Chapter 233: The Twilight Pursuit (5)

While Karnak and his party wandered across the continent, the seasons had quietly turned to early summer. On the fifth day since they left Sellas Temple, the group finally arrived at the Zestrad Barony.

Riding along the road, they spotted serfs scattered across the green barley fields, working hard at their farming.

"Oh? It’s the lord!"

"And there’s Varos, back as well."

"Say Sir Varos, will you? He’s a knight now."

"Right, right. Still can’t get used to that."

For a land that had once fallen under the occupation of a cult, the barony looked surprisingly peaceful. Well, considering even Maloka hadn’t done much harm to the common folk, it made sense that recovery hadn’t been too difficult. The Zestrad manor itself looked just as it always had.

The elderly butler, Tafel, greeted Karnak with his usual calm composure. "Welcome home, my lord."

"Everything’s been well?"

It had been a long time since they’d returned home. Everyone took the chance to rest and shake off their travel fatigue.

The very next day, Karnak wasted no time in assessing the state of his domain. "Looks like the crops are doing fine."

Thanks to quickly injecting funds to replenish livestock, they’d managed to meet the sowing season in time. The harvest seemed well on track.

"And the copper mine is running smoothly too."

That mystery had been cleared up, thanks to the interrogation of Waraine. In Karnak’s previous life, the copper mine hadn’t even existed. It turned out that Jedex, having returned to the past a few years earlier than Karnak, had started various profitable enterprises across the continent to lay the groundwork for Tesranach’s arrival.

The dungeon near the Strauss estate and the copper mine in Zestrad were just parts of that effort. They hadn’t been targeted at Karnak specifically. It was just a coincidence.

So it was simply a chance event, something that could’ve happened regardless.

For now, the mine remained under the management of the Tecas merchant guild. Karnak had indeed butted heads with the Tecas merchant guild more than once, but that had been limited to conflicts with certain branches.

The Tecas merchant guild was a vast organization with influence across the Seven Kingdoms, operating through multiple independent branches. The incident with the Altas merchant guild had involved only the Tecas branch in Drunta, where the branch manager had been scheming to expand his personal power.

That particular manager had already been exposed as a cultist and punished. Thus, there was no reason to antagonize the entire Tecas merchant guild over that. The copper mine in Zestrad was managed by the Tecas branch in Derath, which had no quarrel with Karnak. Naturally, the contract remained in force.

Besides, keeping them nearby makes it easier to keep an eye on things.

Of course, he wasn’t about to hand over full rights to the mine. After all, there was strong suspicion of collusion between Tecas and the Cult of the Dark God. If anything went wrong, there was a risk of his funds being cut off.

Thus, while copper extraction and refining were left to Tecas, mine security and transport of the ingots were handed over to the Altas merchant guild. Strictly speaking, this was a slight breach of contract, but with the scandal at the Drunta branch, Tecas was in no position to complain.

Altas had formed transport teams and hired adventurers to guard the territory, and when combined with the knights and soldiers of Zestrad, the military strength of the domain had effectively doubled.

Varos found this a bit surprising. "You actually hired adventurers? Can’t believe they came all the way out to this remote backwater."

No matter how much they were paid, Zestrad was so remote that adventurers were rarely inclined to stay long-term.

Karnak grinned. "They had good reason to come."

"Oh? What was it?" Varos asked him.

"The Twilight Cult," was his answer.

"

Ah

..."

They might have looked like regular adventurers on the surface, but in reality, they were members of the Twilight Cult stationed in the territory.

"This way, it’s easier to stay in touch with the four governors." As he continued reviewing documents, Karnak nodded in satisfaction. "Good, the population’s grown too."

In this era, dark incidents were frequent across the continent. Many people who’d lost their homes to cultists and necromancers had drifted into the Zestrad Barony. With Karnak’s prior approval, the territory had accepted them as new residents.

They got prior approval?

Serati tilted her head in confusion. She had always been by Karnak’s side, but she had never seen these new arrivals before.

"Wait, are these people...?"

"Yep, they’re from the Twilight Cult."

The Zestrad Barony was, in fact, the hidden base of the Twilight Cult!

Serati’s face darkened with concern. "Isn’t this a bit risky? The longer the tail, the likelier it is to get stepped on."

"Kalaf will handle it. He’s good at this sort of thing."

With the assessment of the territory complete, Karnak moved on to the next phase. He secretly laid necromantic domains throughout the land in preparation for invasion, and etched chaos magic seals into strategic points to strengthen defenses.

Once that was done, he turned to his original purpose. "All right, time to raise your aura levels."

***

The secret training ground beneath the Zestrad manor. All of Karnak’s group had gathered there, except for Lapicel.

Facing Varos, Serati, and Leven, Karnak spoke up. "What you three are lacking right now is simply aura capacity, isn’t it? The rest, your experience and talent, will get you through well enough."

Varos nodded in agreement, Leven wore a slightly uncertain expression, and Serati shot him a look as if to say, "Is this bastard trying to provoke me?"

Still, none of them voiced any objections. There was a more pressing question on their minds.

Serati took the liberty to point it out. "Aura is our life force, though. How could you possibly supply that from the outside?"

"Well, after thinking it over, I realized it’s actually possible," responded Karnak.

In truth, there were already techniques to infuse energy from an external source. He was referring to the dark aura used in necromancy by black servants, dark knights, and death knights was exactly that.

In fact, in his previous life, Varos had fought against the Four Martial Kings by relying on the enormous amount of dark aura bestowed upon him by Karnak, the Monarch of Death.

"Of course, I don’t mean to give you dark aura. I have no intention of doing that anymore." However, during his interrogations of Jedex and while acquiring various techniques, Karnak had come to a realization. "What is dark aura, really? It’s just a technique that transforms necromantic energy into a type of evil aura of darkness, right?"

"That’s right."

"Then what about chaos mana? It’s refined necromantic energy, purified to the point where it’s indistinguishable from normal mana, a third kind of energy altogether," Karnak continued.

The expressions of Varos, Serati, and Leven shifted subtly.

"Wait..."

"Then that means..."

They were starting to catch on to what Karnak was getting at. Chaos mana originated from necromantic energy, but wasn’t all that different from real mana. So if necromantic energy could be transformed into dark aura, then wouldn’t it be possible to convert chaos mana into a type of aura?

"In theory, at least, I’ve already developed the spellwork." And after visiting the Sellas Temple, he had charged his chaos mana reserves to the brim. "I’m thinking of calling it chaos aura. Does that work? Anyway, I should be able to bestow it upon you."

There was still one concern, however.

Leven raised it. "But even this chaos aura is external energy, isn’t it? How are we supposed to make it our own?"

"I have no idea," was his simple answer.

"What?"

"I’m not an aura user, am I? You guys are." Karnak was, after all, a necromancer and mage, nothing more. "I can give it to you, sure. But turning it into your own is up to you."

"I don’t think it’ll be that hard." Varos shrugged casually. "Even the aura I have now came from converting external energy into my own in the first place."

***

Vast energy poured out of the Anti-Time-Space Transcender and lit up a complex magic circle. Varos drew a deep breath before stepping into the center of the formation.

A grey energy began to wrap around him. The runes rippled and a brilliant light danced outward. A powerful force seeped into his limbs, invisible power surpassing his limits and filling his entire body. After a moment, the turbulence of light settled.

Karnak asked while watching Varos, who still had his eyes closed, "How is it?"

Varos opened his eyes. "It worked. Feels much like when I received dark aura."

He flexed his hands and added, "No side effects, either."

Serati and Leven, who had been observing from the side, spoke up as well.

"There’s definitely no trace of dark energy."

"It felt just like regular aura to me."

"Good." Satisfied with the results, Karnak motioned for the others to continue.

Serati and Leven also stepped into the magic circle, one after the other. Thus, all three of them received chaos aura from Karnak. Lapicel, however, had been deliberately excluded.

"It’d be a problem if she got too strong."

No one could say for sure when the Martial King of Cyphras might awaken and target Karnak’s life. It was still too risky to give her more power.

Varos clicked his tongue. "Wow, what a petty grown-up."

"Hey, if I lose my head, you’re next. Don’t act like it’s someone else’s problem."

"Well, that’s true."

In any case, Karnak’s technique itself had no issues. All of them had managed to store an enormous amount of aura in their bodies, more than double their original capacity. Leven and Serati spoke with excitement.

"Just from how it feels, it’s like I’ve already gone up a whole level."

"Same here."

However, they still couldn’t wield that power properly. For now, it was just sitting dormant inside them.

Karnak raised a question. "What’s this, Varos? Didn’t you say converting it into aura wouldn’t be so hard?"

"That’s what I thought, but it seems a bit different from the method I’m used to," Varos responded.

"Well, do your best. This is as far as I can take you," said Karnak.

Transforming it into their own true power was entirely up to them.

Watching Varos, Serati, and Leven pondering over it, Karnak added, "But don’t take too long. We never know when Elezar or Dreltein might come knocking."

It was true they weren’t in a position to be taking things easy.

Leven let out a sigh. "At least the good news is, the other side hasn’t gotten their hands on a new Anti-Time-Space Transcender yet, right?"

There had been some speculation that, because of the existence of the third Anti-Time-Space Transcender, Tesranach might have prepared further contingencies. However, at least for now, it was unlikely that the Cult of the Black God had secured a fourth or fifth cube. Jedex, one of the Three Saints, hadn’t even known it existed.

Then Serati tilted her head slightly, curiosity in her eyes. "Come to think of it, Lord Karnak, I’ve been wondering."

"What about?"

"If a body exists in the present without a soul, they can time-travel without an Anti-Time-Space Transcender, right?" she asked.

"According to Jedex, yes," he answered.

"Then what if you do it like this?"

Say, for example, they wanted to send the future archmage, Giyen Ren, back in time. Without the cube, he would trigger the goddesses’ intervention and be blocked.

But if the present-day Elezar and Dreltein were to kill Giyen Ren, destroy his soul, and preserve his body as an undead, then later send future Giyen Ren back through time? "Wouldn’t that be the same condition as the archliches?"

"Oh!" Karnak exclaimed in admiration.

"That’s a clever idea," agreed Varos.

"Right? I didn’t think of that myself," Karnak admitted.

Varos spoke up. "Serati, you might have a hidden talent for necromancy."

Serati’s delicate face twisted into a grimace.

Have I really sunk this far?

But after thinking it over for a moment, Karnak shook his head. "No, it still won’t work."

There was always a slight margin of error in the arrival time when one attempted time travel without an Anti-Time-Space Transcender. But even with that margin of error, the difference was usually just ten or twenty years at most. It never exceeded several decades.

"Archliches, on the other hand, are from at least a hundred years ago."

Take Demphis, for example. His days as the royal court mage Dallas were over a hundred and fifty years in the past. There had never been any concern about future Demphis overlapping with the living body of Dallas.

"But Giyen Ren is still alive right now, isn’t he?" Suppose they killed the present Giyen Ren and sent the future one back. "If they’re lucky and he ends up traveling to a point later than when he died, it’d be fine. But if they’re unlucky and he lands in an earlier time? Then he’d be exposed immediately."

"Ah, I see."

It was a problem obvious enough that even Karnak could recognize it with a little thought. Tesranach would never make such a basic mistake.

"And besides, there’s no guarantee they haven’t already secured a new Anti-Time-Space Transcender."

If there was one thing consistent about the Cult of the Black God, it was how poorly they communicated with each other.

"For all we know, Elezar or Dreltein might have secured one without Jedex even realizing it."