A loud splash resounded as the person falling had landed in the water. He had fell from such great heights that it caused the entire lake to ripple violently despite containing such a shallow volume of water. Upon hearing the sound of the loud splash, Nanling was alarmed and turned towards the source. Noticing that it was a person, she immediately attempted to conceal her confidential body features with her hands. Glaring at the waterlogged person, she was overwhelmed by a desire to thrash and wring the man.Despite obviously crashing into the lake at an alt.i.tude which could easily cause mortality, she didn"t even once think of the person being injured. It wasn"t that she was a callous person but she was just too far away from civilization to be able to encounter another human being coincidentally and few females were able to tolerate being seen in the nude.
As Guren expelled excess water from his lungs, Nanling rushed forward and attempted to land a powerful kick that could erase the memories from his head. Instinctively ducking, he avoided her kick which shocked her greatly.
"Pervert!", she shouted in indignation as she continually unleashed air piercing blows.
Stoically holding onto the Concealment Mask, he merely stated, "If you have time to feel humiliated then why don"t you dress yourself instead of allowing further exposure?"
She started to blush a deep red when she realized that she could not counter his logic and hesitantly halted her a.s.sault. She then hastily went towards her clothes while glancing every now and then to see if Guren was peeking. For some reason, she felt disappointed when she found out that the masked man did not even glance at her a single time.
Guren was surprised by the speed of her attacks as it was even faster than Tianli"s but he would not underestimate someone who had arrived at the supposed Kingdom of Smiths before he did. Also, maybe she was a Master Blacksmith that could help him. Regardless, he refused to be a victim of such a ba.n.a.l misunderstanding. A voyeur would never have entered the water and remained near the forest. An accidental pervert would have been to incompetent to evade her masterful strikes. He on the other hand was deliberately set up by someone.
Drained of excess moisture after activating Aura of Purification, he then looked towards the sky. After being fully clothed, she asked, "Who are you?", with some contempt remaining as she still thought he might be a pervert but his combat skills started to dissuade her from this a.s.sumption.
He ignored Nanling completely and smirked before asking, "Did you think you could escape that easily?"
Before Nanling could ask for clarification, she then heard a feminine voice pleading, "I meant no harm, great one. I was only sending you to the Kingdom of Smiths"
"Cut the c.r.a.p. I know you"re stronger than you feign to be. Are you trying to guide me to the Kingdom or send me on a treasure hunt?"
Instead of kingdom, it was just a lake in the middle of the forest. As the forest did not even end at the horizon, he could ascertain that it was far removed from any roads or signs of civilization. It was a bit weird that there were no animals coming to drink from the lake but he could correlate the reason being the same as to why there were crushed trees everywhere. This lake was not simple as it seemed.
The nymph sighed with indignation before dropping the pretense and saying, "This is where the Kingdom of Smiths was. On the best dwarven swords, a gem is embedded. If you follow the glimmer, you will eventually reach the Kingdom"
"How do you know this information?"
"As a former guardian of this forest, I obviously interacted with the dwarves", the nymph stated before puffing out her chest pridefully.
"Clearly you failed as a guardian. Why else would they leave?"
The comment clearly resonated with her as she froze for a second before a.s.suming an aggrieved expression.
"...An unstoppable monster rampaged the lands", she started but stopped upon seeing Guren"s glowing eyes which exuded intense curiosity.
"It"s better to run if you encounter it", she warned.
"Very well then, give me a dwarven sword and I will pardon you", Guren finally said after a momentary pause. Of course, he would not heed the warning. The monster had a chance of being able to compete with him when it came to strength but definitely not tactics. Judging from the trail left behind, it was also quite likely that the monster had followed the people when they relocated the Kingdom of Smiths.
The nymph then suddenly gave a stiffened smile and admitted, "....I don"t have a dwarven sword"
She then felt a shiver crawl up her spine and quickly blurted, "She took the sword I left here" and pointed at Nanling.
As the two had conversed, Nanling stared blankly. She had never seen a nymph but it was quite obvious that the beautiful woman had an affinity with nature. If one disregarded her unique aura, then the clothing seemingly made of tree bark and shrubbery would affirm it. She also reexamined Guren but could not recognize him. Not only was this due to the Concealment Mask but was also because she had never seen Guren groomed or acting devious.
When the nymph drew attention to Nanling, she also felt a shiver crawl up her spine.
She then looked towards Guren only to discover that he moved next to her in less than a second and without making a sound.
He then extended his hand and said, "I will be accompanying you to the Kingdom of Smiths"
_______
Hearing of Guren"s exploits, Tianli swelled with pride. While worldly experts were expected to stay out of struggles between the ma.s.ses, many actually stayed out of conflicts due to the fear of dying after achieving so much. Those aware of their limits know that every battle is a gamble and that their strength only mitigated the chances of being killed.
Those willing to face an entire army alone were numbered in the single-digits and Guren charged armies so often that people began to believe that it was a form of recreation for him.
Once again inspired, Tianli trained even harder. Guren had given him a special weapon that had an adjustable weight. The weight ranged from 50 kg to 3 tons. It was to build his strength through the most brutal method and he had only mastered up to 80 kg which was minimal compared to Guren"s 2 tons.
Another advantage of being inducted was that he now had a small pocket dimension that was only accessible to him. It wasn"t as big as Guren"s but was still large enough that he did not need to carry anything. It had been amusing when he pulled a sword out of nowhere on unsuspecting bandits.
Many times he had encountered dubious individuals roaming near raiders in a war zone. It had happened so often that he became curious. They were not bodyguards of the raiders as he doubted raiders could afford it and they wouldn"t even intervene when the raiders were being slaughtered by other groups of raiders without their kind. Ambushing one of them, he had actually discovered they had a similar symbol to the one in the insignia but of inferior quality and without color.
_____
Once the two left, the nymph did not return to the tree where Guren originally found her. Instead, she lamented the loss of the forest and the once great Nation which had been reduced to merely the Kingdom of Smiths. The worst part was that the calamity which ravaged the Nation still remained and continued to grow stronger. Luckily due to the Founding Sword Saint"s intervention, the other 6 calamities were unable to traverse to this side.
One calamity already caused this much damage so how would the other 6 monstrous beings compare? There was a chance that scaly monstrosity was not even the strongest out of the 7 which terrified her as she truly felt powerless when confronted with that thing which devoured everything with a soul.
She had already lost hope since the ruin of the Nation happened 1500 years ago but for some reason, she felt that Guren could compare to the calamity. That same feeling of complete helplessness when confronted with a peerless foe could be felt just from being near him.