"Thank you, without your help. This spawn of abomination would have eaten me," he thanked. I smiled before my eyes turned serious. "When did these Grimms appear?" I asked, and he blanched. "A day ago. The first one had directly appeared in front of me," he said and shudder from head to toe. "So, it is not the first one you fought here?" I asked. "No, it is the fifth, I had fought in a day," he replied. I wish I could say their appearance in the ruins is surprising. It is not. These bastards tend to do that, and it is quite common. They will arrive at nearly a fifth of the ruin, trying to kill people and their harvest. "Why didn't you try to escape to the Clear Lake Region?" I asked. It is the region with the exit and most of the powerhouses would be there. "These bastards have seized the gates," he said cursing, and my expression couldn't help but turn bad. Hun! Suddenly, a smile appeared on my face for a moment. I was worried when the runes did not come out for a moment. These runes are the reason why I could harness these bastards. Their bloodline, to be exact. While this one did not have a bloodline, I am sure. I will come across one sooner and later, and those runes would have been necessary then. "Have you met any Sovereigns?" I asked. It is clear; the ones controlling the gates would be Sovereigns; against whom, we are powerless. Only the Sovereign or those with the power of the Sovereign could deal with them. "Yes. I met two of them, and they were going to launch the assault against the Grimms controlling the gates tomorrow morning," he replied. I am sure the Grimms would have heard it and would be prepared. The battle would be bloody, or there might not be any battle before Grimms killed everyone. Though, that would be very difficult to achieve. The people here are not weak, but if anyone could do it, then it would be Grimms. These bastards have invaded our world and stayed in it for over ten thousand years. Despite generation after generation of humans fighting against them. "You can come with me or stay and hide till tomorrow. I have a map of a few hidden spots," I said, and took out the parchment. He struggled for a minute before taking the parchment from my hand and looking at it. "I think I will stay in one spot and recover for tomorrow's battle," he replied after a few seconds of silence. "As you wish. Just burn the map after memorizing it," I said and walked away, while he burns the map. It would be wise for me to hide too; there will be Sovereigns and they would only need a single attack to finish me off, but this is a rare opportunity to make fast progress. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮 God knows I need it. It is a great risk, especially when I don't have my most trusted weapon against the Grimms. My strings, but there is no other choice. I have to fight and kill these bastards. I begin walking away, things how quickly things have changed. An hour ago, I had planned to harvest for a day, before going back to the Clear Lake Region and leaving this ruin after. Now, I am planning on fighting the Grimms this whole day and if I had survived, there will be a huge battle tomorrow. Even after surviving that, there will be a huge danger when we passed through the gates. Who knows, the Grimms aren't waiting at the other door, killing us the moment we appear on the other side. I pushed those thoughts away and focused on the present. I have to do things in order; the first one is to find and kill the Grimms. Priority is the Grimms with the bloodlines. A few seconds passed, and the runes finished harvesting the Werewolf. It had turned to dust as every other Grimm who had entered my core, leaving the beautiful essence, rose. I looked at it for a second, before sending it to the thing that needs it the most. Necrotic tree. It is hungering for it, and while I had brought a vast supply of essence roses. They were of the lower level and since coming to this world, its hunger had increased further, consuming them at a far greater pace. I only had a supply of two months and after it, I would have struggled to keep it alive for more than a month. The level of the necrotic is too low to live without its supplement. It will have to reach a level much higher than it, to do that. As I rose appeared in front of it, its shriveled tree shook, and its nearly withered leaves rustled. As the energy of the rose moved toward the tree, with the help of the formation. I am excited about it, as this rose will not only keep alive but also help it provide enough energy to produce a life force. I need that thing, not only for healing, but also for breakthroughs and alchemy. I watched the tree for a couple of seconds before focusing my all on finding the Grimm monsters. By what the black bear beast-man had said, there are quite a lot of Grimms had come here. It is both a bad thing and a good thing. Bad thing because they will be wiping all of us with quite an ease, a good thing because now, I have quite a lot of Grimms to kill. A few minutes passed, but I did not sense any Grimms, which is not surprising considering how big this place is. It still couldn't help but disappoint me. It would have been tremendously helpful. If both Ashlyn and Nero had been awake, or at least one of them away. If they had, I would have been fighting the Grimms right now. I shook my head and continued searching and a more ten minutes later. I found it and for a moment I did. My eyes blazed in anger. The bastard is going to do the thing I hate the most.