"I get it," Theo said right away, making the baron smile.
"I thought you were going to cry, but oh well, we can start right away," the baron replied. Theo’s eyebrow twitched at that, but he didn’t say anything in return and only nodded.
"I have already found a candidate suitable for your skill level."
The baron then pointed northward. Theo followed his gaze, staring at the distant trees and moss as if he could actually see sothing there.
"Walk straight ahead until you find a beast. Don’t worry, it’s big enough that you will spot it from miles away," the baron said.
Theo nodded at first, then paused as if he had realized sothing hidden in those words. He looked at his father, montarily speechless.
"... alone right?" Theo asked.
The baron simply smiled and t his gaze without answering him.
Theo took a deep breath. "Won’t the crawlers get in the way, Father?"
"That’s fine, isn’t it?" the baron replied calmly. "I know you can take care of them easily. Besides, they will vanish once you enter that beast’s territory, so you can focus entirely on fighting it."
Theo stared at him for a few seconds before turning his gaze to the north again.
"You should leave now," the baron added. "Otherwise, your attendants will just cause chaos again."
’Ant queen, I will be back in a while. Protect yourself and the colony as best as you can, alright?’ Theo spoke through their bond, while the ant queen responded with signs of concern.
It was able to listen to the entire conversation through the bond, and the way it showed its emotions made it obvious it was trying to convey that this could get far too dangerous.
’Don’t worry about ... I have been training a lot for this mont...’ Theo replied, then closed the bond right away. He didn’t think this was the ti to overthink anything.
If he were to think too much and hesitate, his father would sense the fear right away and might change his mind, sothing Theo absolutely didn’t want.
’Mantis, let’s go.’
Theo knew he had to fight alone, but that didn’t an he planned to go without his strongest beast. Doing so would be nothing but suicide.
"Judging by your expression, I see you just talked with your beast, huh..." The baron spoke again, this ti in a serious tone.
Theo stiffened, having a gut feeling that this was going bad.
"You’re forbidden from bringing any of them with you. I can sense all of them, so it’s impossible to sneak one along with you, Theo."
"No beasts?" Theo frowned for the first ti since the conversation began, making the baron let out a sigh.
"YOU NEED TO DO THIS ALONE," he said, his domineering voice leaving no room for argunt.
Hearing his words, Theo stared at him for a mont.
"... I see"
’Don’t co, Mantis. Keep playing until I return,’ Theo said through the bond, and cut it off shortly after. He knew the mantis wouldn’t stay idle since he had already asked for help.
"Just believe in yourself. And if you don’t... then believe in your training, Theo. You can do this."
The baron then extended his big hand and reached for Theo’s shoulder, making him nod while looking at his son.
"I will be back soon, Father."
Theo took a few steps forward, leaving the baron behind at the training grounds. He kept walking while taking deep breaths; he needed all the oxygen to clear his mind to make the right decisions.
’Now that I think about it... this is the first ti I am going sowhere alone... There would always be Clara or so guard or a family mber with ...’ Theo thought, his eyes subconsciously looking everywhere.
When he was two minutes in, his brisk walk had brought him to a patch of disturbed ground. A few heads bobbed up from the soil, making him imdiately draw out his sword from the scabbard.
He halted and glanced at his sword. Closing his eyes for a mont, he focused inward, trying to sense sothing in his body, anything. According to his father, his aura had already manifested in his heart.
Theo concentrated for a mont but realized that all he felt was... normal. Nothing out of the ordinary or unusual seed to be stirring within him when he tried sensing it, which made him open his eyes and push the thought aside and go on killing anything in front of him.
It only took half a minute to do so, and soon, Theo fell into a steady rhythm of moving forward at a good pace while getting rid of anything that entered his imdiate radius.
And like this, thirty minutes had passed. Theo continued moving forward, puncturing every crawler head that ca out of the ground. Soon, the motion beca second nature.
When a lot of ti passed just like this, Theo finally noticed the scenery far ahead beginning to change.
It felt like there were fewer trees. Less flora. And the land felt strangely bare.
As he advanced, dispatching the crawlers, he tried to find what was wrong until he realized that their numbers seed to be dwindling more than usual.
’Am I already in its territory?’ Theo wondered, his eyes sweeping the area around him.
The next minute, he pushed farther and deeper in the north, and that was when the crawlers completely stopped appearing from the ground. Not a single one of them surfaced and attacked him, which felt weird and sowhat unnerving to even think of.
They were scared of sothing.
And that sothing was exactly what Theo was after.
Approaching the different terrain, Theo noticed that it was more and more like a slope.
’The ground doesn’t feel natural at all,’ he thought as he crouched down to examine the soil.
’It’s loose...’ he thought again, ’like sothing tore through it or sothing.’
He moved farther toward the slight incline, and with every step, it felt more like he was descending into a massive crevice.
It was as though an earthquake had torn all the land and made it fall inward.
When Theo felt like he had gone deep enough, he stopped.
Ahead, he saw that the ground had been dug a lot deeper, forming a deep hollow, and sothing seed to be lying in the center of it.
Theo narrowed his eyes, trying to focus.
Finally, he understood what stood before his eyes.
It was the very beast he had co here for.
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