“You look like someone I know.” Robin eyed him up and down. “Who are you?”

Someone he knew?

While sustaining his powers, Edris listened to the conversation in bafflement. Not only him, but Ace himself was also staring at the hypnotist at a loss for words. The white-haired man’s face was nowhere close to being “common,” yet Robin had deemed him as someone familiar.

“What do you mean?” Ace spoke for the first time.

“You do know how to talk!”

Robin turned to him, pensive. He suddenly smiled, and taking advantage of Ace’s moment of hesitation, he pivoted sideways, moving past him and straight towards the dark-haired man behind him. Like a slime in water, he slid through the stage in silence.

Before Edris knew it, the man was right in front of him.

He tried to step back, but it was too late. Robin reached out and, with his right hand, cupped the side of his face. The slimy sensation of his hand pressed into Edris’s skin, driving goosebumps throughout his entire body.

“Since you seem to be enhancing his abilities. In that case, I just need to hypnotise you first, then he’s all mine, right?” Satisfaction flashed across his eyes. “Good night.”

As if proving his words, a black fog rose and wrapped itself around Edris, devouring his face entirely. It felt as if his head was being peeled one layer at the time as the fog threatened to seep into his consciousness, dragging him into the deep sea.

On the other end of the chamber, Darcie held her sister closer to her chest. She cast her gaze upwards, towards the ceiling. A shield of purple glowed dimly above their heads. Despite the man's endangered state, the barrier still subsisted.

This person had saved both her and her sister’s lives. But now, he was about to die.

Darcie clenched her fists.

Her tenseness caused Doris to glance up. “Darcie?”

“I… I want to help him. No, I need to help him, Doris. Or else he’ll die.” Darcie bit her lips.

Even though she had only recently become an Awakened, she knew how to manipulate mana on a fundamental level. It wouldn’t be enough to inflict severe damage on the robed man, but it should buy them a second or two. Darcie stared straight ahead, anxious.

She needs to at least try, or else she'll live in regret for the rest of her life.

Suddenly, there was a tug by her sleeves. Darcie looked down and saw Doris staring back at her with a firm gaze. “Calm down.”

Darcie blinked. Despite just passing her seventh birthday, her little sister often spoke in a manner that seemed way past her age. Maybe it was a natural consequence of growing up without parents, but she couldn’t help but be apprehensive at Doris’s early maturity.

“I know you want to help, but I think we should wait,” Doris said, looking over to the stage.

Darcie followed the direction of her gaze, and her eyes landed on the white-haired man across from them. Despite Prophet Edris's state of peril, he showed no signs of coming to his aid. A slight frown appeared on Darcie's face.

“That man isn’t doing anything. I thought they were together?”

“He’s not doing nothing,” Doris said, her round eyes fixed on the stage. “He’s waiting.”

Aside from the gurgling noise coming from the fog, the entire chamber was silent. The Awakeneds at the sides gulped. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to help, but they simply couldn’t see the possibility of succeeding, when even the person who had come to save them was subdued just like that.

Even though they were grateful for the stranger that came to their aid, it wasn’t to the point where they would throw away their lives.

The air in the chamber seemed to have thickened as the mana flowing out of the dark-haired man trickled into nothingness.

Both of Edris’s arms dropped limp to his side.

At the sight, everyone’s heart dropped.

“There we go.” With a satisfied glint in his eyes, Robin lifted his hand.

The fog around them dissipated, but rather than the wooden looks he usually received from his victims, all he saw was the dark-haired man’s narrowed eyes.

“Done with the touching?” Edris asked.

Robin’s mouth parted.

Without hesitation, Edris went straight for a kick in the chest, sending the man toppling backwards. He wasn’t as strong as Ace, and the kick only managed to force the man a few steps away.

However, that was enough.

Robin tried to steady himself by planting his heels, only to realise that a certain white-haired man was already waiting right behind him. Taking advantage of the moment of instability, Ace slid forward and aimed right at his neck. Robin leaned back and reflexively lifted one of his arms in defence.

Next thing he knew, that arm was on the ground, twitching.

The tip of Ace’s sword pointed at his neck, and Robin slowly raised his other hand to indicate surrender.

Walking up beside Ace, Edris pressed his foot down onto the arm on the floor, giving it a few smothers. No blood came out of it. He glimpsed at the arm, then at Robin. A sense of disgust found its way, and Edris rubbed his face with a handkerchief.

“Fucking creep.”

The viscount, the hypnotist—none of these “Nest” people seemed normal.

As if confirming Edris’s thoughts, Robin started to laugh uncontrollably. He bent over, almost squeezing his lungs out as laughter continued to spill.

“How fascinating. Both of you.” With a flick of his remaining arm, the one on the ground melted into a pile of liquid. The protruding bones on his elbow began to extend, soon followed by tissues, flesh, and skin. In a matter of seconds, a new arm had formed.

“A bit late, but shall we go for introductions?”

Naturally, nobody responded, but the man didn’t seem in the least bothered by the silence.

“People know me as a hypnotist, but I’m also secretly from Nest. Hm. Guess it’s not a secret anymore. You may call me Mister Robin, or just Robin, if you’re the friendly type. But of course, that’s not my real name.” Taking a glimpse at the corpse behind him, Robin let out a melodramatic sigh. “Unfortunately, I’m just here on a small errand. But if fate allows it, we shall soon meet again. In the meanwhile, I’ve prepared a present for you all.”

Edris frowned. “What are you on about?”

His question was left unanswered, however, as the man flashed him a grin. With his newly grown arm, Robin blew a kiss at the two of them as a teleportation circle appeared under his feet.

“Good night—and enjoy.”

Ace was about to go forth with another slash, only to be stopped by Edris, who shook his head. “Save your energy. People like him are just…”

He rubbed his arms with a shudder.

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There was a reason why he didn’t continue to fight the hypnotist. Despite the disturbing behaviours, he didn’t seem to be coming here to harm them. Edris didn’t know what his abilities were, but seeing how the man had straight up regrown his arm, killing him wouldn’t be an easy deed.

He'd already invested much of his mana into the Tempest to neutralise the hypnosis effects, and he needed to continue Ace’s mana supply as well. There were still matters left to take care of.

At this thought, Edris turned towards Ace. He arched an eyebrow. “Come to think of it, you really just watched him try to brainwash me, didn’t you?”

Ace looked at him, eyes stoic. “You wouldn’t let yourself be hypnotised so easily.”

“Should I feel honoured by your trust?”

Ace scoffed, and Edris shrugged in response.

“He said I looked familiar,” Ace said, gazing towards the spot where Robin had disappeared. “I’ve never seen him before.”

“If you think about it hard enough, maybe you’ll remember something.” Edris peered over his shoulders, towards the lump of black flesh on the ground. “But not now.”

He frowned.

“It seems that we have more trouble at hand.”

Ever since the hypnotist disappeared, the viscount’s corpse had entered a pulse. At first, it was just light movements, but now the pulses was slowly growing in size with firmer, longer pumps each time. An ominous feeling rose within Edris.

“A bomb,” Ace concluded.

“So the present he was talking about is this human meat bomb?” Edris inhaled with a cold smile. “Robin, was it? I’ll remember it.”

“At the rate it’s expanding, it would take at most five more minutes until it explodes.”

“…How annoying.”

Securing the mask on his face, Edris spun around and faced the Awakeneds. He directed his voice throughout the chamber using the diffusion orb he took from the observation room.

“This place will soon explode,” he declared calmly. “But before that, we will all teleport out of here. I will try to minimise the after effects with the Tempest, but those who are less accustomed to the effects of magic may still experience discomfort, so please look out for each other.”

Ignoring their dumbfounded expressions, he smiled at the white-haired man beside him. “Your teleportation circle can hold two hundred people, right?”

It came out as a question, but both knew it was an affirmative statement.

Ace turned away with a scoff. He muttered something under his breath, and a surge of mana spiralled around him. The ground below them began to glow, forming a circle of symbols that expanded across the entire chasm.

The Awakeneds could only gape at the sight.

The complexity of teleportation magic was no secret to any Awakened. Typically, days of planning would be required to perform the skill, with precise measurements of the necessary mana consumption and a specific destination coordinate.

Moreover, there was a strict limit on the number of people one teleportation circle could withhold. But according to the masked man, he was going to teleport all of them at once.

There were over two hundred bodies in the chasm!

They glanced toward the two figures at the centre of the stage, gazes filled with awe and guilt. The one with dark hair lifted one of his arms, and the purple shield that surrounded them thickened, protecting them from the flying pieces of debris. Across from him, the man with white-haired kept a stoic expression as light poured out from him and extended to the rest of the spell.

Despite everything that happened, those two were still trying to get them out of here, even at the expense of using such difficult magic.

An Awakened with long hair stepped forward, wariness all over his face.

At his approach, the owner of the purple shield glanced over, and the Awakened shuddered at his distant gaze. Before he could express his thanks and apologies though, the dark-haired man spoke up.

“I didn’t come here to save you. So I don’t need your gratitude.”

The Awakened stared at him blankly, at a loss of words.

Edris looked away.

It was true. He only came here to investigate the Slums and somehow ended up being caught up in this mess. The investigation had been his only goal from the start, and saving these people was the only aftermath of how things had turned out.

He'd noticed the Awakeneds’ hesitancy to step in when Robin was hypnotising him. Edris wasn’t mad about it. In fact, if he were in the same situation, he would've acted the same. Yet now that he had made it out alive, they decided to give their thanks.

Their gratitude held no value to Edris; it would only serve as a self-comfort for the Awakeneds themselves, for their earlier cowardice.

Edris wasn’t in the mood for superficial exchanges.

“I didn’t expect you to help them for free,” Ace said calmly.

“You’re making it sound like I’m a bad person or something.” Edris laughed. “Not that you’re wrong.”

He wasn’t a saint. He was Edris. And Edris never did anything that yielded no benefits in return.

From an objective point of view, there was nothing they could give him that would be of equivalent value to what Edris gone through in this investigation. All the Awakened here were regular citizens of the kingdom, and Edris wasn't interested in their offerings.

His help was definitely not free—it just wouldn’t be the citizens paying the price.

The corners of Edris’s lips curled up. Amidst the chaos, his smile was like a splash of daylight in a torrent of colours.

“His Highness must be waiting.”

***

Dolan Zacriya shot up from the ground, breathing heavily.

“Your Highness, you’re awake!” Sitting beside him, Celio perked up immediately with worried eyes. “I didn’t mean to knock you out for such a long time. I swear I tried to control my strength!”

“It’s not you. I just got held up by something.” Dolan shook his head. “More importantly, let’s head back to the sewage site. I believe that help is coming soon.”

The sky above them inundated in darkness, void of its usual nighttime glitters.

A moonless night.

Magnus was already waiting for them at the sewage site. Behind the archmage stood twenty members of the Royal Mage Brigade and a high-levelled priest.

“I can’t sense any presence coming from the tunnel, so chances are that an illusion barrier has been put in place.” Magnus took off his hood and stepped towards the entrance. “Be on guard.”

At his words, everyone nodded firmly. As they were about to enter the tunnel, however, Celio stopped behind them. He pointed outwards, blinking in confusion.

“Hold on. What’s that?”

Dolan turned around and gazed in the direction of his finger. Some distance behind the site, he could see a desolate hill.

That hill was currently glowing all over.

“What the…” One of the mages muttered out loud.

“There’s a huge bright circle on the hill!” Celio squinted his eyes. “Wait, I recognise that. It’s Master’s teleportation spell!”

“Prophet Edris?” Dolan said in disbelief. “Didn’t he go into this tunnel?”

How did he end up on the hill all the way over there?

“Let’s head there first,” Magnus said. “The answers should all be on the hill.”

With countless questions bottling up, the group quickly reached the bottom of the hill. What confronted them was a sight far beyond anything they could have imagined.

The entirety of its surface covered in a glowing circle of symbols, the hill emitted a steady glow of white and purple, which seemed to grow even brighter under the pure black sky.

“Such, such a grand teleportation spell!” The priest stared at the hill in bafflement. He had never seen such large-scale teleportation in his eighty years of existence.

The rest of the mages just stood, mirroring the priest’s reaction, all jaws dropped in shock.

As if that wasn’t enough, they next saw bodies rising from the ground. They emerged from the circle one after another, like the dead returning from their graves.

Ten, thirty, fifty—people just kept appearing from the circle. Different portions of the hill glowed in spontaneous intervals, and the entire scene looked so absurd one would think they arrived in the Realm of Afterglow.

It wasn’t until the last body came into view that Celio rushed forward.

“Master!”

Standing at the very front of the mass group of people was a dark-haired man. He took off his mask, revealing his pale face was smeared with dirt. One of his arms was tightly bandaged. With his other arm, he gave them a wave.

Seeing his familiar smile, Dolan felt a burden lift off his shoulders as he slowly puffed out a sigh.

“You now…”

Dolan couldn’t help but scowl. How could he not when the person, who had self-proclaimed as a seeker of peace, returned in a state that appeared as if he had just survived a war?

As he approached Edris, however, Dolan’s expression grew stranger. Beside the dark-haired man was a face he'd never seen before. Compared to Edris’s battered state, this person didn’t have a single scratch on him. With skin glowing and white-hair fluttering in the breeze, he could easily pass as an illusion, sticking out like a sore thumb in the group of people.

Dolan had many questions. Before he could ask about the details, the ground below them began to shake.

The next second, a deafening explosion erupted in the distance, in the direction of the sewage site. The brigade of mages immediately advanced into formation, launching a barrier to block any debris flying their way.

The entire Nolmes shook at once. Torrents of gust washing over them all the way from the hill, kicking up the smallest particle of dust in the vicinity.

It was an explosion that reached the ears of every citizen of Nolmes, and its news would soon extend across the entire Zacriya Kingdom.

Dumbfounded, Dolan stared at the smoke in the distance and then at Edris.

The latter smiled back.

Then fell to the ground.