Regrettably when they returned 3 hours later to rest, High priest Morgan was still waiting for them, he cornered them and questioned them for an hour about the vortex and how Chronos had managed to reach inside of it without being affected.
Finally, being released after an hour, they were assigned a tent and slept.
During the next 2 days they were sent out several more times to keep track of the dark beast's movements and retrieve statues or priests, whenever they could be found.
Thanks to everyone's efforts the number of priests in the camp had tripled and through their holy magic the number of paladins had also doubled.
Unfortunately, not all priests had the magic capacity to protect the paladins from petrification, otherwise they would have restored everyone.
High Priest Morgan had all the teams keeping an eye on the islands, and thanks to their efforts, command was able to map out most of the nearby currlands constantly moved between them.
Sometimes wandering islands would drift into the area and ents. The map showed that the larger islands were mostly stationary while the smaller isdisrupt the stable currents but it seemed most islands wouldn't leave the area of influence of the nearest crystal.
"Aaahh, peace at last." Chronos sighed deeply as he walked through the forest.
"The tension in camp was really getting to you, huh? Well, enjoy it while you can, I'm sure the Second Commander is already stirring up trouble. He's getting more and more insistent that we restore his men and attack the swamp lord." Lyla swung her mace at the last beast as she spoke.
"Yeah, if High priest Morgan doesn't stop him soon, he's going to do something stupid."
"By the way I've been curious about this for a while, why does everyone call him Second Commander instead of his name?"
This had been going on since they had first met him, but nobody had mentioned why, until Sariah brought it up.
"Beats me, Chronos never calls him by name, so I thought it was normal." Lyla replied.
"I never talk with him; I don't know his name. I bet it has something to do with nobility which is Chronos' job to handle." Gregory said
Looking at Chronos, he was smirking to himself, this definitely had something to do with a personal grudge or a grudge between nobles.
"Well, amongst nobility the noble with a lower rank should introduce themselves first. He doesn't want to lower himself by introducing himself first and doesn't realize that I'm not currently a noble. If he did, he could just use his authority as Second Commander to introduce himself and place me in a lower position.
Although I'm not sure he would do that even if he knew, my family is kind of notorious amongst nobility." He said with a big grin.
"AHAHAHA..."
Lyla couldn't stop her laughter as it echoed through the forest. Finding out that the Second Commander wasn't intelligent enough to use his position against Chronos was hilarious to her.
Looking at Chronos' expression, the others decided not to ask what he meant by his family being notorious.
As they continued with today's task, they noticed that there weren't many dark beasts around. In fact, they had only fought twice today and that had been in the first few hours after they had left camp, that was much better than the past two days where being in light combat 6 or 7 times a day was normal.
It unnerved Chronos, having so few beasts around likely meant they were planning an attack.
"We are going back; I want to know what's going on with the beasts before we do anything else."
"Agreed." Everyone thought that was a good idea as they had all felt something was off with the beasts today.
When they returned to camp, they found that the whole camp was in a panic. Grabbing a paladin rushing past Chronos questioned him.
"What's going on? Are we expecting an attack?"
"No, the Second Commander forced some of the priests to restore his men while High priest Morgan was asleep. He left camp 3 hours ago with many of the spare holy relics to keep his men from being petrified."
"I see, where is Vice-commander Adam?"
"In the command tent, now please let go. I need to finish my task."
"Thank you." Letting him go Chronos' team ran towards the command board to see if they had new orders.
Upon reaching the board they saw Vice-Commander Adam posting new tasks, when they approached he called out to them.
"Chronos, I need your team to track his movements. We need to know where he's going and what he's doing. Can you manage that?" Vice-Commander Adam was so upset with him that he refused to call him by name or title.
The Second Commander was in some serious trouble now.
"Shouldn't be a problem, I bet he's why there are so few beasts in the woods today. I'm more concerned with why he chose now to act. Is there some reason or was he really that frustrated at having to follow someone else's orders?"
"Probably frustration, the men he left behind said that he was talking about fulfilling a glorious purpose, I think we both know what that is." He said with an exasperated expression.
"Haa, right, we'll start our search near the central island. You should have the men ready to move, if there is a chance to beat the swamp lord and break the crystal we need to take it."
"Right." Vice-Commander Adam replied as he gave them a small bird figurine with a [Whisper Wind] spell on it, a whisper bird could easily send messages back to camp even from the other side of the swamp. "Use this to send messages back to us, I'll do the same to keep you updated on our movements."
Leaving camp again Chronos gave orders as they ran.
"Gregory find a trail, Lyla be ready to bash some skulls in, Sariah enhance our speed and keep it active for as long as possible."
"Alright." The team responded as [Wind's Grace] doubled their speed.
It didn't take them long to reach the far side of the island they were on. Looking into the void they saw that one of the paths on the right that led towards the central island had been moved making it inaccessible.
Sending a report, they made their way to a slightly further small bridge. It wasn't large enough to allow an army to cross over but a small team could easily cross it.
Before long they found the path that the Second Commander's troops had left behind. Examining the evidence left behind, it looked like he had restored 250-300 troops and taken them with him.
Depending on the ranks of those involved that would be enough to defeat a normal fourth rank lord beast but this was a dark beast. Fighting dark beasts was much more difficult since they didn't weaken over the course of battle. A crippling injury for a normal beast would just be ignored by a dark beast.
What's worse is that the swamp lord was comparable to a fifth rank King beast, even with ten times those numbers you might not beat a king beast. And if it knew powerful magic or aura techniques the result would be even worse.
King ranks could fight thousands of enemies on their own, that's what made them a King.
Luckily the swamp lord that was used to make the dark beast lord hadn't known many truly destructive techniques otherwise Chronos wouldn't have survived his first meeting with it.
Following the path left by the troops was easy when that many men walked the same way it left a pretty wide path for anybody chasing them.
Along the way they saw multiple gathering spots for shadows where dark beasts had been defeated. Some of the beasts had been dead long enough that they needed to kill it again before they could continue.
After chasing them for an hour and a half they were getting quite close to the center island.
"Do you think they are already on the center island?" Sariah asked.
"Maybe, if they used a war formation to increase the speed of their march it will be hard to catch up to them. But that would be stupid as they wouldn't be in top form to fight the swamp lord." Chronos responded.
Actually, thinking about the Second Commander, he really was stupid enough to challenge the swamp lord with tired troops. The man had far too much pride for the good of his troops.
Before long they could hear the sounds of battle, men were yelling and beasts were screeching while the sound of weapons clashing was unmistakable.
Sighing Chronos reported what they heard, then they saw the battlefield. Standing on top of a hill they were able to survey the whole battle.
The paladins had pushed onto the central island but in their rush to defeat the swamp lord they hadn't cleared all of the dark beasts behind them and were now surrounded. Or maybe they had and the dark beasts had reformed afterwards? They should have been fighting for over 2 hours by now, more than long enough for dark beasts to reform.
Even with their abilities and forcing their way onto the island the swamp lord hadn't moved from its position guarding the crystal. Instead, it was clearly looking down on them with a superior gaze.