Without wasting any more time, Daron fully unleashed his Bloodline Inheritance which he only unleashed while out of view from other people during this journey, and dashed towards Bard city. He did not know the exact location since he had teleported, however, based on the distance teleported and the map that Sirious had made from that point onwards, along with the additional information from the tonnes of maps that Old Man Traitorous had, he had a rough estimate of where to go, about 100 m plus or minus.
However, just as Daron had expected, once he crossed the river part of his journey, moving past the [Energy-site], the journey became tougher. Not too much, but more beasts appeared. Most beasts were scared off by his aura, however, beasts who were not suppressed by his aura began appearing slowly, in increasing numbers. And each and every one of these beasts were Rank 1 beasts, on par with Novice Knights.
An example was the Shadow Panther in front of Daron, who was using the fact that it was already evening and nearing knight, and hiding in the darkness created by the canopy of the forest, sneak attacking Daron.
Thankfully, Sirious was still there, and was continuously warning him of danger and where it was coming from, while Daron reacted to that by parrying the slashed, dodging the pounces, and counterattacking swiftly.
Within just 10 minutes of fighting, using his Internal Energy for the final attack, the Shadow Panther was killed.
Just like all the previous times, once the danger was gone, Snowy, the little white wolf, leapt out and began using its little red tongue to slurp up the blood of the panther. After about 10 minutes, he continued on his journey. He knew that such Rank 1 beasts would sell for quite the sum, and so he decided to put the teach, hide, eyes, and all valuable parts of them into his personal storage, since he could not fit the entire bodies of so many Rank 1 beasts.
Although he was worried about everyone, he still could not just give up on free money that had fallen into his hands. Money always had its uses.
…
Time passed, and 2 days later, Daron had finally crossed the entire forest to arrive at Bard city.
However, what he saw shocked him to the core. His entire body turning stiff, unable to move.
The tall wall, which had always been present, symbolising the stability of Bard city, now was nothing but rubble. The city inside, which normally should not be visible, was still not visible. Only this time, it was not being blocked by the city wall, but was actually all rubble as well. All the houses, shops, roads made from stone, the alchemy union, the blacksmith union, the Union Bank, and even the church!
'Church!'
Daron's heard sank as he dashed into the city which turned into rubble. He had left the city, thinking that no one would be stupid enough to attack the Holy church, Union Bank, Blacksmith Union and the Alchemy Union.
However, someone had clearly destroyed the entire city, leaving nothing standing. And from the claw marks on the pieces of rubble that were not completely torn to shreds, it was clearly that Rank 2 magical beast that was responsible for this.
In his stupidity, he had forgotten that magical beasts had no such worry about the holy church and Union Bank.
[It was not stupidity. It was calculations. Since the beast had only attacked Knight Zack when it arrived, I had calculated that there was a 92% chance that the enemy was controlling it somehow. Based on that, I told you that your family would be safe. Either the enemy also went crazy and ordered the beast to do this after failing to accomplish their task, or simply stopped controlling the beast, knowing it would remove its anger of being injured on the city. Naturally, all of this only had a 7% chance of occurring, which was too low, therefore it was not considered when making the decision to leave.]
However, Daron did not respond, and instead, just kept climbing up the rubble. His Bloodline Inheritance was still activated, and his speed was very close to a Rank 8 Novice Knight.
[Master, I have scanned the area. There are a lot of dead bodies, however, not a single one within the church.]
Hearing this, Daron stopped his hurried movements of digging through the dirt, wood, and stone with his bare hands.
'So… that means!'
[Yes. I means that at the very least, that new family of your has not died within the church. They are likely to have escaped.]
[There is also a 67% chance that Joanne is a rather powerful person, and might have taken the children to safety. However, searching for them will be nearly impossible.]
Daron just sat down on top of the hill of destroyed materials, his initially despondent eyes regained some lustre. Although he was a little sad at the fact that the city was gone, as long as the ones he cared about were still fine, it did not matter.
Out of everyone within this world, the ones he probably cared about the most were Joanne, and his brothers and sisters from the church.
Those knights in training who were close to him came second. As for the others, they did not matter too much.
Naturally there were exceptions for this, like Zack Bard, Knight Fals, And the old man when he was just born, for whom he had great respect. Not for their power, but for their willingness to put themselves after the others they cared about, just like the main characters in Daron's novels.
Now that the people he cared about the most were safe, his heavy heart felt a lot better, and he calmed down greatly.