The Oath Breakers had been hunting all day long, searching for the enemy Commander, but so far they hadn’t had any luck at all.

From what they heard, the leader should be with his army at all times, but after the force split up, the Demons couldn’t find any trace of Morgeth. They had captured and interrogated scouts from all four forces last night and none of them reported having Morgeth with their force.

[I don’t get it, boss. He has to be somewhere though, we will keep searching the area for a special forces team that might be hunting you the way we are hunting him. Maybe you will get lucky and Morgeth will come to you?] The Oath Breakers reported.

[My luck is pretty good, but that might be asking too much, especially when I’m at the farm, surrounded by people. I could try leaving the area, but there are still plans to be made, and I need to be where I can be found to make reports.]

The actions of this Demon General were getting stranger and stranger and Cain couldn’t decide what exactly their plan was.

He had made a pretty solid defensive plan for their side though. The enemy had split into four, so he would gather all his Watchers and Echoes into groups of three and send them to the four cities that were being targeted.

With them there, the enemy should realize that they have no chance of winning, and it might draw out Morgeth.

Luna had gone through another growth spurt last night, and it was a rather spectacular one. She had nearly doubled in size, making her two meters long, and as thick as Cain’s forearm.

“You’re growing up into a powerful Lamia aren’t you? Soon you’ll be big enough to switch positions and wrap around my waist instead of just draping yourself over my shoulders.” Cain teased his daughter.

Realistically, she could do that right now and would make it nearly twice around his waist in most of the forms that Cain usually used, but that wasn’t enough to be secure and still leave her enough upper body to maneuver around him.

“How did Laura put it? Becoming Huge and Mighty?” Kone laughed.Luna flexed her biceps and made a couple of poses before shifting around to look directly at Kone and giggling.

“I don’t know about huge, she’s a dragon, so she’s totally going to be larger than I am even when I am grown, but I will be mighty. I told Papa Cain already that I am going to take over from him one day. I heard that it is the right of a firstborn to take over from their parents, so I have to grow up extra strong and devious.” Luna agreed.

“Why devious?” Jin asked, wondering what she had missed about their family history.

“The others told me that Cain is secretly sneaky and always comes up with new ways to beat up and humiliate his enemies. If that got him this powerful, I must learn to do it even better, so I can be stronger.” Luna told her with absolute certainty.

Cain placed his head in his hand and wondered how to correct the random impressions of the world that people had been teaching Luna. She always seemed to pick up on the most warped or obscure interpretation of everything that she saw, and it was leading her to a very unique view of the world.magic

“Being sneaky doesn’t make you strong, you need to be creative and keep a bit of your total power hidden so that anyone who tries to overcome you doesn’t know exactly how much you will be able to do against them.” Cain tried to explain.

“See, very devious. Hold back, look weak, then BAM kill them all.” Luna nodded happily.

Jin just laughed at the Lamia’s antics. “Give up Papa Cain, she’s not going to get it. You might need to wait for her to grow up a little before she truly appreciates the subtleties of the hidden hand technique.”

Today, the daily Guild reports had been summarized by Svetlana, who had come all the way here to keep Cain in the loop about what was happening on the Central Continent.

She was just as popular here as she was at home, and her multiple fluffy white fox tails attracted a lot of attention as she came over to meet Cain.

Most of the news was nothing too outrageous, just a lot of people attending the towers, but one bit of news did catch his attention. The Dragon Riders in the Port of Assah had gone home for a meeting with the Dragon Council. They were having some sort of trouble with the Giants that had made landfall on the Northern Continent a few weeks ago.

What exactly had happened wasn’t clear, but it seemed that the Giants had decided that the Gnomes were hiding from them and they wanted more allies to help them capture the last of the species that were still in the wild.

The dragons didn’t actually like the Giants enough to willingly help them, and the Gnomes weren’t annoying enough to put in the effort to evict them from Dragon-controlled territory, so they were temporarily at an impasse.

The other bit of news from the North was that the Portals to the Elemental Planes had opened again, and it wasn’t just the fire Elemental Plane this time. The dragons had found large amounts of elemental energy all across the continent and it was rapidly increasing the Mana density of the Northern Continent to the point that it would soon catch up to the Southern Continent, as well as influencing the planet as a whole since a number of the largest Ley Lines run from the North to the Eastern and Western Continents.That could be a very large problem if it started dropping awakened arrivals in places where they didn’t belong. The Eastern Continent was already seeing some of them and might be able to deal with more, but if it became like the South, where almost all of them were Mythic Beasts, the Eastern Continent would suffer an even larger catastrophe than they did when the Dungeons collapsed.

“Relay that bit to Neffie and Cid at Port Nefheim. Tell them to prepare for the worst, both for beasts and for refugees. Beyond that, Cid will know who all else needs to know and might not be in the loop already. The Dragons can take care of themselves in the North. A few Elemental Plane portals won’t scare them away, but it might not be good news for the Giants.

Either way, that’s not our problem.” Cain told Svetlana, who bowed politely.

Cain had put the Giant named Schmidt on his friend list, so he sent him a quick message to make sure the Giants hadn’t gotten themselves into more trouble than they could handle.

[Hey, is everything going well in the North? I got news of more Elemental Portals opening near your army.] Cain asked the Second in Command of the Giant Army.

[Have you ever played Whack a Kobold? It is like that. The elementals show up, we smash them, and they give us loot sometimes. The Giants are strong and we are winning. Almost all the cities have been searched for Gnomes.] The Giant replied.

[Let me know if you have problems and I will see if I can send you some helpers.] Cain told him, knowing that the Giants were too proud to ever ask for help from smaller species and wouldn’t actually take him up on it.

[Don’t slack too much, or you will fall behind, Ancient Cain. Some of our Warriors will be near the peak of Mythic by the end of the war.] Schmidt answered, ending the conversation in typically Giant style.

That was promising, and Cain was in need of a Spirit Quality item to advance himself, which he was hoping to do in the near future. The Echoes had also gotten close to making a Spirit Awakened fruit, and if Cain ate it, or possibly even just held it, he might be able to count it as possessing a Spirit Quality item. The ability didn’t specify that it had to be a weapon or armor.

[Spirit Awakening] Advance Ranks to Awakened Spirit. Requires [Versatility]5/5, [Dominion], 1 Spirit Rank item.

Points

He had everything that he needed to advance, except the item.

The inability to find a new class that would push them past the barrier between awakenings was what held back the Mythic Awakened. Cain’s [Watcher From Beyond] Class didn’t need to change to awaken more than once though, so he could safely say he was going to be one of the next people to move beyond Mythic Awakened.

He couldn’t just sit and wait for a battle to start though, Cain had many other things to do. The best choice he had seemed to be to send away a few of his Summons and have them do the searching on his behalf.

[Evangeline, how do you feel about a field trip to the Southern Continent? I know you’re not Mythic Awakened, but you can ask someone to accompany you if the danger level seems too high. Someone needs to find the Librarian who collected all the books from the Ancient City before it was destroyed.] Cain explained, thinking of the appearance that the poppet had at that time, and that she might look very different now, either by disguise or age.

[Not a problem, if I bring Laura with me, we will be safe. Only an absolute idiot would attack a Seraphim and a Mythic Dragon traveling together. People speak to us too and don’t hide like they do when you show up in town. That might make it easier to find who we are looking for, especially if they know your name or recognize us as your Companions.]

[Excellent. One problem down, ninety-eight to go.] Cain replied ruefully. Hopefully, they could do it, finding those books had been on his to-do list for way too long.