Stumbling across the destroyed street, Illyan furiously scratched at his neck while wheezing for breath. Once in a while, he stopped to vomit blood as he felt extremely dizzy, leaning on what remained of the walls.
At some point, he even fell into a daze as he listened to his surroundings.
But when he heard other soldiers coming this way, he forcibly suppressed his state and stood up, limping away.
The manticore’s venom was giving him problems as, despite his body being resistant to most poisons, he felt this one was hard to expel. The other factor was that his entire body was heavily injured, and his regeneration was working at its fullest potential.
Because of that, he also lost control of it, and his face started to heal at an abnormal rate. Hairs started to rash out of his bald head, and the old skin with scars started to peel off.
Fortunately, by then, Illyan had already disappeared from the streets and hid in the same building where he left Caleb and the body.
But he knew that this place wasn’t safe as everyone could see from the destroyed building that the fight started here.
He took another speck of sleeping powder, sprinkling it over Caleb while taking out two sacks.
He saw them outside lying next to one of the broken carts full of potatoes. So, he dumped the potatoes on the streets and took them away.
Inside those sacks, he put everything he collected, Caleb and the robed man’s body included. It was not for the disguise as everyone going around at this moment would be suspicious. It was more for the sake of convenience as he didn’t have a way to take everything at the same time.
Once he left, he sneaked around using the [Nature Breath Method] to hide himself to a certain extent. He didn’t want to repeat what happened before.
However, from what he heard, Ezekiel knew about his regeneration or rather about his strong life force. That meant he could feel or see it. And with Illyan’s current rate of regeneration, he could guess how strong his life force could be in a town where most people were at the mortal stage.
But Illyan couldn’t hide his life force at all, so it was useless to think about it.
On the other hand, while Aziro felt his gaze back then in the arena, it didn’t feel like he was aware of his life force. He only noticed him when he scanned the area with spiritual perception. Ezekiel didn’t feel that or at least didn’t show anything in his behavior.
Actually, Ezekiel didn’t seem to notice his life force at the beginning at all.
‘Is it some kind of active ability? Or spell? Does Ezekiel count as a Magister too?’ He was already aware that the robed men were an organization of Magisters, but Ezekiel was different.
He was using his body to fight most of the time and even modified it. However, the foundation was his aura and the other tar-like energy that Illyan suspected was mana. He didn’t know if every mana was like that as Aziro’s energy seemed to be also different.
Their use of the energy was also different. One was using abilities that were methodical and simple to use yet lacked certain flexibility while the other one looked like he consciously controlled the energy to move around to do his bidding.
All in all, both of their abilities were different, and Illyan certainly couldn’t predict what their retaliation would look like even after this clash with them.
So, for his sake, he was trying to evade everyone he met along the way. If he couldn’t, then he would strike with one swift blow, killing the patrolling soldiers along the way.
Sometimes, he would hide inside one of the houses along the way since there were many soldiers, and he even heard the barking of dogs.
That made him scared as he feared that they would smell him or other things he had. He could create powder hiding his smell, but he didn’t make it this time. However, his fear was unwarranted, as they didn’t even stop when they were going around his house and just passed.
‘Weren’t dogs supposed to have an acute nose?’ Illyan was confused for a second and wondered if they just didn’t take his smell at the crime scene where he kidnapped Caleb.
‘No, even if they didn’t, they should know the smell of Caleb.’ He saw that Aziro and Caleb had a certain relationship with each other and knew that those dogs were his.
After all, while he was running, he still listened and heard the barking and Ezekiel killing the dogs back then.
‘They probably can’t smell since they are dead.’ This was the only explanation that he thought of. At first, he thought that the undead should have five senses since they could move around and ‘see’. But there was no proof of that. For all he knew, they could just move based on Aziro’s commands.
But this all was to his benefit, so he didn’t complain.
……..
It took him several hours to circle around in the town and make sure no one was observing him. This time, he didn’t dare to hide as casually as he did before and did it properly. Fortunately, it really seemed that Aziro couldn’t feel his life force, and Ezekiel was nowhere to be found either.
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He sneaked into his own house and looked to see if there was something wrong. After looking around for a moment, he didn’t find anything suspicious and immediately ran to the laboratory.
Since the house was on the complete opposite side of the place where the catastrophe took place, it didn’t suffer any damage. After all, his house was in a high-class district while the arena was under the slums. There was no way they would be close to each other.
Once he got inside the laboratory, he didn’t waste time and opened the secret room while dragging the full sacks behind him.
When he entered, he quickly lit the candles that he bought recently to replace the old ones. The place had good ventilation, so Illyan didn’t need to fear anything as he put away the sacks while taking out the still unconscious Caleb.
It looked like the powder that could make even a troll sleep was so strong that even one day wasn’t enough for him to wake up. But that was exactly what Illyan needed right now as he wasn’t prepared for whatever he wanted to do with him…
He put Caleb on a table in the center and strapped all of his limbs.
Of course, the straps were meant for helpless children, so he didn’t depend on them. In the cages, there were still some chains that he took out and tied around him.
Then, he cut his tendons with a knife. After that, he dislocated all the joints in his limbs.
“Grgh…” Caleb, who was like a wooden log the entire time, started to grunt in pain as he was squirming.
Illyan’s brows went up a bit before he sprinkled the sleeping powder again.
Now, after watching Caleb for the entire day, he was sure that he wouldn’t overdose with this much and would be fine once he woke up.
After taking care of this, the only thing on his mind was to inspect the belongings of the robed man. Unfortunately, he couldn’t.
He had to adjust his visage to his original appearance. If someone came to his house and saw him like this, it would be like confessing to doing something suspicious.
The only thing he did was collect a little of the venom that was dripping from the red stinger on the tail in the small vial, knowing the venom would dry out soon.
After that, he took out all the barbs and bolts that were still embedded inside him and put them away for now. Then, he threw away the clothes he was donning and then focused on his regeneration. Especially on his face. Fortunately, the entire day was enough to heal most of his injuries, so now he was just getting rid of all blemishes that could jeopardize his identity.
He also used the whetstone he bought to trim his long nails that were darkened by the dried-out blood.
When he was sure there was nothing wrong with him, he went to wipe off all the sweat and blood on his body with a wet cloth. He would love to take a bath in some river, but there was none in the town, and preparing a bathtub just for this was a waste of time.
After he was done, he took his black robe and arranged his regular hairstyle with the wooden hairpins.
Feeling relaxed that he finished his mission while also surviving yet another fate trial, he sat down on one of his chairs and closed his eyes as he started to meditate. Not for any kind of benefit, but simply to relax both his mind and body.
Time passed, and the sun outside was moving at a rapid pace.
When it was about to reach beyond the horizon, sudden knocks resounded on the doors. He opened his eyes immediately.
‘Did I celebrate too soon?’
His body was taut as he was prepared to fight whoever it was.
“Kaoran?! Are you there?!” A loud voice that sounded familiar to him was heard beyond the doors as the knocking continued.
“Ugh…” Illyan sighed in relief as he stood up and went to open the doors.
“He isn’t there! What are you going to do? Do you think he was in the center of the town when it happened?!”
“Terren, calm down. You knocked literally a few seconds ago-”
The doors creaked as Illyan opened them. In front of him was a group of close friends that looked disturbed.
When they saw his face, their expressions finally brightened.
“Kaoran! You are alright!”
Terren cheered as he went for a hug, which Illyan promptly evaded.
“What’s going on with you?” Illyan asked calmly while still being vigilant. He scrutinized each of them,
trying to find something odd about them. However, seeing their behavior being normal, he loosened his tense shoulders.
He feared that they could find out what happened and be here to confront him or, worse, be doppelgangers sent by Aziro.
While he had never seen a doppelganger and didn’t even know if they existed, the stories of them in his childhood were still vivid even after many years.
“You probably don’t know, but the town is in mayhem! There were explosions everywhere, and many people died. Not to mention, people saw and heard a freaking troll in the distance! I was the closest of the group at that time, so I felt the vibrations and roars too…”
Garan, who was pale as a sheet of paper, explained with a few words what happened.
Nord, who noticed that he didn’t continue, explained more.
“It seems that some kind of underworld skirmishes happened in the slums. That’s what old man Ollie said. They actually had an underground arena there all along doing illegal fights…”
“We wanted to warn you sooner, but everybody was forbidden to leave. We were stuck at the institute while Garan had to stay in the safe room of the Merchant Guild. Else we would visit you sooner.” Cara also said.
“Hmm… I definitely heard a lot of noise, but… Anyway, don’t stay here in the open and come in.” Illyan played ignorant as he invited them into his house for the first time.
“Terren was lucky that he wasn’t summoned as he was just a trainee. He was huddled the entire time in the military camp.” Nord snickered.
“What do you mean, lucky? I became a knight for a reason, you know? What is the point in hiding all the time if you have a sword in your hands?” Terren obviously didn’t agree with him at all and instead felt offended.
“Not a knight yet.” Garan chimed in with a teasing grin.
“Hey!”
‘How lucky indeed.’ However, Illyan’s expression was placid. He knew that a greenhorn like Terren would be just a meat shield. No, he wasn’t even qualified for that.
Seeing that Illyan was alright, they felt relieved, and their worried expressions disappeared. They started to talk about the fight whilst not knowing that one of the perpetrators was next to them.
Time passed as they theorized what happened. Meanwhile, Illyan got up to get some drinks for them.
“By the way, did you make all of this by yourself? Last time, you said that there was no furniture.” Cara, who was already sick of talking about the killing, turned her attention to the silent Illyan, who brought several cups of water for them.
“Yes. It is a little rough, but it is enough for me.” Illyan nodded.
“That’s amazing! How about you make a tour for us?” Terren, who overheard that, turned his head around. He didn’t think too deeply about it until Cara mentioned it.
“Sure, why no-”
Just then, several loud and heavy knocks reverberated through his doors. Illyan furrowed his brows.
“Doctor Kaoran! We find ourselves in dire need of your skills! A skirmish in the town has left many of our soldiers wounded, and the mayor has entrusted me with the task of enlisting your aid.” A voice called out from outside with a sense of urgency emanating from their tone.