World Online

Jake knew that there was only one reason that Father Joseph asked him to keep this voice a secret. That was that he knew who the voice belonged to.

He knew how terrifying the existence that was monitoring them was. And now, that existence just threatened to come for them?

And so, Jake knew it was better to listen to the strongest in the party. He decided to stay mum like he promised. As he helped Father Joseph walk back to the carriage and get him up the stairs, the fight around them seemed to finish at an astonishing pace.

The disappearance of the Evil Mage helped more than Jake expected. The healing ability of the Evil Mage seemed to be dragging out more battles than Jake expected.

And now that the mage was gone, every wolf was on its own, and they had no leader. Going against warriors much, much stronger than they were, the wolves started falling at an insane pace.

But as Jake had observed with the wolf that he killed, the Evil Beasts didn\'t drop anything. None of them did. The Evil Mage was the only thing that dropped something on the ground.

That was the pitch black staff that Jake had no intention of trying to take. It was a staff that would only do him more harm that good.

This was the problem with Evil Beasts. Battling them gave absolutely nothing. Not only were they stronger than normal beasts, they also had no loot to give. Anyone who came to the Evil Lands was always seen as a stupid idiot in Jake\'s previous life.

"And yet, here I am." Jake chuckled.

The battle concluded, and the sound of the fights died down.

"Baron! It seems like I underestimated you. To think that you could help out a little! And I must thank you for helping out Father Joseph. At the time of the battle, we could not move as our holy power was getting corrupted and we had to fight back against that." Annie ran back to Jake and smiled at him.

"It is nothing, Sister. All I did was help the Father walk to the fight and back. I didn\'t help much compared to the lives that you and the other sisters and Fathers saved." Jake shook his head and modestly said.

"You are too modest." Annie shook her head and smiled.

"All of you! We must remain quiet!" Ganshin shouted, standing at the forefront of the caravan.

Immediately, the chatter from every one died down as they glanced at Ganshin. There was no hate or malice when they stopped talking.

This was not a group of stupid and arrogant adventurers who would hold petty grudges. Everyone knew that they were in enemy clutches, and they had to be as careful as they can.

"There are enemies all around us, and we cannot forget that. The forces that we have just faced, those are the weakest of the bunch. And yet, we still struggled a little because of the sheer number of monsters. So we must remain cautious." Ganshin said.

"The Sword master is right. I can sense many evil presences far more powerful than the ones that we have faced right now. It is better if we stop talking and start moving. We have to get to the holy ground today my sun down, or we are going to be massacred without a doubt." Father Joseph said from within his carriage.

His words struck a chord with the adventurers. Everyone glanced at their leader.

"Yes. We must move. We wasted too much time here, and I stopped thinking about the time. We have six hours to get to the holy grounds. Let us pick up the pace." Ganshin nodded.

They started moving, and the caravan descended into a deafening silence.

Jake knew why they had a six hour window. In this six hour window, if they didn\'t get to a place where they could defend themselves properly, and if they stayed in the same road which exposed them in all sides, they would be massacred.

The dark forest already gave the Evil Beasts the advantage of having the territorial superiority. The evil energy within the dark forest gave them more power.

But when the night came, their power would grow. And with the increase of buffs on the evil beasts, there would also be a few debuffs on Jake and the others.

The power of the priests and priestesses would decrease with nightfall. The God of Light did not like the darkness just as the darkness did not like the light.

So, in a time when the sun went down, so would the power of those from the church of light.

Jake was ecstatic that they could finally start walking properly. The more time he spent in this place, not in the holy grounds, the more tensed he got.

What if he didn\'t have enough time to get that rock and run the hell away from there?

The caravan was moving comfortably through the single road that was conveniently placed there. Jake just knew that moving along this road was like begging to be ambushed. But they had no choice.

To get on to the forest and move through that path was too dangerous. There were more dangers within the forest than on the open road.

But more importantly, they were constrained by their strongest. Father Joseph had to be taken by carriage, and that forced them to use the carriage.

"This road is quite durable. If the kingdom didn\'t fall here, then it would be quite the prosperous one. It is so conveniently placed right next to an empire." Jake thought to himself.

The road was dusty, made of clay, but it still did not flake and have pot holes everywhere. It seemed untouched. Like they were the only ones who got this far in years.

The caravan abruptly stopped.

Everyone looked at the raised fist of their leader. He then looked around before nodding toward the others.

The caravan resumed.

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