Chapter 208: The Owner of Tecas (2)

Lorenzo shot up from the bed. With terrifying force, he repelled Karnak, sending him stumbling backward.

Karnak scowled. The man had been completely restrained. He shouldn't have been able to move, let alone exert such immense force. The reason was obvious.

"

Tch

. Necromancy, of course," Karnak said in realization.

Darkness was now seeping from Lorenzo's body as he stood upright. His entire body swelled grotesquely as he transformed. Horns and tentacles sprouted from his flesh, his eyes gleamed in a violet glow, and elongated beast-like fangs jutted from his mouth.

Serati complained telepathically as she pouted and raised her sword.

—You never mentioned this, Lord Karnak. Didn't you claim that, in your prime as the Monarch of Death, no necromantic technique could escape your eyes?

"That was back then, back then." Muttering in frustration, Karnak narrowed his gaze at the opponent.

The bizarre aura radiating from the creature was something he had encountered before. It was eerily similar to the twisted power of Bishop Straph, the corrupted priest of Hatoba who had once lurked in Trist City.

It was a chaotic fusion of necromantic energy and divine power. Despite having examined the man carefully, he hadn't noticed any signs of activation until the transformation had already begun.

These bastards really do operate on an entirely different wavelength.

He had seen enough of mana and necromantic energy being fused together to have a grasp on it now. He had even managed to copy a few techniques and had some fun with them. But the fusion of divine power or aura with necromancy? He had only encountered that a handful of times. He was still lacking information.

"Take him down first!" Karnak commanded.

Leven and Lapicel drew their aura-infused swords. Brilliant red and blue light illuminated the dimly lit bedroom. Meanwhile, Lorenzo had swelled to the size of the ceiling, his monstrous form towering over them.

The black monstrosity let out a thunderous roar.

***

On the ridge of a mountain at the outskirts of Harthol City stood an ancient fortress. A man in his mid-thirties stood by the window, dressed in nothing but his nightclothes. It was the man known to the world as Banner Ralphstadder. But in truth, he was the Fallen Pope of the Sun, Jedex Tideland.

Through the window, he gazed down at the city of Harthol. At a glance, there was nothing more than darkness and mist. It was silent in the dead of night. But to him, it was different. Through the intricate interweaving of power, he could sense everything happening within.

"They've finally arrived, huh?" A slow smile crept onto his face.

The aura of darkness surged violently from his former residence at the Tecas merchant guild's estate.

"Just as Lord Tesranach foretold." Then, he yawned lazily. "It's good that they're here, but getting woken up in the middle of a good sleep is rather annoying."

***

The monster rampaged. Bulging tentacles lashed in all directions, flipping the bed over and smashing through furniture. The walls trembled under the force, splintering as deep cracks and holes formed.

The monster’s first target was Lapicel. It instinctively aimed for the smallest and seemingly weakest opponent. Two tentacles lashed toward her through the swirling debris. However, Lapicel reacted calmly and swung her aura-infused blade in a swift arc.

The tentacles were severed, spraying black fluid as they recoiled. Her expression shifted slightly. "

Huh

?"

Serati and Leven, who had been about to intervene, also hesitated, their expressions mirroring her confusion.

Lapicel wasted no time after slicing through the tentacle. She leapt forward, her crimson aura blade slicing through the air in a graceful arc. Her strike scattered radiant trails of light throughout the room.

In an instant, the monstrous form of Lorenzo was torn apart by streaks of glowing sword slashes. The creature let out a pained shriek, then it collapsed. Just like that, Lapicel had defeated the enemy on her own.

"

Um

, Lord Karnak." Tilting her head, the girl frowned. "This thing was way too weak."

Lorenzo, in his monstrous form, should have been strong enough to take on at least three or four fully trained knights. In other words, not a single person here was actually weaker than him. Even the weakest among them, Lapicel, had now fully awakened as an aura user.

"Could this be a trap...?" She trailed off, but she wasn’t sure.

They already knew it was a trap. The monster had transformed and targeted them, which meant the trap had already been sprung.

"What I mean is, could there be another trap hidden behind this one...?"

Karnak let out a chuckle. "There's no need to overthink it. It is a trap."

However, the monster wasn’t supposed to defeat Karnak’s group.

"This thing was just a signal flare," Karnak explained. When Lorenzo had transformed into a monster, Karnak had already sensed the necromantic energy seeping into the ground and flowing through the pillars. "The real goal was to send a signal far away. That's why the necromantic energy was amplified through the transformation."

A beacon fire naturally heated the surrounding air as it burned brighter. The transformation wasn't the goal. It was merely the process.

"So they sacrificed a person just to use him as an alarm?" Even Leven, who had encountered plenty of necromancers, was appalled by the sheer cruelty. "This is beyond evil..."

Lapicel, on the other hand, remained unexpectedly calm. Gazing out the window, she murmured, "This means someone is watching us from somewhere."

Varos frowned. "There's something I don't get. If they set up a trap, it means they knew we were coming in advance..."

They hadn't informed the King's Order and had moved in complete secrecy. So how had their plans been leaked?

"There's no way they've been keeping this up indefinitely, just waiting for us to arrive, right?" Varos muttered.

Had the enemy planted spies near Karnak's group? That didn't seem likely either. Both Karnak and Varos were extremely sensitive to being watched. If someone had been tailing them, they would have noticed something.

Serati offered another possibility. "Could this be the work of Tesranach? If they call him a god, maybe he has some way of observing us from afar..."

That would be the worst-case scenario. It would mean nothing they did could remain hidden.

Karnak shook his head. "That's unlikely. If that were the case, we wouldn't have even made it this far to begin with."

Regardless of how, things had clearly gone wrong. A disturbance of this magnitude in the dead of night wasn't going to go unnoticed. Sure enough, chaos was spreading throughout the mansion.

"Intruders!"

"Everyone, on alert!"

"Grab your weapons!"

Karnak could sense them through his perception. Ten armed men were gathering on the first floor, racing up the stairs toward them.

Lapicel turned to him. "What do we do?"

"Take them all down." Flicking a mana-infused needle between his fingers, Karnak narrowed his eyes. "At least one of them will know what's going on."

***

The guards of the Tecas estate were originally mercenary soldiers who protected trade routes. They were veterans who had survived countless encounters with bandits and monsters, armed with nothing but a sword. And there were ten of them.

For any normal intruders, this level of defense would have been overwhelming. But that was only if their opponents were normal.

Serati whispered as she slipped past an incoming hook punch and delivered a swift strike to her attacker's jaw. "This feels a little unfair."

Leven drove his knee into another man's abdomen and sighed. "I know, right? They're just doing their jobs."

Varos nodded after knocking out two guards with a quick left-right combo. "That's why we need to make sure they go down safely."

There wasn't even a need to draw their weapons. A few casual blows were enough to send the guards crumpling like rag dolls. There was no helping it. Veterans or not, these men were nothing more than seasoned warriors. None of them were even knights.

Meanwhile, Karnak's group consisted of four aura users. The sheer physical disparity was immense. The corridor echoed with the sounds of bodies collapsing. It took mere minutes for all ten guards to be sprawled across the floor.

Approaching the unconscious men, Karnak twirled his mana needle between his fingers. "Alright, time to get some answers."

***

The guards were laid out in a neat row along the corridor. In front of them stood a dark-haired young man, his face shadowed as he methodically drove a needle into their foreheads.

"Answer all of my questions," Karnak ordered them.

"Yes."

It was an undeniably terrifying sight. Ten grown men were foaming at the mouth with their eyes rolled back.

And yet, Lapicel actually felt relieved.

Sister Serati was right after all.

She clearly sensed the physical condition of the fallen guards through her aura.

It looks bad, but it's actually quite safe.

None of them were feeling pain, nor had their brains been damaged. Compared to torturing someone for interrogation, this was far more humane.

Of course! Lord Karnak wouldn't be the kind of person to do something truly cruel!

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

There was a "slight" misunderstanding in her reasoning, but in essence, she wasn't entirely wrong. Karnak's mana needle technique had now evolved to the point where it left almost no aftereffects. Since he had developed it with the goal of living a more

human

life, he had paid close attention to ensuring it was as refined as possible.

Of course, if things went wrong, he could still turn someone into a hollowed-out husk, but simply erasing fragments of memory or extracting confessions wasn't particularly difficult. The chances of mistakes were low.

Now, if he attempted something like implanting entirely new memories or reconstructing existing ones, that would be a different story.

A few moments later, after checking through the guards one by one, Karnak clicked his tongue. "

Tsk

, none of them actually knows anything useful."

Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to extract any valuable information. There was only one thing he had learned:how they had set the trap in advance.

Varos had mentioned it earlier, that there was no way they would have been waiting this entire time just in case they showed up. The ridiculous part was, that was exactly what they had been doing.

They had anticipated that Karnak would target Jedex, but they had no way of knowing when he would strike. So, for the past few months, they had simply been keeping Lorenzo in Banner Ralphstadder's bedroom.

"Is there really a need to be this excessive...?" Karnak muttered.

Varos shrugged. "Well, it worked, didn't it?"

In the end, they had fallen for this crude but effective tactic. There wasn't much to say about that.

Leven turned to Karnak and asked, "So, what do we do now?"

"What else? We're getting out of here. Though, I doubt they'll let us leave easily."

Given the situation, the entire mansion was likely a trap. And Karnak had a fairly good idea of what kind of trap it was. Jedex was a fallen pope.

It's probably a fusion domain of divine power and necromancy.

If that was the case, he had ways to counter it.

He could use the Redeemer of Necromancy, or he could just brute-force his way through with necromancy. He had already gained experience dealing with this kind of opponent back in Trist City against Bishop Straph.

"Don't worry. I can handle most necromancy tricks." Just as Karnak confidently reassured them, he turned his head—and froze.The space beyond the window glowed eerily bright. Sparks rose into the black sky. The mist was dyed crimson, and the light of the flames spread in all directions. Beyond the shifting embers, roaring infernos streaked down the alleyways, sending waves of searing heat across the city streets.

The entire mansion was now engulfed in a massive firestorm. And the way the flames spread wasn't natural. This wasn't the kind of fire that accidentally started and got out of control.

No, this was a deliberate inferno. It had been ignited with precision with oil placed in key locations, wind direction accounted for, and ignited at just the right moments.

Watching the flames consume the surroundings, Serati muttered through a telepathic link.

—Yep. That's definitely one of your subordinates, Lord Karnak. The way they think is exactly the same as you.