The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1048

A rift, suspected to be a beast lair.

As a result, the Alpha Reinforcement Order began mobilizing their members for further investigation. However, due to the chaos caused by the beasts in the northern Pandora Region, their forces were already stretched thin.

The fact that Teacher Boris, who was at the main headquarters, had specifically assigned the task to Davey was likely because he was aware of the severity of the situation.

“If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve suggested sending a few guardians instead,” Davey muttered.

The knight commanders gave him a bitter smile.

“The guardians have already been dispatched to other branches outside,” one of the commanders explained.

Davey nodded. “Now that I think about it, it is about time for the thawing season.”

The extreme cold of the remote regions was in the process of subsiding, and the beasts that had gone into hibernation were beginning to stir once more. Naturally, that meant it was the busiest time of year for the knights.

“The timing is just awful...” one of the knight commanders muttered.

Davey corrected him, “It’s more likely that the rift, suspected to be a beast lair, appeared precisely because of the thawing season’s start. Now, how many knights are being assigned to this mission?”

“We’ve been deliberating on just that. We even considered deploying at least three knight commanders, along with a squad of veteran knights.”

One of the commanders then locked eyes with Davey. “But the final decision on personnel should be made by the one responsible for the operation, not us.”

“A regular knight... No, you're making a Roaming Knight the mission leader?”

“A Roaming Knight may be a support position within the order, but if the headquarters recognizes them as an executioner, it’s a different story. With a single word from you, even a knight commander can be kicked out of the order.”

“Haha. Got it. In that case, besides Illyna and myself, we’ll take four knights from the 268th batch.”

“Four? Just four?”

“Yes. Any more than that, and it’ll just be a hassle.”

* * *

“We’re all set.”

“We’ve finished checking our gear, too. But are we really enough for this?”

“Too many people would just make things worse.”

“Still, why us?” Fildyr asked.

Davey remained silent for a moment before confirming, “You’re both from the Church of Freyja, aren’t you?”

One of them was a paladin, and the other a priestess.

“Yeah. Why bring it up?”

“No reason. It’s nothing.”

Since the purported beast lair had been discovered during a mission with their seniors, even if the two hadn’t seen it firsthand, Davey figured they could at least guide the way there.

Priestess Lucia Shelman and Fildyr approached him. Both were knights from the same 268th batch as him. Alpha Reinforcements had plenty of Master-level individuals, but no one questioned why Davey had chosen his peers instead of those experts.

Upon reaching the northern border outpost leading into the Pandora Region, he watched as the two adjusted their rucksacks, clearly tensed.

“Haah. Saintess Daphne, grant me strength,” Lucia murmured.

After she took the lead, Illyna glanced at Fildyr and asked, “Hey, isn’t she from the Church of Freyja? Why does she only pray to Saintness Daphne? Isn’t that blasphemous?”

“Just let it go. She’s always been like that,” Fildyr replied with a shrug.

“You two!” Lucia snapped, spinning around. “I won’t tolerate any insults toward Saintess Daphne! She is a noble and sacred being!”

Fildyr and Illyna exchanged a look and shrugged again.

Well, Fildyr might not know, but Illyna was well aware that Daphne—despite being a saintess—was notorious for throwing drinking parties in the Hall of Heroes and Saint Sanctuary. She was also the one who regularly sneaked into Odin’s garden to go fishing, trying to use the carefully nurtured fish as snacks to go with her drinks.

Of course, most of the stories she’d heard had come from Davey himself.

“Everyone! Final equipment check!”

Receiving the command, dozens of elite knights swiftly and precisely inspected their gear.

“As always, the Pandora Region is extremely dangerous during the thawing season! Be prepared to risk your lives, but do not throw them away in vain! We are knights who protect this continent under our noble creed!” one of the knight commanders cried.

The rest of the knights drew their swords in salute.

“Move out!”

The gate of the defensive line slowly opened for them.

“Don’t worry, Davey. We’ll do our best to suppress the evil beasts until you return.”

“I’ll be counting on you, seniors.”

“Stay safe. Come back in one piece!”

“You too.”

After shaking hands with Davey, the knights quickly disappeared into the cold forest, their expressions solemn.

“Let’s get a move on,” Davey said, breaking the silence.

The chilly air there was on a completely different level from that of the area near the knights’ headquarters.

“Ugh. It’s so cold. Too cold,” Lucia muttered.

“No matter how many times I experience it, I just can’t get used to this freezing weather,” Fildyr complained, shivering.

Meanwhile, Davey and Illyna remained unfazed.

Perhaps because the seniors had really gone all out clearing the path, they hadn’t encountered any monsters despite traveling a fair distance.

“Our seniors must’ve worked hard to clear the way for us,” Lucia muttered to herself, surprised at the complete absence of beasts.

“That probably isn’t the case,” Fildyr immediately disagreed. “It was probably the mutant wolves. There are still quite a few of them left around here.”

Examining the tracks on the ground, he reached for his gas mask.

“Hey, stop. No need for that.”

“Huh?”

“They’re coming.” Illyna activated her brooch, transforming it into the divine sword Caldeiras.

“Is this the right path?’ freewёbnoνel-com

“It is. We’re going straight ahead.”

Illyna nodded, took a short breath, and then stomped her foot firmly on the ground.

Boom!

A tremendous force erupted, sending shockwaves through the area and making her hair whip wildly behind her.

“I-Illyna?!”

[Longsword]

[Rock Split]

Slash!

Her sword cut through the air, and then abruptly topped. A massive horizontal strike, laden with immense weight, tore through the forest.

“What did you just do?”

Seeing no immediate change, both Fildyr and Lucia made confused faces. Anyone who witnessed her movements would think she had done nothing of note, but the truth of her attack became clear in the very next moment.

“Awooo!!”

Following a sudden wolf’s howl, grotesque creatures covered in writhing tendrils burst out of the dense forest. They approached with practiced coordination, as if they had spent plenty of time waiting for the best moment to attack.

By the time Fildyr and Lucia prepared for battle, the charging mutant wolves were already suddenly sliced apart, blood spraying in all directions as their severed bodies crashed to the ground.

Unlike Davey, who could strengthen Red Ribbon to sever everything within a domain beyond time, Illyna could send her blade energy slicing through spacetime itself.

The Continuum-Attacking Blade. Aside from Davey, she was the only person alive in middle earth capable of wielding a blade that could tear through dimensions. Even Davey couldn’t use the Continuum-Attacking Blade without first absorbing the authority of Predatory Assimilation.

“Huh?”

Fildyr and Lucia, unable to comprehend what had just happened, tilted their heads in confusion and stared at Illyna. However, as having expected the outcome, Illyna calmly reverted Caldeiras back into its brooch form, fastened it to her clothes, and resumed walking forward.

“What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

“Uh? Uh-huh.”

“Hey Davey, was Illyna always this strong?”

“She’s never stopped training, even after getting married,” he casually responded as he followed after her.

Of course, she had been tearing through spacetime long in the past, so it wasn’t surprising at all.

The location of the suspected beast lair was quite a distance away from their starting point. For an average person, it would’ve taken two full days of continuous walking to reach it. However, Davey had no intention of following the standard route.

In the forest, flying was a terrible idea. It only attracted unnecessary trouble. So, instead of following the usual path, Davey decided to just go straight, heading directly toward the destination.

Even though infamous, hazardous zones like Death Canyon, a place the knights’ manual explicitly warned against; and the Frozen River, which never froze over despite the cold, stood in their way, Davey simply treated their existence as empty air.

For the Frozen River, he forcefully overwhelmed it with an even greater burst of frost, freezing everything inside and preventing the monsters within from moving.

As for the Death Canyon, a gorge deemed impossible to fly over, Davey simply used warp magic to bypass it. Spatial Warping was typically a high-tier spell, requiring at least 7th Circle mastery. It was virtually unheard of for an individual to use it independently, let alone with such ease. That was likely why Fildyr and Lucia were awestruck by what he did.

Davey knew there was nothing more wasteful than not taking advantage of what he was capable of.

Leaving behind the minor threats like the mutant wolves, they had traveled nearly half a day with minimal interruptions. Eventually, the four of them arrived at the entrance of a massive forest.

“The beast lair is inside this place—the Dark Forest.”

The Northern Pandora Dark Forest was also known as the Lightless Forest because its geography and the flow of mana prevented light from spreading properly.

“You might have read about it in the records, but in this forest, light doesn’t travel far. Regardless of whether it’s magic or regular fire, it won’t illuminate much.”

Despite not being a cave, the place was cloaked in an unnatural darkness. For Davey, that wasn’t an issue—his Death Spirit Eye let him see everything clearly. However, Fildyr and Lucia tensed up, clearly uneasy.

“From here on out, move carefully,” Davey instructed. “If we’re careless, we’ll end up attracting every creature that calls this place home.”

“What kind of beasts live in the Dark Forest, again?” Illyna asked.

“You forgot already?”

“Haha. Good ol’ Illyna still doesn’t bother remembering anything troublesome,” Fildyr chuckled, pulling a small booklet from his coat.

“There are twenty known types of evil beasts in the Dark Forest. The ones we’ve documented so far include—”

“Quiet.”

Davey suddenly cut them off.

“Huh? Why?”

“Evil Beast King.”

Fildyr and Lucia immediately clamped their hands over their own mouths. However, they soon realized that silence wouldn’t change the situation.

“What the hell is this?”

Not long after stepping into the Dark Forest, they came across a massive clearing. There, sprawled lifeless on the ground, was a monstrous crocodile-like evil beast of unimaginable size.

“Evil Beast King Alligate. How the hell did it end up here?”

“And these wounds...”

It had horrifying injuries.

Though the knights considered Evil Beast Kings to be high-level threats, they rarely actively hunted them.

That was because Evil Beast Kings, despite their strength, never left their territories. More importantly, they acted as natural barriers, keeping other monsters contained within the Pandora Region and thereby preventing them from spilling into the outside world.

They were the pillars maintaining an ecosystem. And yet, one lay utterly slaughtered before them.

“Is that the beast lair?”

Behind its colossal corpse was a massive, dark rift shimmering ominously.

Strangely, even though the rift itself emitted no light, it had concentric rings around it, sucking in the surrounding illumination like a miniature black hole.

“It looks exactly like a black hole. Davey, that’s not an actual black hole, right?”

“Nope. It’s similar, but compared to a real black hole, that thing is child’s play.”

A black hole was a cosmic recycling mechanism—devouring spent energy and expelling it back into the universe. This thing only looked similar, while being something entirely different.

“The biggest difference? This thing doesn’t expel anything. It only consumes.”

“But... is it supposed to be here right at the entrance?”

“No. It should’ve been much deeper inside. Wait a minute!” Lucia exclaimed as her eyes widened in shock.

There was no rule stating that only one rift resembling a beast lair could form at a time.

“This makes no sense. Another rift suspected to be a beast lair? And an Evil Beast King lying here dead? Just who the hell killed it?” Fildyr asked in confusion.

Davey simply pointed into the darkness and said in a nonchalant tone, “That guy, I’d assume.”

With that, something stepped out from the shadows. It suddenly made sense, considering the forest had felt oddly lifeless.

“Hmph?!”

“T-Take battle positions!”

Lucia and Fildyr tensed up, unable to fully see their foe under the cover of dark.

Curious, Davey decided to conduct a little experiment—he gathered mana and flung it toward the darkness.

[4th Circle]

[Light Element]

[Stun Grenade]

He launched a flashbang spell.

Boom!!

The spell was designed to let out an intense burst of light momentarily, within a certain range. However, contrary to expectations, the light barely spread at all. Fortunately, for a brief moment, the flicker of illumination revealed a glimpse of the creature lurking within.

“Hmmm. What should we call that thing?” Davey mused as if on a casual stroll, prompting Fildyr and Lucia to nearly explode with frustration.

“Are you seriously worrying about names right now?! That thing killed an Evil Beast King! If we’re not careful—”

“Guoooooo!!!”

As if in response to Fildyr, the creature let out a grotesque, unearthly wail.

Its body resembled that of a quadrupedal beast, with sleek, hippo-like skin. But calling it a mere creature would be a mistake—its visage was utterly horrifying. Instead of a face, it had a dark void hole. Surrounding its head was a mane of writhing, fleshy tendrils, stretching out for dozens of meters.

Davey figured if Perserque had been there to see it, she would’ve recoiled in absolute horror.

Though its size was smaller than Allegate, its claws were coated in fresh, dripping blood—clearly from its previous victim.

“Guoooooo!!!”

After another deafening roar, the creature charged forward. But it wasn’t aiming for Davey. Its target was Lucia Shelman, standing just behind him.

“S-Saintess Daphne, grant me strength!!”

It was a creature far too dangerous for an ordinary knight to handle. Fildyr, realizing this, was prepared to risk his life to protect Lucia.

But Davey stepped forward first.

“You want me to take care of it for them, Davey?”

“No, I’ve got this one. Gotta pull my weight.” Speaking calmly, Davey clenched his fist.

Just as he was about to throw a punch at the charging beast—

[8th Level Holy Magic]

[Divine Flame Cannon]

Boom!!

A blinding white flash suddenly streaked through the air, striking the creature dead-on.

The creature let out an agonized shriek as it was sent flying backward, before frantically fleeing into the darkness.

‘That was a Divine Flame Cannon... Right?’

As far as Davey knew, only Saintess Lena was capable of using high-tier holy magic on that continent.

In addition, that particular Divine Flame Cannon was the signature spell of the very first Saintess, Daphne.

‘Wait, what the hell is she doing here?’

“You’re late, you useless dumbass,” a woman muttered from afar, irritation etched across her face.

She was effortlessly suppressing a swirl of radiant holy energy in one hand.

Illyna looked between her and Davey, eyes wide in shock.

Davey responded with a sigh.

‘Don’t look at me like that. I have no idea why Daphne is here either.’

“Follow me. There’s something I need you to deal with.”

Without another word, she turned and walked straight into the rift, ignoring its ominous energy entirely.

Fildyr and Lucia, still in a daze, questioned Davey with confusion.

“W-What? What just happened?! Where did that creature go, and what was that light?!”

“Davey, that woman seemed to know you. Do you two know each other?”

He instinctively almost blurted out that the woman was the first Saintess Daphne.

But then he hesitated, remembering that Lucia Shelman was a fanatical devotee of Daphne’s.

If Davey told her the truth, and that woman’s conduct shattered her delusions, he couldn't live with himself.

“Uh. Yeah. She’s, uh... a senior of mine.”

In the end, he had no choice but to help preserve her fragile illusion.

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