In this world, aside from Orario, there naturally existed many other forces.
Some of these forces, like Orario, could become the center of the world with nothing more than a single city, drawing the attention of all people, while others took the form of nations, races, or tribes, creating a landscape akin to a hundred schools of thought contending with one another.
However, as the indisputable center of the world, Orario’s status and strength were unquestionably at the very top.
First, it was the only place in the world capable of producing magic stone products, holding a monopoly over the magic stone industry, amassing wealth on a global scale, and possessing economic power unrivaled worldwide.
Second, it was the prison of the Dungeon, the foremost line of defense that protected humanity from being ravaged by monsters surging onto the surface, as without it, the entire world would once again regress to ancient times, plunging into endless war and chaos.
Third, because of the Dungeon’s existence, this place gathered the greatest number of gods, the greatest number of familia, and the greatest number of powerful individuals in the world.
The monster nest known as the Dungeon saw massive numbers of adventurers pour into it every single day, with people constantly slaying monsters, absorbing excelia to grow, and endlessly taking risks to forge great feats and attain ascension, and as a result, Labyrinth City Orario, which possessed the Dungeon, could be said to be a place where new powerhouses were continuously being born.
With the Dungeon training adventurers, endlessly supplying excelia, and providing opportunities to establish great feats, Orario was able to produce so many First-Class Adventurers, and even beings of Level 6 and Level 7.
Fifteen years ago, the Zeus Familia and Hera Familia had reached an unprecedented peak, consecutively giving birth to a Level 8 and a Level 9, something that was simply inconceivable outside Orario.
Compared to Orario, forces outside the city were generally far weaker in overall strength.
They were unlike Orario’s adventurer, who could obtain excelia at all times and constantly take risks to establish great feats and ascend, and thus, outside Orario, those who were called strong were mostly only Level 2, with the highest being merely Level 3.
Compared to Orario, where First-Class Adventurers gathered in large numbers, the gap was naturally enormous.
Even though there were fewer than forty First-Class Adventurers in Orario, compared to outside forces that topped out at Level 3 at best, Orario was still overwhelmingly strong, since the reason it was called the center of the world lay precisely in the sheer magnitude of power it possessed.
However, although they could not match Orario, within the scope of the entire world, there were still forces that, due to special environments and unique factors, stood out among the many forces and possessed power that even Orario had to regard with caution.
For example, the magic country known as Altena claimed to possess the greatest number of mages and magi in the world, regarded magic as everything, and was among the foremost forces in the world, to the point that it even dared to treat Orario as an enemy and oppose Orario directly.
For forces like Altena, which could maintain outstanding combat power even outside Orario, people generally referred to them as world forces.
These extremely rare world forces were not to be underestimated and could be described as a pack of wolves that kept Orario firmly in their sights, constantly chasing after it from behind.
After the Zeus Familia and the Hera Familia withdrew from the world stage fifteen years ago, the strongest Level 7 acknowledged by the world consisted of one in Orario and another outside Orario.
Consequently, a small portion of the forces outside Orario were also highly regarded and feared by the world.
Telskyura, the former homeland of Tiona and Tione, was one of these rare world forces.
It was the country and homeland of amazonesses, located in the southern part of the continent, and was also known as the Country of Blood and Fighting.
It adopted a policy of isolation, with its citizens almost entirely composed of amazonesses, exhibiting extreme xenophobia, and its national character was so fierce that it shocked the world.
Because amazonesses were all females and had no males, they would abduct outstanding males from outside, use their seed to bear children, and thus maintain their population.
Because amazonesses were born belligerent and despised the weak, they worshiped strength to an extreme degree, with nearly every one of them being a fearsome female warrior who struck terror into others.
Tiona and Tione had been born in such a country, wandered outside for several years after leaving their homeland, and had only come to Orario five years ago, joining the Loki Familia.
And the two amazonesses who now stood before them, just like them, were precisely compatriots and fellow kin from Telskyura, who had known Tiona and Tione since childhood.
However—
"Why are you here?!"
Faced with compatriots and fellow kin they had not seen for a long time, the first to voice a challenge was Tione.
At this very moment, there was none of her usual composure left on Tione’s face, as if she had stripped off a mask and revealed her true self, like a ferocious god of slaughter, staring fiercely at the two sisters before her, with a twisted and furious expression surfacing on her face and a terrifying aura radiating from her entire body.
Anyone from the Loki Familia knew that Tione was not a particularly gentle person, as her true nature was not only rough and very ruthless, but also extremely short-tempered, prone to throwing punches and kicks at the slightest disagreement, making her a complete brute.
Compared to her, the seemingly carefree Tiona was like a little angel, always lively, always full of energy, and always loving to laugh and play around.
Thanks to this, Tione had earned the alias Jormungand.
However, after joining the Loki Familia and encountering Finn, the man she loved, Tione had changed a great deal. It was not that she had become gentler, but rather that she had merely disguised herself to win the favor of the one she loved.
Even though she occasionally revealed her true face, in the eyes of most people, Tione appeared far more mature, steady, and calm than Tiona, and did not resemble the so-called brute at all.
But at this moment, Tione had completely lost all remnants of that disguise, stripping away every mask and laying bare her true nature.
Not only Tione, but even the usually carefree and thoughtless Tiona was baring her teeth at this moment—her appearance was just like that of a young beast threatening a lioness.
In response to this, the female warriors called Argana and Bache moved.
*Swish!*
Among the two, the first to act was the amazoness named Argana.
Like a python that had long been coiled and suddenly lunged out from the grass, she rushed toward Tione at astonishing speed and lashed out with a vicious kick aimed at Tione’s torso.
It was a strike meant to destroy the human body.
If hit by this kick, even if the body did not explode into pieces, the bones would still be shattered, making it impossible to stand up again with ease.
Faced with this vicious blow, Tione seemed as if some unbearable memory had been stirred deep within her, and she instinctively returned a kick of her own, driving it straight toward the opponent’s vital point.
*BANG!*
Amid a dull impact, the two amazonesses kicked each other at the same time and were sent flying backward.
*Cough!*
Tione barely managed to steady herself, yet still coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Argana was much the same, blood flowing from the corner of her mouth, clearly and unmistakably injured.
At the very last possible moment, both of them had avoided each other’s vital point, forcibly deflecting the opponent’s attack power, yet even so, they were still inevitably injured at the same time.
From this alone, it was clear just how brutally both of them had struck during that exchange.
Even so, Argana actually laughed, laughing brightly, openly, and unmistakably delighted.
"Haha, so the rumors were true! You really did reach Level 6, Tione!"
Argana was visibly excited by this fact.
"Argana! Damn you!"
Tione’s face twisted violently in fury.
"Tione!"
Seeing Tione injured with her own eyes, Tiona instinctively tried to rush over, but the other amazoness did not allow her to leave.
"...Where do you think you’re looking?"
Tiona froze for an instant upon hearing this ice-cold voice that sounded right beside her, and almost reflexively, she reached out.
*Pa!*
A slender brown palm, aimed directly at Tiona’s throat, sliced silently through the air, but was caught by the hand Tiona thrust out at the same moment, producing a crisp sound like clapping hands together.
"Bache!"
Tiona shouted in anger, her face twisting furiously.
"Shut up."
Bache cut off Tiona’s emotional cry with a cold and curt response, and in the next instant, her other hand moved as well, her legs following, her torso twisting like a snake, making her entire body seem as though it had lost its bones and become astonishingly flexible.
As a result, the amazoness called Bache transformed completely into a barrage of ferocious attacks, her hands and feet shooting out like bullets, mercilessly striking toward Tiona’s throat, shoulders, chest, abdomen, and other vital points.
*BANG!* *BANG!* *BANG!* *BANG!*
Relying on the superior combat instincts of an amazoness, Tiona countered—blocking Bache’s palm strikes, kicking away the blow aimed at her abdomen, bracing against punches and elbow blows, and pushing back against a sudden knee strike—retreating rapidly amid a string of explosive clashes that sounded like firecrackers.
On the other side, Tione and Argana had, at some point, charged at each other again, engaging in an extremely fierce close-quarters fight, causing the same pounding collision sounds to ring out without end.
Argana threw a heavy punch straight at Tione’s face, which Tione answered by ramming forward with her forehead, then following up with a devastating high kick.
Argana raised her left arm to block the kick, then used Tione’s momentum to spin her body and unleash a powerful roundhouse kick.
Tione twisted aside, the whistling wind of the kick grazing her skin, and immediately drove her whole body forward, slamming her shoulder into Argana’s braced arms.
After rebounding apart, they wasted no time and attacked again, fists and legs filling the air, dazzling the eye.
It was a storm of punches and kicks.
It was a violent, blazing clash.
Fists and legs capable of shattering rock and shaking the ground collided at extreme speed without yielding to one another, pushing the two pairs of amazonesses into a white-hot battle in an instant.
No one was allowed to break free, no one was allowed to stop, and no one was even allowed to slow down. They were only permitted to accelerate, accelerate, and accelerate again, until the loud sound of flesh colliding pounded against the eardrums and echoed throughout the entire space.
"Miss Tiona!"
"Miss Tione!"
"H-How could this—?!"
Surrounded by a group of amazonesses, the members of the Loki Familia caught sight of this scene out of the corner of their eyes, each of them unable to believe what they were seeing.
It couldn’t be helped.
When it came purely to unarmed combat, even among the elite-filled Loki Familia, few could compare to Tione and Tiona.
Among the First-Class Adventurers of the Loki Familia, Gareth had the greatest strength and defense, Bete was the fastest, Finn relied on technique and intellect to gain the upper hand in battles of the same level, Riveria was the supreme magic user, and Ais possessed the highest swordsmanship, while the twin sisters Tiona and Tione were the strongest in hand-to-hand combat.
They had mastered the amazoness martial art passed down in Telskyura, a martial art whose refinement and practicality were unmatched, making the limbs and bodies of these two amazonesses more effective than any weapon, far beyond what an ordinary adventurer could compare to.
If Ais had no sword, facing these amazoness sisters, she would be knocked to the ground in two or three moves, which would also apply to Finn and the others.
Aside from Bete, who had specifically trained his leg techniques and could barely keep up, the other familia executives simply could not easily defeat the twin amazonesses in unarmed combat.
Yet at this very moment, Tiona and Tione were being suppressed.
Yes, they were being suppressed by another pair of amazoness sisters.
Argana drove Tione back step by step, while Tiona was continuously battered by Bache’s snake-like limbs, already bearing multiple abrasions across her body.
"So those are the strongest female warriors of Telskyura..."
Lefiya saw this scene while chanting her magic and spoke in a shaken voice.
Telskyura, this southern great nation belonging exclusively to the amazonesses, was ruled by a single familia, and that familia was named the Kali Familia, with its goddess being the goddess of war who governed blood and slaughter.
Kali thirsted for battle, thirsted for blood, and thirsted for the bloody feast that lay between life and death.
As a result, this goddess enforced a brutal system of struggle within the country she controlled, holding daily battles known as ’rituals’ in the nation’s arena.
Sometimes, there were battles between people and monsters.
Sometimes, there were battles between people themselves.
Any method could be used, since there were no rules governing these battles, and the only way to determine victory was for one person to fall dead while the other survived.
Through such relentless and brutal combat, nearly all of Telskyura’s amazonesses were equally granted opportunities for ’adventure,’ constantly defeating powerful foes and challenging their own limits, ultimately causing both the level and the number of strong individuals in this nation to far exceed those of other nations.
Argana was the captain of the Kali Familia, and together with her twin younger sister Bache, they once served as the teachers of Tiona and Tione, while also being their rivals.
Both Argana and Bache were Level 6, but they had leveled up two years earlier and were therefore stronger than Tiona and Tione, who had only recently reached that same level.
*BANG!*
*BANG!*
In the end, amid two heavy, explosive impacts, Tiona and Tione were sent flying at the same time by Argana and Bache.
""Pfff!""
Tiona and Tione spat out blood together and collapsed to the ground, severely injured.
"Miss Tiona!"
"Miss Tione!"
Seeing the scene before them, the members of the Loki Familia could not help but cry out in despair.
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[A bonus Chapter for every 300 Power Stones.]
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