The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

Chapter 1386

A trace of the imperial family had been found in the western city. It was the artifact family members swallowed to protect them in case they went missing.

Fortunately, Aeria and Davey managed to recover it.

“It’s his crest.” Aeria held the artifact in her hand, her face pale. Her trembling showed just how concerned she was for her brother.

“Are you worried about him?” Davey asked.

She hesitated to respond, “That...”

“He resented and hated you for over a decade. He’s someone who hated you for most of your life, and you’re still worried about him?”

“He’s family,” she said with a wry laugh. “Even if you suddenly start hating me one day... of course it’d hurt, but I also wouldn’t be able to stop worrying about you. That’s what family is.”

He had heard that Prince Vashas used to take meticulous care of Aeria in the distant past.

It was probably a good thing Empress Redimia wasn’t listening to their conversation.

“But, where did he go? According to the information...”

“Yeah, he probably hasn’t been recaptured yet. Burning his own body to force himself to get treated, then escaping when he found a chance... He’s clearly not normal.”

“Then where should we check next?”

“They say he headed toward the city center, but that would probably be a trap. After all, its high-level Goran remnants chasing him.”

Davey didn’t know how someone a Swordmaster like him had been subdued so easily, but it was clear the war with Goran wasn’t over yet.

Nonetheless, he figured he’d run into those final few naturally as they caught Prince Vashas.

He slowly touched the ground.

[Spirits.]

‘Show me some of your memories, however little may remain.’

The earth spirits reacted to his will immediately, and their memories started to flow into him. Most of the memories were scattered, but he was able to find a few traces in them.

“Looks like he fled outside the territory,” Davey muttered.

“We have to chase after him right away!” Aeria was beyond anxious to find her brother.

“Alright, let’s go.”

The pursuers had failed to properly cover his tracks in their haste, and that mistake would become their downfall.

As soon as they entered the forest, Aeria sniffed the air. “I smell something burnt. He must be close by!”

After quickly looking around, she rushed off toward the scent.

“Aeria!” First startled by her sudden dash, he then sighed in resignation. “Killer Rabbit. Shiverwock. Taurus.”

Following his call, the three mad muscle freaks appeared.

“Protect Aeria. I need to go investigate something else.”

The three immediately scattered into the forest.

Yes, her suddenly rushing off was an issue, but more than that, a somewhat familiar yet filthy sensation hung in the air.

With those three protecting her, he knew her safety wouldn’t be an issue.

“Did the thinning of the dimensional wall have some obscure effect? What a strange phenomenon.”

It seemed it’d be difficult to accurately grasp the suspicious presence without checking it himself.

* * *

As beastfolk, Nine Tails’ sense of smell was incredibly sharp. In fact, on a previous occasion, she had nearly detected Davey even while he was in stealth mode. No matter how strong the forest’s scent was, Aeria could still track the smell of blood and burning.

Although she was running in a hurry, her outfit wasn’t suitable for moving through a rugged forest.

“Ugh!”

She nearly stumbled, looked down at her skirt, and grit her teeth. She then grabbed the hem of her skirt, brought out her claws, and lightly tore at it.

It wasn’t something she’d normally do. After all, she was known for being terrible at anything physical.

But she couldn’t stop. The thought that Vashas might truly die if she was too late overwhelmed her.

She crouched slightly and immediately began to summon her power. At the same time, her tails, which were usually still, began to glow and flicker.

Fwooosh!!!

Beastfolk were native to forests, beyond familiar with them. That was especially so for Nine Tails like her.

She leapt from branch to branch as if her hidden potential had awakened, her speed increasing with each jump. Moving as light as a feather, she quickly pressed deeper into the forest and finally saw the person she had been desperately searching for.

He was being held up in the air by a woman. Her hand gripped his neck tightly as he struggled.

His appearance was so wretched Aeria was doubtful if he was even alive.

“Brother!!” As soon as she recognized him, she ran toward him without looking back.

It felt like her heart was breaking. Though he had hated her, seeing her precious older brother in such a state wasn’t something she could just tolerate with a glance.

She hadn’t said much when Davey had called him a madman for what he had done, but seeing his actual condition brought her to tears.

Of course, there were those among the captors who blocked her. However, not even for a second did she think she was being too reckless, or that rushing in alone despite not being strong was foolish.

Swoosh!!!

That was because she knew that the pure white rabbits that had suddenly appeared had done so to protect her.

Thud!!!!

The giant, muscular rabbits wearing nothing but tight spandex underwear crouched like sprinters at the starting line before launching forward, grabbing the black-robed enemies and smashing them into the ground.

“Gaaa!!”

Seeing them gasp for breath in terrible agony, one could tell how much strength the main Killer Rabbit had granted to its many clones.

Boom! Boom!!

The black-robed figures screamed and scattered in terror as the rabbits tore through them like a sweeping white wave.

“Aargh! My eyes!”

“D-damn it! What are those monsters?!”

“S-save me!”

One of the clones slung a black-robed figure over its shoulder and cracked his back. Another black-robed figure struggled against the rabbit gripping his leg, only to be swung around and slammed into a tree.

It was a complete and instantaneous subjugation.

Using the opportunity the Killer Rabbit clones created, Aeria ran toward the woman holding Vashas.

The woman frowned at the sight of the Killer Rabbits. “What? Did you think you could do something to me with just those... things?”

She reached out her hand, as if she never once believed she’d lose.

However, the Killer Rabbits weren’t the only ones protecting Aeria.

Swoosh!!

A massive club shot out from Aeria’s shadow, striking the woman in the abdomen and sending her flying. Before she could recover, a gigantic ox, seemingly composed of stars, appeared out of nowhere and slammed its fist into her.

“GAAA!!!”

Perhaps Taurus’s power was too much even for someone at the level of a Mind Master.

She tumbled across the forest path a few times, crying out in intense pain.

“Brother! Brother! Snap out of it!” freewebnoveℓ.com

“You foolish thing... What are you doing here?” he weakly muttered.

“Vashas!!”

“I can’t believe the last thing I see before death is your face... the one I hate so much.”

Despite his words, his voice lacked the usual coldness she had become accustomed to.

“How could I not?! How could I pretend I don’t know when you’re in danger?!”

“Are you not angry?” he asked in a dying voice. “I treated you like an archnemesis. I regarded you with hatred for most of your life.”

He coughed painfully. “I also allowed the persecution of beastfolk to grow worse within Lyndis. Are you still not angry with me?”

“Brother...” She didn't know how to respond.

“Don’t say anything. I don’t want to live a miserable life where you pity me. I disrupted those people’s movements, so I have no regrets.”

He had lost his son and was terribly wounded himself. No matter the result, he would have to live in pain for the rest of his life.

Aeria being there meant that Davey O’Rowane had also arrived. Standing in the way of Goran’s special forces, which was his original goal, was enough.

Just as he was about to close his eyes, Aeria, trembling and crying, clenched her small fists and beat down on his chest.

“Gaa!! Ugh!”

“Brother, why do you keep talking about dying so carelessly?!”

“Gasp! Ugh!”

Crying her eyes out, she wailed while hitting his chest, “Did you think I’d be happy if you just died like that?!”

“You should be happy, you foolish thing. I made your whole life painful!! Why do you not hate me?!”

“Despite all that, does it erase the fact that you cherished me so much when we were kids?!”

He twitched slightly at her cry. “You foolish girl, it’s already over for me.”

“Don’t say things like that!! My heart breaks when you keep saying things like that!”

“I’m already done for. I’ll die soon, so you should kill me with your own hands.”

Aeria looked at him, sobbing.

He continued with difficulty, “Perhaps I had known all along. That what happened then wasn’t your fault. And... that I couldn’t simply blame you for not remembering, after surviving at the cost of my mother’s life.”

He couldn’t fathom how terrified and traumatized that young child must have been to lose her memories.

At that moment, the woman who had been knocked back released an immense force and rushed toward Aeria. “You damn things! Don’t mess with me anymore!!”

Constellation Taurus, who had been waiting, thrust its fist out toward her, but she avoided it with nimble movements and jumped onto its neck.

Crack!!

Exerting unimaginable muscular strength, she snapped its neck with her rippling thighs.

“Hah. Haah. Just a bunch of nobodies!”

Aeria wore a wary expression as she watched the enraged woman slowly approach her and Vashas.

“Since things have come to this, I have no choice but to kill all of you and escape this place,” the woman declared.

Aeria stood in front of Vashas. “I won’t let you.”

“Who’s going to stop me? Those white rabbits? Or that ox with the broken neck? Sorry, but they are no match for me,” she said confidently. As she drew her weapon and was about to approach Aeria, someone grabbed her from behind. “Huh?”

Taurus, whose neck had just been snapped, suddenly sprang back up, grabbed her by the neck, and slammed her into the ground.

“GAAA!!!” Her eyes widened at the force that exceeded her imagination. Unable to fully comprehend what had just happened, she looked up at Taurus from the ground.

‘I clearly snapped its neck. What’s with this power?!’

Taurus, as if nothing had happened, restored its broken neck to its original state.

“T-this... Argh!! It can’t be!!!”

A massive amount of mana began to burst from her body. Pouring out mana beyond what an average master could, she tried to push Taurus away again.

She was confident that she wouldn’t lose if that was all Taurus was capable of.

However.

“Huh?”

For some reason, even though she exerted more force than before, Taurus didn’t budge.

[Oh dear.]

[You venomous little girl. Did you really think that was all Taurus is capable of?]

[Kyuu.]

[How foolish.]

More than a dozen pure white rabbits surrounded her, looking down at her.

With every word they spoke, she felt a sense of dissociation, as if her entire body was being twisted.

“W-what in the...”

“Taurus is strong enough to have a tug-of-war with my husband. It only usually holds its power back because it’s too strong.”

However, when a being that could match its power appeared, it no longer restricted itself.

“N-no... stay back. Stay back!!!” She realized she had no chance of winning, and she flinched and backed away. “You monsters! What kind of creatures is the Saint of Tionis raising?!”

“Your soul isn’t clean either. I can sense the smell of a soul that’s utterly corrupted. Your vital energy is tainted.”

Hearing Aeria’s cold words, the woman screamed, “Shut up!!! Stop being ridiculous!! What would a mere nobody like you know!”

After completely subduing the others, Killer Rabbit and Taurus slowly closed in on her.

She gritted her teeth. “Since it’s come to this... I’ll use my last resort.”

If it was too hard to run from the monsters, she would at least take them down with her.

She began to release all the unique power she had spread throughout the forest. Once it fully manifested, the entire forest would be completely devastated.

She couldn’t stop them now, and even if those monsters endured her attack, she was certain Aeria and Prince Vashas would die.

“That’s enough.”

However, she had overlooked one thing—the fact that Aeria was there, yet Davey hadn’t shown himself in the entire conflict.

The faint forces that had spread across the entire forest scattered as if they had never existed in the first place. At the same time, an invisible force flew from the far side of the forest and struck her, completely neutralizing her without pain.

The mana that had been steadily emerging instead froze in an instant.

Seeing her power completely disperse, she looked around, her eyes wide in shock.

‘This shouldn’t be happening.’

As she continued to look around in disbelief, she saw a man walking out from the far side of the forest and shivered. As soon as she faced him, she instinctively realized that he was beyond anything she had seen before. Having reached the level of a Mind Master, she had believed herself strong enough to be a disaster just by existing.

Yet the young man before her was completely different.

“D-Davey!! My brother! Please save my brother!”

When Aeria cried out, Davey looked down at Vashas with a cold expression. “You really were trying your best to die.”

He spoke in a dying voice, “Did you come to mock me?”

“I am and should. You did something stupid.”

“Hah!”

[Hey, Davey. What should we do with this one?] freēwēbηovel.c૦m

The Killer Rabbit clones, imbued with will, asked him questions while pinning the woman to the ground.

Her expression was twisted in disgust, clearly miserable at being subdued by the massive, sweaty and muscle-bound creatures.

“Do whatever you guys want,” Davey responded.

[Then we’ll take her to that place.]

“Go ahead.”

“L-let go! Let me go, you monsters!! Let go! I don’t want to die!! I want to live!!”

At her hysterical screams, Davey seemed to recall something and tossed her what he was holding.

It was the head of an old man. Owl, the very person who had lured Aeria to the Bernhardt Canyon.

“I caught him as he was trying to run away on his own.” He chuckled and motioned with his hand, and the Killer Rabbits slipped away into the shadows.

Moonlight screamed and shrieked as she was dragged away, “Aaaah! I don’t want to die! Please! Please save me!”

Most of her body was sinking, as if she were being pulled into a swamp.

She desperately clung to the grass and flowers around her, but the rabbits, whose red eyes glowed in the black shadows, mercilessly dragged her down into the shadows.

Then, one of the clones reached out with a massive hand and grabbed her head, making Moonlight’s eyes widen. “Please...”

Swoop!!!

The downfall of the Mind Master was truly desperate, and happened in an instant.

Vashas, who was badly burned, was confused by the sight and cautiously asked, “W-where on earth are they taking her?”

“Oh, nowhere special. Just those crazy muscle freak perverts’ favorite hangout place.” He then chuckled. “But I’ll say this—I’ve never seen anyone go in there and come out sane.”