Chapter 233: Reunion (1/2)

'Please, hold on!' Layn wished with all his heart while he continued to jog at a pace that the rest of his group could maintain.

He wished to scream this plea out loud to the skies in hopes of some absolute being hearing him out...

But he couldn't. Doing so would reveal just how insanely worried he was for Irea and the rest of the people he left back at the camp. And he couldn't afford to deal such an attack on the morale of the group.

”Sighting of a group ahead!” someone shouted the report, pointing with his finger to the distant hill.

'What?' A shiver traveled down Layn's spine. 'Are we too late?!' he thought, feeling how desperation was taking over his mind.

Ever since he crossed the depths of time to arrive in this place, he only had one wish. One wish that clarified as he learned more and more about his current situation.

All Layn wanted in this strange time was to create an academy and pass his knowledge on so that the wonders of ancient times could be preserved. But as he met people, learned more about this world, and grew quite fond of it, Irea took the prime spot of Layn's ledger of importance.

And right now, she was likely to be either chased away or already dead!

Layn quickly started losing the reins over his emotions. His face darkened.

'After everything we went through, even after I somehow managed to heal her back then...' his wrath was getting more and more noticeable with every passing second.

”It's a small detachment!” someone else reported. ”Roughly the same numbers as our group!”

Layn strained his eyes in the direction the people were pointing towards... But his vision was already reddened, making it impossible for him to see anything further than just a few steps.

”Boss! What do we do?” someone asked for orders.

”Let's chase them down,” Markus replied, noticing Layn's state. ”Brother...” he whispered after approaching the archmage's side, ”I'm sorry.”

Those two words of solace were the one thing that Layn's friend could offer.

Because the group that they spotted was directly on the path, they had to take to return to the camp! In other words, whoever dared to invade Layn's dominion, already went through the camp!

”Wait, that's strange,” Markus muttered, moving his eyes towards the distant group. ”What?” he continued to whisper.

”What's wrong?” Layn asked, forcing his wrath down his throat and looking in the direction of the enemies.

Right, enemies?

With his emotions reined down, Layn could finally see as far as usually... And there was something wrong.

The look of the people in the group ahead... was just a bit too familiar to him.

'Could it be...?' he thought, only to bite down on his lips and turn his face to his friend.

”I will be going ahead. Can you hold the men together?” He asked.

As much as the archmage wished to just run ahead and check if his suspicion was true, he couldn't simply abandon the people following him. That was the burden he had by being their damned leader!

”Sure thing,” Markus smiled. As neither of the groups stopped moving for even the shortest moment, he could now confirm his doubts. ”Run to her,” he said, patting Layn's back.

”Thanks,” Layn replied before unleashing the full potential of his magic-supported agility.

By circulating his mana through his blood system, he supplied more than enough energy to his muscles. In a second, he had already reached the front of the group, only to get ahead of them before anyone could react.