The Rise of the Black Plain

Finally arriving at Athela's large reserve for spiritual beasts, Gloria quickly made her way toward where she and Minos had left their beasts.

Since both of their mounts were very strong, the place where those beasts could be housed was not very large, so Gloria's great bird probably knew the location of Minos' Winged Tiger.

With that in mind, the beautiful redhead ignored the many requests from the employees of that place, who thought such a specialist was invading the place.

"Hey! Wait! You need to identify yourself..."

"Stop her! Maybe she's going to rob us!"

But she just went on her way without listening to those people, going to the forested part where she had already located the spiritual fluctuation of her beast.

"Don!"

"Don, where is that tigress? Do you know if it has left this place?" Gloria asked the giant bird that served as a mount for her.

And upon hearing its master's voice, that beast was quick to answer the human who was floating in the air, flying towards him, the top of one of the tallest trees in that place.

"The tigress? Maida?" He said this curiously, finding Gloria's visit and that question unexpected. 

"Hmm, come to think of it, I think she's already gone..." He expressed after scanning his surroundings.

After hearing that, Gloria was not slow to ask what mattered the most to her. "Do you know when she left?" 

"No... I wasn't paying attention to her, so maybe she left with her master some time ago." He said in a coy tone, lowering his giant head in apology for his inefficiency.

"Tsk!"

"Damn it!" Gloria softly cursed as she flew in the opposite direction of that beast, heading for one of the many employees of this place she was in.

And since her speed was not slow, she reached one of the people working in the payroll office of that establishment in just a few seconds.

"You!" She said in a harsh tone as she grabbed the collar of that individual's clothing. "I want to know what happened to the black-haired, level 55 Winged Tigress who was staying here!"

"Look when she was taken away by her human companion!"

Gulp!

"Yes, ma'am! I'll do that in a moment!" That person trembled with fear but soon began to analyze the recent papers concerning the beasts leaving that site.

And while that official was doing that, Gloria was watching him, feeling her respiratory rate rising, thinking about everything that had happened.

She was impatient, moving one of her legs without stopping while her breasts went up and down and sweat dripped down her forehead.

Gloria was sweating not because of the physical exertion she had just made since, for her, none of it was enough to make her sweat. On the contrary, she was sweating from nervousness, feeling that 'Albert' had fooled her.

He fooled her not regarding his goals in this city. But his identity, perhaps his personality. And this was what Gloria was not enjoying.

She had appreciated traveling with 'Albert' for those days and had even had a little fun with him. But, because of this, she felt terrible to think about the possibility that it had all been a lie.

To make matters worse, she might have unwittingly influenced the situation in this region. That is, although a high-level grade-2 weapon was not that impressive, it was something that added a lot of power to regional experts.

'He lied to me about his strength...' She thought about it as she felt the cold night wind slowly drying the sweat on her face. 'Or rather, he hid it from me for the entire time we were together!'

'Albert...'

But as Gloria thought about these things, she finally remembered what she had inattentively overheard before leaving the Bishops behind.

And as she remembered it, this beautiful woman's pupils and mouth opened in realization, making her feel a slight shiver.

'Albert... Minos...'

'It can't be!'

'No, don't be him, don't be him!' She wished this, hoping that 'Albert's' case was not as complicated as that.

And just while she had all that in mind, Gloria was distracted by that same official from before. "Ma'am, the beast you seek was drawn by its master about 35 minutes ago."

At that moment, Gloria clenched her fists tightly, understanding that there was no way that all this was just a coincidence.

She then closed her mouth and pressed her jaw hard, trying to control her momentary tension. 

"NOOOOOO!" 

She shouted sharply as some of her powerful aurae escaped her control, causing several individuals in the surrounding area to faint from such spiritual pressure.

"MINOS!" She shouted the criminal's name, wishing to find that fellow and teach him a lesson.

'How could you have done this to me? You used me to destroy the Walker family!'

And while having a small fit of anger, Gloria had thought about trying to chase young Stuart away. But thinking of the many possibilities he had in leaving this place, it would be impossible for her to catch up with him if she just chased him.

Consequently, she was not slow to consider a more efficient alternative, which would lead her sooner or later to him!

'Dry City...'

'One way or another, he will return to Dry City!' She thought about it, closing one of her fists determinedly. 

'I want to see if you will have the courage to lie to my face one more time, Minos!'

'I'll teach you a lesson!' So, she put that little goal on her 'to-do list' before finally flying back to the center of that city.

She could move around much faster than Minos. Because of this, even if she stayed a few more hours in this place, she could still reach Dry City before he did.

That is, of course, if he was escaping there.

In any case, as Minos had used her to succeed in eliminating the Walker family, Gloria had no alternative but to act to lessen the consequences of her accidental involvement.

She did not want outsiders to come to the northern region with assurances that they would not face repercussions if they influenced the local political-economic situation. After all, it would be complicated to control the actions of these people, and once they came here, the consequences of this could go far beyond the Black Plain.

But since she had influenced the local context, any thoughts preventing her from making this decision had disappeared. So, now she could only wash her hands of this whole problem.

She did not want to harm Minos directly with this action but rather repair what had just happened to the Walker family.

She was angry with him, but that was personal, something she would resolve in other ways.

With that, she would not only give orders regarding the liberation of the natives of this region to return to their states to fight alongside their families. She would also try to follow the ceasefire plan suggested by one of the Bishops earlier.

She wanted to beat Minos at this point. Still, she would not let the thousands of innocents in Dry City be slaughtered before at least attempting a ceasefire.

Hence, she quickly made her way to the church temple in that city to send her commands to the empire post, from where the members of local families in that state could be summoned.

After that, she intended to proceed to Dry City to find young Stuart!

'Bastard!'

'You will pay me, Minos Stuart!'

...

Achoo!

While traveling on top of Maida, Minos suddenly sneezed, just before inhaling the cold air from where they were flying, feeling a strange sensation in his nose.

'Glad it all worked out, hehehe...' He thought about it quietly as he took advantage of the night flight to rest.

The previous situation had made him spend a lot of his energy. After all, he had killed many powerful people in one go, something tiring for anyone, even people with fighting proficiencies higher than their own opponents.

Besides, he had used a lot of his energy to escape from that city before Gloria realized what he had done.

He knew she probably would not kill him, but she could make his plans very difficult if she wanted to!

So, he had hurriedly made his way to the previous location, where he had quickly departed Athela with Maida.

"Sigh..."

'Now, I will travel more quietly for a few weeks until I reach the Kingdom of the End...'

'I'll finally be able to get back to training my techniques!' He thought about this while smiling as he remembered the beautiful woman who had 'got in the way' of his training.