Awakened: SSS Ranked Soul king

2.5km inward

That was the distance the fog had passed through while the seige raged on. On every step of the way, it took massive attacks from the reptilian creature, at first it weaken it.

But the more the fog swallowed from the reptilian force, the stronger it became. And by now, it had swallowed a large chunk of their corpses and made them into fog monsters.

From Guillimans estimatation, this was enough to clear the this breeding ground. But they weren't out of the woods yet.

"Hurry up, we need to be fast!!" Guillimans voice resounded in the air, as he swiped his spear to the side throwing away the corpse of a small Reptilian creature.

They needed to pass through this danger zone in quick succession. Because right beside it was another breeding ground,

Although it was in a much steeper depression in the earth, he didn't want to risk the tremors of their battle spreading to it and waking up another horde.

"Hm!!" Barthold nodded, ramming into crowd of beasts and letting out an explosion.

[you have slain..]

[you have slain…]

[you have slain…]

Notifications rained in his head as he took out dozens of beasts in one shot.

Crowd battles, this was where Bartholds strength really excelled. He could take out a large number of combatants in a very effective manner.

And these were beasts, you could only imagine how deadly is aspect would be when turned against humans.

"Hmm, that's aspect of his" one of the ironback brothers gulped down a mouthful of Silva.

They had looked down on Bartholds choice in aspects for the longest time. But seeing it in action now, they could only open their mouths in surprise.

He wasn't just tanking attacks, he was doing massive damage.

"Get your head out of the wind, we have enemies infront of us!!" Gunta, the eldest of the ironback barked, drawing the attention of the other two.

Reluctantly, they turned away, facing the incoming enemies with their shields raised up.

And so the battle raged on, as the fog pushed deeper and deeper into the landscape.

At some point, the three clans had no choice than to join to save face. But Guilliman didn't seem to care. He had achieved his main goal.

Which was to show the other slayers that their bravery was enough to clear the most dangerous places. They would need that moral boost for what was to come next.

"We really cleared the danger zone…" after a long battle, during the peak of noon, several of the slayers fell to the ground with looks of exasperation on their faces.

That's fight was hard at the beginning, but as the fog became stronger, the fight became easier. This fight even gave a majority of them the chance to level up reaching a level of strength that could rival even those in the three clans.

"Hail lord Thane!!"

"Hail Lord Flash!!"

"Hail the burning witch!!"

"Hail lord Red Berserker"

The crowd raised their fists into the air, hailing the figures that had led the charge. The three clans only joined when the fight was becoming easier.

They were cowards, why would they hail cowards?

"Sigh!!" Dorn sighed shaking his head as he looked at the crowd before him.

What he did was purely logical, yet he was being punished for it by them. However, what could he do? Absolutely nothing .

This time, they didn't set up camp to rest after the battle, rather, they kept moving forwards slowly energy the deep dark mountains caves.

The reason Guilliman choice this point of entry dispite its danger was because it was the closest to the cave of the hallowed beast, and its guards.

So even though the battle was tough, what laid ahead was much more challenging than it. The best they could do was slow down their marching speed to recover as much strength as they could.

But stop? They could not.

"Hey, why are you avoiding Victoria?" As they moved along side the fog, Jemies voice sounded next to him as he rushed forward on the back of on of the reptilian fog monsters.

"Hm?" Guilliman turned to the side with a raised eyebrow.

Jemie had appeared behind him just now in a split instant while riding a fog monster. He could understand if it was just his speed, but why was the fog creature moving like that too?

"You heard me, don't let me repeat myself" Jemie said as if annoyed at Guillimans weak attempt to change the topic.

He abilities had advanced because his class had advanced. If no one knew this, then at least everyone in the cohort should since he told them plainly.

Guilliman was aware, so why was he looking surprised?

"You can't blame me, it was kind of abrupt" Guilliman shurgged his shoulders.

Jemies class advancement came as a genuine shock to me. Apparently it was closely tied to an echo he got from killing a strange blurr in the forest.

Yes, that's right. A blur.

According to him, after killing the thing, he just disappeared into thin air disallowing him from investigating too deep into what it was.

"So.." Jemie paused looking at guilliman in the eyes.

Hamdel spoke on how guilliman was constantly present throughout Victorias coma state, he could either be there or one of his soul beasts.

As long as she was down, he was there and delivering the best care for her. But all of a sudden after she woke up, he detached himself.

It was strange

"I can't be around her right now" Guilliman smirked bitterly seeing that Jemie was not backing down.

After seeing Victoria in that state, Guilliman couldn't help but feel extremely bad. It seemed to him that everyone around him would get hurt sooner or later.

First it was his mother, then his father, and not to long ago, his entire race.

If he kept on hurting the people around him, he wouldn't be able to live with himself.

"Why?" Jemie raised his eyebrows.

He didn't quite get it. Of course, this was because he still had no idea what had truly happened in ravens keep.

Guilliman had not only mistakenly harmed Victoria, he had also intentionally taken the live of her closest childhood friend.

The worst was that he didn't even let thane rest, taking him as a soul slave.

She had just woken up, she still didn't know that Thanes soul was still roaming around doing Guillimans bidding and he wanted to avoid that conversation by all means necessarye.

"Nothing much, I just have to focus on the task at hand" Guilliman smirked pushing ghost forward as he seamlessly disappeared into the fog.

"Where did he go?"

Just as he disappeared, Victoria emerged from the fog next to Jemie and asked. She was trying to talk to Guilliman, but he was avoiding her.

"I…don't know" Jemie after a few seconds shrugged his shoulders.

Guilliman was acting weird, but they really didn't have the time to make sure he was alright. The reptilian creatures from all over the mountains were slowly mounting attacks on their sides.

"There's a group coming from the left Flank!!"

"Hold the right flank!!"

"We are done with that group, any new assignment?"

The slayer army and the fog were being attacked from all sides, and although the scale was much smaller that before, it demanded the full attention of everyone.

It also gave Guilliman an excuse to not see Victoria.

300 meters away from the advancing fog, Guillimans figure atop of ghost appeared riding slowly as he appeared before a massive underground ravine that seemed to have dried up.

"Hmm, you've found it?" Guilliman asked with a raised eyebrow.

Infront of him was a Thane, he had a thick feathery cloak in Metalic amour underneath and strange metalic helmet that looked like a ravens beak.

"Hmm" Thane nodded.

In his human soul form, he couldn't speak. He had lost most of his sense of reason and could only perform tasks required of him.

He was much smarter than all of Guillimans beasts souls, but just a tad bit off. After all, he wasn't human anymore.

"Let me see" Guilliman said a calm look on his face.

He had sent thane to scout ahead, it was much easier to send on incredibly powerful person down here than to send the entire army.

Guiliman wanted to know what they were getting into before even getting into it, but after a while he lost contact with Thane due to distance, so he was now trying to get the full picture.

"Hm" Thane nodded and walked over to Guillimans side, allowing him to look into his eyes.

In the next second, the scene shifted to a dark cave structure deep within the mountain pathway. There a giant reptilian creature with three golden horns could be seen seated around a mountain of bones and rotten flesh.

It emitted an ominous energy while it slept a clear indication that it was about to break through.

However, it wasn't there just yet. If Guilliman could reach there before it did, then killing it would one much easier.

Of course….that was not the only obstacle.

As the vision shifted like the panning of views, Guilliman saw hundreds of caves all over the area where the hallowed beast was stationed.

This was its gaurding army.