Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

"Son of a bitch…" Rain thought.

Rain should have known that such a thing would happen… assassins and spies usually had a very disturbing policy of never letting themselves get caught. If they do, it isn't weird for them to take their own lives.

Still, Rain didn't have time to think about that; he had to help the others as soon as possible. After taking out the weights, Rain dashed toward the first village with all his might since the group three lacked a bit of firepower.

Rain dashed toward it with all his might, but he sighed in relief when he saw that only the armored turtles were attacking the first village. While a group of twenty of them was there, the group made it work by cooperating. Reca blocked the monster's charges, and Asche killed them with their arrows. When Reca got hurt, Terra quickly healed them.

"Well, just to be safe…" Rain said and then sniped the turtles with some wind bullets.

The attacks slowed the monsters down, and then Reca used that chance to stab all of the remaining ones to death. She. That ended, and Rain was already far away, reaching the second village… he imagined that Jori and Liss would be fine since Jori was using his head more. Liss also seemed more thoughtful about how to use her mana.

In the end, Rain confirmed things even from a distance… Liss copied Rain's move by making some Fireballs fly around in circles. Thanks to their numbers, they didn't have a lot of Power, but that stopped the beasts when they charged, and Jori used that chance to finish them off while they were slowly burning.

They could pull that off, but Rain didn't know if others were around, so he helped them finish off the monsters by punching the beasts with all his might.

"You took long enough to come," Jori said and then took a deep breath. "This was intense…"

"Don't drop your guard… the enemies might still be around," Rain said.

After explaining what happened to Jori and Liss, they opened their eyes widely… It was the first time the magic people attacked any Territory since the fall of Tristan. Jori clenched his teeth while feeling like he had lost such a golden chance to kill the enemies. Still, then the group reunited in the second village and saw the corpses of the enemies.

It had been a close battle with Rain as well, even though he left unscathed.

"You killed ten of them by yourself…" Jori said while blinking several times. "I guess it makes sense, given that you can defeat me with so much ease."

"Those guys are weird…" Liss said while illuminating the area with a Fireball.

The appearance of the magic people changed according to their skills, but those skills were weird… completely pale like they never had seen sunlight. Their bodies didn't have a single strain of hair, and they had holes in their hands… which they used to fire bones.

"Ew… gross," Reca said while seeing the bone darts scattered around.

"We have to report this back to the capital," Terra said while she was hiding behind Asche, who was also showing a disgusted Expression.

"I don't know if we are lucky to find the enemies or unlucky… in any case, our scouts and spies have a lot to explain," Jori said. "Rain rest until morning; we will remain on guard duty. When morning comes, you need to return to the Capital as soon as possible and inform Lord Branden of this."

Rain nodded. If they could, gaining even one hour and making the message reach the destination faster would do it. Still, Rain wondered if that kind of thing would make people try to make him work as a messenger.

Regardless, nothing else happened that night, so Rain had the chance to rest and then depart when the sun rose. The trip back to the Capital only took two hours, and while he was exhausted, at least he felt really proud of his progress. Instead of heading to Branden's house, Rain returned to the organization and told Karla what had happened… she closed the place.

She stopped getting jobs to look for Branden immediately. After half an hour, he showed up and heard things from Rain directly.

"You all did well in surviving this kind of attack…" Branden said while thinking deeply about the whole situation. "While they used almost ten more enemies, it looks like they underestimated you all. We will head straight to the location since it will be better to inform others if I see everything myself."

Rain wondered if he should ask for a spiritual potion to return to the villages faster. Even if they travel together nonstop on a carriage, it will take a full day to reach the place, more than enough time for the enemies to attack Jori and the others. Still, Rain didn't want to reveal his movement skill technique…

"I am going ahead," Rain declared upon deciding to buy a potion somewhere in the city.

"All right, stay put and wait for my arrival," Branden said.

Branden decided not to pry, but he could tell that Rain had some sort of skill that helped with movement. He was aware of some of those, but only special people were allowed to learn them.

After he bought a potion, Rain left the city… it was a bit annoying that he was using the money from Several hours of work just to work harder, but at least that made him realize that he could cut the time of travel to his home with a few of them. Saving mana to create potions was out of the question, after all. It was better to use money to improve his growth speed.

"Speaking of which, we didn't check the bodies of the enemies… maybe I can make some cash by selling their gear," Rain thought while smirking. "Here I am, thinking that money isn't that important while thinking of a suspicious way to make more of it."