The pain started to spread until it reached every part of my body. The throbbing sensation persisted for a while until the pain began to move once more. The pain started to converge towards my head. Soon, all the throbbing, numbing pain presided in my head. I grabbed my head as it felt like my head would explode any moment. Suddenly, images began forming rapidly in my mind. I screamed in pain with the overload of images. As soon as it happened, it stopped. The pain...the images...all gone. As my mind calmed down, I began to sort through my mind. These images turned out to be memories of the Phoenix. Oh? What's this? Is this a technique?

Burning Meteor Strike - this was one of the many innate techniques of the Phoenix Family. The Burning Meteor Strike was the attack that I had experienced earlier when the Phoenix flared up his flames and charged towards me like a shooting star. Now that the technique's methods and mastery is in my hands, I naturally will make good use of it in battle. As for the other images...apparently, they were the memories of the Phoenix that was killed. The Phoenix came from a main family that had originated from a higher realm. In that realm, their world was dying from diminishing resources and overpopulation. In order to look for solutions, the Phoenix Family sent out members of the branch families to different lower realms in order to scout for potential resources and migration. The group that the Phoenix I killed was in had descended to this world and scattered across the world. Though the Phoenix that was killed was just a "trash" from the branch family, he was still extremely powerful in this world's standards. Judging from his strength, he could easily be a SS ranked monster. But since he died in my and Blackie's hands, this SS rank could be a low level rank. Nevertheless, this meant that other than the Phoenix I killed, there were still a few other more powerful Phoenixes roaming in this world.

Anyways, with the Phoenix that I killed, after he created a few descendants like the Firebirds and the lesser Phoenixes - Fire Birds - he started to hibernate in the North Volcano for ten thousand years. Because of his pure Fire Essence that had permeated into the volcano over the years, different monsters in the vicinity were mutated and lived in or near the volcano. Now, without the continuous charging of Fire Essence from the Phoenix, the North Volcano would deplete its pure Fire Essence in a number of years before becoming a regular volcano. At this point, there won't be any more fire-type monsters produced and those fire-type monsters that were attracted to the pure Fire Essence would leave as well. As for the portal that the Phoenixes used to travel between realms, apparently it was located somewhere in the far northwest and it seemed that the portal was still fully functional. Though, it required a huge amount of Fire Essence to power the portal and I mean a gigantic amount.

After sorting through most of the clear memories, I've become somewhat curious about the Phoenix Family. I've decided that later on, I'll make a trip to their world and visit them. As for the more vague memories...well, there's nothing I can do about it. May as well wait for some stimulus to trigger the vague memories. Once that was done, I glanced over to Blackie and noticed that his aura and prowess had improved significantly. It looked like he was on the verge of evolution. I stood up went to check on Blackie. He seemed to be sleeping right now. Not wanting to disturb him, I let him sleep a bit longer as I walked up to the Phoenix corpse. With a wave of my hand, I stored the corpse into my storage ring. I will be going to make a flesh pellet out of the corpse for Blackie's evolution breakthrough sometime in the future. Then, I continued collecting corpses and treasures. An hour later, I had completely cleaned out the entirety of the fortress of any valuable items. Suddenly, my ears picked up some flapping sounds. I looked up and saw Krosgund and his army, along with my army, approaching the fortress. Once Krosgund landed in front of me, I waved my hand and asked about the situation.

"What about the Firebirds? Did you kill them all?"

"Unfortunately no. About a hundred of them escaped. What about the people from your side?" Krosgund shook his head.

"We've managed to kill off the upper echelons of the clan including their ancestor. But some of the younger generations have escaped."

"Should we give chase?"

"No need. Without the support of their strong generations, these young ones will never rise back to power."

"I see. Well, this cause for a celebration! Come, join us." Krosgund beamed happily.

"Alright."

And so, we left the battlefield and headed back to the Wyvern's Nest. Along the way, I made a check on how many warriors are left in my army. All of my direct subordinates were naturally still alive. However, for the rest of my army, I can say I have lost a great deal. Of the 763 resurrected warriors, only 143 warriors were left. Amazingly, the young Desert Worm was still alive. As for the others, there were 32 Wyverns, 47 Firebirds, 21 Earth Guardian Dragons, 13 Poison Guardian Dragons, 7 Plant Guardian Dragons, and 22 Rocs. Although I lost many warriors, I can still make more given the plethora of Firebird corpses I had collected from the battlefield. Soon, we arrived at the nest where we partied throughout the night.

When morning arrived, I bid farewell to Krosgund and the Wyverns. Then, we headed back to the guild. Upon arriving, I posted the results of the siege as well as what had happened to the scattered Firebirds as well as the memories I acquired from the Phoenix.