Dawn was now near Ryuran's mansion.
Looking at it always caught him off guard and aroused an uneasy feeling inside of him.
The design was similar to the houses in the districts yet not compleatly the same.
And Dawn knew why.
This building was the first to be raised inside the settlement.
It was here even before Dawn discovered the onis.
Dawn didn't bother learning more about the history of this tribe but he knew that they were forced to come here.
What chased them away from their original homeland was a mystery he did not intend on solving.
But it did make him curious.
Suddenly the sound of a loud, beastly bellow reached Dawn's ears.
He looked to his right to see a large, red bull running towards him.
It was a hulking, behemoth with sharp horns.
The ground shook with every one of its mighty steps.
Dawn however remained calm.
He readied his hands and once the bull was close enough he grabbed both of its horns and stopped it in its tracks.
The bull tried overpowering the man before it, but he didn't budge.
This struggle continued until the bull exhausted itself and flopped to the ground.
Dawn carefully examined the bull in search for the cause of its outburst.
It was then that the sound of several people running reached his ear.
Dawn looked towards them and saw several young oni running towards him.
They wore the faces of those who knew they did something extreamly wrong.
Just from a glance Dawn could tell what happened.
Most likely these children were messing with the bull until it broke out.
It was then that Dawn noticed another figure in the distance.
It was an oni woman.
She was chasing the kids with a large club while shouting at them.
Once the children reached Dawn they stopped in their tracks.
They looked up with eyes that cried out for help.
However the kids soon realised that Dawn was just as mad at them as the lady chasing them.
Once the woman with the club caught up she was met with the sight of the 4 youngsters being disciplened by Dawn.
"This beast is no ordinary animal! Someone could have gotten hurt or worse!"
Seeing this, the woman with the club decided to watch from the sidelines for now.
It was quite refreshing to see someone else scolding those 4 for once.
Once Dawn noticed the oni woman he decided to stop scolding the 4 youngsters.
He walked up to her and asked.
"Are these children yours?"
"Sadly yes, they cause trouble like this every day." She said with a sigh.
"Their father?"
"Dead for 6 years now."
"I am sorry for your loss."
"Don't be! He died a warrior's death. He gave his life for a cause worth dying for."
Dawn nodded.
Wth that the oni woman walked up to the exhausted bull and patted it on its head.
"Do you need help with the bull?" Dawn asked.
"No, he just needs a little rest."
Dawn once again nodded as a response.
He then turned around and headed inside Ryuran's mansion.
Once inside, a maid greeted Dawn with a bow.
She then held out her hands.
"I do not require cleaning today." Dawn said as he walked past the maid.
Night was approaching.
He needed to talk to Erisha and make sure to she was prepeared to leave her brother behind.
Dawn guessed that she was inside the training room, but what surprised him was that she was not alone.
When he walked in to the training room he was met by the sight of a fierce battle between Erisha and Ryuran.
What started as a spar turned in to another life or death fight between the two.
"Oh you have returned?" A voice asked.
Dawn looked to his left to see Drell quietly sitting beside the entrance.
"What is happening?" Dawn asked in a serious tone.
With that Drell told Dawn the events that have unfolded during the time he was on the surface.
"How much should she use her powers?"
"She shouldn't. She is a ticking time bomb right now, which could explode if handled incorrectly."
Drell then glanced back at the ongoing fight, then added.
"But I can guess that she has other plans."
After this Dawn didn't ask any more questions.
He simply crossed his arms and and patiently waited for the spar to come to an end.
He used this oppertunity to better observe how Erisha fought.
It was mix between an assassin and a noble.
Her footwork was elegant, trying to dodge attacks by a hair.
On the other hand her swings and stabs aimed to quickly kill the opponent.
On paper this was the perfect fighting style, however Dawn could see its flaws.
It was too rigid.
Her style was for fighting people, not monsters.
This was a major flaw that needed to be fixed.
Their journey will take them across many dangerous places filled with mutated abominations.
From deserts where giant worms the lenght of villiges will chase them to mountine ranges where dragons kill everything that wonders in to their territory and many more.
They will have to go through such places.
That is why Dawn needed to make sure the elfs were prepeared.
Suddenly a large explosion erupted withing the training room and dust flew in to the air.
Erisha was sent flying through the air from the shockwave and was heading towards the wall at a dangerous speed.
Dawn reacted almost immidietly, using his powerful legs he dashed forward, leaving only the dust on his shoulders behind him.
He positioned himself between the wall and Erisha to reduce the damage to the elf.
With a bang, the elf and the human crashed in to the wall which caused cracks to form and spread.
Ryuran looked up to see the cracks spread to almost every corner of the cieling.
And in just a few seaconds the room began collapsing.
Then suddenly a wave of green energy washed over the falling rocks.
Slowly, the crumbling room began reforming itself.
Daen looked back to see Drell holding out one of his hands that glowed with a bright green light.
"So he was a shaman aswell." Dawn said within his mind.
Once the room was compleatly intact Dawn scanned Erisha's body.
She had bruises all over, she had a black eye and some of her teeth were missing.
Naturally she was unconscious aswell.
Looking at the state of the elf Dawn's face hardened.
He turned towards the towering oni woman and stared daggers in to her.
"Aww~stop that! I might fall in love with you~!"
Her tone and voice was like a banshee's screeching.
But what angered Dawn the most was her nonchalant attitude.
Suddenly Dawn turned towards Drell.
In the few steps it took for him to reach Drell, Erisha was already healed.
"Get her out of here." Dawn said while handing Erisha over to Drell.
Drell was visibly confused by this.
Dawn however did not give him the chance to respond,
He turned around and walked up to Ryuran.
In the next moment Ryuran was sent flying outside her own mansion.
Once she crashed in to the ground she looked up with a bright smile on her face.
"So! Round 2 it is!?"
But all she got as a response was Dawn's loud roar as he charged at the oni.
Drell watched with a baffled expression as the two titans clashed.
It was a shame he could not stick around longer.
After all he didn't want to be on the recieving end of the punches that made even Ryuran stagger.
Thus he decided to head to back to his lab.
It was during times like these, when he was in a hurry, thankful that magic existed.
With a snap of his fingers he created a portal that connected the matriarch's mansion and his lab, making a 20 minute walk turn in to 1 step.
The swirling blue energy disappeared as Drell stepped out of the portal.
He and Erisha were now inside his office where he created her disguise.
He gently placed the elf on to his desk, swiping away the papers that were towering on it.
Thankfully, he didn't have to treat her, which meant he could focus on other things.
"She should be unconscious for about 3 hours." Drell said to himself.
He then went outside his office and headed to the main hall where his reserchers worked.
The hall was as busy as ever, with reserchers working tirelessly day and night to provide results.
They worked this hard not because of material gain or recognition from their tribe.
No, they worked to impress him.
The Dean of the greatest hall of reserch in the history of the oni race, Drell Dubok.
From the moment he was born Drell was not like the rest.
He was smaller and less muscular than regular oni.
While growing up he was bullied by his peers, often beaten to a pulp.
That was until his father decided to teach him the ways of a shaman.
And it turned out he was a prodogy when it came to magic.
He learned quickly and efficiently and more then made up for his lack of physical streanght with talent for magic.
However, this sudden streak of success had a side effect.
He was consumed by the desire for more knowlage.
He learned so much infact, that his father could no longer satiate his hunger.
Thus Drell turned to his mother, the lead historian of the tribe.
She told him the stories of legendary shamans and mages who dominated the battlefield during the war.
And from just hearing the stories, Drell could recreat spells that were once thought lost to the oni race.
This earned him fame and recognition from not just his tribe but all the tribes that were scattered on Gaia.
Drell soon realized however, that the history of his own tribe was simply not enough.
Thus he created a place for those like him, oni who seeked knowlage above all else to do whatever they wanted in the name of seeking more knowlage.
He took insperation from the magic towers of the humans and created a massive hall where oni from every tribe could come to and reserch whatever they thought was worth reserching.
That was until they were discovered by their enemies.
The battle that day was lost and years of reserch was destroyed in the blink of an eye.
The very hall he walked in was just a cheap immitation of the original.
He will never forget the sight.
His great hall burning before his very eyes.
That was the first time he ever felt the bloodlust and rage that was present in his peers.
But in the end they still lost.
But this was no time to dwell on the past.
In a few minutes Drell reached his destination.
He opened a large door and entered a special wing of the hall.
While his office provided more then enough space for most of his private reserch, for this project he needed more then himself and some petty machines.
"How is it coming along?" Drell asked one of the reserchers present.
"Very well sir! In just a few hours the items will be completed."
"Good, did you apply the alloy I told you about?"
"Yes, but I have to admit, it gave us a little bit of trouble."
"Such as?"
The resercher gulped loudly before continueing.
"The first batch came out more corrosive then our calculations and ended up damaging the forge."
Drell furiously turned towards the resercher.
"Show me the calculations!"
A female resercher from his left handed him a pristine, green stone.
Once in Drell's hand, the stone began glowing and a projection appeared.
It took Drell a single seacond to notice the mistake.
"You fucking donkey! You added 3% more of mithril then I instructed!"
Hearing his raised voice the reserchers shrunk back in fear.
"Show me the forge!"
When Drell saw none of them move he shouted once again.
"NOW!"
In the next moment he was inspecting the magical forge.
The alloy almost compleatly ruined it.
If not for the fast reactions of these carpet brained idiots the damage could have been unrepairable.
Drell was holding his forehead and trying to surpress his anger.
"Get this thing out of here and have a blacksmith repair it! The rest can leave aswell!"
It didn't take long for the reserchers to get out with the large forge floating in the air behind them.
Finally he was alone with no other distractions in the way.
Now, he could soly focus on creating a weapon for the only being worthy enough for it.
This will be his one and only weapon.
And it will be for a berserker