After only four hours of searching, a group consisting of five Holy Knights arrived at the position where the former Sun Village was existing.
"We should notify Bishop Daniela about this." said one of them while taking out a talisman hidden below his armour. "You guys should go check that house in the middle of it."
The other four soldiers walked towards Drake's house which was now empty, trying to find anything useful to report. Since it was a search party consisting of Holy Knights, that were on the peak of the Body Refinement realm, it wasn't long until they discovered traces left behind by Drake's hurried escape.
"Lady Bishop said she will be here within the next fifteen minutes. She ordered us to search for any traces left behind regarding what happened." Announced the soldier that contacted Bishop Daniela earlier.
After no more than ten minutes, Bishop Daniela arrived and started questioning her soldiers but not before taking a look around herself.
"Did you guys find anything?"
"Nothing that can explain what happened but it was probably planned. The house over here had a barrier array around it, so it survived the destruction.
Furthermore, there were definitely survivors. It should be only one though, with the possibility of a second one. They left in a great hurry as if something was chasing them." a soldier replied.
"Any possibility they knew we were coming?"
"Lady Bishop, I don't see how that can be possible. Certainly, they might have been afraid that someone will come after all this destruction, but it would be impossible to know about us specifically. Except if the cause of all this is a beast of great power, but then there would be no reason for it to run."
"Well done. Now all of you, go and find whoever it was that ran away. There is a high chance for them to be these monkey beasts they asked us to capture.
"If you find them, try assessing their strength first. If they are weaker than you, capture them immediately otherwise contact me and trail them until I arrive.
"I need to send a message to the Holy Capital and let them know about this." As soon as she gave the orders, the soldiers saluted and started running towards Drake and Diana. As for her, she jumped on top of her mount and rushed towards the entrance of the Great Wilderness to contact the Holy Capital.
While the Holy Knights were investigating, Drake was waking up inside the cave. He slowly stood up and stretched himself by doing some of the body manual movements that were now as easy as breathing for him. Then he went towards the entrance of the cave where Diana was still on the lookout.
"Hi, Drake" Diana smiled.
"You have five minutes to get yourself ready. We will be leaving as soon as they pass" Drake said and sat down to cultivate. He knew they would be running for some time, so every second was precious.
"You could at least try to be polite," Diana muttered.
Five minutes passed very fast, and soon Drake stood up and announced they were leaving. Diana simply nodded and followed behind him. Their speed was considerably slower than when Drake was carrying her since her cultivation wasn't on par with him.
After running for at least five hours, they found a lake in front of them, and they stopped. Both of them greedily drank some water before Diana shyly asked Drake to take a bath.
"You can take a bath while I'll go and hunt something for us to eat," Drake announced.
Diana waited for a bit after Drake left to make sure he was far away enough, and then she jumped inside happily enjoying a few moments of relaxation.
Somewhere close to the lake, five Holy Knights were closing up on Diana who was taking a bath.
"Those beasts sure can run. We haven't rested for almost ten hours now." one of the soldiers complained.
"You should be thanking the fact that they are beasts. A human would have never stopped to rest in that cave, losing so many hours of headstart. Now, we will probably catch up with them." Another one laughed.
A few minutes later, the soldier in the front stopped abruptly and raised his hand signalling them to halt as well.
"We found it. In a lake about a hundred meters in front, there is a golden-haired monkey taking a bath. Its strength should be around the middle to high stages of the Body Refinement realm so it should be relatively easy for us to capture it.
"But we must not take any chances, go surround it leaving it no chance to escape and when I signal we will rush to capture it." All the soldiers nodded and split up to take their positions.
Being experienced soldiers, all of them were careful not to make a sound and alert their target. Soon after, everyone had taken their positions, and the soldier in charge gave the signal for them to attack.
Diana was taking her bath while paying no attention to her surroundings at all until she sensed that something was amiss. She looked around, but she couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Unable to shake the feeling of anxiousness she was feeling, she decided to get out of the lake and find Drake.
However, the moment she got out of the lake, the soldiers attacked. Unable to react before they surround her pointing their lances towards her, the only thing she could do was let out an ear-piercing screech.
"Hey little monkey, be a good beast and don't make trouble for us." a soldier laughed. "Let us capture you without fighting; you can't win against the four of us anyway."
Diana was scared out of her wits; she never thought the situation that her father mentioned at the talisman would happen so fast. Even though she summoned her staff form the interspatial ring she had, sadly, it was to no avail.
"Oi, oi, that's a precious thing you have there little beast." The leader of the group exclaimed being astonished. "If capturing wasn't an order from the higher ups, I would have killed you already just for the ring." he continued while laughing.
"Capture her!" he ordered right after.
Four soldiers could be seen jumping at Diana while the leader stayed a bit further behind to cut her retreat. Diana had no chance to defend at all since before she even reacted, a soldier knocked her head with his lance's shaft making her fall unconscious.
"That was easy. Haha!" the leader uttered happily. Not a second has passed, and his face turned serious when he felt an extremely thick killing intent.
Drake arrived back to the lake around the same time that the soldiers started encircling Diana. Thankfully, he realised way before Diana that something was wrong, so he became more cautious avoiding making a sound. As soon as he realised his enemies were human soldiers he was surprised.
'Are we close to a human settlement? No, this can't be right, I would have seen roads in the forest if that were true.' Drake concluded. 'Then they must be here for us. Let's gauge their strength first before deciding my next step.'
He watched them all the way until they completed the encirclement on Diana and charged at her.
'Each of them looks only a bit weaker than me. If I fight them head on, I'll have no chance.
'Well, Diana is probably done for so I should make sure to lay down some traps for them since they will probably come after me when they capture her. If I can separate them and take them down one by one, then it should be easy killing all of them.'
At least that was his plan before the four soldiers charged at Diana and knocked her unconscious.
That was when his eyes got a glimpse of the leader's chest plate. Engraved there he saw something extremely familiar to him, the sun symbol. The same one that was carved on Delia's chest plate when he had the vision of the battlefield.
Unbeknownst to him, Drake's soul started emitting a huge killing intent. He discarded all his plans of laying traps for them, and he slowly walked towards the group. With each step he took, his killing intent was growing stronger. The aura of a peak Body Refinement cultivator was enveloping his surroundings.
He stopped just five meters away from the group, and all of them immediately ignored Diana, taking defensive positions.
"Did you come to protect your friend, beast?" the leader questioned mockingly not dropping down his guard in the slightest. He could feel that this monkey was stronger than him, but he had his companions, so he wasn't worrying too much.
Drake completely ignored the mocking in his voice, his eyes focused on the symbol on his chest. He summoned his staff before raising his eyes looking straight at the leader.
"The symbol on your chest. What is it?"
"Huh? You have the ability to communicate and understand us? You two sure aren't some common beasts..." replied the leader.
Drake was completely ignoring the fact that he could understand the language spoken by the human in front of him and he once again asked.
"What relationship do you have with that bitch Delia?"
"INSOLENT!! How dare a filthy beast to mention our goddess?" the leader angrily shouted. "We had to capture all the golden-haired monkeys we discovered, but since we already have one, we can blame your death, to you fighting to protect it. Men, kill that beast!"
"Your goddess? That bitch has people believing at her?" Drake asked while maniacally laughing. "HA HA! THIS IS GREAT! I thought I would have to wait for ages until I find clues about her but apparently, there is a religion here for her!
"I wonder what her reaction will be when I kill every single one of her believers in this world. Will she appear to stop me? Will she just ignore you guys?" Drake was crazily saying while his eyes were turning redder by the second.
Right after Drake was finishing his crazed speech, the group of five charged at him. While they had closed half the distance, a voice was heard freezing everyone on the spot.
"Hey monkey boy, need any help with them?"
All of them including Drake turned their heads to the direction the voice was heard from. A majestic looking white tiger with black stripes was staring at them as if looking down to the whole world.