“The trails are dividing here,” Illyan muttered as he looked at the several passages leading to who knew where.

  “Hmm… Separating would be too dangerous at this point. However, we probably don’t have time to explore them one by one. Both of these traces are bloody, so I can test the properties of the bloodstains. We should be able to get some hints from that,” Aurelia suggested a solution, but Illyan shook his head in denial.

  “There is no need. The passage on the right side smells of rot a lot. It is probably the pce Aziro ran to with his undead. If the stele was in that direction, then there would be no reason for there to be blood trails in the other passage. Unless it is a trap,” Illyan expined.

  Aurelia frowned as her nose twitched a bit in an effort to smell the rot Illyan was talking about.

  “You… are right. However, it is very faint, as it probably has already been some time since they passed through here. My senses are refined with the third blood yer, yet I didn’t notice, so how come your senses managed to notice it?” Aurelia asked with wonder in her eyes.

  “All of my body parts, organs included, are refined and strengthened. That includes the sensory organs,” Illyan said curtly.

  Aurelia narrowed her eyes. Refining organs was something extremely dangerous, even with regeneration.

  “Sigh…” But in the end, she only sighed as she shook her head.

  “Alright. So you suggest we go inside the left passage?” Aurelia asked.

  “Our goal is the stele only,” Illyan nodded.

  As such, they decided to leave the right passage alone as they continued to the left………..

  “It looks like the bodies were dragged through this passage. It’s probably bodies from both sides since they need a lot of energy.”

  “Yeah, there is probably someone to overwatch this process. It could be my father, so we should be careful,” Aurelia said while looking visibly nervous.

  They traveled for some time already, and the trails were becoming fresher. Because of that, they knew they were getting closer, and that quite unnerved her.

  After all, while the man was hateable, he was still her father. She didn’t know how she would act if forced into a confrontation with him.

  But when she gnced at Illyan, who was the epitome of calmness at this moment, she quickly calmed down.

  While he was definitely missing a lot of common sense and knowledge, he was a far more collected person than herself. Or that’s at least what she felt after spending several months with him.

  “Wait a second. I will try something out.”

  As she was thinking that, Illyan stopped for a second as he took out from a small pouch a few phanges with symbols engraved on them.

  He held them in his palm as he put it close to his mouth and muttered something before throwing them into the air. They scattered but, in the end, fell back into his hand.

  Aurelia gave him a weird look. As a physician herself, how could she not recognize the human phanges that Illyan used? She didn’t expect him to use human bones for some obscure magic.

  “Danger ahead…” Illyan muttered to himself.

  He looked back at Aurelia and whispered to her, “There is a chance that there is danger ahead. We are probably close, so please establish a mind connection.”

  Aurelia, who heard this, stopped thinking about the useless stuff and used her mind power to connect herself with Illyan.

  This method allowed even Illyan, who wasn’t proficient with mind power manipution, to use telepathy, albeit only exclusively with her.

  ‘Is this method reliable?’ Aurelia asked with suspicion. She didn’t feel much movement of energy from this magic and didn’t know what ability it had.

  ‘It is kind of unreliable if you want to depend on it, but it helped me a lot in the past, allowing me to avoid certain death. It is best to take countermeasures against possible danger, but do not focus on it too much.’

  ‘Alright.’ Aurelia nodded.

  Then, in silence, they continued on their way. They didn’t talk to avoid expending the mind power and only focused on guiding their way through the darkness.

  However, after a while, Illyan stopped, and Aurelia, who saw this, stopped too.

  ‘I hear noises.’

  ‘What do you hear?’ Realizing that Illyan’s senses were much stronger, Aurelia decided to ask him.

  ‘Growls. I think some wendigos are in the passage. However, the growls are different than usual. It’s as if they are even more filled with resentment and even fear…’ Illyan sent his message as he stared seriously ahead.

  Both of them slowed down and crouched but still sneaked forward as they didn’t have much time left.‘They are probably there not as guards but as sacrifices. The vitality these evil spirits have is much superior to that of regur people,’ Aurelia specuted with a cold expression.‘I think so too,’ Illyan agreed.

  However, that sparked the question.

  Who guarded the stele? Was there even someone guarding it?

  They couldn’t know since probably the strongest people of the group went after Aziro.

  Soon, the dark passage that had almost no light before showed bits of light at the end.

  ‘That’s the light of the stele,’ Aurelia mentioned with a glint in her eyes.

  They were close to accomplishing their mission. If they could finish it, then they really would have a chance at getting the inheritance.

  ‘Focus,’ Illyan said curtly.

  Aurelia rolled her eyes at his words with a smile pstered on her face.

  As such, both of them followed the light until they finally found its source.

  It was a big cave filled with stactites on the ceiling and even stagmites in some pces.

  The stele stood proudly at the center, illuminating every corner of the cave.

  ‘I wonder why these four nodes were built in such pces,’ Illyan thought.

  The pces seemed random to him, but he was sure they were not.

  Unfortunately, there was no time to find out, as the light from the stele illuminated a pce swarmed with Illyan and Aurelia’s enemies.

  There, soldiers were orderly moving the dead bodies from the big pile of corpses and using the same solutions Aurelia used to dissolve the bodies one by one.

  Those soldiers were from the Heart Bearer gang, but they were different from the rest.

  ‘I don’t know them. It seems to be Father’s hidden men who do dirty things for him,’ Aurelia frowned.

  These men didn’t seem to be even fazed by all of these bodies around.

  Of course, even more surprising were the men who were holding rge sabers covered in blood as they butchered big beasts that were wailing in pain.

  These wendigos were covered in chains and couldn’t fight back, but it was still intimidating for most people.

  But the man who was butchering them one by one almost looked happy, as if he were having fun.

  When Aurelia saw him, she grimaced.

  Illyan looked at her with a questioning gaze but didn’t say anything.

  However, Aurelia noticed and satisfied his curiosity with a sigh.

  ‘He is my distant retive, Urgus. He is not right in the head, but his cruelty knows no bounds. Be careful of the mace he has strapped to his belt. It is a magic tool and has a magic gem embedded in the center, which makes it a type of wand.’

  Hearing this, Illyan lifted his eyebrow. He knew a little about wands but hadn’t seen anyone use one so far.

  When he looked at the man’s waist, there was a small one-handed mace with a sharp and heavy end. However, there was a beautiful red gem in the middle poking out at the top of the weapon.

  ‘If there is a chance, it would be great to take it. This kind of weapon is very fitting for me…’ As Illyan thought this, he turned back to Aurelia to ask more about the man.

  However, as she saw that, she hurriedly changed the topic, as if not wanting to talk about something unpleasant, and pointed at another figure crawling on the ground in front of the stele.

  ‘Look there. It seems to be Korin. He is preparing to get the authority too.’

  Illyan looked in the direction Aurelia pointed and finally noticed the frail man. Someone like him was almost invisible in this cave filled with powerful auras.

  Especially as he was on the ground doing some esoteric things.

  He was holding several materials and arranging a certain array to perform the authority ritual as Aurelia had done with the other three nodes.

  However, he also needed to activate the stele entirely to trigger the array in Faruin, sacrificing the people there to open the citadel.

  That was the reason why it looked much more complex than when Aurelia performed the ritual.

  Illyan looked at the man and sighed.

  To him, the man was brilliant—a knowledgeable figure full of charisma who had kept Illyan company for the past year.

  But in the end, he was his enemy, someone who had tried to scheme against him.

  ‘Let’s try to kill him since he is alone. He is the core of their pn, so if he disappears, it would be a big blow to them,’ Illyan suggested with a cold gre.

  ‘Wait… It is quite weird that he was left here alone. Maybe it is truly a trap,’ Aurelia bit her lip in frustration.

  ‘No matter. Even if it is a trap, we have no choice but to enter it. There is not much time, and even if we wait, who knows if an opportunity will show up. The longer we wait, the higher the chance of us being discovered,’ Illyan said grimly.

  In the end, they couldn’t just crouch there, as the ritual would begin in a few days if their calcutions were right.

  However, by that time, Illyan and Aurelia needed to be in Faruin City if they wanted a true advantage in this race.

  With that in mind, they prepared for the ambush.

  ‘Don’t use any spells. We would definitely be discovered in seconds. Instead, use throwing weapons. We need to kill as many of them as possible, especially that distant retive of yours and Korin,’ Illyan pointed out as he took out his aura-tempered throwing knives and pced each one between his fingers. He decided not to scan the entire cave with his spiritual perception, as someone like Aziro could sense it. It would be better to use it after a successful ambush.

  ‘Uhm.’

  Aurelia acknowledged his words as she also retrieved weapons from her robe. Each was unique, as these daggers and knives weren’t originally hers but were collected from fallen enemies along the way.

  She had her own weapons, but using them in front of her cn members could reveal her identity.

  ‘You, too, don’t use flow or blood energy when you strike. There’s a chance they’ll notice and parry or dodge. Instead, use a breathing technique to amplify the throw. It works on the same principle as using instantaneous movement with the breathing technique.’

  Aurelia had already seen Illyan throwing knives several times. However, while his throwing technique and accuracy were great, the piercing power was much weaker.

  With the flow Illyan finally gained, this weakness disappeared, but it was still far from reaching its full potential.

  Illyan, who heard this, pondered over her words before widening his eyes in realization.

  ‘You’re right! I didn’t think about it that way.’

  Aurelia made eye contact with him and nodded as she also took deep breaths and prepared for the attack.

  Illyan’s eyes glinted as he inhaled deeply, feeling the ends of his fingers tingle.

  His lungs filled to the brim as a strong burst of power pulsed from the center of his body, traveling through his shoulder to his elbow and then to his wrist.

  At every joint, the energy tended to dissipate until Illyan made a flicking motion to push it further, even faster.

  ‘It’s just like a whip,’ Illyan thought to himself.

  Just as the pulse traveled to the tips of his fingers, he flicked the throwing knives at the enemies.

  One moment, the knives were still in his hands; the next, they blurred and disappeared, only for gurgling noises to resound.

  Nobody could react as several of the red-robed men fell with holes in their torsos.

  Unfortunately, two of the most critical targets didn’t die as pnned.

  Aurelia’s family cn member named Urgus, sensing the sudden danger, dived among the caged wendigos, whose bodies were cerated instead.

  “What in the world?! Which fucker dares!” His bald head was now stained with mud and the blood of the wendigos as he turned around in anger.

  He was slightly fatter than a regur person, but his rge stature made him very intimidating.

  On the other hand, Korin, the second survivor, escaped death not because of his skills but because someone saved him.

  The knives thrown at him to take his life y on the ground, cleaved into several parts.

  “H-huh?” He turned around in shock, still kneeling on the ground, and saw his savior.

  “M-my dy…” he muttered as he bowed deeper to her.

  “Haah… Continue your work. We can’t dey anymore… Fuck… I knew something would go wrong at the st minute.”

  An annoyed voice muttered in compint as a woman who seemed to appear out of nowhere gred in the direction where Illyan and Aurelia were.

  “Mere knights want to attack us? Hah… That’s a bad joke…”

  Her dirty blonde hair fluttered as she waved her hand, and mana started to move according to her will without any chants or incantations.

  The mana took the form of strings or ropes, simir to [Mana Rope], but it was compressed into a much thinner shape, with each end connected to her fingers.

  ‘T-that’s…! Va-Vanda?’ Illyan was shocked at the sight before him. He had always known she was dangerous, but he hadn’t expected this.

  He didn’t have time to think deeply, as she waved her hand and the strings moved toward them.

  “Come out, you bastards.” Vanda’s eyes, normally full of mischief, were now devoid of humor, repced by cold wrath.

  While Illyan didn’t see how the knives were cleaved, he didn’t need to dwell on it, as he immediately threw his body aside, Aurelia doing the same.

  Slice

  Just as they moved, the spot where they had been standing was now marked by five deep fissures.

  Seeing that, Illyan’s expression hardened.

  In the end, they couldn’t avoid an all-out battle…