Tony's single eye was hovering over Noah's shoulder, as he flipped through the pages of his book. He’d been put under forced bed-rest by the healer, despite his protests that he felt fine. The woman had said he'd essentially come back from the dead. Noah almost wanted to tell her this wasn't the first time.

Without much else to do, Noah had decided to take up reading. But it was Tony who had been most interested in the task. The Abyssal creature obviously could not read, but it could understand what Noah was reading through their summoning bond, and could then correlate that to their respective words and letters.

The process had been slow at first, but given Tony’s ability to perfectly recall everything and Avera’s blessing making Noah read and understand at twice his normal speed, Tony had very quickly ended up memorizing the entire dictionary of words.

Now, the two of them spent their time looking up various stories of the past, information about locations, abilities, skills, paths and so on.

A knock on the door interrupted Noah. Aurelia walked in, Nae tagging along behind her.

“Hey, what brings you two along?” Noah asked, closing his menu. Tony flapped around, circling above Aurelia’s head, before taking a seat on top of her head. For whatever reason, he really liked Aurelia, like every other animal or spirit Noah had ever met.

“The healer told us to let you know that you’re discharged now,” Nae replied, walking across the room as she grabbed a chair for herself and took a seat.

“Wait, really?” Noah asked, feeling surprised. He’d been wondering how long his torture would have to continue.

“They saw you teleporting out at night, and figured there was no point in keeping you here much longer if you could just run away,” Nae said with a frown, and Noah winced at her gaze.

“You’re not in trouble. Well, not for this anyway,” Aurelia said with a smile, taking a seat on Noah’s bed.

“That sounds like I am in trouble then,” Noah replied, glancing at Nae. “I promise I didn’t do anything!”

“Just shut up and let me speak,” Nae said, slapping his leg with a file of documents. “I’m here to basically bring you up to speed on what has been happening ever since you almost died.”

Noah nodded. He had some idea regarding the movements of the cult, but he hadn’t had a proper discussion on the topic just yet.

“Keeping it brief. We killed the Iron Fists, and brought back both you and the cultist chief. Ours was just the first, there were others who had gone on similar missions and had returned with other cultists and traitor parties. Three of them so far, with two that escaped and have been named wanted criminals and are being hunted. The guild spent nearly a week interrogating the prisoners and making sure their information was accurate,” Aurelia said, glancing at Nae to continue.

“The ritual you found was a blood sacrifice. That much is obvious, but this one was more complicated than your usual one. The ritual on its own did not do much, but instead fed into a much larger and complicated spell. But the main problem is the fact that this spell is currently active all over the Melior Republic.”

Noah looked at Nae. “Is that even possible? Putting a spell over an entire kingdom without detection?”

“We certainly didn’t think so,” Nae replied. “But the trick was… both cruel and clever. The spell drains an extremely small amount of life force from people. Most people will not even notice it, as their natural regeneration will cover it. But it is a significant draw upon newborn children, the sick and elderly,” Nae said.

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Noah’s mind went to Irios, the child had been sick with an unknown disease that had somehow cured itself when it met the Wyrm. How many other kids had died because of this? He clenched his fist, trying to settle his rising anger.

“It’s led to many stillbirths, and elderly or sick people dying. We've confirmed thousands of cases so far, with more happening each passing day. The cults are also gathering individuals with strong life force to sacrifice so that they can maintain a chain link to the entire spell, extending its range. It’s all been going on for a while now, right under our noses,” Nae said, her eyes burning with a similar anger.

“Do you know what the purpose of it is?” Noah asked.

Nae glanced at Aurelia once, before turning towards Noah. She whispered words under her breath that made reality seem to ripple. Noah saw letters manifested around Nae, as they went and covered the room, as if sealing it off. A prompt appeared in front of Noah.

[Oath of Secrecy]

Upon agreeing to this oath, you will not be allowed to share this information outside of individuals who share this oath as well.

Do you accept the oath?

Yes/No?

Noah looked at the prompt for a long moment, glancing back at Nae. The woman silently stared at him and Noah accepted the prompt.

“There’s a spell somewhere in Heartilia. We can’t find it. But it’s the center of all this life-force. They’ll try to use it to open a new Abyssal rift.”

Noah stared at Nae blankly. “That sounds bad. But… What’s an Abyssal rift?”

“It’s a tear in reality to the Abyss. Similar to the Astral rift in Windrest, but imagine it being the size of an entire city, and this one would continue to spew voidlings out into the world. It’s a massive calamity to allow one to be opened,” Nae said.

“You remember I mentioned I was from Nyxis?” Aurelia said.

Noah gave her a nod.

“The entire kingdom of Nyxis is what remained after the southern Abyss was closed. The war to close it took nearly a century, and the scar that it left in the world was large enough to harbor an entirely new ecosystem, country and environment. There is no light in Nyxis, the Abyss cuts the depths out, and the deeper you go the greater the mana pulls you in. After a certain point… you become unable to ever return back to the surface.”

Noah looked at Aurelia, trying to imagine a hole large enough to keep a kingdom in. “Okay, so, Abyss bad! Got it. So what do we do now?”

“You? Not much. The guild is sweeping through the entire kingdom, and trying to destroy as many cults as they can find. It’s a long and arduous process. Your party already did its job by bringing us this information. The rewards were also large enough that the governor has decided to forego your sentence, so you’ll get to keep the money you get from quests,” Nae said.

“Okay… so why share all this information with me?” Noah asked, looking at Nae. “I know I am curious and want to know, but that does not seem to be reason enough to share confidential information like this. At least, you don’t seem like someone who would do that.”

“You are correct. The reason I’m telling you all of this is this letter,” Nae said, extending her hand as a letter appeared in her hand. “It’s for you.”

“For me?” Noah asked in surprise, looking at the letter skeptically, before he picked it up.

Staring at the letter in confusion, a moment later he realized the solution, sending a pulse of mana to break the seal. Folding the paper open, Noah began to read.

“Dear Noah Brow. I have heard many tales of your participation in the recent events regarding the Abyssal Cult,” Noah read out loud, before looking up at Nae and Aurelia. Neither gave any reaction and so he continued. “I find your valor commendable and your growth nothing less than astonishing. Both you and your team have been vital in the discovery of this devious plan of the cults, and I would like to officially invite the three of you to my manor in Heartilia.

Please consider this a show of appreciation for all that you’ve done for us by bringing this terrible plan to light. It would please me immensely to be able to entertain brave adventurers such as you in my castle.

Signed by Krios Al Valruant, The Lord of Heartilia.”

Noah folded the letter, looking back up at Nae in confusion. “What is this?”

“Exactly what it looks like,” Nae replied. “Your party has been officially invited by a B ranker, and the Lord of Heartilia himself.”