ignoring the request, he started to look at the person.
This time, the visitor was someone that he did know. “Rayna, from the Neverfall Clan, what are you doing here?”
“I believe I already made that clear, I want to know what you know about the Dark Magus,” Rayna asked.
“Look,” Bubble sighed. “I only know what I’ve already published, that and the fact that the Crimson Crane is currently missing somewhere.”
“The Crimson Crane is missing?” Rayna replied.
This was information that Bubble hadn’t revealed to anyone yet because he didn’t know if it was related to the Dark Magus or not.
“Listen, I don’t care what you know about the Dark Magus,” Rayna stated. “What I really came here to tell you was anything you do know about the Dark Magus, you need to stop reporting on it instantly.”
“I want you to keep a tight lip on everything. Or if you do find any information that it comes through me first.”
Bubble never intended to step on any clan’s toes. So he was careful to reveal only certain information that would sell well but not reveal any big secrets.
The way Rayna was talking to him now, it felt like it was a request, similar to what other clans have made of him in the past.
“I’m sorry, but that might not be something I can do, even if it’s a request from the Neverfall Clan,” Bubble answered.
“What!” Rayna replied back, clenching her teeth.
“Look, there have already been so many groups asking me about the Dark Magus, including the Behemoth Clan.”
“All of them I’m sure will go to great lengths just to get information from me. Besides, you warriors have your groups already, those that gather secret information.”
“You all will know more about it than me. Keeping a public news reporter quiet isn’t going to do anything, and the way I’m feeling right now, if I kept anything I knew about the Dark Magus, then I would be dead in a heartbeat.”
Rayna’s anger started to calm down, the more she thought about it. Knowing full well that Bubble was right.
There was still news about the Dark Magus though, that no one knew. About how she was to marry him, and he was soon to join the Neverfall clan.
“You said the Crimson Crane was missing, was the Dark Magus with them?” Rayna asked.
“I don’t know, they were last seen at the usual place. That’s truthfully all I know, that, and some white-haired young man had visited just before they disappeared,” Bubble answered.
Rayna’s eyes had widened at that moment. She had seen the real Raze and what he looked like. The description, there weren’t many that would look like him, and it seemed to match.
‘Did he have something to do with their disappearance, is something going on, and he didn’t tell me about it, his future wife!’ She thought.
The reaction from Rayna, it also didn’t go unnoticed; he could tell that she knew something, and it had something to do with the young white-haired man.
“A lot of dangerous people are after the Dark Magus Rayna,” Bubble stated. “I know he’s part of the Crimson Crane, and they managed to protect him well so far.
“But I’m not sure how much more they can protect him. The interest in him is rising; I think it might grow to even more than just the Demonic Faction.
“He will need a lot more than the Crimson Crane to protect him.”
Rayna turned around, having received as much information as she needed. She was on the search now. ‘More protection than the Crimson Crane, well, if he becomes my partner, then he will have the Neverfall Clan protecting him as well.’