Remember, You Are Gallop

Raul went deeper into the forest to scout after setting up the camp. The people of Gallop Territory could only be considered temporarily safe now, but who knew when the Barbarians would retreat north? Who knew whether mid- or high-level Magic Beasts were wandering through the Great Forest, perhaps looking to change their diet?

Soon, Raul spotted some suspicious Magic Beast droppings. Based on his experience, they belonged to Steel-Bristle Pigs, a low-level Magic Beast that lived in groups of five to seven. They could fire their hard bristles and use magic power to influence Earth Elements within a very limited range.

Raul did not act rashly. Low-level Magic Beasts had senses far sharper than those of low-rank professionals. Suddenly, Raul sensed danger and lunged hard to the right, narrowly avoiding an almost invisible attack.

Raul knew it was a Shadow Leopard. In the woods, this Magic Beast's fur could mimic the shifting shadows of the trees, making it difficult to notice.

This kind of predator was extremely troublesome. High-level Magic Beast droppings alone would never be enough to fool it.

In an instant, Raul decided to take a gamble. The Shadow Leopard attacked again from the darkness, its powerful claws raking across his back. The giant over two meters tall was sent flying, and even his sword was knocked away.

The Shadow Leopard instinctively felt that dinner was secured. Yet the enormous prey before it was clearly not something one swipe could kill. To prevent it from counterattacking, it circled behind its prey, kicked off the ground, and leaped high into the air, using gravity to crush down on it. But in that split second, the prey suddenly flicked a small knife from his left hand. With unimaginable speed and force, it shot straight into the leopard's mouth.

Got it. Using Battle Qi to empower his throwing knife was Raul's Throwing Knife Art, and it was also what had allowed him to travel throughout the Dragon Principality in the past. Having once been a ranger, he had focused nearly all his training on this kind of unexpected move, and it had repeatedly served him well.

The leopard's swipe had struck deeply, but Raul had accumulated Battle Qi across his back beforehand, so his injuries were not severe.

To some mid-level Magic Beasts, the blood of a Shadow Leopard was as alluring as a candle in the dark. Raul knew this was not a place to linger, yet he could not bear to abandon the Shadow Leopard's corpse.

With several whooshes, Raul threw himself aside again as two bristle spikes over two meters long shot past him.

"Trouble!" Raul knew the Steel-Bristle Pigs had followed the scent of blood. He cursed under his breath.

These beasts never came one at a time. They came in groups of at least three.

"I'm not trying to discourage you, but this place is a remote corner where we're chased around by Barbarians. Mana is scarce, and even cultivating Battle Qi is difficult. Where are we supposed to find a path to godhood?" Landen mocked himself.

"Landen." Albert suddenly turned serious. "Do you know why our surname is Gallop?"

Landen thought back. Hark had mentioned it to them off and on before. "We used to be nobles on the Gallop Plains?"

"We were once the royal family of the Gallop Kingdom!" This was the first time Landen had heard Albert speak in such a tone. Albert was even more formal now than when he had made him acting Baron the night before.

"The history of the Gallop Kingdom predates even the present Human Empire. It already existed during the era of the first Ancient Human Empire. Back then, from Hindukush Valley west of the Gallop Plains to Frost-Wolf Forest in the east, from Blue Moon Lake in the north to the Dragon Northwest Count Territory where we now stood in the south, the vast land spanning fifteen hundred kilometers east to west and seven hundred kilometers north to south was all the homeland of the Gallop Kingdom.

"The Gallop Plains of today are merely what was once the core region of the Gallop Kingdom." Albert was extremely excited.

So our family used to be this powerful? You really couldn't tell. "Then how did we end up like this?"

"From its very birth, the Gallop Kingdom had been on the front line of the war between humans and Beastmen. In ancient times, when humanity had united into the Ancient Human Empire, the Gallop Kingdom was part of that Ancient Empire and once drove the Beastmen all the way into the Hindukush Mountains. But the collapse of the Ancient Human Empire left the Human Race hopelessly divided.

"Only after the present Human Empire was founded and humanity was reunified did the front between the Gallop Kingdom and the Beastmen gradually stabilize. The wars continued on and off for nearly six hundred years. Then, in the 587th year after the founding of the Human Empire, the Emperor at the time, Augustus V, resolved to fight a decisive battle against the Beastmen on the Gallop Plains."

"They lost?"

"Worse. Night-Kirin City, the capital of the Gallop Kingdom, was breached. The kingdom's main extraordinary forces were slaughtered, and after the city fell, the King himself barely escaped with the aid of a Demigod from the Imperial Capital."

"So our kingdom was destroyed?"

"After that fall, Emperor Augustus V granted the title of King of the Gallop Kingdom to the Gallop prince who had been studying in the Imperial Capital. Not long afterward, Augustus V passed away."

Albert then changed the subject. "That was the year the God Emperor ascended the throne. After carrying out a series of reforms, he led the new Imperial army into several decisive battles against the Beast Race.

"Afterward, he devised a plan to divide and dismantle the Beastmen tribes, allowing some of the gentler Beastmen to live within the Empire. In only ten years, he reversed the situation. In the tenth year of his reign, he led the Human Race's allied army into an earthshaking decisive battle against the Beast Race!"

At that moment, Landen was more curious about what exactly the God Emperor had done in those ten years, why some Beastmen were gentle while others were violent, and why the previous ruler had been called Emperor while the next was called God Emperor. Still, Albert had set it up so neatly. He had to give him something to work with.

"An earthshaking decisive battle? What happened?"

"On the battlefield, the Human Race's allied army and the Beast Race fought savagely, with over ten thousand casualties on each side!

"Just as the Beast Race was about to collapse, the Wolf Clan's High Priest used himself as a vessel to summon the descent of the ancient Magic Beast God, the God of the Grassland, Blue Wolf Wolff.

"And the King of the Dragon Empire summoned the descent of the ancient Magic Beast God, the Lord of the Sky, Red Dragon Deathwing. The two true gods fought fiercely across the Gallop Plains. In the end, Blue Wolf Wolff was defeated, and the Beast Race's army collapsed." Albert looked up at the sky as if he were witnessing that war.

"A war between gods. No wonder it was an earthshaking battle!"

"Yes, but that battle also caused permanent damage to the Gallop Plains."

"Magic Turbulence?"

"That's right. Although both sides had Archmage-level powerhouses acting as vessels for the divine descent, enormous amounts of magical elements gathered around the gods' incarnations after their descent. The collision between the two gods changed the magical environment across the entire plains.

"Though the Gallop Kingdom was successfully restored, the proportion of Mana-Wielders awakening their Bloodlines throughout the kingdom dropped drastically, and the strength of its powerful figures declined as well.

"For that reason, the God Emperor later issued a decree allowing nobles of the Gallop Kingdom to seek cultivation in other Human Race territories."

"So that means the Gallop Kingdom had stable high-rank extraordinary powerhouses afterward. Then how was it destroyed again?"

"Yes. Not only did it have high-rank extraordinary powerhouses, but the Tower of Purity also trained two Legend-level powerhouses from the Gallop Kingdom.

"There was even a dedicated Teleportation Portal magic array between the Tower of Purity and Night-Kirin City, the capital of the Gallop Kingdom..."

"But?"

"But as I just said, the disaster began with the Magic Tide!"

"In the 709th year of the God Emperor's reign, that far-reaching Magic Tide occurred—the very one that caused the Human Race to lose all of its colonies. The most severe effect of that Magic Tide was on several key magic arrays of the Teleportation Portals.

"In the early days of the Magic Tide, countless Teleportation Portals collapsed. Even Legends could not use spatial magic. Afterward, the Fallen Devil Race used teleportation spells to invade the Human Race's heartland. Even several kingdoms and principalities at the core of the Human Race suffered invasion.

"At that very moment, the Beast Race launched a massive assault on the Gallop Plains. Isolated, several cities of the Gallop Kingdom fell one after another within months. In the end, Night-Kirin City also fell, and the Gallop Kingdom was destroyed for the second time.

"Unlike the first time, the entire Human Race was facing a crisis of survival. The Empire's main forces could barely protect themselves. The Legend National Pillars of the various kingdoms were either slaughtered or fled to the Imperial Capital with their remaining forces. The Devil Race invasion only ended eleven years later.

"When the war ended, the entire Human Empire was devastated and weakened. Although several expeditions were organized for the Gallop Plains, they were all abandoned because the area was too distant, Teleportation Portals were difficult to establish, and Magic Turbulence caused all kinds of problems."

With a puff, another bristle spike punched straight into the trunk beside Raul. This time, the spike had arrived just as he turned around.

The next one would probably draw blood, Raul thought.

Just moments ago, Raul had used the same trick again and killed one Steel-Bristle Pig with a throwing knife. Now he still faced two more, and he was considering whether to flee immediately or stall a little longer to see if he could take down both.

While he was still thinking, an arrow flew past and plunged straight into one Steel-Bristle Pig's eye.

"Reinforcements are here, but the pigs are running!"

Sure enough, the last one immediately turned and fled when it saw the situation had turned bad. Yet the moment it turned around to escape, it let out a miserable scream.

"Looks like our Chief Knight isn't good at everything," a voice said amid approaching footsteps.

The newcomer was Greyhound Dante, an enfeoffed Knight of the Gallop Family. His was a hunter family, and nearly every generation had produced Mana-Wielders. By Greyhound's father's generation, he had become a rather unusual Junior Knight and been granted a Knight's territory.

The Greyhound Family had originally bred hunting hounds for great nobles, raising hounds with a measure of Magic Beast Bloodline generation after generation. Greyhound himself had a red hunting hound named Redsand, which was extremely sensitive to Magic Beasts.

Greyhound's son had also achieved a breakthrough to Junior Knight last year, making the Dante Family a Knight family within the territory. That evening, father and son had been preparing to check the traps they had set. Their Knight territory was right beside the Great Forest, and they knew the forest extremely well. Not long after leaving camp, Redsand ran over. Following Redsand, Greyhound and his son found the two Steel-Bristle Pigs and Raul.

"I knew I could wait for you two," Raul said without ceremony. "I even saved one for each of you."

"Great. We were running low on meat in camp anyway. Now we can free up some of the ordinary meat."

"Right, and Landen just became a Junior Knight. He needs Magic Beast Meat too!"

"Still, Raul, there are a little too many Magic Beasts here. I've been around this area before, but I never saw so many Magic Beasts. Look at this Shadow Leopard—it should count as one of the strongest low-level Magic Beasts.

"Magic Beasts this strong rarely appear near the edge of the forest."

"Yes, I know. There are probably mid- or high-level Magic Beasts deeper in the forest, forcing them out this way. We need to hurry back and report this to the Baron and Albert."

Landen and Albert were still discussing the story of the Gallop Family.

"Then our Gallop Family is descended from the nobles of the fallen kingdom on the Gallop Plains?"

"We can be considered a distant branch of the Gallop Royal Family, but not the direct line. After the Gallop Kingdom fell, nearly all humans on the Gallop Plains were slaughtered by the Beast Race. After the year 920, although the Human Race could no longer restore the Gallop Kingdom, it was not as though they had not tried.

"Afterward, the Empire issued several laws calling on descendants of the Gallop Royal Family scattered throughout the lands to return to the Gallop Plains and restore the kingdom. It even promised that whoever could liberate Night-Kirin City would become its master.

"Among the many respondents, the Dragon Kingdom was the most proactive. The Dragon Kingdom offered to allow descendants of the Gallop Royal Family to develop land within the Northwest Count Territory.

"Our ancestor, Baron Laurent Gallop, arrived in Rothe Territory in the year 736 and established the first territory of the Gallop Family, which was now Viscount Rothe's Territory. His second son, Laflo Gallop, established Baron Gallop's Territory.

"Laurent Gallop's grandfather was the sixth-generation descendant of a Legend National Pillar after the Gallop Kingdom's first restoration."

Well, that relationship sounded more legitimate than Prince Jing of Zhongshan's descendants inheriting the Han dynasty. "So Rothe Territory and ours are actually relatives?"

"Yes. Rothe Territory had existed since ancient times, so after becoming Viscount Rothe, Laurent Gallop could only have his eldest son change his surname. But both of our territories are descendants of the Gallop Royal Family." Albert became even more solemn. "Landen, you must remember this: you are Gallop!"

"Lord Landen," a voice called out just then. "Knight Raul and the others have returned. They brought back several Magic Beasts as well."

Landen and Albert exchanged a glance, then hurried to their feet to greet Raul.

Raul returned with Greyhound, bringing the corpses of the Shadow Leopard and the Steel-Bristle Pigs. Just moments earlier, Greyhound and his son had found a pond and skinned all three Magic Beasts. They buried the perishable entrails, drained the blood, and packed the remaining bristles, hides, meat, and bones into separate hide bags.

After seeing Landen, they did not hesitate to present all the Shadow Leopard materials to him. This was the rule in every territory. Landen understood and had the three of them divide the materials from the three Steel-Bristle Pigs.

But just as Landen was preparing to eat some Magic Beast Meat as a late-night snack, several Knights came to find him.

"My lord, we've encountered a new problem. There are signs of Magic Beast activity only a few hundred meters from us. At this rate, it may not be long before the Magic Beasts find us!"

"Sigh, and this is only our first night," Landen said aloud, while adding inwardly, Why won't they just let me have a little peace?

"We discussed it among ourselves. Should we scout out the other directions? Or return to the previous camp?"

Thanks to @yohann1128 for the recommendation vote support.