Requiem Of A Failed Hero



In two hours, Raith and his army had laid waste to two times more monsters than a party of B ranks would in eight hours. 

A party of A ranks, depending on the gate they're raiding but if it's a B rank gate, the number of monsters carcasses that would be wasted on the ground would stretch into a hundred, perhaps barely. If it was an A-rank gate, things would be harder, but they still would have done close to fifty. 

For Raith's soldiers, hundreds of Frost Centipedes were laying dead on the ground. 

It was not a superstition, Raith had a total of three hundred soldiers including the aerial squad, the wyverns. 

Their firepower made things so much easier. It was the best match-up for the cold attribute of the centipedes. They danced to the tune of ferry fire each time. 

Even Mok Jun-Seo was useless. He didn't need to do anything, his help wasn't needed. For once in his entire life he felt useless on a battlefield. 

"Hunter Raven, don't they get tired?" 

"They survive by my energy, regenerate by my energy. They don't get tired, when I run out of energy they won't be able to regenerate." 

"I see... I heard they played a big role in saving the people in Therut. The people address them as the soldiers of darkness." 

"Uh? Really?" 

Raith was surprised to hear that, he raised his upper lip in a mixture of disgust and unbelief. 

"Yes, really. You don't know even your soldiers have a good reputation amongst the people of Therut." 

'Those good for nothing. It was a bad call, a very bad one. Exposing my weakness to the people just like that.' 

Raith still didn't know why, but he knew by instinct that it was a very bad decision to make. He could try to make a few excuses as to why it is bad. 

The people would know his secret. 

They might leave a substance that would tarnish the energy of the abyss. 

But deep down inside his mind, he knew this was not the real reason why he felt uncomfortable about them being here. He just didn't want them in his stomach–that was a good way to put it. 

"Stop." 

Raith was getting more used to foresight, he kept jolting into future instances although it was at most three seconds and often accompanied by a sensation crawling on his skin–which was in instances where the monster was reasonably strong. 

So far it wasn't anything his soldiers couldn't deal with, there wasn't one single scenario where he or Mok Jun-Seo needed to step in. The leaders weren't there to coordinate them yet they were so careful and organized. 

Sometimes too organized. 

Raith wondered who gave them the idea of harvesting the monster carcasses, cores, and runestones. But he had the answer right in front of him. 

'Should I just call them?'

Thinking about Crimson's uptightness, he considered calling them to the battlefield. But he wanted them to chill more. 

Raith was beginning to see them as important pieces, while they would easily take care of the situations and kill whatever foe he assigns to them. He needed to give the soldiers a chance to be soldiers too. 

So far he had neglected his soldiers and paid more attention to the leaders. 

And he realized that just a few minutes ago as he watched them slay monsters. Their growth was slow but it was something. 

Raith inhaled deeply and gently exhaled. 

"Something is coming this way." 

He said after jolting three seconds into the future and coming back like it never happened. He had felt a massive tremor and with it huge footsteps. 

And three seconds later a massive tremor began to shave the ground as if it was trying to shake them off the ground. 

While the soldiers fell into the rhythm of the ground shaking, Mok Jun-Seo grew claws and stabbed them into the ground. The trembling ground soon progressed into an earthquake and Raith seeing how much his soldiers were struggling had to displace them. Just the foot soldiers. 

The aerial squad was still active. 

He pocketed his hand, unaffected by the earthquakes, even when the ground tore through where he was standing. He simply leaped and landed softly on better ground. 

He had become extremely nimble, he wanted to blame it on his speed Stat but it was more than what a Stat could accomplish. The lightness of his body, the nimble feel at his fingertips and toe tips, each time he leaped he felt like he could almost fly. Only that he couldn't. 

Even from Mok Jun-Seo's vantage point, Raith was very amazing. 

'He just gets cooler by the second' 

Mok Jun-Seo couldn't get enough of him. 

The earthquake and trembles subsided and Mok Jun-Seo stood up slowly, heaving a sigh that signified 'finally' 

"The real thing is starting now."

Raith's posture became tensed, he removed his hands from his pocket and clenched his fist, more like he curved them a little for the handle of his sword to size in when needed. 

The second hand was tightly clenched into a fist, just below his chin, whether it was for a guard or an offensive punch pose, there was no way to know. Raith was not versed in boxing or any martial art, he just acted according to instincts and experience. 

Seeing Raith's posture, Mok Jun-Seo let out his full transformation...

—Revealing the form of a man-lion. His upper body slowly grew larger and began to rip apart his clothes, even the thick cardigan stood no chance. His skin tone faded slowly and became brown, fade by fade. His dark hair changed color in the same sequence and overgrew, extending to his neck till hair consumed all that area, and by that time even his face had changed into that of a fiery lion. 

But in a way, an imprint of his real face could still be noted on the lion. It was like a lion that looked like Mok Jun-Seo. 

'Wow...'

Raith had never seen anything like that, it was intriguing to watch and he didn't mind rewatching that. 

But they had a fearsome monster to face. 

Crackle!!

The ground tore apart in an instant, this time even Raith didn't see it coming. It happened in no time as if it was not a foretellable havoc. 

Raith and Mok Jun-Seo were thrown into the air with no ground to land on. The entire ground tore apart into rocks and from the depth came a carnage of Frost that opened its mouth wide, manifesting a hysterical hunger to devour.