Kyle very carefully walked down the road.
He constantly felt threats looking at him from a distance, and his instincts told him that this was a very, very dangerous place.
Just the number of these beast-repelling flowers was crazy.
The roads leading to Starkhold just had a thin line of them, while the line here was almost ten meters wide.
'Bro, going into the wilderness here feels like a death sentence.'
Luckily, Kyle saw a bunch of powerful people walking through the streets as well.
The people occasionally nodded at Kyle in greeting before continuing, and Kyle returned the greeting.
Yet, whenever Kyle received one of these greetings, his instincts were telling him that he couldn't fight any of these people.
The weakest person who had greeted him was a Mid Fighter, and that guy felt really powerful for his level.
Within 30 minutes of travel, Kyle had already seen five Grandmasters!
Every single one of them could fight Bonk or Wyveria.
One time, Kyle even saw an entire company of Knights running past him.
Almost all of them were Peak Knights, and the few of them that weren't were Royal Knights.
'I should get used to this,' Kyle thought. 'The Wild Wardens' territory borders the territory of the Skysand Fighter Guild, and the Skysand Fighter Guild is around the capital.'
The Skysand Fighter Guild was the Five-Weapons Guild.
'If I remember correctly, the war with the Winterfire Kingdom is led on two fronts.'
'On the New Continent in the middle of the Grand Ocean and the World Peak far to the west.'
'This was probably a company of royal soldiers traveling from the headquarters to the World Peak.'
The World Peak was the biggest mountain range in the entire world, and it was on the left "edge" of the world.
The biggest mountain even reached the World Ceiling.
Both Kingdoms wanted control of it for two reasons.
First of all, the ore there was even better than the ore of the Dividing Ridge.
Second, there was an Ether Essence there, the source of all Ether Crystals and Ether Gems.
However, there was also something else there, which made the war on that front very different from the other one.
One of the Natural Gods resided there as well.
The war on the western front was in a delicate and dangerous balance.
They needed to push back the enemy without causing so much chaos that the Natural God became angry.
As Kyle continued traveling to Forthing's Hold, he felt like he was out of his depth.
'This feels almost like the time I traveled through the wilderness on the peninsula.'
Luckily, despite the constant danger he felt, Kyle didn't actually come face to face with any danger.
The constant presence of powerful people kept all beasts at bay.
After two nervous hours of traveling, Kyle finally reached his destination.
Forthing's Hold.
"Whoa," Kyle said as he saw Forthing's Hold.
'This looks like out of a fantasy movie!'
The city was probably over ten kilometers wide, and the buildings became taller the closer they got to the center.
In the center of the city was the biggest fortress Kyle had ever seen.
The walls were made of unimaginably powerful black metal, and the fortress itself was almost 500 meters high!
Even more, it was an entire two kilometers wide!
"The Forthing's expanded their castle again," Theodor commented.
"That's their castle? The entire thing?" Kyle asked.
"Yes," Theodor answered. "It looks big, but there are not that many people in there. Over 90% of it is just storage for the most valuable ore the Forthings own. This is also the Skysand Kingdom's primary repository of ore. Half of the ore in there is owned by the Skysand Kingdom. They are just storing it there."
"This building is powerful enough to resist a couple of attacks launched by a Transcendent."
Kyle gulped.
"What about the Colossus?" he asked.
"What a stupid question," Theodor answered with a snort. "The Colossus would just swallow the entire building. In fact, it has already tried to do that."
"It has?" Kyle asked.
"Yes. The ore inside this building is a delicacy that even attracts the Colossus. Whenever the Colossus moves, the Transcendents immediately fly to it and attack it. It is a national emergency every time it happens."
"Luckily, it hasn't tried to do that for a very long time."
'Crazy,' Kyle thought.
He hadn't expected that this journey would widen his horizons by this much.
It was like, up until now, he had lived in some kind of small world.
Today was the first time he actually saw the power of the Skysand Kingdom.
Kyle walked towards the city and entered without any issues.
The guards didn't even look at him since he was not strong enough to be a threat.
Forthing's Hold was filled with so many powerful guards that it was crazy.
Naturally, this dense military presence was due to the value of the ore stored in the huge fortress.
Crime basically didn't exist here.
The powerful guards could see almost everything.
"Wait a second," one of the guards suddenly said to Kyle.
Kyle became nervous and turned to look at the guard. "Yes?" he asked.
The guard looked at Kyle with furrowed brows.
'Oh boy, hope he hasn't recognized my hammer,' Kyle thought.
"I know that hammer," the guard said, looking at it with furrowed brows.
Kyle gulped. "Oh, you do?" he asked nervously.
"Yeah," the guard said. "Were you in Janus' Hold recently?"
"Huh?" Kyle asked.
"Yeah, you were that dwarf Fighter, right?" the guard asked with interest.
"Eh, yeah. I was in a fight there recently," Kyle said.
"Hey, Jim!" the guard shouted, and another guard walked over. "This is the guy!"
"What guy?" the other guard asked.
"The one who ate his opponent."
"Oh, that guy!" the other guard said as he looked at Kyle. "Crazy. You ate someone in a tournament?"
Kyle became nervous. "I mean, not a lot. His flesh just ended up in my mouth, and I swallowed. I didn't really intend to eat him."
"Wow," the guard said while blinking a couple of times.
"Amazing, right?" the first guard asked with a smirk.
"Sure is!" the other guard said. "Sounds like an amazing fight!"
"It was!" the first guard said with a laugh. "Was the best fight I've ever seen in a tournament! You should've seen him! He fought like a wild animal!"
"Hey, Johnny! It's the guy!" the other guy shouted to the walls.
"What guy?" someone asked back.
"The dwarf hammer guy Jellon has been talking about for the past days!"
"Oh, that guy!" Johnny said as he looked over the wall at Kyle. "Hey, did you really eat someone?"
Kyle just smiled awkwardly.
"Wow, that's crazy! Wish I could do that to become stronger! I'm super envious!"
More and more guards gathered around Kyle, asking him if he truly ate someone.
Surprisingly, they didn't seem to mind.
In fact, they found it interesting and entertaining.
'Am I famous?' Kyle thought helplessly.
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