Once magic beasts reached rank 4 nearly all of them could use an element externally. The ones that didn't, would possess great physical strength, enough to crush battlements and storm castles on their own.
Having armor with resistances could save his life.
Still acquiring good leather for new armor was going to be expensive, even if he obtained it himself. Not to mention the work that will go into creating the armor.
If Chronos had a choice, he would choose to work with blacksmith Smith. That old dwarf was one of the best blacksmiths he had ever seen and knew a number of dwarven runes to enhance anything he created.
The best leather he could obtain out here would be crocodile but if he couldn't find one to kill, he would settle with boar leather. Boar leather was not as durable as crocodile leather but suited for more environments, crocodile leather needed constant oiling in hot environments.
On the other hand, he could use metal armor instead but if it wasn't made of a magic or auric metal it wouldn't be worth it. Normal metals were mostly useless once you were in the knight rank, they had to be enchanted or made out of special metals to be useful at this rank.
And Chronos didn't want to use enchanted armor from normal metals as he would just replace it as he became stronger.
Well with the way he fought it might be better to acquire a self-repairing armor, but those armors were always expensive enough to buy a small territory. Everybody from famous knights to powerful lords wanted an armor that could fix itself and only needed occasional maintenance to ensure that the enchantments were still working.
Unfortunately crafting such an armor required high grade materials, some mastery of blacksmithing, and extensive knowledge of enchantments. All of this made it difficult for most craftsmen to create a self-repairing armor.
But if all you needed was an enchanted armor any rank 3 blacksmith could make one, the only question was what enchantments they could apply.
He would have to ask what enchantments blacksmith Smith knew when he returned, depending on his answer Chronos would be spending quite a bit of time hunting for the raw materials.
He thought about all of the possibilities while he finished fixing his armor. Looking at the trees passing by as they drifted through the swamp he saw various creatures around.
They hadn't been around when they first entered the swamp, the dark beasts from the void space must have been scaring everything away before. Anything that couldn't escape had been turned into a dark beast.
"How far do you think we are from the main village?" Chronos asked.
"Hmm, a couple days? Maybe more. It's hard to tell when there are no recognizable landmarks around. We should try to find a village to visit before we go too far." Lyla replied.
"In that case we'll need to find a friendly village. We don't have a dragon priest with us so many of them might not be friendly to us." Gregory added.
"We should bring a gift." Sariah chimed in.
Looking at her happy smile Chronos wondered if she was happy to make new friends or had another motive. Either way, bringing a gift would help smooth things over when they met.
"Keep your eyes open for any precious herbs, matriarchs would definitely appreciate a rare herb. While you do that, I will go hunt some meat for the guards or scouts we meet."
"Be safe."
Jumping from the raft to the shore Chronos started searching for an animal that would be suitable for a small village. Given that they may have been fighting, or petrified, for days they would need something filling for the whole village.
A large boar, deer, or crocodile would work. Come to think of it, he had never heard of a large deer living in swamps, usually they were small or medium sized at best.
A large boar would definitely be better as there were so many of them amongst the dark beasts.
After searching for an hour Chronos found some unexpected signs. A large number of footprints covered the clearing he was in.
As he examined them, he found goblins footprints of various sizes, a few human footprints, some footprints that looked like a dog's but there were only two feet per set. Must be kobolds.
And one set of footprints that was twice the size of a human's.
None of the known residents of the swamp were that big, was this another giant or possibly something worse?
East of the Dracon Fen was a wasteland between the Leighla Kingdom and the Vhalic Empire. The wasteland was primarily inhabited by trolls, goblins, and kobolds but there were other monster species and bandits living there too.
Few monster species were friendly toward humans or beastfolk, but trolls were especially despised for their habit of eating others alive. Even among monsters, they were universally loathed.
If it wasn't for their great strength and the ability to heal from almost anything they would have long since been hunted to extinction.
In order to avoid being hunted they often retreated to areas of the world that were difficult for other species to live in.
Like the wasteland between the kingdom and the empire that lacked world energy to such an extreme that it would pull aura or spirit out of those who lived there.
By relying on their overpowered healing ability, they could survive in these inhospitable lands. And by hiding in these lands, they had avoided extinction multiple times.
Ironically living there healed the land and allowed weaker species to begin moving back in. The edges of the wasteland had shrunk by over 100 km in the past half century, which gave rise to bandit groups living on the edges with monsters in the center of the wasteland.
If they were taking advantage of the chaos within Dracon Fen to try and invade it would cause even more problems.
Sighing Chronos turned back to the small river the others were drifting on. Finding the boat Chronos jumped onto it causing it to bob up and down in the river.
"Kya, warn us before you jump on." Sariah yelled at him.
"Sorry, I had no luck finding anything to hunt but I did see signs of something twice the size of a human. It's possible that we are on the far eastern side of the swamp. I didn't see any signs of the forest either so I'm guessing that we are somewhere in the southeastern corner."
After finishing the report everyone had concerned looks on their faces.
"If we are far enough south we could just try to make for the ocean and follow the coast back to the kingdom." Gregory offered.
"I think that is a good idea. I've heard that there are all sorts of powerful monsters in the central ocean." Lyla said with a big grin.
She was clearly looking forward to fighting something new.
"I think this is a lot worse than we realize. The dark beasts are attacking the northern side of Dracon Fen, if the trolls lead the monsters to attack the southern side the residents of the swamp and the dragon church would be forced to fight two wars at once.
Even for the dragon church that is a big warfront. On top of that we only closed one void space, and we know there are at least two more from Commander Stan's report." Chronos stated.
Looking grim they made the choice to speed up their raft. Once they reached a village, they would ask for more information.
Sariah cast the [Elemental Control] spell again and layered it on top of itself, the raft greatly sped up after that.
For three hours they sped down the river before they saw the first signs of civilization. There were several moored reed canoes next to a walking path leading deeper into the swamp.
Pulling up to the shore they moored their raft and began following the path. It didn't take long before they found a village, but the thorn vines that made the front gate had been torn down.
Drawing their weapons they carefully stepped inside the village only to see that many of the buildings were knocked over and some of them had been burned down. Regardless of that they decided to search anyway.
"Find anything?" After nearly an hour of searching Chronos was getting bored.
"No, the only good news is that there are surprisingly few bloodstains. I think they escaped before things got bad." Gregory reported.
"Good, there aren't many creatures that can catch a lizardfolk or naga when they're in a swamp." Sariah said.
"Hm, that makes it difficult for us to find them too."
Chronos was scratching his head, they needed to ask someone about the current state of Dracon Fen but if they wandered around randomly, they might just walk into the middle of a battlefield.
He didn't want to go somewhere so dangerous without prior knowledge, especially with his friends in tow.
"I think we should continue down the river." Lyla said.
"Oh, why's that?"
"I read up on the lizardfolk when the Battle priests were dispatched. According to what I read, when lizardfolk and naga retreat they will go to specially dug tunnels underneath the water. It is supposed to be similar to a beaver's den."
"So, if we follow the river they will see us before we see them. Hiding underground would also confuse the attackers since the ground in the swamp is too soft for hidden tunnels normally. The lizardfolk and naga might be the only ones who could build something like that."