Death… And Me

The airship soon came down from the sky, right between the five peaks. There were several demon beasts there. However, Rean and Roan didn't move a single finger, nor did Kentucky and Celis. Roan simply floated in front of Malo and everyone else before saying, "Everyone above ten years old will participate in the clean-up. However, I must remind you. Your opponents are demon beasts! They will not show mercy! Neither Rean, Kentucky, Gola, or I will help you either. If you notice that you will die soon, you will die. I've told you about this day many, many times, and now that day has come. It's all up to you now to open a space where you can live without our help."

Roan then playfully smiled as he continued, "Nevertheless, the one who trained you was no one else than me! Considering the difficulty of this task, you shouldn't have a problem finishing it. With that said, you have one hour to clean this place up. If you guys fail...hehehe!"

There wasn't a single kid or teenager who didn't feel a chill go through their backs. As soon as the airship touched the ground, Malo and the others rushed out of the ship and began to battle the demon beasts for this territory. There were three demon beasts at Stage Four, equivalent to those at the Core and Soul Fusion Realm. As for the rest, they were at Stage Three and below.

Malo and the oldest teenagers were still in the Core Formation Realm. However, they were trained by Roan and had extremely high talents. By joining their strengths, they killed one of those demon beasts and made the other two flee. Though, they weren't able to do so unscathed. Falas, one of the girls, was severely injured during the combat, exposing the huge lack of combat experience everyone had.

Of course, she wasn't the only one. As Malo's group dealt with the Stage Four Demon Beasts, the others had to fight the Stage Three, Two, and One Demon Beasts roaming in the area. Nonetheless, Rean and Roan didn't intervene. Rean saw how five kids ended up dying in the process. However, Roan stopped him as he told him, "This is natural. You can't really expect that all of them will survive. Did you forget the test we took to join the Dalamu Sect? Our death toll right now is already ridiculously low compared to them."

Rean gritted his teeth from the sight but nodded in response. As brutal as the deaths may seem, this would serve as a wake-up call for all the others. After all, they had lived a safe life ever since they entered the valley years ago. However, the world definitely wasn't like that.

Roan then commented, "Don't forget that they know what conditions they were given. Sure, some grew very complacent over the years, thinking that the power they got through our internal training was more than enough. However, with those deaths, they'll definitely think twice about it."

Kentucky watched the fight with a serious face. Most of the people Rean and Roan rescued were women, which he was a lot more fond of. One must remember that high Soul Purity was easier to find in girls, a lot easier at that, not boys. With that being said, they did indeed have a lot more women in this group.

Time passed as 40 minutes went by before finally, all the demon beasts in the area fled or died. Though that wasn't before 25 boys and girls died in the clean-up process. Of course, considering the number of demon beasts that died, one could say that Roan's apprentices pulverized the enemy. Part of the deaths on Roan's side was because none of them could handle killing other beings, so they froze up.

Once the entire issue was done with, Rean finally left the airship and began to heal everyone. He also organized the bodies of those who died to be taken care of. As much as he didn't like Roan's methods, he knew that having everyone living in a safe place would be a lot worse. Once the twins leave and Malo's group starts to live by themselves, no one would be there to heal them like what Rean was doing right now. If anything, one could already say that Roan had made a huge commitment by saying that only those above ten years old should participate. 

'If it was back when I first arrived at Sunkan Planet, I definitely wouldn't let this happen. I was really naive at that time,' Rean thought for a moment.

Roan then gathered everyone in the center of the five peaks and began his usual motivational speech. "What the fuck was that shit? I won't even talk about the ones who were too scared to step forward. The worst ones were those who got ahead of themselves and died or got injured. Between all of you, I can't even commend 10%. And here was I, thinking that no one who received my training would die. Ha! What a joke!" Sure enough, it was very motivational...

There were those who were sad, those who were angry, and those who couldn't help but hate Roan for the death of a close friend. However, they didn't blame him. Roan had never lied about what they would expect from the outside world. That once they were out, they would be on their own. Today's event was the crystallization of his teachings.

After that, Roan took the chance to revise some of the groups' training schedules. He also took time to show most of the errors he saw during that battle. Fortunately for those who participated in the battles, they did finish it in less than one hour, so Roan's famous punishments didn't happen.

As Roan became busy with the kids and the teenagers, Rean went around the peak to build a formation. This time, however, it wasn't a protection or an anti-Spiritual Sense Formation. Instead, it was a sensory formation. It would alert everyone inside if anything entered the range of the five peaks without them knowing. 'Well, it only works against demon beasts or cultivators above Stage Three or the Core Formation Realm, though.'

After that, he took his time to clean the terrain to put the building with the totem down. As for the rest of the buildings, furniture, and so on, he kept everything inside the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm. Those things were not for him to use, so Malo and the others would have to prepare the terrain themselves.

And just like that, a few days went by. The terrain was eventually cleaned, and the houses that they built in the past were taken out of the Dimensional Realm. They also opened the field for the farm they had grown back then. 

However, be it the twins, Kentucky, or Celis, neither of the four noticed a rabbit walking in the middle of the houses. As a place with a lot more women than men, obviously, it obtained a lot of attention from them. It was completely snow white, its eyes black, and very small. Its length wasn't more than thirty or so centimeters either. Simply put, it was as ordinary as an ordinary rabbit could be.

The girls tried to capture it many times so they could cuddle it. Unfortunately, it was too fast. Every time they got close, it would run away. Well, it ended up making a lot of success in that part of their settlement. 

The rabbit then jumped above a house and looked in the distance. Or, to be more specific, the 'Oak' Demon Tree at the center of the settlement. 'Hmph! What terrible security. This lord has been walking all around, and no one noticed my presence,' the rabbit thought. Sure enough, it wasn't just any rabbit, but the only Stage Six Demon Beast residing in Fruzei Hills, the Blood Rabbit!

However, Rean's group couldn't be blamed for that. They never thought that a Stage Six Demon Beast would make such a low-key appearance. First of all, they would never believe that a Stage Six Demon Beast wasn't more than a few dozen centimeters long! After all, demon beasts were only able to change their size once they reached Stage Seven. Obviously, it wasn't the case for this rabbit. Last but not least, was Blood Rabbit really a name one would give to such a white and small creature like this one?

However, one shouldn't underestimate this rabbit. For example, Rean's sensory formation that should work against demon beasts above the Stage Three level didn't detect it at all. Obviously, it could hide its energy extremely well.

"Ah! There it is!"

"It's the little rabbit! Let's catch him!"

"Don't be hasty. Otherwise, it will run again!"

Sure enough, the girls ended up finding it once again. However, the rabbit just snorted and dashed away once again. The reason it hasn't attacked or anything was the same reason explained by the demon beast back in the city. It was indeed the strongest demon beast of this region, but it didn't care too much about it. Even the occupation of its territory didn't upset it enough for it to want to kill others. 

As for the demon beasts that died, it couldn't care less. It was a demon beast, and demon beasts constantly died. That was the natural order of things in the Demon Beast Continent. 

One of the little girls suddenly noticed that Malo was passing by, so she immediately asked, "Malo, Malo! You need to help us!"

The other girls and boys immediately gathered as well. "Yes, yes! You need to help us, Malo!"

Malo wasn't in that good of a mood. After all, Roan had been very harsh recently. Still, he simply couldn't ignore the puppy eyes directed at him. "Sigh...alright. If it isn't anything hard to do, I'll help you. Say, what is it?"

Little did Malo know, but he was about to receive a huge headache.