Chapter 3859: Redundancy (Part 2)

"Yes." Xenagrosh tried and failed to bite off her tongue.

"How do I contact her?" The Wonderer had to be careful and precise in wording his questions.

The victim of a slave spell was obedient, but not cooperative. If given the chance, Xenagrosh would answer literally or omit everything she could.

"You can’t. Total lockdown. The Master has taken and stored away all the contact amulets of the members of the Organization." The Shadow Dragon said, making him curse.

"Fine, if I can’t have the Fourth Ruler of the Flames, the First will have to do." Raum said. "Is Verhen part of the Organization?"

"No."

"Then he won’t take part in the lockdown." The Eldritch nodded. "If I contact Verhen and threaten your life, will he come to me?"

"No. He will contact the Organization and let them lay an ambush for you."

"How many chances do I have to come out of his Mansion alive and with a hostage?"

"Close to none." Xenagrosh replied. "Pick the wrong baby or attack the wrong person, and the three Guardians of Garlen will smite you together."

"I can’t fight three Guardians either." Raum snarled. "How do I get Verhen to come here?"

Xenagrosh buried her smile as deep as she could. She shielded her thoughts with every trick she had learned after becoming a victim of the Golden Griffon’s Unwavering Loyalty array.

The Eldritch’s slave spell brought the smile to the surface and swatted Xenagrosh’s tricks away like flies.

"You wait."

"Are you saying he’s coming for me?" Raum frowned when the Shadow Dragon nodded. "Explain your reasoning."

"By now, Bytra must have escaped the lockdown. She won’t stop until she finds and rescues me, but she can’t do it alone." Xenagrosh struggled with all her might to shut her own mouth, but the only result of her struggle was a slight twitch in her limbs.

"She’ll ask Verhen for help, and he’ll find you. He’s the best tracker on Mogar."

’Don’t ask me why.’ She thought. ’Please, gods, don’t let him ask me why.’

"That’s preposterous, but you can’t lie to my slave array. Not with the weakness to such spells carved by design into your very life force." Raum rubbed the part of his face where his chin once was. "Don’t worry, sister.

"I’m not cruel. Once I’m done with my research, I’ll free you from the Master’s yoke. I’ll free you from the illusion of the flesh like I did for myself! I’ll free all our siblings who are willing to follow my lead and build a new world-"

A flashing red light drove the darkness of the lab away like a bloody sun, and several blaring alarms cut the Eldritch short.

"Can this really be Verhen?" During his travel back to his base, Raum had taken care of setting up detection arrays every time he opened a Chaos Steps.

Collapsing and relaxing the space wasn’t enough when dealing with the legendary inventor of dimensional magic himself. Raum believed to be stronger than Tezka already, but only if they fought one-on-one.

The alarms activated and self-destructed the moment a powerful energy signature entered their detection range, buying the Eldritch the time to identify the enemy and start the evacuation of his base.

Raum had prepared many labs and even more contingency plans. As long as he managed to move his books and resources, the discovery of his current location was but a minor inconvenience.

The Eldritch watched as something approached at unsettling speed, setting off a proximity alarm after the other. Whoever the intruder was, they didn’t need to follow Raum’s trail anymore.

Somehow, they saw through his decoys and misdirection, aiming straight for his hidden base as if they could detect his energy signature despite the distance separating them and the many cloaking arrays shielding the facility.

***

Gorgon Empire, Cornog Region, on the flight path to Raum’s hideout, at the same time.

"I call myself paranoid, but this guy is on a league of his own." Lith said as he shared the burden of the Eyes with Solus and Ripha. "He took several detours, Warped in and out of booby trapped underground caves, and then covered the last five hundred kilometers by flight.

"He has even cloaked his place so well that we can’t pick up his energy signature even from so up close."

"Yeah." Solus replied. "If not for the Eyes, we would have lost his trail and maybe even gotten hurt badly. Even worse, we would have alerted him of our presence."

They were certain that Zoreth and her kidnapper were in the area because there was no fresh trace of them past the Cornog Plains. Their energy signatures didn’t disappear like it would if they had crossed over another Warp Steps.

The Eyes could see the descending trajectory of the two Eldritches as they landed, but once they reached the ground, both energy trails faded off under the effect of a powerful cloaking array.

"Thank the gods Eldritches can’t wear cloaking objects or we would have never found them." Bytra shuddered at the idea. "It’s better not to get too close. Just give me the coordinates of the point where he landed, and the Organization will do the rest."

Eldritches lacked a physical body, and the enchantments of a cloaking object suppressed and dispersed energy. Instead of hiding the presence of an Eldritch, a cloaking object would scatter their form and drain their power.

"It’s not that easy." Lith said. "The guy uses this entrance often, and there is too much accumulated residual energy to obtain a clear reading. We need to get closer."

Valia and Varegrave appeared along with their corpses, taking the form of Demons of the Fallen. Once they reached six eyes, Lith also conjured Trion and Locrias as Demons of the Darkness.

Menadion was already there, hidden in Lith’s shadow, not to waste her energy just to keep up with his Dragonspeed.

"Isn’t this a bit too much for a recon?" She asked while Lith gave everyone their Blade Spell equipment.

"Against someone who can single-handedly overpower Bytra and Zor in a few hits, there is no such thing as too much." Lith replied, trying and failing to activate the Ears of Menadion.

There were too many powerful energy flows in his surroundings for his brain to process, and without a mana geyser, there was no way to activate the synesthesia effect.

"I’m with him on this." From the moment Lith had informed her they had reached their destination, Bytra had wielded the Absolution and partially shapeshifted her body. "I won’t get caught by surprise again."

Small black scales covered her fingertips, elbows, knees, and feet, generating gentle air currents that ruffled her clothes from within. A scaled-down form of her main horn came out of her forehead, surrounded by a tiny thunderstorm.

"I still think this is overk-"

"Watch out!" Bytra used both her feet to kick Lith down with her considerable strength and pushed Menadion and Solus in opposite directions with her hands.

A black ray the size of a skyscraper passed through the point where Lith’s right side of the body had been until a moment ago. The impact with the ground caused a localized quake and opened a fissure so deep that even the Tiamat’s eyes couldn’t see its bottom.

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