Things were playing out faster than Veles had anticipated. Direct attacks on their current residence were bound to happen, in fact, he did incite them, just not in a way where that idiotic guy named Basar would lose patience and send his men blindly.

He was keeping eyes on the fool, at least Vera did. And alongside watching, Vera induced a couple of sleepless nights into the guy’s schedule, which was meant to prompt him into taking action, just not in this direct and sudden manner…

Nonetheless, Veles was prepared even for this, his little owl provided him with the information that the third party had reached for Basar and offered him a deal.

What kind of deal? Veles had no idea. The only thing he knew was that the group of twenty suddenly attacking his mansion were joint forces. Their objective was unknown, and he honestly found it rather unusual for someone to be this persistent, there had to be a greater reason for their assault—the reason Veles urgently needed to uncover.

They didn’t hold back at all, the restless barrage against the shield that was formed by the mansion’s ward served as proof of their aggression. And how things stood right now, all protections provided by the wards wouldn’t last long.

As for Veles himself, after checking on the little present he’d prepared for those intruders and telling the enlightened Tora to join others, he teleported two streets down and observed chaos from a safe distance away.

He said that he would join them in a minute, but that was a blatant lie, his goal was something else. Even without him there to provide help, they would be fine, Dalia’s mansion was a couple of minutes away, meaning she was likely running to assist her little sister, and he intended to wait for that exact moment…

So, he waited and observed the situation from afar. Simultaneously, he wondered how funny it was that a clash of this scale went completely ignored in a giant city like Acelia. There was not a single guard in the vicinity, nor were there any signs of panic. Despite this rich neighborhood being less populated and not densely packed, this didn’t make any sense—there were barely any people in close proximity, he just saw two expensive carriages pass him casually, and that was it…

As the minutes passed, Veles saw the counter-attack flying from within the dome, a strong magical slash hit the attacker’s main shield bearer. This was the signal that Dalia had arrived and it was his cue to move.

His Spatial affinity was handy in moments like these, he quickly covered himself with the thin layer of silver mana and vanished from the place, only to appear a considerable distance away, or more accurately, in front of Dalia’s mansion.

It was his first stop, and probably the crucial one.

“Now let’s see,” he quietly murmured. Then let his senses loose…

Ever since he’d visited that dungeon with Davis, he’d suppressed this particular ability of his, but right now, there was no need to hold back.

The mansion he was looking at grew bland, as the world in his eyes lost its color. Everything became a mixture of dark grey and black—everything except the numerous figures shining white as they represented the flames of life.

His focus became many times sharper, as his hearing picked up numerous sounds of beating hearts that drummed louder and louder. He knew everyone inside the mansion was heavily alerted by this, but he didn’t care. His main focus was on a particular target, the one that quite easily revealed themselves.

This specific white figure stood in the basement, at the place where Veles encountered that imp, and where the main ward nodes were placed…

Since his target was found, Veles retreated his ability and slowly walked toward the front door. There were no guards, nor were there any sentries to keep check for the intruders, and his sense had picked four people inside the big mansion. It would seem Dalia had picked every able personnel and rushed outside the moment she heard her sister was attacked, which gave Veles an opportunity for what he was about to do.

After a bit of preparation, he entered the mansion and went straight to the basement. Nobody stopped him nor were the wards repealing his intrusion—Dalia had provided him with a simple jewel that was a free ticket to enter the mansion.

Once he reached down there just beyond the entrance, he saw a maid, staring at him with interest.

“Sir Veles, what are you doing here?” She asked, her voice a clear display of confusion.

“Whoa, I was spot on…” Said Veles as he scanned her up and down while completely disregarding her question.

“Excuse me Sir, but I do not understand what are you talking about.” Maid politely said, her head titled to the side.

“I knew something was bugging me, so there was a rat,” Veles said with a smile, “Have you already disabled the wards?”

But before the maid fully grasped what was going on, Veles dashed forward, his left hand extended as he grabbed her by the throat, while his right held a dagger that was aimed at her tight.

However, before his knife connected, came a surprise…

The agility maid displayed at that exact moment was mind-blowing, the way she wriggled out of his grasp and dodged the blade suggested years of intense training, and the burst of killing intent combined with a deadly look marked her as someone not to be underestimated.

“What’s the meaning of this Sir Veles?” Maid asked, her voice laced with all hostility she could muster. Although, it was pointless to ask anything at the moment.

Again, Veles attacked, this time with four daggers supported by his telekinesis. They flew towards the maid’s limbs. However, just as they neared the target, the maid took action, with superb precision she pulled out what Veles could discern as a rapier from within her long skirt, and knocked away daggers with such ease that it left him impressed.

She appeared to have understood that the conflict was inevitable. She pushed her mana, forcing a neat set of reddish runes to appear hovering above her arms and back. Then with another burst of mana, the runes dug through her clothing and merged with her body, the air around her grew sharper as the faint malevolent red undulations covered her whole.

During her preparation, Veles had already backed away, his body already covered in black fog while ten daggers circled around him. Then, in an attempt to attack, all daggers vanished in a blink of silver. However, as they were supposed to appear around the maid, something unexpected happened, again…

His tactic of cornering his opponents with the wave of blades clearly proved useless against this maid. Even before the daggers appeared, she’d predicted their position and skillfully found a way to dodge to the side. She did it by either disturbing the space where the dagger was about to appear using her rapier or by swiftly positioning her body where daggers would only graze her. Somehow, she knew that he couldn’t change the trajectory of the daggers with his telekinesis this far away, and skillfully acted on it.

“Impressive…” Veles praised. His voice carried genuine surprise. This maid was the first person who could be considered a serious opponent, which came as a great surprise considering she was the Fourth Stage, the same as him.

But… Unfortunately for her, Veles never intended to have a serious fight.

He took a ceramic vial from his ring, opened it, and poured half of its contents onto his left hand, the other half he drowned with urgency.

After every single drop of the vial’s bitter content poured down his throat, he put the vial back in the ring and looked at the shocked maid. “It kicks faster than expected…”

Her free hand clutched her throat—at the same place he held her—while the other holding the rapier slowly lost its strength, not long after followed by her legs that buckled under her weight.

Her words as she fell down head first were “Coward..”, to which Veles just shrugged casually.

“I never play fair, if I did, I wouldn’t have survived for this long,” Veles simply stated. He already stood above her unmoving body, grabbed the back of her uniform, and dragged her to a specific part of the basement.

“You can’t even speak, huh?” Veles commented as kept dragging her. “Vicious creatures those snakes are… I never tested their venom on humans but it looks like the results are more vicious than I expected.”

He reached his destination, the corner where all the tools for ‘extracting information’ were placed. What was creepy about it was how orderly everything here was, whoever Dalia hired for this job, certainly liked working here…

He quickly scanned the surroundings, until he found the chair he looked for. It was the right tool for what he was about to do. So, he took the maid and started strapping her to its metallic frame, while doing so, he kept talking…

“I must say, that specific species of snake was a novelty even to me,” he said. The maid looked like she couldn’t hear him, which simply wasn’t true. “I can still remember when my little Vera brought one to me, she was terrified!”

When the maid was firmly bound to the chair, he took a long needle from his ring and another ceramic vial.

“Apparently, this snake is a true sadist! It just loves the taste of meat filled with adrenalin and cortisol as its venom makes its victims powerless yet aware of everything that’s happening. What’s more, they don’t need to bite a person to affect them, they are smart enough to smear their venom on various berries, knowing their prey would eat them. Terrifying wouldn’t you agree?”

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Veles took the needle and aimed it at the maid’s abdomen, or more accurately, at her mana core. Without showing her any mercy, the needle reached her core but did not puncture it. Instead, Veles poured a good chunk of his black mana through the needle. It touched the core, then vaporized the maid’s mana like it was never there.

After he’d ensured she wouldn’t pose him any more threat, Veles fed her the antidote from the vail and took a step back.

While waiting for the antidote to kick it, Veles commented while lightly tapping his chin, “I just love it when my deductions are on point.”

He then looked at the surroundings, the basement of Dalia’s mansion was separated into six sections, each with a different purpose. The use for this one was clear, but where he found the maid luring around was the ward control room. Luckily, she didn’t accomplish whatever she was doing, considering that he’d tried to use his teleportation but failed.

While he was lost in thought as to how to proceed with all of this, the maid started twitching, giving him the cue that the antidote worked. However, he doubted she would be entirely fine, considering that her mana was depleted, he would need to supply her with some, to make sure she didn’t pass out.

“Let’s talk,” Veles calmly said after giving the maid enough time to calm herself down.

“Talk?” She snickered while looking at the straps that bound her to the chair. Her demeanor was completely different than before, “Is torturing called talking these days?”

“Oh, my,” Veles exclaimed, “You are misunderstanding something. I mean, sure the atmosphere gives the vibe of ongoing torture but I can assure you that I’m someone who despises shedding unnecessary blood to gain some information. I’m firmly against such acts of barbarism!”

She snorted and stared at him blankly. Her bravery was commendable as she showed her resolution to face whatever came her way.

“But you see,” He neared and leaned forward to match her gaze “I don’t torture people because I’m far beyond that.”

He then gently tapped the side of her head with his index finger.

“Everything comes from the mind, and as you already know. I’m a psychic.”

“So, then what? You are going to read my mind?” She asked, the same confident tone coloring her voice.

“You don’t get it.” Veles sighed in disappointment. “You will tell me everything I need to know, willingly.”

“I will, huh? Why don’t you start with your tricks then? What’s stopping you?” The maid asked, still the same smile plastered on her face.

“Hm, interesting... Is the thing that’s looking through your eyes giving you all this confidence?” Veles remarked.

As she heard his words, the smile on her face took a minuscule change, telling Veles that his words were on point.

“What?” She asked in disbelief. Was that question supposed to suggest that she had no idea what he was talking about, or was it pure denial, Veles had no idea, nor did he care.

“You see. there were two murderous intents coming from you. That means you either have a dual personality or you are a Warlock. Or perhaps a certain type of spell is engraved in you, allowing someone else to use you as a puppet. Who knows, can be practically anything.” Veles said, then placed his palm on top of her head.

“But that doesn’t matter, trust me when I say that nothing will help you with what I’m about to do.” He then grabbed her by the hair and forced her to look him in the eyes, “What I’m about to perform is not something I’m fond of. So, let me advise you that it’s better for both of us if you tell me everything that I need to know.”

Unfortunately, her gaze was unflinching, not that he’d expected simple words to work anyway…

“Very well…” He sighed disappointedly.

His silver eyes matched those defying brown eyes of the maid as he forced a copious amount of mana to stir the core inside his mind. He was never thrilled about this specific ability of his, his psychic powers were always tricky to use and often carried consequences with them.

For example, the reason why he refused to read the minds of others was because there was not a very efficient way to filter what he was taking. If he extracted an hour of a certain memory, he would get everything from it, be it happiness, love, pain, anxiety, or boredom, everything would be engraved in his mind alongside the visuals of that period. It was a damaging ability that greatly affected his psyche, sometimes even distorting his view of the world—which was a wound proven hard to heal.

However, what he was doing to the maid was the total opposite, he forced various experiences and feelings he’d accumulated directly into her mind and slightly amplified them. She would recall everything he’d fed her and believe every second of it—what he was doing was similar to what he did to Davis, Olgled, and Melinda when they barged inside his prison.

The eye contact with the maid had an immediate effect. Veles saw her eyes turning bloodshot as her hands began trashing against the restraints, then in a full attempt to break eye contact, she swung her head backward and stared at the ceiling, all the while her screams echoed throughout the empty basement…

After a couple of seconds, she calmed down, her chest rising up and down in heavy breaths. Then she gritted her teeth and then mumbled through them. “It hurts!”

“Indeed, it did,” Veles agreed with her. He crossed his hands and straightened himself up.

The place he showed her was a swamp that gave him nightmares in his early days. While he was still a fledgling, this place truly tested him. Like it was yesterday he could still recall how the toxic fumes burned his lungs and how insects feasted on his body. But like everything in his life, he overcame it and unfortunately for the maid, this was just the beginning…

He again grabbed her by the hair and made eye contact.

“Tell me when you are ready to talk,” He calmly said. Then again, he hit her with another one…

***

Surprisingly, the maid lasted a little more than five minutes. Nonetheless, the bombardment of realistic experiences did a number on her. She looked miserable. Her previous tidy appearance was entirely messed up. All the trashing in the chair had ruined her clothing while the snot and tears mixing with the little makeup made her look like she’d gone through hell. At some point, even tears of blood started flowing down her face, until finally, she gave up.

“Let’s begin again,” Veles said, “What were you doing in the basement?”

She glanced at him, then in all fright, moved her head to the side, not daring to match his gaze. During Veles’s psychic onslaught, she appeared to have figured out that what he was transmitting to her was experiences he himself went through. This, combined with his calmness during her screaming sessions, seemed to have been the final straw that made her break.

After a heavy breath, she replied, her voice hoarse from all the screaming, “I was tasked to disable the wards and protective golems and allow a small team to destroy this place.”

Veles then crouched in front of her chair and stared at her face, which made her quiver. “Okay, now tell me. Were you the one who summed that imp a few days ago?”

She paused slightly, probably surprised by his question.

“I did,” she replied. Her head turned to the side, doing her best to avoid his gaze.

As to why Veles asked this question was simple; ever since the encounter with that imp, he knew something was amiss. Sure, it made sense that the maid who got eaten at the time was a culprit, it could be brushed off as a careless mistake, but Veles knew better. No matter if it was an imp, the lowest of demons, they would not, in any circumstances, bite the hand that fed them—at least not immediately.

And, first of all, it made no sense for someone to create an artifact for summoning demons without having a leash on them, no matter how inexperienced a person who used the artifact was, there should be some kind of safety. So, this made Veles suspicious that somebody else had summed the disgusting creature and used the poor girl as a scapegoat…

With his theory proved right, Veles asked another crucial question, “Did you report to whoever you are working for that I have those artifacts to summon imps?”

“Yes,”

“Hmm, more trouble then…” Veles commented, then went for the next question. “Tell me why are people behind you so fixated on going after Dalia, what’s in it for them?”

He deliberately avoided the questions that would force the maid to reveal the names of people or organizations. The reason was that whatever shared the maid’s eyes was long gone, it seemed to have experienced a similar sensation as she did, thus choosing to forgo the connection. This could also mean a mechanism to prevent information leakage was in place, waiting to blow her brains out if a wrong word was said, because as far as he could tell, it wasn’t a remote thing.

“It’s not just about her. It’s about the whole Argusa family, they want to gather and capture as much of them as possible. As to why, I don’t know.” The maid replied, her head still hanging low to the side.

“What was your job in all this?” Veles asked.

“To observe and report, and occasionally to cause an inner chaos or confusion.”

Veles rubbed his chin, then decided to ask some other detail, “Tell me for how long were you serving as Dalia’s maid?”

“Seven years.” She replied.

“That’s some dedication,” The number was oddly specific though, he remembered something similar. “You worked with the outsiders from the beginning?”

She gave him a weak nod, “They’ve reached me for the purpose of joining as Dalia’s helper. Even then as a dungeon diver, I wa-”

“I don’t care about your background,” Veles coldly interrupted her.

He’d connected a few dots and he didn’t like it at all.

“Start talking about the group behind you and make sure to keep it as roundabout as possible.” Since he didn’t think there was anything else she could tell him, he decided to test if she truly had some mechanism to stop her from talking, if she did, might as well test its limit.

After letting out a sigh that sounded like the ‘I give up’, she said, “The only thing I know is that they are a group of influential figures from various nations working in tandem. That’s all. I had no contact with anyone except the one person who gave me missions and received my reports.”

“Hmm, then what about the thing watching through your eyes? Do you know something about that?”

She bitterly nodded, “Four months ago I received a ‘supervisor’, they consider it a form of promotion. The tracking and assisting spells were engraved under the skin of my skull to provide help with my duties, or so they say…”

“Oh, I guess that was the moment you knew you were done for?”

She again nodded, appearing to have given up long ago, “Anything else?”

“There are a couple of things…”

For the next couple of minutes, he took out every single piece of information he could from her. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t much. She was, after all, just a simple worker. Veles even doubted that the information about the group behind all of this was so secretive, if he asked the right people, he could probably learn a lot more.

Nonetheless, he got what he wanted and possibly prevented the destruction of Dalia’s mansion. His landlady might lower his rent because of that.

The piece of information he considered crucial was that everything started seven years ago, the maid clearly said that it was a time when she was assigned to spy as Dalia’s maid, which matched the time Tora had said that the Basar started bothering her.

Was all that a coincidence? Veles didn’t think so. He could still remember how the moment they arrived at Acelia City, Basar had ‘coincidentally’ stumbled upon them. It was clear right there that somebody was keeping tabs on Tora…

Speaking of Tora. He still lamented the day he decided to join that carriage. Back then, she appeared to be a perfect ticket for him and Davis to integrate themselves into society. She looked like an adventurous alchemist girl with a strong backing, easy for him to butter up and use to get some footing.

But what he got was a trouble following weirdo.

Yesterday, he was debating with himself if she should grab Davis and disappear. It would’ve been far better to follow his original plan to find a remote place around this city and take things slowly. However, he felt it was too late to do so, he was too entangled with this mess to leave it all behind. And even if he did, he would’ve to watch over his shoulder all the time. In the end, the best decision he could make was to face everything head-on.

Which he was doing right now, having left Dalia’s mansion, he headed to check on the battle that was occurring.

As for the fate of the maid, he’d left her there stuck to the chair, there was no need to kill her, she was too broken to do anything, and it was on Dalia to deal with the betrayal of her own personnel.

Just as he was about to take a corner, he noticed that the sound of battle wasn’t there. It was strange, to his knowledge, the exchange involving a lot of magic usually lasted longer. However, instead of checking and possibly getting an earful because he’d missed a battle, Veles decided to go for his next target. Hopefully, this time, he would get to the bottom of what was going on here…