Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Mia was always present and watching these bouts from the ramparts above because she felt like she would get sick from the sheer concentration of mana produced by the two fighters. It amazed her how the boy could keep up with such daily rigors. By this point, she knew that she would have been beyond useless.

"Wow… I\'ve never seen Uncle get so in to training someone. I knew he had potential…"

Those words came from an excited wolf-girl with blonde hair and gray eyes. She was peering over the edge of the walls and basically drooling over the men fighting. It was hard to tell if she was just a battle junkie or if something else was going on.

"You alright in the head?" She asked the wolf-girl.

"His mate, this… uh… Rena! Is she prettier than me?" Kalliope asked.

From behind the girl\'s body, Mia could see her tail wagging from excitement. Mia sighed and took a long, hard look at the girl\'s face. Her features were rounded with an angular chin and she had large eyes. Her hair was cut short for combat purposes and she had clearly trimmed it up a little.

Underneath her armor, Mia was able to make out her extremely toned body. Where the tights under her armor gripped, left little to the imagination. To put simply, she was absolutely gorgeous.

Was she prettier than Rena though? Probably not. Rena had that pure beauty about her. Even while wearing dirty adventure gear, she had this aura of grace about her. The combination of her crimson hair and bright green eyes were striking and stood out among the crowd.

"Honestly?" Mia shared. "Rena is a peerless beauty. You too are very attractive, but Rena is a cut above."

"Hmm…" Kalliope put a hand to her face and began to think.

At first, she was worried the girl would look crestfallen after hearing that her competition was prettier than her, but she did not appear to be upset.

"Well, I bet I am stronger than her." There was a look of total confidence on her face.

"I can definitely say you would win in a fight."

"Then it\'s settled. She is the beautiful wife and I shall be the strong one."

Words escaped Mia for a moment. "Wh-wh-what? You want to marry Lucius? You know he can\'t get married right? He\'s a Marked One… also more than one wife? That\'s…"

"What, do humans do it differently? My father has many, many wives. It is common for beastmen to have several partners. Well, except Uncle… father said that Uncle only ever loved one woman, but they could not be together. Do you think Lucius would be against multiple wives? He is part beastman."

"I…" Mia was stunned. However, she did not know the answer. "I don\'t know… he does not tend to follow the norm when it comes to morals… but I do know that there are few people he holds dear, and one is Rena. So… good luck with that."

Mia turned back to the battle below and continued to watch while overhearing the occasional mutterings of several plans that Kalliope was cooking up.

*****

Three individuals walked through the sands of the Alorek desert. Though the sun beat down on them and the wind whipped sand into every orifice on their bodies, they moved with purpose and haste.

Shiyani was currently leading her two party members along the path marked for them by Commander Laris based on the reports he had received from Lucius\' squad leader, Mia. Shiyani was very aware of who Mia was because of the woman\'s history as a famous adventuring party.

Shiyani had even seen the woman fight and was excited to meet with her. They had no intention of fighting with anyone other than Lucius and had devised quite the interesting plan regarding how to pull it off.

"Hey boss. How much longer?"

She rolled her eyes. "What are you, ten? We will get there when we get there."

"Right, but we are stuck in a desert, it\'s hot, I\'m thirsty, and we\'ve been walking for days now, I feel like we should be there by now." Her lackey continued.

"Gods, if you weren\'t so damned good at your job, I would knock you out and leave you here in the damned place. Stop whining. We will get there when we get there."

While they had been walking, they made sure to look for landmark signs of the battles to ensure they were on the right path. Granted, they were not following every battle, and instead opted for a more direct line. However, Laris apparently wanted to confirm that the battles that took place, actually took place.

Since they knew that the group was at Fort Sella, they could mostly just head that direction, but as thanks for all the explosive crystal they had \'acquired\' it was the least they could do to repay such a kind favor with a little extra effort on their end.

A lot of the ruined carts they had passed showed signs that they had been burned, so nothing could be scavenged, and though the blowing sands did a lot to cover up the signs of battle, there were still occasional char marks in sandstone and rock that peeked through to the surface that showed the battle\'s intensity.

Most of the battlefields had shards of glass, likely from Lucius\' Thunder Magic spells. From what Shiyani knew about the mage, Marie, her fire magic was not all that powerful to create such heat, so it had to be the kid.

As they kept walking, Shiyani swapped out another explosive crystal. She had been spending time filling them up so they were just under their containment limit, then storing them in her storage ring. She had no clue if she would really need to use them, but it was always better to have multiple plans in place.

Lucius had a few glaring weaknesses. Above a certain level of strength, one could just overpower him, however Shiyani was not at that level. She was an Advance Rank fighter and from what she knew, he would be able to fight her off. That made a one-on-one tricky.

Even adding in her two subordinates, might not be enough and he could escape from their clutches. They really needed to ensure they took him out. No doubt upon their return they would have their memories scanned regarding the fight, so if they tried to claim his death when he really ran away, they would not get their payment.

He also did not have fantastic defense against powerful magical spells. The best he could do was dodge, but if facing simultaneous attacks, he had yet to display any abilities to avoid injury in such a scenario. Finally, the best option was to use one of these explosive crystals.

"Hmmm. I found the spot. Alright you idiots, let\'s backtrack a little bit, I will meet up with you, I have something I need to prepare."

"Got it boss."