“We are almost there, my lords!”

  Hazel, a subordinate of the acolytes who lived in Winterfrost, informed his lords of the place where the recent sounds of fighting had resounded.

  They weren’t too far away when they heard explosions.

  The acolytes in the team also felt a surge of mana, and their faces turned serious.

  On the other hand, the gang members’ faces turned confused. They didn’t know what was going on and even wondered if one of their teams had found a troll and some reckless acolyte had tried to fight it.

  After all, if someone used so much mana in this godforsaken place, it could only be an acolyte with an intent to kill.

  “Those stupid motherf—” One of them growled in frustration but couldn’t even finish his sentence as he saw the acolytes immediately run in the direction where the explosions came from.

  It wasn’t from any unity on their part or something as noble as that.

  If one acolyte died, his possessions would belong to the one who arrived first.

  It was also important to find out what was happening.

  After several minutes, they arrived at the place where the remnants of mana lingered.

  “What… What happened here?!” One of the acolytes widened his eyes.

  They saw dead bodies littered everywhere. But that wasn’t what surprised the acolytes. It was the fact that the dead bodies of acolytes were hacked down by blades with signs of internal damage, while the bodies of Venomous Viper Gang members had traces of mana on them…

  Seeing this, their faces hardened.

  “Guards, defensive formation!” they yelled out as they took out whatever they had on them and prepared for a fight.

  “Wait! Don’t do anything you’ll regret! Something’s fishy here!” one of the gang members yelled out angrily.

  “Do you think I care?! I only see that our members were slaughtered by yours. Even if there is some misunderstanding, I won’t leave it up to chance. Now back off from us. We will conduct a separate investigation of what happened here.”

  In this group were three acolytes and six gang members. The one who spoke for the acolytes was Olar, who kept his head cool.

  He wasn’t a fool, after all.

  He looked at Kalef, who represented the gang members, and scowled.

  “What do you want to investigate, Olar?! This place is wrecked! Either the group had inner conflict to the point of destruction, which seems unlikely, or someone else did it!” Kalef said with a disgruntled expression, but he was panicking on the inside.

  “Someone else? The injuries on them are exactly the same as those your Gang Leader, Patriarch Varel, causes with his flow! Internal injuries caused not by mana or any other worldly energies. Just mere flow. Only your boss, his immediate family, and closest subordinates could do something like this.”

  One of the acolytes knelt in front of the corpses and examined their wounds. He also ‘conveniently’ pocketed their belongings. Olar saw this but let it go. If needed, he would demand a little as a fee later on.

  But now wasn’t the time for any of that.

  The two sides quarreled for a while before the guards working for the acolytes inspected the perimeter of the fight.

  “There are traces! Footprints and blood! It looks like there are survivors! At least two of them!”

  Olar saw this as an opportunity and immediately commanded, “We will catch up to them and find out what happened!”

  “Yessir!”

  ……..

  “Come here, you bastard! I’ll dice you into minced meat!”

  Crazed laughter echoed across the forest. It was barely audible from a distance as strong gusts of wind carried the sound away, but the guards serving the acolytes noticed it.

  “My lord! This way!”

  As the group trailed along the path left by Aurelia and Illyan, they started to hear more and more curses and swearing aimed at Aziro and someone else they couldn’t see.

  But they could guess.

  “What the hell…” Kalef muttered when he heard this, but he reached for his saber. He tried to do it discreetly, but the acolytes noticed the tense expressions on the gang members and became even more wary.

  Suddenly, another explosion resounded.

  “Lord! What are your commands?” one of the guards asked with a scared expression.

  Olar took a deep breath.

  “Let’s go!”

  The others were silent, but everyone seemed prepared for a fight.

  They ran quietly across the forest, trying to find the culprit behind all of this.

  And it didn’t take them long to finally arrive at their final destination.

  “W-what?”

  Illyan, who was swinging one of the gang members’ swords at Aurelia, turned around in utter ‘shock’ when he heard footsteps behind him.

  Then he showed panic when he looked at the guards surrounding the acolytes.

  “Shit! The plan has gone through…” Illyan muttered quietly. However, everyone could hear it.

  “What is happening here?!” Kalef asked sternly as he held a certain parchment in his hands.

  “Well… You see…” Illyan muttered slowly before moving his eyes toward the gang members.

  Seeing them act oblivious made his face turn red with anger as he yelled.

  “Screw it, what are you waiting for?! Our plan has gone through! Didn’t you get the message from the boss?! We need to—BOOM—Aaargh?!”

  Just as Illyan was about to finish his sentence, a fireball hit him from behind and engulfed him in raging flames.

  “Aaargh!” The cries of ‘pain’ pierced through the ears of everyone listening as they widened their eyes.

  People stiffened in shock. It wasn’t because they had never seen such a thing. In fact, the acolytes here had burned dozens of people to death during their lives.

  It was just that it was too unexpected.

  However, it was all just a ruse. The fireball was flashy but without substance. It seemed dangerous, but the intensity of the heat was much lower than a normal fireball.

  “Attack them! Don’t you see what is happening?” Aurelia, her voice muffled, screamed at her ‘comrades’ while still having her arms stretched out with smoke billowing from her palms.

  “Hell, let’s kill those wretches!” One of the acolytes, who had been silent until now, roared as he immediately took out a prepared magic stone, ready to throw it at the gang members.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Wait, calm down!” Olar’s thoughts turned hectic as he planned to stop the acolyte at all costs. He also sensed something suspicious.

  Unfortunately, he was too late.

  “Dodge!” Kalef called out as he retreated as fast as possible.

  Boom Snow melted while the trees around creaked.

  The destruction was extensive. One of the gang members couldn’t escape in time as the explosion grazed him.

  “Shit! Whatever, since it’s come to this, we should just kill them! The plan has failed, so we just need to kill them!”

  Kalef said as he threw a dagger at Olar.

  Olar, who wanted to stop this chaos, stiffened for a millisecond before his face hardened.

  Raw mana was exerted as he prepared to deflect the dagger at great cost.

  “Guards!” Fortunately, his guards stood up in front of him to form a meat shield.

  “Argh!”

  “Attack!” In the end, Olar could only hiss as he started to chant new spells.

  The other acolytes did the same while the gang members rushed at them with murderous intent.

  Meanwhile, Illyan, who was burning heavily, was grumbling in his heart.

  ‘Ahh, this hurts. Hopefully, it won’t go for naught, or I’ll be pissed.’

  His skin was blistering while the clothes he took from the gang member before were almost burnt to a crisp.

  Illyan threw away his possessions beforehand, not wanting them to be destroyed.

  Aurelia could use different magic, but fire was the most visually stimulating in this situation.

  Especially as the smell of burnt flesh permeated the area.

  But Illyan didn’t play dead. Instead, with painful groans, his mutilated body slowly stood up.

  However, in his arms was a certain pouch. The pouch would have burned away if he’d kept it on himself from the beginning, but he had thrown it next to him before Aurelia shot him down.

  He picked it up from the ground while he was lying there.

  “You disgusting bookworms! Die!” With rage in his voice, he threw the pouch in the direction of the acolytes.

  “Watch out!” the guards yelled out, but the pouch’s drawstring had already loosened, and its contents spilled out.

  Inside were several bottles filled with a dark liquid.

  It was the same liquid made from those Darkglide Centipedes he had at home.

  And when put in such fragile bottles...

  Crack

  The liquid splashed everywhere as the soldiers around the acolytes shielded them with their bodies.

  Unfortunately for them, their bodies started to corrode at a rapid pace.

  Even the fast, assassin-like gang members retreated quickly after the liquid made contact with the air, sizzling and turning into mist that drifted around.

  “Shit, that guy’s gone crazy!”

  “Anyone would go crazy if they were burned alive!”

  The mist covered the entire battlefield, making it even harder for everyone to survive, let alone kill their enemies.

  But that didn’t stop them from fighting. The mist spread too fast for them to escape.

  “Agh!” Screams of pain rang out as pain coursed through people’s bodies.

  “Cover your skin!”

  Several guards fell before they could even try, while the acolytes used their raw mana to push it away temporarily as they activated protective spells or tools.

  But this didn’t calm their hearts, as there was nothing but dark mist covering their field of view.

  The fear of darkness was universal in the hearts of humans.

  It wasn’t exactly because of the darkness itself.

  But because of the beings lurking within such darkness.

  Whether they were gang members or acolytes, they feared for their lives.

  The acolytes didn’t hesitate to use their mind power but were horrified once they did so.

  “This mist… has mana inside! It will damage our minds if we extend our mind power!”

  “Damn… Dying here to such inferior...!”

  “Don’t falter! Even if we need to start all over in cultivating our mind power, it’s better than dying!” Olar tried to calm the other two acolytes, but he himself was panicking inside.

  Meanwhile, hearing the distant screams, Illyan was surprised.

  Mind power was vulnerable unless fortified or protected by other methods. That’s what Aurelia had taught him.

  Normally, no one should have been able to even touch it, as it was intangible.

  However, the powder made from centipedes wasn’t normal. These centipedes were magical creatures, and despite being weak, they had wisps of mana within their bodies.

  That made the corrosive power not just a physical attack but also a magical one.

  Illyan felt this was a pleasant discovery.

  Of course, it was still weak compared to true corrosive spells.

  But at this moment, this was enough.

  The acolytes would have to spend more time expelling the corroded mind power from themselves and recovering it slowly.

  Once they decided on this, they connected their minds using telepathy. Olar commanded half of the guards to defend them, while the other half was guided to attack the gang members he sensed with his mind power.

  The other two acolytes were using this ability to avoid sneak attacks while they chanted wind spells to blow the mist away.

  Despite being able to use mind power, it was still disadvantageous to do so in prolonged fights.

  Especially against people who thrived in dark places.

  Just like the shady thugs that they were up against.

  “Force through! If we don’t kill them instantly, it’ll be over once the boss finds out!”

  They rushed with their blades unsheathed, prepared to end the acolytes’ lives.

  Both sides clashed, and the chaos began.

  Little did they know that Illyan and Aurelia, whom they couldn’t even check on now, had stood up and were observing the entire fight from a distance.

  Aurelia took the opportunity to pull out the dead carcasses of small creatures she had under her robe and place them where she and Illyan had lain before.

  Illyan then sprinkled them with the powder, turning them into black puddles of pus and acid, and then hid themselves.

  They didn’t speak or do anything else. Illyan didn’t bother nursing his burns either.

  They just waited as they watched them fighting for their lives.

  In just a few minutes, when the mist cleared with the help of the acolytes, they had also finished off the last gang member.

  They not only had more people but were still magic users who could use spells. Ordinary knights who couldn’t even use flow weren’t comparable to acolytes once the acolytes prepared themselves.

  Once their spells were activated, it was very hard to even survive, let alone fight.

  Only someone like Illyan could actually avoid the spell once it was released.

  A normal person wouldn’t be able to react.

  However, they paid a price for this victory.

  “Damn it, Hoze is dead!” When they finally took a sigh of relief, they looked at one of the acolytes lying in his blood, which was turning black from the corroded ground.

  Olar didn’t say anything as he quickly salvaged all the possessions on his body before assessing the result of the battle.

  ‘One of us is down, twelve guards are dead, and we’re on the verge of regressing in power level… This is bad…’

  Olar bit his lips so hard they started to bleed.

  “We need to inform Svanor and the rest of our people. Svanor can perform necromancy. He should be able to fight off a large number of these bastards.”

  “We c-can’t! There’s Varel in the stronghold. What about helping the other teams first?”

  The second acolyte was scared out of his wits, thinking about having to fight Varel. That man wasn’t a magician but could kill them with attacks as fast as a viper.

  “No. The other teams could very well be dead or incapacitated. We don’t know anything. Trying to run away could also be too dangerous… If they know about us, then we’ll be caught, as their stamina is superior. Even if they don’t know about us, we can’t just leave. They will definitely look for survivors.”

  “Sir, why don’t we meet up with Sir Aziro?” one of the guards sheepishly asked.

  Olar just glared at him.

  “Do you think blood bearers are innocent? They are definitely in this too! There is no safe place. The city has only a few acolytes compared to other members! If we want to run from danger, then we must go all the way to the capital of Vanaras! The only way to survive is to inform Svanor and kill these bastards!”

  After deciding, they quickly took everything and cleaned up the battlefield.

  Looking at the two black stains left after Aurelia and Illyan, Olar frowned.

  “Do you think they were truly who they said they were?” Zolar, the second acolyte, asked with trepidation. Being schemed on was something he feared.

  An enemy in the light was always better than an enemy in the dark.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Olar sighed as he explained, “Even if they were some other force trying to create conflict between us, it doesn’t change anything. You heard Kalef. There was truly something going on, but it was revealed with this. Unless Kalef and the others were traitors willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their mission, then it’s obvious this gang of vile assassins planned to attack us all along!”

  Once they finished talking, they formed a small but tightly knit formation with the rest of the guards and left for the stronghold they’d departed from a few hours ago.

  Meanwhile, Illyan felt his plan had worked very well.

  “Good job. It worked even better than expected,” Aurelia said with a cold gaze as she stared in the direction the acolytes had disappeared.

  Illyan’s expressionless face didn’t change as he looked at her. However, Aurelia noticed a certain satisfaction shining in his eyes.

  “You weren’t bad either. Maybe we can open a theater in Winterfrost later on. It would make living in that damn boring town a little more bearable, no?”

  Illyan said as he patted Aurelia’s shoulder roughly.

  Aurelia rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth slowly lifted as she gave Illyan a mock punch to make him stop.

  “You’re almost charcoal now; don’t touch me.”

  Illyan didn’t avoid the punch, but he let go of her shoulder in a fake apologetic manner. It had been over a year since he’d started living in the town of Winterfrost, and his mannerisms had changed a lot. His face showed more emotion, and he could lead a conversation without a problem.

  “Well, I guess the one who did that was quite evil.” Illyan shrugged as his corners lifted too.

  “Maybe you deserved it,” Aurelia said, narrowing her eyes.

  “Me? Never.” Illyan shook his head.

  “Sigh… Whatever. Do you need some healing?” Aurelia changed the subject as she wondered how he would recover.

  He had already taken his original white robe, which he had hidden away, as he would be naked otherwise.

  The spell was weakened to make him look injured, but it was still strong enough to kill a normal person.

  Looking at the dark skin peeling off, Aurelia felt bad for Illyan inside.

  “I’ll just take a sip of that recovery potion I have. I could probably recover naturally, but it would take weeks to do so,” Illyan said as he took a sip.

  Or rather, he acted as if he did. It wasn’t because he didn’t trust Aurelia. In fact, Aurelia seemed more and more trustworthy as time passed.

  But he would never lower his guard because of that. There was no need to show her he could recover naturally from such serious burns in just a few hours at most.

  To divert her attention, he began to nurse himself.

  It didn’t take long, as he just cleaned his wounds to make the regeneration as smooth as possible.

  After that, Illyan stretched himself while his eyes turned ice-cold. Aurelia also stopped fooling around. After all, they needed to follow the group closely behind, as they needed to use the chaos this would cause to slip in.

  “Now we just need to wait.”

  ‘But before that…’ Illyan turned his attention toward the bodies on the ground.

  ‘It is time to collect our sacrifice…’