Returning to Dresbert after days of travel, Vicente arrived in the city with totally different numbers to his group of Sentinels of the Order.",

In Dresbert alone, there were 100 Sovereigns and over 2,000 Mages now, counting the 9 Sovereigns Vicente had brought from the order's secret altar to the city weeks ago. But with the additions of five cities to his group, the sentinels now numbered 622 Sovereigns and over 12,000 Mages!

Counting the artifacts he left behind in the five cities and in Dresbert, Vicente left in this central area of the Kingdom of Eternal Dawn 2,000 4th grade firearms, 600,000 rounds of ammunition and 130 pieces of armor, 50 of them at the 5th stage and the rest at the 4th stage.

Besides these figures for the forces of the Sentinels of the Order of the Kingdom of Eternal Dawn, Vicente now had an area of over 30,000 square kilometers under his control, as well as a population of 1.3 million.

In just over a month and a half in the central parts of the Kingdom of Eternal Dawn, he had achieved a more significant result than he had in seven years in the Seidel Kingdom!

Unfortunately, he didn't want to stay there much longer and wasn't willing to build rail lines between his six current cities. Otherwise, integrating these forces would have been perfect and easy.

But he still had to go to Trevora Kingdom to carry out similar actions, and he didn't want to be away from his family in Seidel Kingdom for much longer.

When he arrived in Dresbert this afternoon, he would gather his group and set off in a westerly direction, heading for Trevora Kingdom, three weeks of travel ahead for the group.

...

A complete month had elapsed since Vicente's group had set off for Trevora Kingdom.

They had left everything ready in the Kingdom of Eternal Dawn for the forces of the Sentinels of the Order to protect the cities in the territory and, if possible, to expand their domains towards each of the cities now in Vicente's domains.

If they could unite their fences and create a common security space, these cities and their populations would benefit tremendously.

But Vicente was calm about the future. Not only had he left those forces plenty of ways to defend themselves against enemies, he had also left them resources capable of nurturing Paragons.

He expected that, within a year or two, two to four Paragons would emerge from among the Dark Path magicians he had left, and a Light Path magician could pass through.

So even though he had brought along with his group the man and woman from the beginning of the 5th stage that he had found at the secret altar in that area, he was confident in the future of that group of survivors.

After weeks of traveling since leaving Dresbert, today they were finally arriving at the first city in the territory of Trevora Kingdom, a place Vicente had been invited to earlier by the Paragon, who lived in the capital of Seidel Kingdom.

They had traveled a week into the kingdom to find this city ahead, since the situation in Trevora Kingdom was more or less similar to that of the Kingdom of Eternal Dawn.

Trevora Kingdom was divided into four provinces. They were the Thousand Springs' Valley, the Golden Plains, the Green Hills, and the Black Lands.

From what the group had seen over the last few days traveling to the north of this state, where the Black Lands were, this area was destroyed and under the domination of monsters.

The Thousand Springs' Valley lay between the Kingdom of Eternal Dawn and the Black Lands to the north, another area that was quite devastated and empty in terms of human settlements.

Today the group had entered the Green Hills, the central portion of this state, where they finally came across the first group of humans resisting the monsters.

Arriving near an urban area half the size of Dresbert, surrounded by mountains and monsters blocking one of the mountain exits, they flew to Stormhold, a city of 130,000 inhabitants.

"This place seems to be a blockade between the monster-

dominated area and the human area. Look on the other side of this mountain range. There seem to be more human cities there." Lina said as she showed the group the horizon.

Looking at the cities to the west, but also paying attention to the extremely steep mountains in the area, Lina's comment made sense.

"It looks like this mountain range cuts across the state from south to north and then goes west, practically functioning as a natural wall." Vicente commented as he analyzed the terrain and why the city was positioned there.

"This place was built to contain the monsters!" Rory muttered with a smile on his face, seeing that this society had done something very important even before their arrival there. "With this terrain here, they can attack monsters that try to fly over this peak with ease. As for those who try to climb it, they could also face a lot of problems against the rulers of the area."

"This mountain range is extremely important. We can't allow it to fall to the vampires. It will be very important to stop the monsters' advance!" Lina commented with determination, seeing such a favorable area for them to put up stronger defenses.

As they spoke, the group lowered their altitude, getting closer and closer to that human city.

There, the local warriors, inside a large watchtower at the eastern end of the city, on the lowest part of the hill, spotted them with doubts.

Was this a reliable group?

Some of them couldn't help but wonder when they saw the 10 individuals, 5 Paragons and 5 Sky Sovereigns, intending to land in their city.

Unlike Dresbert, Stormhold had already faced attacks from Dark Path magicians in recent months!

Sensing Dark Path magicians in the group, the men in position at the Perseverance Tower went on alert as one of them gestured for Vicente's group to stop at that post to talk.

"Senior travelers, what do you want coming towards our city?" The leader of the warriors in that watchtower asked. "Our city doesn't accept visitors. Unless you have family here, we ask you to turn around and leave. We're not interested in what you have to offer!"