The invitation of Mirage City's lord was something that Erza could not reject. Moreover, after spending some time with Caesar in this past few days, she started to have good impression on the man. He was truly a good city lord who thought about his people.
"Commander Arnold, please wait for me to finish up my affairs here before we go." Erza cupped her hands in return. Right now, she had not tidied up the positions and tasks for the members, and if she did not take care of this, then many people would be dissatisfied which was something Erza wanted to avoid.
"That's fine. Since I've said what I needed to say, I will be leaving first then." Commander Arnold looked at Erza for a moment before looking at the men behind him. Then, without any further words, he left the Mercenary Union.
After Commander Arnold left, Erza too left the Mercenary Union with the group behind her. Since the Mercenary Union often had many people entering the building at once, it was not strange to see twenty or thirty men at the same time. Therefore, when Erza left with her group, it had not attracted too much attention.
"Kay!" As they walked, Erza suddenly called out his name.
"Here, Young Lady. What is your command?" The sixty years old Kay hurriedly responded. After seeing Erza's strength, he did not dare belittle her.
As someone who started from zero without any clan's background and support to his current position as clan leader, Kay had experienced many things which normal people did not. He knew that if one had the patronage of a strong supporter, they would be stronger than a man without one. Furthermore, if this supporter was strong enough, then he would become stronger as well so that no one would dare to offend him.
Despite the fact that Erza was only around twenty years old, she had somehow managed to possess such a high level of strength. Based on this fact alone, Kay had naturally assumed that Erza had a strong patron supporting her.
Even if she had no patron and was simply a genius, Kay would be willing enough to follow her for that reason. Even the other elders and masters of the Mole Clan had come to a similar conclusion.
Therefore, he had readily agreed to follow Erza because if she continued to walk this path of success, then sooner or later they would stand at the top of the continent as well.
This moment was also precisely their chance to reach the top in the future. If they waited until Erza's name stood at the top of the continent, it would be impossible for them to do so by then, even if they wanted to.
"Why don't you take everyone to the Mole Clan to reside there for a moment while I go to the lord's mansion." Erza said. From her experience last night, she realized that it was truly not appropriate to ask her guild members to do the chores. She needed to hire some maids first before allowing them to move into the residence.
"Yes, Young Lady!" Kay answered respectfully.
"Gareth, you return to your clan as well. In the future, you and Kay should focus on your commercial business and work together so that you can control all of Mirage City's business."
"En, don't worry Young Lady. Our Bell and Mole Clan may have been weaker than the Naga Clan even if we join together. But now that the Collin Clan and Naga Clan are destroyed, their political power is all but gone."
"We can seize this chance and fight for the power they left behind and slowly gain control of all of Mirage City. However, in this time period, we will need to have a good amount of combat power as well since many of the factions in Mirage City aren't easily bullied. In the case they all join forces, then our Bell and Mole Clans will not be enough to be their opponents." Gareth said.
Erza nodded her head in approval before saying, "Let's not worry about this too much. Right now, Mirage City is on the verge of being invaded by wild beasts. When it's over, then let us talk about it."
After giving some instructions to the Blaze of the Heroes members, Erza immediately left for the city lord's mansion.
After Erza had reached the city lord's mansion, the guards at the gates blocked her path before asking politely, "Are you Lady Erna?"
"Correct, that is me!" Erza eyed the guard calmly.
"Young Lady, please wait one moment. I'll go notify the lord." Immediately after confirming Erza's identity, the guard ran into the mansion.
Seeing the man disappear into the mansion, Erza was not impatient at all. Instead, she calmly waited in front of the doors. Not long after, the expensively dressed Caesar suddenly came walking out from within.
"Ah, Younger Sister Erna, why are you standing outside the gates? Ai, how inconsiderate of my guard, please, come in and sit down." Caesar had a cordial smile on his face as he approached Erza.
Smiling in return, Erza followed Caesar into the guest room where they began to talk.
Within the peaceful room, Caesar and Erza were about to sit down when Erza asked, "What might Older Brother want to talk about with me?"
"Ai!" Caesar suddenly sighed as the smile disappeared from his face and took on an extremely solemn expression.
"Younger Sister, after your appearance, our Mirage City has lost quite a large amount of strength. Right now, with the impending wild beasts invasion, the pressure is more than before." Caesar had a bitter look on his face as if he was worried.
Erza smiled after listening to Caesar, "Older Brother, if you would answer this question, was there ever any appearances of any Peak Level Beast Kings in the past waves?"
Caesar's face grew even more serious as he thought about Erza's question. "Yes, the wild beasts waves seem to occur every dozen to twenty months. And according to the past records, from the foundation of Mirage City, there has been over forty waves."
"Furthermore, there have been five recorded incidences with a Peak Level Beast King. With each of these occasions, our Mirage City had major losses and paid a heavy price to kill them. With the final occurrence, we had managed to contact the Imperial City where they dispatched a Peak King Realm expert to come and deal with it. So that time, there wasn't much damage to our Mirage City."
"Oh, when you say it like that, the odd of a Peak Level Beast King attacking is not very high." Erza muttered with a confident smile.
"Older Brother, you need not worry. I, Erna, will use my entire strength to protect Mirage City from the incoming wild beast wave. As long as there aren't any Peak Level Beast Kings, there won't be any problems. Even though we have lost Abraham and the Naga Clan's Old Patriarch, this one will be able to fully make up for it without being inferior in anyway."
"Haha, with these words from you, Younger Sister, then I will definitely be at ease." Caesar's tightly knit eyebrows slowly loosened as he listened to Erza. Although he had never seen Erza's strength for himself, he was still aware of how strong the Collin Clan and Naga Clan's Old Patriarch were.
"My lord, something major has happened!"
Suddenly the cries of a panicked person could be heard from outside the room. Shortly afterward, the closed door to the room had been thrown open as a heavily bleeding soldier came running in.
"My lord, something terrible has happened! The small squadron we sent into the Desolate Beast Forest on a scouting mission suddenly came across a Peak Level Beast King! Everyone aside from me was killed by the Peak Level Beast King!" The soldier shouted with a heavy breath as he tried to convey his words coherently.
"What? A Peak Level Beast King?" The sudden news instantly broke the silence in the meeting room. Immediately, Caesar's face paled as he stood up from his chair. With a single stride he reached the soldier and grabbed onto his clothes with both hands and a look of disbelief, "What did you say, did you really see a Peak Level Beast King?" Caesar was practically shouting by this point.
"Ye-yes my lord! We came across a Peak Level Beast King in the Desolate Beast Mountain Range." The soldier's voice began to tremble as his face drained with colour. Erza quickly came forward and sent some of her energy to help the soldier.
By this point, even Erza's face had hardened as she heard the words of a Peak Level Beast King being sighted. A Peak Level Beast King rivalled a Peak King Realm expert in strength, but they had a natural superiority over humans and could easily fight against them.
Unless a person had an extremely strong battle skill or a great treasure, they definitely would not be considered an opponent for a Peak Level Beast King. Besides that, Mirage City was not a city where a Peak King Realm expert would come to visit, making a Peak Level Beast King almost a paragon without a rival existence to them.
In addition, the higher one's realm was, the wider the distance between each realm. It was already a miracle for Erza to possess the strength of a Mid King Realm expert despite being a Late Knight. If she put her life on the line, she might be able to defeat a Late King in an open fight. However, for the current her to defeat a Peak King Realm expert was absolutely impossible
Moreover, her Cloak of Aztaroth would also be useless in front of a Peak Level Beast King!