VWOOOM!

A massive pressure burst out of Drixali and crushed down upon everyone within sight. The centaurs' blood boiled as they experienced an instinctual fear borne from generations of worship.

Drixali was none other than their god and there was nothing mortals feared more than the wrath of the gods. Even more so when it was a god they worshipped. The centaur's legs buckled under the pressure and, unable to bear the weight, they knelt on the ground and prostrated, as if trying to make themselves as small as possible.

One person, however, remained standing in the midst of the pressure. Shadow coldly glared at Drixali as he stood his ground. Blood leaked out of the corners of the assassin's mouth, but he otherwise did not show any signs of discomfort.

Drixali's gaze narrowed when he spotted Shadow. He took a step toward the assassin, eyes glowing as he warned, "You dare remain standi—"

"Give it up, Drixali," Kashi interrupted as he blocked the demon's path with an outstretched arm. "You are incapable of bending his will." The daeben released a sigh as he looked at the kneeling centaurs. "Also, could you release them? These are the leaders of proud warriors who just fought and bled to defend their homes and legacy. It's a disservice to the fallen to disgrace them so."

Drixali looked unconvinced but reluctantly released his pressure. Anyway, these centaurs were his worshippers in the end. He could garner much animosity towards them. The only reason he exuded that pressure was to ingrain into the centaurs the fact that they must place Kashi above himself in their minds.

In other words, if the centaurs truly worshipped Drixali, then as his new master, they should in turn worship Kashi – or at the very least, treat his words as law.

Kashi, of course, was well aware of Drixali's thought process, which was why he did not immediately rebuke his actions. However, Kashi did not let the pressure last too long for two reasons. First, it would reduce the chances of any animosity arising in the centaurs' hearts, and secondly, the centaurs would view him as a benevolent man who did not take advantage of the weak.

As to whether Kashi was truly such a benevolent man... Well, the truth was relative to the person being asked.

Shadow ignored Drixali and walked over to Kashi, cold eyes looking over the daeben, "Are you alright? You seem different."

"Sharp as always," Kashi complimented with a chuckle as he patted Shadow's shoulder. "I'm perfectly fine. Let's just say I got an unexpected boon."

"You and your secrets," remarked the assassin with an eye roll. Shadow then jerked his head in Drixali's direction. "So, what's the deal with him?"

"He's their god apparently," Kashi nonchalantly replied.

"Their god?" Shadow exclaimed as his neutral expression finally cracked. The young man stared at Kashi as if looking at some otherworldly monster. "You just said god, right? Why is a god working for you!?"

"Well, he's actually a demon to be more precise," Kashi explained and then added with a puffed chest. "And, naturally, he's working for me 'cause I'm very persuasive."

Shadow ignored Kashi and sent a pitying glance Drixali's way. "I do not know what he did, but you have my condolences."

"Hey, Shadow!" Kashi protested, "Don't badmouth your guildleader!"

"Thank you, Shadow-kun, I will make the best of my situation," Drixali responded with a slight bow.

"You. Don't badmouth your master!" Kashi scolded Drixali with a stern gaze, but the centaur demon only chuckled in response.

"Thank you for leaving my will intact, Kashi-sama," Drixali stated as he bowed once more to Kashi. Indeed, the only reason he could make such remarks was because Kashi did not have Yggdrasil completely wipe away his memories and personality. Aside from an unwavering loyalty to Kashi, every aspect of his personality remained intact. "I will work hard to repay this favor."

Kashi rubbed his chin. "Normally I would tell you not to bother about the favor, but it so happens I do have some things I need your help to accomplish."

Drixali's eyes shone in expectation as he inquired, "What do you need?" He wanted to prove himself to Kashi as soon as possible. He had no doubt that in the near future hundreds, if not thousands would clamor for the chance to perform a favor for the daeben.

"There're two things," Kashi stated. "Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, I'm sure with the chiefs' help, you should be able to find a way to improve my horse's bloodline. Secondly..." Kashi said the rest at a low volume which only Drixali could hear.

"This much I can accomplish with ease," Drixali said with a defiant nod.

Kashi turned to look at the chiefs and shamans who were awkwardly standing off to the side, unsure whether to stay or leave. The daeben smiled and then bowed as he said, "Esteemed elders, I am eternally grateful for your aid in pulling me back from the dead. Unfortunately, I am unable to return your spear as it is now with its rightful owner."

"N-no-no-no, of course not," Mando quickly exclaimed, sweat pouring down his chest as he peeked at the silent Drixali. Demand the spear from their god? Were they courting death? But more importantly, what were they to do now? Without protection from their god, the centaurs were much more vulnerable. Perhaps all those warring clans would come looking to harness the strength of the perfect cavalry unit. Mando calmed himself as he looked at Kashi and asked, "Kashi-sama, what do you will of us? We are now yours to command as you wish."

"-sama?" Kashi replied with startled shock. "I'm no sama. Call me Kashi like you have always done."

"We dare not, Kashi-sama!" Mando replied as he once again peeked at Drixali.

Kashi groaned, instantly understanding what was going on. Mando had heard Drixali address him as -sama, and thus did not dare call him anything less. The daeben glared at Drixali and berated the demon, "See! This is what I was talking about. If you go around calling me sama, everyone will start doing the same. Just call me Kashi. There's nothing great about me to be called sama." Before Drixali could protest, Kashi added with a snide grin, "That's an order. You would not disobey an order, would you?"

Drixali's eyes twitched as he stared at the daeben. To think someone could be so petty and stubborn. Did the daeben not see the oxymoron in utilizing an order to force someone to regard him with less respect? However, Drixali could not disobey a direct order, so he bent his head and said, "As you wish, Master."

This time, it was Kashi's eyes that twitched. What a shrewd demon. In order to avoid calling Kashi by name, he reverted to Master. Kashi could not berate him for that too. Well, at least Master was better than -sama. The daeben shrugged and then turned to Mando and the other elders. "There you have it. So, none of that -sama business alright? I possess neither the beard, age nor wisdom for that address," he joked.

"More importantly," Kashi said as he led the way out of the ruins. "I would like to examine the effects of the battle - if that is alright with you? How many casualties were there?"

The chiefs looked at Balasius, who walked up to Kashi's side with a nervous expression. "Collectively, we lost around seven hundred warriors, two thousand more are lightly injured, and about a thousand are heavily injured. We do not know how many of them will make it through."

Kashi's brows furrowed. "Where are the injured? Bring me to them. I might be able to offer some assistance."

Balasius shook his head. "I am afraid even healing potions do not have much of an effect. Most of the wounds have been corroded by the blight. Although it does not look like the infection is spreading, it has rendered all efforts to close the injuries useless."

"That's understandable," Kashi remarked. "The monsters were carrying blight that had been strengthened over several centuries. It's not surprising the corrosive effects are so strong." Kashi's words initially shook Balasius' core, but then he spotted the smile on the daeben's face as he said, "Rest assured, I will fix this mess. I do not need potions."

"What?"

"Just wait and you'll see."

Balasius remained silent as he led Kashi over to the makeshift camp which housed the injured. On their way, they passed by the slope where the monsters still stood, as if transfixed in time. To Balasius' shock, Kashi suddenly froze in place, and seemed to tremble, as if resonating with something. "Kashi-dono?"

Kashi looked past the general to the slope. He absent-mindedly walked to the centaur warriors who were keeping an eye on the monsters. The guards hesitated when Kashi walked past them, unsure whether to stop him or not. Fortunately, Balasius shook his head, giving them a way out. At least, this way, they could always say they were acting on their superiors' order.

Kashi, oblivious to the thoughts of the warriors, walked down the slope until he was a few meters from the monster horde. The daeben then raised his hand, and to the absolute shock of the watching centaurs, the monsters collectively dropped to their knees. Kashi revealed a bright grin as he clenched his fists. "Blight Emperor, huh. In that case..." Kashi looked at the monsters and ordered as a portal appeared in front of him, "All of you, get in here."

The centaurs stared, slack-jawed as they watched the ferocious army they had shed blood and sweat to combat, meekly walk into and disappear beyond a portal with nary a whimper.

Kashi gritted his teeth and urged the monsters to move quicker. As expected, making a portal this large was taxing even for him. He was not sure he could hold it for too long. Luckily, his order proved effective, and the monsters tripled their pace, allowing him to absorb all four thousandish into his inner world within ten minutes.

Sweat soaked Kashi's shirt as he closed the portal. That effort had soaked up most of his mana reserves. If it wasn't for his rapid mana regen rate, he would not have lasted that long. Still, it was very tiring to hold the portal open that long. Unfortunately, Kashi knew he would have to do the same again very soon.

As luck would have it, Darian, Larsial, Agamios and the other centaurs who had taken part in the siege on the headquarters reached the mountain base at that very moment, just in time to see the last few monsters enter Kashi's world.

While everyone struggled to come to grips with what they just witnessed, Kashi ascended the slope with a leisurely smile and said to Balasius, "Sorry for the delay. Please lead the way."

"Ah... yes," Balasius weakly muttered as he led Kashi to the injured camp.

Shadow, meanwhile, walked up next to Kashi and asked, "What was that just now?"

Kashi shrugged his shoulder as he replied, "Would you believe me if I told you I have a world in me?"

"So that's what it was," Shadow said without a sliver of doubt in his tone. "Stop putting weird stuff in your world. We won't always be around to save you."

"What?" Kashi blinked, not sure which fact stunned him more: that Shadow believed him, or that the assassin accurately guessed what had been causing Kashi's episodes the past couple of days. He looked at Shadow's serene gaze and could not resist patting the assassin's head. "Ah, that's who you are. Never change Shadow."

"What are you talking about now?" Shadow rebuffed with a snort. "Has all that sama gone to your head? You sound like an old hermit."

In response, Kashi rubbed his chin in mock thought. "Maybe so now that I think about it. I may not have the beard nor the age, but I'm definitely wise, right?"

"You've nearly killed yourself twice in less than a week," Shadow pointed out. "I do not think you can classify yourself as wise."

"Isn't it cause I knew you guys would save me?" Kashi protested. "I'm a wise ruler who trusts his friends."

"Friends... huh," Shadow repeated.

"What?"

"Nothing." Shadow shrugged. 'Never thought I'd hear you say those words.'

Before Kashi could pry further, Balasius called him up, to tell him they had arrived.

Kashi's playful expression died down immediately he set foot into the camp. The heavy stench of blood mixed with despair soaked the air. The daeben looked around the camp at the centaurs who were on their sides, groaning in pain from varying injuries.

Some centaurs were lightly injured, suffering only a few scratches, but many had large sections of their bodies terribly mangled by claws and teeth. Worse yet, because the wounds did not heal, these centaurs' eyes were colored with despair as they awaited their inevitable death.

Kashi did not waste any time coercing or laying traps with his words when he saw how dire the situation was. He immediately walked over to, and then placed his hands on one of the more heavily injured centaurs.

Yggdrasil's aura leaked out his hands and suffused into the centaur's injuries. To the shock of the healers nearby, the wound began to quickly close in front of their eyes. However, even with Kashi's healing, it still took over five minutes to get the centaur out of the danger zone.

Kashi looked at the hundreds of injured centaurs and shook his head. If he continued with this method, who knew how many would perish. He needed a more cost-effective method of healing these centaurs.

Luckily, he already had a solution.

Kashi looked at the healers, and stated, "The energy I just used to heal him is from another dimension. I can only heal one at a time if I continue like this, but I doubt there's enough time to heal everyone. However, I have a solution, if you trust me."

The centaurs' eyes sparkled with hope as they gazed at the daeben. Just from his act of healing that one centaur, they knew he was not lying.

"What do you propose?" a healer asked.

Kashi raised his hand and a massive portal appeared in front of him. "This is a portal to the dimension with the healing aura. If you all go there, you can all be healed within minutes. But I can only hold it open for a couple of minutes, so you have to make your decision quick."

The centaurs hesitated. A dimension? Who knew where that went. Even though Kashi had not given them any reason to distrust him, it didn't mean he had earned their unequivocal trust either. Also, the centaur public was not yet aware of Kashi's relationship with their god, which reduced the reasons to trust him.

Surprisingly, however, Balasius suddenly shouted as he helped a heavily injured warrior to his feet. "What are you waiting for!? Those who can walk, help those who can't go in! You want to waste the opportunity our savior has given you!? Do you want our brothers to die in vain!?" With those words, Balasius walked into Kashi's dimension with the center without any hesitation.

The remaining centaurs were shocked, but one centaur who knew he would die in the next few minutes from blood loss struggled to his feet and stumbled into the portal. They say all it takes is one crack in a dam for the flood to come pouring in.

That centaur was the crack. A few more critically injured centaurs followed his lead, or persuaded their friends and families to help them to go in. The others, noticing that Kashi was truly unable to hold on much longer, soon started flocking in, hoping to get healed, until Kashi finally collapsed thirty minutes later.

"Forty minutes. That's my limit," Kashi mused as he fell onto his backside. Panting heavily, he looked at his hand and said, "I won't be able to open the channel for a few hours."

Ping!

At that moment, however, Kashi suddenly received a prompt that would forever change the way he thought about his inner world.

SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PATREON STARS:

Residents: Andrew Maurer, Eli Calabria, Rusty Reaper, Cobalt_Storm, Eli Romero, Niyeban, Sarah Kinkade, Gamma2626, GodSpeed99, Antinium, Oziel

Adventurers: Hyproxy, Merlin252, Michael Barton, OlusholaAbidakun, Mental_Napalm, Jamie Ibarra, Adam Whitman, Sven Buchheit

Warriors: Caleb Ian Melton, Ragnaf, Cullen M Brewer,

The High Council: Sly, Jacob Morgan, StrikerPrince, Thund3rTank, Facemaster, Pumba

You Guys are the Best!!!

Please Support me on Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/Renoe_K

Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: Genaco Novels

Come bug me and join the community on discord at: https://discord.gg/fHRA2qj

Video of the Day

https://youtu.be/rfw-Ophs4VM