Days turned to weeks and weeks to years. After two years both of the boys are stronger than ever.
Their foundations were extremely strong and as for their experience, they were able to take down all soldiers in their squad except for the Boss, Peter, And Nidar who had an inhuman strength. As for petering his cunningness and his recent breakthrough made him stronger than 90% of the beast guard The boss was both cunning and quite powerful.
They tried their best but they never were able to even touch the Boss. But their overall strength has already crossed human bounds. If they fight carefully each of them has the capability of beating the shit out of a dozen men.
After another day of sparring in unarmed combat, dagger skills and exercises they left for the keep.
Mona greeted them as soon as they reached the keep.
"Hi! Brothers how was your training? ".
"well it was as usual Mona we beat everybody else but boss, Peter and the giant beat the shit out of us ". Marcus complained. Even after years, Leon was still a boy of few words.
After some small talk, they both went to their respective rooms to freshen up.
Both of them were getting excited as they would be allowed to get their weapons in the coming days. In the previous year, peter broke through to stage one warrior. He could have gone out to become a squad leader himself but he chose to stay in the squad with Marco. And as of now, their squad is officially the 5th strongest squad in the Beast guard. And their training was always to the extremes and last year Marco introduced them to the daggers and Marcus still remembered what he told about daggers. "daggers are most important for survival in an urban area where large weapons like greatswords and axes are difficult to manoeuvre in tight spaces and daggers can also function as a hidden weapon to catch the hostile parties off guard during a fight". he also said that many nobles disapprove the usage of hidden weapons personally but hidden weapons are as good as a hidden advantage when fighting someone in equal footing.
The mood in the Barony was always tense. Every year Derma brings back the news of a potentially dangerous beast wave coming ahead of them.
Marcus concentrated on the Chaos energy Loki's imprint on his back flared up in green. He lasted 30 seconds this time. His body started perspiring heavily after the session. Which was a good sign as initially he did not feel pain in his physical body only pain in his soul and head as his brain did not know how to quantify the enormous pain the chaos energy causes in his body but now he was getting used to the pain although this felt weird his body's foundations were getting stronger than ever he was equivalent to a top-class genius in standards of Grievaris which includes Leon.
Once he went to the forest alone and found himself sneaked upon by a Shadow Panther but he recognised the threat himself and waited for it to act. His strength was nowhere near the stage 1 panther but the moment he turned his Chaos energy on his body flared up in pain but at the same time, his physical strength increased tremendously almost reaching mid-stage one and his brain perceived time a lot slower giving him the ability to react to the Panthers ambush. The moment it pounced in him he rolled sideways and pounced on it himself from the side. The panther was quite shocked by the proceedings.
But it gained its composure fast enough to attack him once again this time it pounced on his head and slashed at his chest. He dodged the brunt of the attack but still few scratches were formed. But the pain was almost non-existent due to the pain caused by the chaos energy. He immediately threw his fist at it and when his knuckles met its head. PLOP caused a severe concussion to the panther but it did not stop it from defending itself. It growled at him when he prepared for a second exchange. But this time he was in a dilemma of whether he would go on the offence or defend from its attack but the dilemma did not last long This time Marcus resolutely used his full force and sprinted at the Panther. It crouched back and leapt at him. He unsheathed his dagger and planted it into its flat belly. tears formed in the black cat's eyes and blood was seeping from its wound but that was not it. Marcus tried his best to inject all the chaos energy he had in reserves using the dagger as a pathway into the panther. After he felt empty he pushed it away from him. the panther fell with a thud The panther was unable to hold up for long, it made sounds of struggle. And its fight did not last for long it died due to the destruction chaos energy caused in its body.
Marcus suddenly found himself in a weakened state when compared to his usual practice with the chaos energy. He was gasping for air after his first life-threatening fight. But he also understood that if it were an armed stage one warrior or knight in the place of Panther they would have killed him long ago. The 30 seconds at the fight felt like a lifetime to him and half of the fight was just staring at each other. Marcus quickly left the forest as for the Panther's corpse some patrolling guards found it and they claimed the kill for the extra money they would get.
Marcus never minded that. He was just happy that no one found it weird to just find a Panther carcass in the forest with just a single injury on it.
After Marcus took a bath he went to the library and started reading books that were recently bought from other cities and capital by his Merchant grandfather. After an endless amount of convincing his mother.
He was not contacted by Loki in the past two years Marcus always was worried about the info Loki gave him, although most of it might or might not be true. He had no choice but to trust the God of Trickery. Just the thought of the world being devoured by endless waves of demons gave him shivers like a vibrator.
After dinner with his family, his father broke a news. "I will be leaving Corinth for a few months for business, Derma will be in charge of the security and Carla you will look after the management as usual".
This was a common occurrence in the past two years Arlo would leave the Barony for few months each year before the Harvest month and he never specified the reason for his travels. Carla had a solemn look on her face as if she was contemplating something serious in her mind. After the dinner, she sent the kids away from the dining hall.
But Marcus heard the next day when the maids were gossiping that his parents were having a fight last night and few gossips reach ed a scale to scandal just in a single night. When the maids noticed Marcus glaring at them intently. They abruptly silenced their voices and continued with their chores. Marcus wanted to confront his parents about the fight but he felt like he would be intruding
and acted as if nothing happened Leon and Mona stayed the same.
After a week Marco announced that it was time for the squirts to select their weapons. Marcus was 10 and Leon was 12 . as for their choices Leon was keen on choosing a sword and Marcus had an interesting thought so he chose a bow and short sword as his first practice weapons.