"How did we not notice these two outliers? These idiots managed to mutate!" Hiraku cursed, crushing his heavy, thick armrest with a little display of force.

"Sun Demos noticed the mutated Dragys scouts early enough," Mika pointed out, which earned him a deadly glare from all sides, "Iwas just saying"

The others shook their heads and continued the meeting.

"We cannot rely on Michael for this. He hasn't been here for a year, and if my gut feeling is not wrong, it will take another year or two before he comes back. Even if we cannot defeat the Dragys, we can use everything at our disposal to stall for some time," Lilica said, her fingers tapping anxiously on the table.

"Are you just saying we must do something, or do you have a plan?" Caesus asked straightforwardly.

Tiara scrunched her nose and looked at her brother as if he would drop dead in the next ten minutes. If not, she would kill him in ten minutes. Master Tigris appeared next to Tiara and lightly tapped her shoulder while Hiraku said.

"I won't allow anyone to attack each other today. Whoever attacks someone is going to be thrown out of the meeting. Michael gave me the necessary authority. That means whoever disregards my opinion and command indirectly disregards our Lord's command. Once thrown out, I won't let you into the war meetings until Michael returns. You won't have any rights to decide on ANYTHING." Hiraku didn't look at Tiara, but it was obvious that the comment was directed at her. The Silverfang Princess was the only Awakened present who was prone to attacking other council members.

Caesus looked at his sister but ignored her. Since his Soultrait had been upgraded, Caesus changed drastically. He didn't have to hide behind his farce as a mere warrior and could also demonstrate his leadership skills. After learning that tamed creatures counted as children and descendants, Caesus used his Blessing of the Children Soultrait differently.

Blessing of the Children was a 1-Star Soultrait before, and Caesus believed to know his Soultrait's power very well. He was certain that the Blessing of the Children allowed him to gain power according to the number and relationship with his descendants. He didn't know that the information influx of his Soultrait mistranslated something. At least, that was what Caesus presumed now that he upgraded Blessing of the Children to 4-Star. After all, the newest information influxes allowed him to tame creatures and consider them his descendants.

Every tamed creature and its offspring were considered his descendants, and a portion of their power was given to Caesus, pushing him to a much higher level. Since Caesus learned about that more than a year ago, he'd grown into one of the strongest powerhouses in the Untamed Awakened unit. He'd tamed several Goblins, a Crimson-Legged Spider, and an Ant Queen.

It wasn't a major problem for him to search for suitable monsters to tame. Taming them was a bit more difficult because the taming process was different than Michael's case. He spent months taming the monsters and ensuring they accepted his Bloodline Link. He had to establish that link with his first descendants to ensure his Soultrait could work properly. Caesus had tens of thousands of descendants at this point, if not more. He couldn't count them anymore, which didn't matter too much because the number changed daily. More descendants were given birth, and many died as well. He stopped counting and focused on the power surging through his body instead.

Tiara disliked him more than before at this point, Caesus had no idea why she hated him this much but the Crown Prince cared little for the Silverfang Princess' attitude. He didn't do anything wrong and considered his sister's behavior a childish temper.

He ignored her and focused on Hiraku and the others. Lilcia cleared her throat and looked at Tiara intently. She shook her head and returned her attention to the more important matter.

"The Dragys might have seen the Untamed Awakened attack in unison, but they don't know about the wide variety of subjects in this place. We have Forest Elves, Elementals, Berserker, Warlock Centaurs, Humans and Silverfangs from the Tigerfolk. But that is not all. We have monsters as well, including several monster tamers and Tatjana. She can study some monsters and offer High Beasts of the True Untamed Jungle resources to boost their evolution as long as they help us.

We might not be strong enough to deal with the Dragys alone, but we have the entirety of the True Untamed Jungle as our playground. Shouldn't we make use of that?" Hiraku nodded slowly, "You want to focus on Gorilla warfare, weaken their forces, distract them, and pull their forces away from our territory? That might work, but only if everyone works together. We need the Golden Queen Bee and the Golden Stinger Wasps to move us around at all times and immediately pull us out of danger. But even thenthere will be massive casualties." "I know. My plan isn't detailed and lacking a lot, but I think we have a good shot at stalling some time that way." Lilica sighed deeply.

The war meeting ended after a few hours, but nobody was fully satisfied. Except for Michael, who watched and listened to everything from the Heart's Choice trial. Tiara and Caesus were a bit troublesome mostly Tiara and her attitude toward her brother but that was still fine. Hiraku and the rest dealt with the matter well. They realized it would be difficult to deal with the Dragys on their own and chose to use the monsters of the Untamed Jungle to their advantage. Michael couldn't tell how many High Beasts, or Divine Beasts, would listen to their offers and how many would attack them right away, but he was optimistic.

'I can stay a little longer in this place. If I'm strong enough to fight the Dragys head-on, everything will be fine.' Michael told himself while willing Fenrir and Jormungandr to continue using their Perfect Soul Techniques.

Since Michael completed the Energy Vortex, he didn't even have to use Rune Vortex to absorb the surrounding energy. Instead, he focused on his surroundings and the living images before him. The images were imprinted deep into his mind, and he continued observing everything intently.

'I want to help them. I need to do something.' That thought flashed through his mind over and over again. It filled Michael's entire being and fueled him. It gave him the strength he needed to continue. To keep going.

Unbeknownst to Michael, something stirred deep underwater. It was massive, yet not even the Beast God Curses noticed it.

All Michael could tell was that the greenish trace of energy caressing his heart was growing. It grew in intensity and potency and began shrouding Michael's heart beforecreating the frames of a second heart.

Michael could tell that his body was absorbing a tremendous amount of energy, even without Fenrir and Jormungandr doing anything, but he misinterpreted the situation first. He was certain the Energy Vortex absorbed the surrounding energy, but that wasn't the case.

The greenish energy mass in his chest absorbed the energyand stirred whatever rested deep inside the seemingly infinite expanse of water.