"Oh no, things are getting worse now that a Peak Level Beast King was seen." Caesar spoke with a hardened face. His eyebrows furrowed together in thought before finally muttering, "No, this won't do. Our Mirage City is too weak to defend against the attack of a Peak Level Beast King. I must ask a reinforcement from the Imperial City immediately, otherwise Mirage City will suffer tremendous damages."
As of now, there was no hesitation from Caesar as he immediately strode outside without even looking back at Erza. A Peak Level Beast King was definitely a fatal enemy to Mirage City's existence and could not be taken lightly. So, this matter had to be resolved first. Mirage City urgently needed some high levelled experts to come and deal with the Peak Level Beast King straight away.
Lord Caesar exited the room and went to his office where he grabbed a brush and paper to immediately start writing a message on it. After he was done, he immediately rolled it up into a cylinder and tied it with a piece of string.
"Bring the fastest messenger bird we have to bring this to Imperial City's Internal Affair Minister Office immediately!"
"Yes my lord!" Immediately a soldier came in and quickly took the letter before leaving the room once more. For an important news like this, some elders still preferred to use the old way of sending information. They felt it was safer and just simply already used to do that. Some of them did not bother to spend their time to learn about how technology work.
"This is an order, from this moment on, the appearance of a Peak Level Beast King will be kept a secret from everyone. And in the meanwhile, do not travel out by yourself and bring the leader of the Mirage City's Mercenary Union branch here. Finally, keep a close eye out on the activity of the Desolate Beast Mountain Range." Caesar commanded to every guard he had before striding away.
....
The news of a Peak Level Beast King appearing had stunned everyone who had initially heard the report, but Caesar had no intentions of announcing this to the public. He was afraid if that happened, then many people would be too intimidated by the beast and decide to leave Mirage City in order to save their own necks. If that happened, then Mirage City's defensive strength would plummet to the point where the city would eventually be flooded with wild beasts.
Right now, Caesar could only hope that a few strong experts would come to help dealing with this Peak Level Beast King. In that case, they could avoid disastrous losses.
Erza left the city lord's mansion by herself in thought. Although a Peak Level Beast King gave her plenty of pressure, it did not affect her too much. Worse come to worst, she could just relocate her guild headquarter to another place.
However, she would definitely do her best to avoid that scenario as she was aware that most of her members were deeply rooted here and had their loved ones resided in the city. In addition, she just purchased a new residence here and quite liked the city atmosphere.
Following the route she had memorized back to the Mole Clan, she quickly entered the courtyard Kay had allocated for the Blaze of the Heroes' members to live in temporarily.
The Mole Clan was a thirty year old clan, so it could not be compared to the Collin Clan or Naga Clan which was over fifty year old. The guards of the Mole Clan only numbered around a hundred, and there were less than twenty clan members in the residence. Under the supervision of Kay, a group of guards would patrol around the Blaze of the Heroes' courtyard.
This was a standard four sided courtyard with three sides being a residential area and the last side being the front gate. In the middle there was a large patch of grass where a few dozen Blaze of the Heroes sat in small groups and chatted among each other.
The moment Erza arrived, everyone in the vicinity snapped their mouths shut and immediately stood up to greet her with shouts of "Young Lady!".
Staring impassively around herself, Erza spoke, "Tristan, Daniel, Elyan, Lucan, and Degore, have the five returned yet?"
"Young Lady, those five haven't come back yet. I think they're dealing with their own mercenary groups." A thirty year old man responded.
Suddenly, a voice called out behind her as a servant of the Mole Clan suddenly came running towards Erza. There was a fearful tint in his eyes as he approached before stopping right in front of Erza. "My Lady, the Cold Blooded Mercenaries and Dark Mercenaries…"
Before the servant had even finished speaking, Kay waved his hand, "I know already, you may go."
"Yes my lord."
Erza smiled at the servant before turning to Kay, "Everyone stay here for now. Kay, accompany me to see just what surprise the five of them have brought me."
Erza and Kay walked to the front gates of the courtyard where the both of them could see the five captains standing with a large group behind them. Not a single guard by the gates had a happy expression while staring at them.
The moment Erza and Kay walked out to the gates, every single person standing behind Tristan suddenly began to emit a faint aura of blood lust. This was something only those truly baptized in the waters of death could emit. In front of this amassed group of blood lust, only those with a strong will would be able to approach.
"Young Lady!"
"Young Lady!"
...
Upon seeing Erza, Tristan, Daniel, Elyan, Lucan, and Degore cried out to her.
Straight after the five greeted Erza, the hundred men immediately focused their glares onto Erza with cold stares like ice and their blood lust matching those of a beast. However, after seeing how young Erza was, a few of them could not help but feel shocked.
Before they came, their captains had not disclosed many information to them. They only knew that they were to follow their captains to join an even stronger group with greater potential. Switching group was not an unacceptable task to them and so they tagged along with their captains to see this new group. However, they did not imagine that their new leader would be this young. Few of them had heard the rumour about Erza, but it was nothing to compare with seeing her themselves.
"Young Lady, these are our five mercenary groups. The men behind us are our good brothers and the cream of the crop who are willing to join the Blaze of the Heroes." Lucan pointed at the group behind him as he spoke to Erza.
"There's a total of 123 men with us here. The Cold Blooded Mercenaries have 33 men, the Blue Dragon Mercenaries have 25, the Saint Mercenaries have 18, the Dark Mercenaries have 28, and the Zephyr Mercenaries have 19 men." Elyan spoke loudly.
Erza looked at the hundred and a few men with a small smile and nodded. "Not bad, not bad at all. Let's talk more inside."
Afterward, Tristan and the other four led the group past the gates of the Mole Clan into the courtyards.
In the middle of the four sided courtyard, over a hundred and fifty men stood and stared evenly toward Erza with expectant postures.
Staring at the men in front of her with an observant eye, Erza spoke out loud, "Fellow brothers, I do not care what faction or mercenary group you used to be a part of. Right now, I want to make this clear. You are all now a part of the BLAZE, a family within a family. We must work hard for the benefit of our guild. I believe that with everyone working together, our strength will grow to where we will shock the entire Northern Continent and become the number one guild on the continent. This is I, Erna's goal."
After Erza finished speaking, the crowd went silent for a moment before someone finally broke the silence.
"Then who is the leader of our guild?" A person within the crowd asked, clearly he was planning to cause a scene.
Erza smiled as she heard the question before answering, "From today onward, I am the leader of the Blaze of the Heroes!"
"And why are you our leader?" Another unsatisfied person exclaimed.
"That's right, just what reason do you have to be our leader?"
"Girl, you probably haven't tasted a man and yet you want to be our leader, that's not an easy role to fill…"
"A girl wants to lead us? What a joke."
"His words are right…"
Slowly, the sounds of opposition grew louder and louder as many people began to voice their complaints. From the group Tristan had brought, the vast majority of them were unhappy to hear that Erza would be their leader. Although they all heard that their new leader was incredibly strong, with Erza's current young appearance, how could they believe that? Erza was only twenty years old at the most, just how strong could she possibly be?
In regards to the noise of the opposition, Tristan and the other four chose to go silent and watch. If Erza was not even able to resolve such a small issue like this, then how would she lead the guild onto the bigger stage?
Erza continued to smile despite the voices of resentment, she had expected this to happen.
"My strength of course; is far stronger than yours. In this continent where power reigns supreme, strength is what decides everything. If you do not accept me as your leader, then come up and challenge me. Whoever can dodge my sword will be the leader that I will follow."