"Heh... So Headmaster Erion didn't like that little stunt we pulled?" Lone joked after hearing the kids' reason for coming to find him and Soph.

Emma cocked her head to one side. "Eh? What stunt? He just said that you guys showed him some hostility or something. Dunno how though, considering how far you guys are from Mystopolis and whatnot."

'Mystopolis? Ah, right, that's the name of the city where The Academy is. It's also the home of the Adventurer's Guild's headquarters, isn't it? Maybe I should seriously try to raise my rank when we get there... That'll help increase my fame, I'd bet,' Lone thought in silence for a moment.

"Soph lost control of her Barrier Magic at one point. I thought it'd be funny to launch the result of her lost control at The Academy. I'm not overly fond of the headmaster, you see," Lone said as he tried to hold back his laughter. Even thinking about it made him want to chuckle.

"Really?" Scott didn't believe him. "I know she's your girlfriend a-"

"Fiancée." Soph's icy voice cut through Scott's words like a knife through butter.

Now sweating a little, Scott continued. "... Your fiancée and everything, but can she really launch an attack from, what... was it launched here?" Seeing almost every person in the room nodding either happily or grimly, he finished his piece. "She can really fire an attack from here, which is at least two months by carriage away from Mystopolis?"

Lone patted Soph's head lovingly. "She may be unfathomably adorable, but trust me, she's a dangerous ball of blades when she wants to be."

Soph's cheeks turned crimson. "... I'm your dangerous ball of blades..." she mumbled.

Lone chuckled in response and kissed her head. "That's right. Both of you are."

"'Both of you'?" George was the silent one of the five teens, but he was easily the most perceptive if you could ignore Hazel's unique skill.

Lone shrugged. "Let's put it this way. If you catch Soph on a Sophie day, hold your tongue or expect to lose it."

Everyone in the group of kids, save for Hazel, looked confused.

Lone was about to change the topic to a different one since the matter about Soph's split-personality was a private one, however, Lipsilk suddenly stopped slouching in his seat and stood tall at attention.

"I just got a message from Elder Luckful." His face was covered in perplexion, not worry or expectancy for battle like was anticipated. "Three-hundred triple-X-ranker human corpses have just been discovered a few miles away from the world tree. Northern side."

"Northern side?" Lone's eyes sharpened. "The Taslo Empire? And what the fuck do you mean, three-hundred triple-X-ranked corpses?"

"I've got no idea. That's all I know." Lipsilk slapped himself lightly before shaking his head to regain his focus. "We should go investigate. I don't know about you, but I've never heard of such an army before, and I'm even more afraid of finding out who or what killed them all."

Lone nodded briskly. He lowered himself to be level with Kyuubi and Garadia before he kissed each one on the forehead. "I'll be sending you back to The Summoning Room now. Make a few noises via telepathy if you or your sister need anything, okay? I know you can't talk yet, but you can make some sounds, right?"

As if to answer him, his daughter sent him a telepathic message. 'Gao.'

"Good. One 'gao' for food, two for the toilet, okay?" Lone wanted to hit himself for not realising that he could do this earlier. The thought had only struck him in the middle of his conversation with the kids. He was thankful that it hadn't taken him weeks or months to figure this out. Now with Garadia's help, it'd be easier to take care of Kyuubi's needs without always having Soph go back and forth from the room every hour or two.

The tiny fluffball nodded in response, so Lone unsummoned both of the girls.

Alisa was muttering incoherently to herself. "Gao... Did he say 'gao'? She can talk to him with her mind? Gao? Really? Is being so cute legal?"

Scott was starting to worry about the sanity of his girlfriend.

Lone picked himself up and stretched his back. "Well, Lipsilk. Lead the way. I'm more than interested to see three-hundred triple-X-ranked corpses. That's assuming Luckful is to be believed."

Lipsilk nodded grimly. "I hope he's been deceived. The implications if he hasn't been are terrifying."

"And the implications, if he was deceived, aren't equally terrifying?" Eolande noted. It was often said that fooling a Fairy with grand-scale tricks and magic was just as hard as getting a dragon to talk to you before it ate you.

As the groups were leaving the tent, Lipsilk just laughed a bit nervously. "Forgive me if I think that three-hundred tripleX-rankers are a bigger threat than someone capable of tricking my brother."

"Good point. I guess you're right," Eolande replied.

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At the mentioned location, Lone's group, Hazel's group, as well as Lipsilk, gaped in shock at the sight before them.

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Three rows each hosting one-hundred bodies. They were all stood completely still while glancing up to the sky, and their clothes, skin, hair, everything on them, had all been turned to stone.

The energy in the air was so immensely thick, that after a few seconds of lingering in its presence, everyone, even Lipsilk, had to get some distance from the statues for fear of injuring themselves. The kids, as well as Swind, were feeling sick already just from the raw power that was emanating from these bodies and coming into contact with their skin.

"This energy..." Lipsilk's pupils dilated. "It feels... wrong. False, almost."

Lone agreed. "Not a single one of those corpses has a soul, and look at their skin. Can you see it from here?"

Lipsilk narrowed his eyes. "Enlarged veins?"

Lone nodded. "They look like they're been jacked up with something. Tell me, have you ever heard of a drug or maybe some sort of skill like Scott's, but far more potent and potentially harmful to the body long-term?"

Luckful had just made his way to the group and he heard Lone's question. "Lone, I had the very same thought." His expression was one filled with confusion and worry. "I'm the leading authority on medicines and magic that alters the body from our world tree, as you know. I can confidently say that what we're seeing right now, should theoretically be impossible. Bottlenecks exist for a reason. They can't just be broken with unconventional means. The only exception is with energy so pure, so rich in life, that it can help you find the way through the bottleneck."

"Like Elestia," Lone noted.

"Yes," Luckful responded. "Like Elestia."

He frowned deeply before adding, "Can you imagine an energy source capable of forcing these men and woman who couldn't have possibly been more than SS-rankers - maybe triple-S-rankers - all the way up to triple-X-rank?"

Luckful shook his head and chuckled with anger in his tone. "Maybe one instance, but three-hundred?! This is an affront to nature and the order of life!"

"Tapper..." Lone mumbled.

"What?" Luckful asked after hearing Lone's whisper.

Shaking his head, Lone replied, "Nothing. I'm far more concerned with who, or what, petrified them like this. I'm also curious as to why not a single one of them has a soul."

"I don't know of any monster or person capable of something like this. Maybe in the deepest levels of The Endless Abyss, but outside of that? Not even the Eight Ancients, well, Seven Ancients now, could do something like this," Lipsilk said.

"Hmm..." Lone held his chin in thought. "Do you mind if I collect these corpses? I'd like to research them a bit. I'm going to The Academy shortly, so maybe I'll find something out there. If anywhere has knowledge on this stuff, it's there."

Hazel was of the same mind. "If The Academy doesn't know, then no one will."

Luckful looked a bit apologetic. "We can't decide on something like that without the king's permission or a majority vote from the council. This is just too important-"

Lipsilk raised his hand to stop his brother from talking further. "Permission granted. Take them, Lone."

"But Great Elder..." Luckful liked Lone as much as anyone else did, if not, more, but surely he wasn't above the rules, was he?

"The king cannot give his consent." Lipsilk held back his emotions as he said, "He is no longer of this plane. As far as the council is concerned, I doubt anyone in their right mind would refuse Lone's request considering all that he's done for us today and in the past four months."

Luckful's face fell. "You mean?" Seeing the slow nod of his eldest brother, Luckful felt an enormous tremor slam into his chest. "By the Primals..."

"Lipsilk, Luckful," Lone called, "Can I trust you two to tell everyone that we're safe now? I can't imagine the Taslo Empire would attack the tree after this. Whatever force this is and how it came to be, it must have been their strongest unit. I'd suggest setting up a basic patrol to look out for more attacks, but I think it'd be best if the army got to go home for today."

Lipsilk agreed. "Yes. That sounds like a good idea. I'll leave these bodies to you then, Lone."

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It took Lone three hours to finish collecting the corpses. Even as powerful as he was, his body would start tearing itself apart when it came into contact with the volatile energy floating around the stone corpses, so he had to take his time.

Once he was done, however, Swind approached him. "Mr Immortus-ss, may I have a moment?"

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Lone gave his scaly friend a curious look. "Sure, what's up?"

Scratching his jaw thoughtfully, Swind said, "While I was-ss assisting the general army fight off the monsters-ss and darkness-ss ss-spawn, a man wrapped fully in black cloth attacked me."

"What? Ah, is this to do with your new sense that Hazel mentioned?" Lone assumed that was the case.

Swind smiled very lightly. "Yes-ss. During my fight with him, I awakened to my races'-ss inherent ss-skill. A kind of almost prophetic instinct. It helped me defend myself against this-ss attacker as-ss well as-ss find Miss-ss ss-Soph when ss-she was-ss bleeding to death from her wounds."

Eolande had a distant look on her face. "Of course. The only normal person in our band of merry weirdos can actually see into the future..."

Emma laughed. "Is having mechanical limbs considered normal for you guys?"

Scott added, "Not to mention that stupid sword. I've seen some weapons in my year as an adventurer in Mystopolis with George, but I've never seen anything like that."

Eolande blushed. "I-I guess you're right..."

Soph held her chin and her face scrunched up adorably. "Isn't Rachel normal?"

"Who's Rachel?" Alisa asked.

Hazel replied, "Another one of their companions. She's currently in a coma after killing one of that dragon's triple-X-ranked generals."

Swind smiled wryly. "ss-She's-ss also my romantic partner."

Emma nudged George in the ribs with her elbow. "Look, even the lizard man has a girlfriend. Feeling pathetic yet?"

Swind didn't know if he should be offended, or happy at that comment, but regardless of George's insulted face and response to Emma, he continued explaining to Lone. "This-ss attacker, I believe he was-ss a Grey Elf. Maybe the very ss-same one who robbed you. His-ss mannerisms-ss were ss-similar, and I never got a good look at his-ss face, ss-so I can't be entirely ss-sure, but..."

Lone's expression hardened. "If it's him with his weird ability to steal from my Dimensional Storage... Do you think it was him that did this to these people?"

Swind shook his head. " I don't know. But it is-ss certainly a possibility."

Lone put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "It's a good start. Thanks for telling me."

"I'm just ss-sad that I couldn't defeat him before he used a teleportation orb to escape," Swind admitted.

Lone smiled. "It's fine. We have some info to work with now. A lead's a lead, no matter how small it is."

"Right," Swind returned lone's smile with his own toothy grin.

"Well, we should probably return to the tree. I doubt we'll get a warm reception for lying about Ele'hunda, but I could really use some R&R right now." No one disagreed with Lone, so they all moved together towards the teleportation formation at the centre of the world tree's trunk.

As they were returning to the world tree, Hazel couldn't help but let her mind wander to the topic of her brother once again. 'He really has changed so much... He has friends that rely on him, he's confident, and he's in a love-filled relationship... Maybe we shouldn't have come to find him? Maybe he'd have been less troubled if we'd just stayed in Mystopolis...'