“Cough… Looks like even Varel hasn't found this pce yet.”

  Illyan and Aurelia’s violent entry into the hidden passage stirred up all the dust accumuted over the years inside it.

  Because of this, Illyan’s displeasure was clearly seen on his face.

  “He probably didn’t want to make any suspicious moves when acolytes were around. He could look for it freely once he killed them all, after all,” Aurelia chimed in, pcing a kerchief over her mouth to avoid breathing in the dust.

  “Hmm… I guess so. Anyway, let’s hurry up; I don’t like this at all.” Illyan’s expression was dull as he descended the dusty spiral staircase.

  Aurelia, who saw this, smirked.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a cleaning freak?” she asked with a teasing smile.

  “What’s that?”

  Her normally pleasant voice now sounded annoying to Illyan, who hurried down the stairs without even looking at her.

  Since the stairs were hidden, they were made quite narrow.

  Because of that, they could go down only in one line.

  Thus, Aurelia could see only the back of Illyan’s head.

  However, she noticed the change in his tone and grinned.

  “You definitely are one. A cleaning freak who needs everything spotless…”

  “Be quiet and focus.”

  “Don’t be like that, hehe.”

  Illyan turned his head over his shoulder and looked at the giggling woman. The elegant dy he thought she was had vanished; only an annoying brat remained.

  Illyan frowned as he turned back.

  ‘Should I beat her up?’ Illyan thought silently.

  But then, he realized that would just make him look like a loser. So, he chose to shift the focus from himself to her.

  “If one of us should be a cleaning freak, shouldn’t it be you? After all, if something isn’t perfect, then you won’t be able to sleep in peace, am I right?”

  “I’m not that inflexible. Once I came to terms with the fact that nothing can be truly perfect, I learned how to ignore it and actually enjoy these imperfect things. Because imperfection makes one unique. You’re different, though.” Aurelia ughed as she looked at Illyan’s back.

  “Tch…” Illyan snorted in annoyance as he stopped listening to her while she just giggled at the sight…

  …….

  While they bickered along the way, they didn’t lose their focus or slow their pace.

  Soon, they reached the bottom of the staircase, where they saw a short passage with a door at the end.

  This pce was at least as deep as the tower above was tall, and the lighting wasn’t working, so they were in complete darkness.

  But Illyan could feel the passage through the echoes of their steps and could also use his spiritual perception to some extent.

  “Follow closely after me,” Illyan said to Aurelia.

  Aurelia’s perception wasn’t something to scoff at either, but it also wasn’t omnipotent.

  She could also use her mind power, but it was foolish to expend more power than needed since Illyan could guide her.

  Aurelia didn’t say anything but followed Illyan closely.

  While this pce was dark, to her, Illyan was too bright to go unnoticed.

  It was as if he were illumination itself. However, the light didn’t brighten the rest of the passage. That was because it wasn’t real light.

  She just saw the broken foundation of his body. However, she also saw that it was much less bright than the st time.

  The most gring holes in his body’s foundation were slowly getting smaller, while the less serious ones faded altogether.

  ‘He must have worked to the point of colpse to achieve this in just half a year… What are you, really? To suffer this much for just a little power?’ Aurelia thought with a shake of her head.

  She was aware of his astounding regeneration. It was probably a simir gift to the one she had.

  There were only a few records of these abilities, but she knew that innate abilities like this could be found anywhere on the continent and had many names.

  Gifts, Innate Magic, God’s Miracle, Ancient Power…

  There were many names for them, as these powers were extremely mysterious.

  Many researched the ability holders but couldn’t find the source.

  It was as if these powers had been part of them from the beginning.

  As if they had evolved from normal species into superior ones.

  However, it was quite hard to inherit the power through bloodline, especially the stronger the power was. So there was a retively small number of ability holders.

  However, that was compared to the entire world popution. In the end, there were countless people with these inborn abilities.

  Regeneration was one of the most common and generic abilities.

  These people would have slightly better recovery, and some could even develop their abilities to regrow their limbs after many years.

  Those born with an ability that was impossible to develop further usually had an advantage at the beginning of their life, as the ability was generally stronger than one that had to be developed from scratch.

  Aurelia thought that Illyan was the former type.

  However…

  What if he wasn’t?

  His ability was quite unique. Growing nails and hair… Recovering even his flow and blood energy… That was abnormal.

  After their oath, Aurelia noticed that Illyan had stopped hiding his power as much as before. She knew he was wary but didn’t expect he was hiding so much.

  However, he seemed too young and weak to have developed his power to this extent, so she was confused.

  That’s what Aurelia thought before, but at this moment, when his back was illuminated with the hidden fws of his body, she could finally see more vividly.

  Those fws appeared to her eyes in the form of scars.

  So many scars overpped together, making it impossible to differentiate them all.

  Sshes, tears, burns, frostbite… There were so many injuries. Even his golden eyes, which seemed unique in Aurelia’s mind, appeared to be made from such scars.

  It was horrifying. She wasn’t familiar with Magisters as she had never met one, but if she had to guess…

  This man had endured so much more in a very short amount of time than any other acolyte or even Magister could withstand without possessing indomitable willpower.

  Aurelia looked at Illyan with eyes full of pity and sadness.

  She knew what pain was. But it seemed he knew it even better than she did.

  “Don’t daze off here! I’m about to open the door, so be prepared for anything unforeseen.”

  Illyan, who was at the front, woke her from her reverie as he held the door’s knob in front of them.

  Aurelia bowed her head a little and smiled to herself.

  ‘There’s no need to pity him. Rather, I think that feeling of awe should be the right term for what I feel right now…’ Aurelia thought, her eyes twinkling as she looked at the man slowly but surely opening the heavy door.

  Rays of light entered the hidden passage through the opening and illuminated their faces.

  “That’s the thing? I guess it lives up to the name of Starstone,” Illyan muttered in awe as he fully opened the door and entered the room.

  The room was circur and completely empty.

  The only object inside was right at the center.

  It was a crystal-like object emitting a brilliance simir to that of the night sky. A dark blue hue came from it, exuding a mysterious origin.

  This was the Starstone, carved into the shape of a stele. The stele itself was at least three meters tall and covered in various symbols.

  “We’re here. Keep guard. I’ll gain the authority for both of us. But before that…”

  Aurelia hesitated as she turned back to Illyan.

  “What?” Illyan asked bluntly. They were short on time.

  “I’ll need a drop of your blood. It’s to engrave your being into the stele,” Aurelia expined.

  Illyan looked straight at her.

  “What are you thinking? You’re the one who taught me the dangers of spreading blood around recklessly.”

  Aurelia’s face twisted as she twirled her long hair in embarrassment.

  She had warned him repeatedly about the dangers of blood leaving one’s body and advised caution, yet now she needed him to do the exact opposite. The contradiction made her sigh in frustration.

  “Here.” However, just as she thought about how to convince him, he threw her a vial.

  Having a vial of his own blood had started to become his new habit after growing the entire swarm of Darkglide Centipedes.

  Seeing her surprised expression, Illyan felt amused. To think this dangerous woman could make such an expression.

  ‘I guess she’s still a young dy. Instead, it’s me who acts like an old man all the time…’

  “I’m not that inflexible either, you know? Blood contains a lot of information and connections with its owner. That’s why it can be misused by others, but it can also be used in other ways. It’s only about mindset,” Illyan said with a grin.

  Maybe he wasn’t knowledgeable in the arts of magic, but he still had his trusty common sense, unchained by narrow-minded thinking.

  He could deduce such simple things with little thought.

  Aurelia sighed.

  “You’d make a good acolyte,” she said as she turned around and poured two vials of blood onto the stele, one hers and one his.

  “Well, my goal is a little more ambitious…” Illyan muttered to himself as he turned around to guard the pce.

  As such, Illyan waited with sabers unsheathed, ready to attack the moment the door opened.

  He had closed the door so any intruder would have to open it before entering.

  Unfortunately, this meant he couldn’t see people in the passage.

  The stele emitted mana fluctuations that completely nullified any spiritual energy in the air, making it impossible for him to sense.

  Using mind power was also out of the question.

  But it didn’t matter. As long as they completed their task, they could join forces to escape.

  While Illyan focused on guarding, the room’s center became unstable.

  Aurelia allowed their combined blood to be absorbed by the stele as she began to chant. This chant differed from a typical spell chant as it usually used a magical nguage to fulfill its purpose.

  But she was speaking in the nguage of the Gondorians who had built this pce.

  “Let my blood sink to feel the stars of Gondoris which shone upon mankind. The consteltions of celestials occupy the destiny of the Gondorian people to see a brighter tomorrow…”

  Aurelia chanted slowly as she took out other vials from her robe.

  They contained essences of the people she had hunted over the years and those from the teams they ambushed today.

  She carefully poured the contents onto the stele and even used the blood to write in the Gondorian nguage, forming symbols on the stele.

  The originally carved symbols began to wriggle as they combined with the bloody writing, creating new sentences.

  The stele hummed as the blood boiled inside, and the pure blue hue darkened to a bloody red…

  ……..

  “Damn it! That bastard got away?” Varel, who sat on the ground further from the battlefield, heaving heavily, yelled at his subordinates’ report.

  “Useless! I made him waste most of his trump cards and inflicted a deep wound on him. How did he get away?!”

  The calm, mocking visage Varel usually wore vanished as he grew furious.

  He had led the fight, killed four of the acolytes while dancing around the dangerous undead, and even injured Svanor.

  However, he too was injured and had to retreat.

  During that time, he treated his stump. He cut off the infected parts, used alcohol to disinfect it a little, then used his flow to flush out the remaining harmful substances.

  But Varel was much more ruthless, using a short sword and stabbing the hilt into his stump before tying it up.

  With that, he had a temporary prosthetic leg usable in fights.

  “S-sir! Svanor used his undead as a decoy to escape. The dead bats exploded into a bloody mess, which turned out to be acidic and poisonous, and we lost many men!”

  The gang member who had worked for Varel for decades grew nervous when he saw Varel’s expression.

  He was completely enraged.

  “Fuuh…” However, instead of exploding, he exhaled all the air in his lungs.

  “Prepare the bodies and use the solutions that ginger-bearded bastard gave us. Use the bodies of our men too.”

  “B-but sir!”

  “Shut your mouth, Mor, and do as I say. I have something to take care of now,” Varel said as he stood up and limped away.

  His eyes were cold, and he gritted his teeth.

  ‘Someone. The bastard who did this. There’s no way it was just an accident. These men are my personally trained warriors. There’s no way they’d make such a mistake. That means some bastard pitted us against each other. Who? I don’t care. I’ll find you and tear you apart. You can’t be far… if my hypothesis is correct…’

  Soon, Varel arrived at the tower in the center of the stronghold and noticed the hole in the ground.

  ‘Found you.’