Luke was lying in the courtyard, and his mind drifted back to the sky he'd read while moon-gazing last night.
Not in the dramatic, storybook way—like I watched the heavens and saw a comet falling, or a brilliant star scattering to earth, or the North Star flaring like some prophesied king was about to rise.
Luke wasn't that kind of "seer." He couldn't read all that.
But he could tell one thing clearly: something abnormal was going to happen tonight.
An "abnormal phenomenon," meaning some strange sight that didn't match the usual rhythm of the world.
A lunar eclipse. Two moons hanging in the sky at the same time. That sort of thing.
He didn't know which one it would be—but over the past few days, he'd done a ridiculous number of tarot-style pulls, and none of them had come back clean.
It gave him a bad feeling.
Luke trusted his instincts more than most, so right now he'd already made up his mind: he wasn't stepping outside. Not today. Not tomorrow. If he could help it, he wasn't leaving the house at all.
He lay back in a rocking chair, staring up at the clear blue sky.
Letting his thoughts ripple and drift like patterns on water—loose, idle, unbothered.
In the courtyard, Vayne, Quinn, and Cithria trained on their own, not bored at all, and not getting in each other's way.
Now and then, someone would suggest sparring, and they'd trade blows to sharpen their technique.
Luke had watched them a bit these past days. Among the three, the strongest was Cithria.
She was already a Dauntless Vanguard trainee, and even at baseline she had that "elite soldier" foundation.
After her came Quinn and Vayne.
At first, the two were close—but after just two days, Vayne had started pulling ahead.
Ever since they returned from the Wraith Cave, it was like someone had flipped a switch inside her. Her strength increased every day.
Vayne drowned in that sensation—getting stronger, getting sharper—until she couldn't let it go. And as she did, her personality grew colder, prouder, more isolated.
The others had started noticing it over the past two days.
It was a change Vayne herself hadn't realized.
"Your Highness."
Frey dragged over a chair and sat beside Luke, eyes on Vayne as she spoke. "Don't you think… that girl has been a little different lately?"
Luke cracked one eye open, glanced over, and snorted. "Yeah. She looks down her nose at me now."
That girl had gotten more and more distant lately—more and more aloof.
The feeling she gave off was like she was slowly peeling away from the world itself.
Frey smiled helplessly, then sighed, her gaze complicated as it lingered on Vayne.
Two years together—Frey could feel Vayne's changes more clearly than anyone.
And because of that, unease had been building in her chest.
As time passed, that unease only grew.
"In the beginning, she wasn't like this," Frey murmured. "Back then, she was just a stubborn girl who wanted power."
Her eyes softened with memory, recalling the day in the Freljord when she first met Vayne.
'If I beat you, you take me as your student!'
A face blanched by wind and snow, but stubborn beyond reason. Even trembling in the freezing storm, Vayne had stood her ground.
In her eyes, Frey saw the same thing she carried—hatred, burning and unextinguished.
It was like looking at her own past.
And if Vayne truly had the power to beat her, why would she need a teacher at all?
Frey didn't know why, but that day—also alone—she accepted Vayne's condition.
So the challenge began.
Once. Twice. Three times. Ten. Twenty.
No matter how many times she lost, Vayne never once considered giving up.
Moved by that persistence—or maybe just worn down by years of loneliness and the desire for someone beside her—Frey finally agreed to take her in.
She boiled hot water, helped Vayne wash away the grime of the road, treated her wounds, and formally accepted her.
Back then, Frey's body and heart were both consumed by revenge. Her mind was nothing but one goal: kill the troll and avenge her child.
And in that same period, Frey overlooked something.
Sixteen-year-old Vayne's trauma was heavier than Frey's—deeper, darker, more entrenched.
From that very first day, the seeds for Vayne's current personality may have already been planted.
When Vayne helped Frey kill the first troll, Frey recognized her talent—and began training her harshly, pushing her, demanding more.
She taught Vayne everything she knew.
But in the process, as a teacher, Frey never guided Vayne the right way.
Instead, she drilled a single concept into her:
Only by discarding "pointless feelings" can you become truly strong.
To gain power, Vayne did exactly that.
In two years, her heart turned colder and colder.
By the time Frey realized that method was wrong—
The girl had already locked her own heart away. And Frey couldn't open the door anymore.
When Vayne asked to return to Demacia to hunt the demon for revenge, Frey agreed.
But after they arrived back in Demacia, Vayne's changes became even more obvious.
Frey didn't know what to do.
And over the past few days, she'd realized Luke was… impressive.
So maybe, just maybe, he had a solution.
Lying in the rocking chair, listening to Frey talk, Luke yawned, rolled slightly, and said, "I've known her for four or five days. What do you think I can do?"
Then he added, "If anyone can untie the knot, it's the person who tied it. If you're the reason she became like this, then the fix has to start with you."
Luke understood Frey's worry. He'd noticed it too.
Ever since the Wraith Cave, Vayne had been turning more and more into the ruthless Night Hunter he knew.
From what he'd observed, Frey really was a great teacher when it came to making Vayne stronger.
But the problem was right there, too.
Outside of training, those two had almost nothing to talk about—so Vayne grew quieter and quieter.
Recently it was a bit better, because the courtyard was lively, and Quinn and Cithria—girls around Vayne's age—could actually speak with her.
And, occasionally, Luke could annoy Vayne so badly her emotions spiked hard.
But before they met these people?
Luke could already picture the road those two walked together.
Just like Frey said—at first she didn't notice.
And by the time she tried to step into Vayne's heart, the door had been shut for a long time.
Quiet influence matters. A lot.
"Only the one who tied the knot can untie it…"
Frey repeated the words under her breath. After a long moment, she sighed again.
Luke didn't know what she was thinking. He just closed his eyes and kept sunbathing.
The weather was especially gentle today. Lying there with the sunlight warming him, his whole body felt cozy—too cozy to move.
That was when Cithria ended her training to rest. She wiped sweat from her brow—
And looked toward Luke.
His face in the sunlight looked peaceful and comfortable, lips slightly curled, the breeze stirring his slightly long hair. There was something calming about him, like even watching him made your mind quieter.
Cithria had seen that scene too many times over the past two days.
Thinking of the phrase Luke used—"energy-saving mode"—she laughed softly, unsure what to say, and a little impressed.
No wonder he was "Your Highness."
Other than cooking and eating, he'd been lying in that chair for two straight days.
And if nothing happened, he looked like he could keep lying there forever.
Around noon, after they finished lunch—
Luke hadn't been back in the chair long before hurried hoofbeats shattered the courtyard's calm.
A white-armored soldier entered and reported, "Your Highness—Kerr Village sent a request for aid. They say a demon attacked."
All the women in the courtyard looked over immediately.
Luke opened his eyes, sat up, took the letter, and read.
Before long, his brow furrowed.
It was from Ander, the chief of Kerr Village.
The letter said that an hour ago, patrol soldiers outside the village were attacked by a demon.
A six-man squad had gone missing—vanished without a trace.
Soon after, a villager claimed to have seen a figure that looked like a demon moving nearby. Terrified, he ran back to the village.
According to his description, the demon had a broad back with a high hump, two massive claws, and was pitch-black, beastlike in appearance.
Blood was dripping from its mouth, like someone had already been attacked.
And then they realized a patrol squad was missing.
They needed support.
Frey read over Luke's shoulder. After seeing the description, she said, "This might be a mutated demon strain—derived from a slaughter-hungry type. It likes killing. It's not just driven by thirst anymore."
Luke frowned, thinking.
Another demon in Kerr Village. And a new mutated type, at that.
What the hell was around that area that kept attracting dark creatures?
Even the Wraith Cave was near Kerr Village.
They'd only had two quiet days. Luke was already planning to slip out of this mess—
And then a new disaster popped up.
It gave him a very bad feeling.
So he started sorting everything out, one piece at a time.
First: people were going missing. In twenty days, three vanished in a row.
The day Luke arrived in Edessa, he ran into the incident with rampaging beasts.
The next day, he saw a slaughter-hungry demon type attack civilians right in Kerr Village. When they pursued it, they ran into a total of seven dark creatures—those slaughter-hungry ones and shapeshifters together.
Then came the endless wraiths.
Then the skull carved with magical runes inside the Wraith Cave.
Luke tried the skull with the Godspeed Tracking Decree. The result: it didn't meet the requirements—so he couldn't trace the person behind it.
And now, today: a mutated strain appeared out of nowhere.
In an environment where searching had been tightened so hard, where did a mutated demon even come from?
If it showed even a hint of itself, it should've been discovered in the past two days.
And one more thing was even stranger:
This was Edessa—a city close to the capital.
And yet it was crawling with dark creatures and bizarre incidents.
That alone was wildly unreasonable.
So, start from the beginning:
Twenty days ago—the first missing person, a drunk.
Using the most basic logic—there are no coincidences without connections—
Luke began to make assumptions.
If all of this was connected… then what connected it?
His first thought was the black mage behind that skull.
If all these events were the black mage's work, what was he trying to do?
As Luke thought, his eyes flickered—and he remembered the sky he'd read last night.
Could it be related to tonight's abnormal phenomenon?
This wasn't the world he came from. This world had the supernatural.
For all he knew, someone really could use a celestial event to pull off something big.
His thoughts kept expanding.
In a situation like this, it was usually some bored psycho planning a ritual. A sacrifice. Some creepy ceremony.
And those missing people?
They might have been taken to serve as offerings.
Luke's imagination always ran ahead once it started. He kept going.
Was it possible the beast rampage, the Wraith Cave, even this mutated demon strain—
Were all distractions? Smoke and mirrors meant to pull Edessa's attention away from something unspeakable?
Very possible.
Luke spoke. "Cithria."
"Yes!"
Her voice snapped up instantly.
Luke's eyes glinted as he ordered, "Investigate the total number of missing persons around Edessa recently."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
Cithria turned and went.
Then Luke looked at the soldier in front of him, thought for a moment, and gave another order.
"Send my command. Dispatch five hundred troops to support Kerr Village. When they arrive, they only need to hold the village."
"Yes!"
The soldier ran out, mounted up, and rode to deliver the order.
Vayne, watching, asked, "We're not going?"
Her eyes shone with a strange light. Two days without hunting dark creatures had made her restless.
Luke glanced at her. "We have something else to do."
Originally, Luke had intended to go to Kerr Village too. That mutated strain could be a new clue.
But the bad feeling had been growing stronger for days—and the readings he'd pulled weren't good.
Plus his latest hypothesis…
So he decided to switch approaches.
Not long after, Cithria returned on horseback. Her face was grim as she entered the courtyard and handed Luke the compiled results.
Luke read them.
They were Edessa's registered records.
"In the last month," Cithria said, "thirty-eight people went missing. Eleven are confirmed dead. The remaining twenty-seven are still missing."
Finding those numbers had shocked her.
Every year, Edessa had at least fifty missing persons cases because of the hunting forest nearby—travelers and hunters vanished all the time.
Most were assumed to have been eaten by beasts. If no one was found after a while, the case was closed.
But what Cithria had just listed…
That was one month.
Thirty-eight people in one month.
More than one per day.
And most of the cases in the records had already been closed—labeled accidental deaths.
So many disappearances in such a short time… why?
No one investigated.
After Luke finished reading, he looked thoughtful.
So Edessa's "peaceful" surface really wasn't that simple.
When he dragged the issue into the open and questioned the city officials, the answer he got was silence.
In the meeting hall, Luke sat at the head seat while Cithria reported the findings.
When they heard "thirty-eight in one month," many faces went pale.
And many others—those who seemed to already know—lowered their heads.
"Who's going to give me an answer I can accept?" Luke said calmly. "This many people disappear, and none of you even blink?"
They exchanged looks. After a long pause, one official stood and forced an awkward smile.
"Your Highness, the hunting forest has had beast riots lately—you experienced it yourself. A lot of locals hunt there, so the risk of accidents has increased."
Luke's gaze stayed flat. "The records show most of them were ordinary citizens. Do ordinary citizens go wandering into the hunting forest for fun?"
The official choked on the spot. Under Luke's stare, he felt genuine pressure.
That quiet, invisible authority of someone born above others shifted the whole room's atmosphere.
Everyone present was over thirty.
But in front of Luke, no one could raise their head.
They were confused, too.
Since Luke took over city affairs, he'd been lazy—ignoring big issues, skipping small ones.
Why was he suddenly digging into missing persons?
Kabud stood up as well, looking ashamed. "Your Highness… I'm willing to accept punishment."
"Every missing-person search is a heavy burden in manpower and resources. Each year, search expenses alone exceed three thousand gold—and most of it never returns."
"This year the cases became more severe, so I believed that money would be better used for other construction in the city."
He stopped there.
He'd given the reason: searching cost too much, and usually all you found was bones—or nothing at all.
So he put that money into city construction instead.
And the missing-person cases were closed quickly.
Because of that, Kabud had already been demoted—two ranks, straight down.
And the city's construction was real, undeniable.
By normal logic, Luke didn't even have a reason to pursue him further.
But after Kabud finished, Luke simply said, "Cithria."
"Yes!"
Cithria answered instantly and went out.
A moment later, several squads of soldiers flooded in with shackles, and began arresting every official tied to the missing-person cases.
Kabud's face changed. He stared at Luke, confused. "Your Highness… why?"
Iron cuffs were clamped on his wrists.
Shackles locked around his ankles.
And where he was going next was obvious.
The others who were arrested erupted as well, shocked and furious.
Sure, they hadn't handled the cases seriously—but did that deserve this?
Luke didn't bother explaining. "Detain the relevant personnel for now. We'll interrogate and assign responsibility later. Take them away. Guard them properly."
Kabud's eyes flashed with defiance. "This is abuse of authority. We have no reason to be detained!"
To the remaining officials, Luke's actions looked like pure arbitrariness—power used on a whim.
The questions were answered, but he still threw people in chains.
The ones still standing free felt their stomachs twist.
Luke watched the shouting officials get dragged out, then left the meeting hall without sparing the rest another glance.
On the way, Cithria followed behind him and asked, after thinking it over, "You believe someone among them is involved?"
Luke nodded, still thinking.
Kabud's answer wasn't wrong—but it also didn't explain why disappearances had spiked.
Of course, that part wasn't even the key.
Thirty-eight missing in one month—that was already on paper.
And that was only the recorded cases.
How many weren't recorded at all?
In a normal year, you could chalk it up to bad luck.
But right now, there was also an unknown black mage hiding somewhere.
Luke's job was to uncover the truth, and he had no leads—
So he decided to freestyle.
He was the type to do whatever came to mind.
Missing persons felt suspicious, so he didn't care who complained—he treated them all like suspects first.
Then he pushed forward with a new approach.
"Cithria," Luke said, handing her the records. "Bring the families of the missing people here. Tell them to bring personal items—anything the missing person carried often."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
Cithria didn't understand, but she obeyed immediately.
"Quinn," Luke added. "Go help her."
"Yes!"
The two women left.
Luke waited quietly in a hall.
Before today, he hadn't even considered investigating Edessa's total number of missing persons.
He also hadn't thought to connect all of those disappearances to the black mage.
But now, too many "coincidences" had happened at the same time.
At that point, maybe they weren't coincidences.
Luke had to think bigger.
Half an hour later—
Eight family members stood before Luke.
Out of twenty-seven families, only eight could be found. The rest weren't in the city.
Among them were people missing siblings, missing children, missing husbands or wives, even missing elderly.
Only three families belonged to hunters. The rest were ordinary citizens.
The longest missing case was twenty-four days.
The shortest was eight days ago—a little girl.
"One at a time," Luke said.
"Your Highness," the first woman said, stepping up. "This is my husband's favorite shirt…"
She offered a wide, faded cloth tunic that looked like it had been washed countless times.
Luke took it, noted the careful scrubbing, and submitted it to the Godspeed Tracking Decree.
Almost immediately, he got the familiar response:
Out of service area.
He returned the tunic.
"Your Highness… my husband…" The woman stared at him, wanting to speak but unable to.
She only knew Luke was a prince from the capital—someone with real power.
His arrival gave her hope.
Luke shook his head. "I'll look. Whether he's alive or dead, I'll give you an answer."
As he watched hope brighten in her eyes, Luke sighed inwardly.
Her husband was already dead, but he couldn't tell her that on the spot.
He didn't like giving people hope like this.
But he didn't have a choice.
After she stepped aside, an elderly woman came forward.
"Your Highness, this is my old man's pipe. He always had it in his mouth…"
She held out a copper pipe, worn with age, tarnished in many places.
Luke took it, submitted it to the Godspeed Tracking Decree—
Out of service area.
He gave it back.
"Your Highness, this is my…" another person began.
Then another.
When the fourth woman stepped up, she pulled out something cheap and small—a little hair tie.
"This was my daughter's favorite hair tie."
"How old is your daughter?" Luke asked casually as he took it.
The woman's eyes were red. "Five. She disappeared on the road to her grandma's house… eight days ago."
Maybe she'd been taken by traffickers.
Demacia had filth like that too.
Or maybe she'd simply gotten lost.
Luke submitted the hair tie to the Godspeed Tracking Decree—
And suddenly his head buzzed.
[Godspeed Tracking Decree: Successful]
Luke looked outside.
In his vision, a red pillar of light shot into the sky—blindingly obvious.
That had been his idea: use the Decree and see if he could find anyone.
Even if it had nothing to do with the black mage, saving someone would still be something.
The fact that the girl's beacon lit up meant one thing:
She was still alive.
The Decree had only three uses left.
Luke returned the hair tie, didn't rush, and said, "Next."
"Your Highness, this is my…"
"…"
He tested three more items.
Out of service area. Out of service area. Out of service area.
Finally, a young woman stepped forward and offered a pair of small shoes—men's shoes.
"Your Highness, these are the shoes my younger brother wears all the time."
[Godspeed Tracking Decree: Successful]
Another buzz.
Another red pillar of light appeared in Luke's vision.
And the timing was perfect—this pillar was very close to the little girl's.
An "accident" just became an unexpected windfall.
Luke's eyes flashed as he gave orders without hesitation.
"Cithria. Gather one thousand city guards and fifteen Dauntless Vanguard trainees. Prepare to move out."
"And Quinn, you—"
The moment Luke's commands fell, everyone moved fast.
Before long, one thousand city guards and the trainee vanguard were assembled, marching out of the city.
Luke mounted a fine horse and led the guards along the edge of the hunting forest, pushing deeper and deeper.
They moved fast—like they had a clear target, barely stopping for breath.
A lot of soldiers didn't understand what Luke was doing.
The most confused was Cithria.
To her, Luke's behavior was strange.
He looked at a few personal items… and suddenly decided to mobilize?
Vayne and Frey, on the other hand, weren't shocked.
To them, Luke was just… Luke.
If you didn't understand him, you followed anyway.
As they went deeper into the hunting forest, Luke lifted his gaze.
Since using the Godspeed Tracking Decree, the two nearby pillars of light hadn't moved an inch.
That meant the missing boy and the missing girl had stayed in the exact same spot.
If there was nothing wrong with that place, Luke would bet his life against it.
On the road, anyone they encountered got grabbed—no negotiation—so nothing "unexpected" could happen.
Any aggressive creature they met was shot on sight.
No mercy.
By now, they were at least thirty kilometers from Edessa.
And the light pillars were getting closer.
A mass of soldiers kept tight behind Luke—so many that some of the sharper ones began to feel the change in the atmosphere.
It was still daylight, still forest—
Yet somehow, a chill crept into their bones.
When they got close enough, Luke halted, swung down from his horse, and raised a hand.
The soldiers behind him stopped instantly, dismounted, and slipped into alert positions among the trees.
Luke's gesture meant: hide, quiet, advance.
Now only a few dozen stayed directly behind him.
The rest vanished into the woods.
With over a thousand riders, the noise was too huge. Going farther like that would spook anything ahead.
Luke didn't know what waited at the pillars.
Maybe it was just two traffickers.
If so… Luke was curious what their faces would look like when a thousand city guards closed in around them.
They advanced again.
And then—suddenly—something changed.
A danger warning flared in Luke's mind, and in the next second, a shrill screech ripped through the trees.
"SKREEEE!"
A black shadow dropped from above, launching straight at Luke.
Luke had no idea why dark creatures always seemed to target him.
He didn't move.
"Whip!"
A silver arrow flashed out and punched straight into the thing's forehead.
The creature shrieked once—and died instantly.
Cithria lowered her bow and walked toward the corpse.
Vayne lowered her crossbow, genuinely startled by Cithria's reaction speed.
Less than a second had passed from the creature's appearance to its death.
And Cithria's shot had been perfect—fast target, pinpoint weakness.
Cithria crouched, checked it, then turned back. "Your Highness—low-level demon."
Luke stepped closer and looked.
It wasn't like the slaughter-hungry type. It looked more like some twisted bird, grotesque and wrong.
And the fact it appeared here proved one thing:
The area near the pillars was contaminated.
Then Luke felt it again.
Vayne looked up too.
Frey tensed. "There's more!"
Not even two seconds later—
More black shadows appeared in Luke's sight.
Just like that day outside Kerr Village, in the trees.
This time there were even more—over a dozen. Black mist curled around their bodies, their eyes gleaming with savage intent as they stared at Luke.
And among them stood a human figure in a cloak, his face barely visible.
He looked at Luke and the few dozen soldiers behind him, like he hadn't expected this.
"Didn't think you'd deliver yourself to me," the cloaked man sneered.
With more than a dozen dark creatures beside him, he showed no fear at all of Luke's tiny group.
Deliver himself?
Luke narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about?"
"You don't need to know."
The cloaked man clearly wasn't interested in explaining. He lifted a hand and chopped it downward.
At once, the pack of dark creatures roared and lunged.
Luke didn't panic. He copied the cloaked man's gesture—lifting his hand.
Behind him, the few dozen soldiers raised their bows.
The cloaked man looked like he was about to laugh. "You don't seriously think I—"
The blank look on his face lasted only a heartbeat.
Because arrows started falling from the sky.
He didn't even finish his sentence—he spun and ran.
Luke's hand dropped.
And from every direction, responses rang out in the forest.
"Whip-whip-whip-whip-whip!"
Countless arrows erupted from the trees—so dense they looked like rain.
The scene was absurdly grand.
Plenty of arrows missed, thudding into trunks and dirt.
But far more found flesh.
In seconds, a second wave followed.
The dark creatures didn't even reach Luke.
They were shredded mid-charge, collapsing in a heap of black bodies.
Luke watched, deeply satisfied.
If he'd had time to bring this many people last time, would he have needed to work himself half to death?
The soldiers knew what they were doing.
No one aimed for the cloaked man.
Cithria had already put an arrow in each of his legs. He stumbled, helpless, and crashed to the ground.
His cloak fell away, revealing a middle-aged man whose face was completely stunned.
Luke strolled over, smiling. "Still feeling cool?"
The man glared at him. "How did you find this place?"
Even with blood pouring from his legs, he didn't show pain.
He was too curious.
The elder had said a hidden array had been set here—no one should have found it.
Yet only when someone barged in—and even killed one of the demon sentries—did he sense the intrusion.
Luke smiled blandly. "Because one of you gave me the address."
The man froze. "Impossible!"
The moment the word left his mouth, he realized he'd been played.
He shot Luke a vicious look, shut his eyes—
And went limp.
Luke's smile vanished.
Cithria stepped forward, checked him, and reported, "Your Highness. He's dead."
Luke stared down at the body, surprised by how decisive the man was—killing himself without hesitation.
Vayne walked up, studied him, and asked, "Was he the black mage?"
Luke shook his head. "Obviously not."
Vayne frowned. "Why? Those dark creatures were clearly under his control."
Luke answered casually, "Because he doesn't have the vibe."
He was just a small-time grunt.
Vayne thought for a moment. "Then what he said implies he has accomplices. In the city?"
"Maybe," Luke said.
He raised his hand and signaled them onward.
From the cloaked man's reaction, the idea that he had "no accomplices" could be dismissed.
But his ability level didn't match what it took to create something like the Wraith Cave.
So it leaned toward the other possibility:
He had accomplices—possibly in Edessa—working together in the dark.
And when they first met, he'd said something weird:
Didn't think you'd deliver yourself to me.
That line was aimed at Luke, and it made no sense.
Luke held the questions down.
Maybe when they reached the pillars, he'd get answers.
After that, even the soldiers—Cithria included—didn't dare question Luke's decisions anymore.
They hadn't expected that following Luke out today would actually produce something real.
A dozen-plus dark creatures and a mysterious cloaked man—
All of it screamed that this situation wasn't simple.
At the same time…
Outside Kerr Village, at a mountain pass.
Two-thirds of the Shadow God cultists had already gathered here, hidden.
"Elder Dande," a cloaked man stepped forward to report. "I haven't received a message from the cultists inside the city yet, but by the timing… the Fated One should arrive soon."
Beneath the cloak was the face of Ander—the chief of Kerr Village.
Elder Dande leaned on a blackened staff and nodded slightly at Ander's report.
A strange light glittered in his eyes.
He'd planned this for so long.
He'd even poured in enormous resources, creating countless dark creatures.
And yet the carefully nurtured mid-tier wraith hadn't succeeded—worse, it had been killed.
He couldn't deny it: he'd underestimated the Fated One's support.
There was someone beside him who wielded purifying power—something Dande hadn't anticipated.
After missing that chance, the target became cautious.
Finding another opening would be difficult.
So this time, Dande had to use a harsher method.
So many people had died. The Fated One would definitely come investigate.
This time, Dande planned to strike personally.
He'd mobilized two-thirds of the cult's manpower.
He'd even prepared for the Shadow God cult to be exposed to the world.
All to seize the Fated One in one blow.
No matter how many soldiers the Fated One brought—it wouldn't matter.
Dande had prepared plenty at this mountain pass.
The terrain was narrow. A force could only advance in a single file.
To be safe, he'd also set up a dark array.
All he needed was for the Fated One to step into the net.
Once he captured him, tonight would pass—
And the Shadow God would descend.
Then it would be the Shadow God cult's rise.
Thinking that far, Dande's wrinkled old face spread into an excited smile.
Halfway through his grin, his expression suddenly changed.
He whipped around, eyes widening.
"That's impossible!"
The cultists around him all noticed the shift.
Ander stepped closer, unable to hold back. "Elder Dande—what happened?"
Dande's face twisted, shadowed and unstable.
His old hand clenched harder and harder around the staff, trembling violently.
In his senses—
The cult's base had been invaded by a massive number of outsiders.
Cultists were dying. Constantly.
He began casting immediately, chanting without pause. Magic surged through his staff, and his sight briefly returned to the base.
And in an instant—
He saw a familiar face, commanding subordinates.
"Smash it! Smash it hard!"
"What is this statue? Ugly as hell."
"And what kind of name is 'Shadow God Cult'? That's a dumb name."
Watching the base get demolished, key relics destroyed, Dande's eyes split with rage.
His ancient body shook so hard it looked like it might snap.
Damn it—
They robbed the house!
He watched the statue of the Shadow God get kicked over—
And that bastard even sat on it like it was a chair.
Dande's eyes practically spat fire.
But deeper than fury was disbelief.
He couldn't understand it.
How did that prince end up in his home?
He'd used a sacred relic of the Shadow God.
He'd sacrificed twenty lives to build a heaven-veiling array.
Even the Mageseekers wouldn't have been able to find the cult's location.
So how did this prince find it?
// I hope you enjoyed this massive release. Again, thanks for the Power Stones, comments, reviews, etc. Also, thanks to the supporters on Ptrn for voting in the poll.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810