A few days later, we were traversing through the mountains of a close nation. I decided not to take long on the Emperor’s request, and so, as soon as Duchess Flameheart got us the Magic Battery, we set out to find the first Followers of Leyfall base.

This one wasn’t as easy to find, since it was so close to the Empire and the Emperor himself had been trying to send knights on a mission to deal with them, but there were a few bases that were too far away from his territory and would pose a problem if he sent an army into another nation.

He claimed that most of the neighboring nations tried to accommodate his requests, but there were times where they just took far too long to act—suspiciously long. So right now, I was going there to deal with this myself.

“You should be approaching soon. Just beyond those woods and you’ll come across the base,” Salrak’s voice sounded in my ears.

I was wearing a couple of ‘earphones’ inside my ears. At first I was quite uncomfortable wearing these things, but after a while, I got used to it. Though, it was strange to hear that voice so close, so much so, that I felt that it was coming out of my head directly.

As for how Salrak was talking to me, the Magic Battery that they gave us was not too different from a phone, only being much thicker than one. At the time, what was given to us was an empty battery, which was perfect to fill with Darkness Power. Once it was connected to the phone, Salrak was able to immediately start talking, without even having me accept the call.

We approached the other side of the woods that Salrak pointed out, and I turned to look behind at the couple of people that came with me.

First was Nicole. She was wearing the same ‘Phoenix Dress’ that she usually wears. It was mostly black, so it was good enough for the darkness of the night; as long as she didn’t turn it on with her magic. She also had a camera strapped on her shoulder for Salrak to see, some earphones as well, and a black hood that obscured her face, but I could see an expression of extreme anxiety, with her eyes open wide and looking everywhere in the forest. Despite that, however, she had been able to easily keep up with me.

As for the other person, it was James. He was wearing a completely dark armor. It was just like the kind of ‘High-Tech armors’ that I would see from time to time in what people called futuristic movies. This one was supposed to be a creation just like the Magic Battery, where the people of both worlds got together to create something that carried magic and technology.

Besides the armor, he carried a spear on his hand that was just as black as everything else. As for his face and head, it was also covered by an armored helmet that wouldn’t allow me to see his expression, but he could clearly see mine.

“What is it?” he whispered, “We’re already here, so let's get this done.”

I shifted my eyes to Nicole. “What about you? Are you ready?”

“A-as ready as I’ll ever be, hehe…” she whispered with a forced smile.

With a nod, I turned to look beyond the woods. Just like the path we took here, it was all mostly dark, but the scent of salt in the air, the breeze that we could feel coming this way, and the noise of waves crashing with rocks was all I needed to know that we had reached the ocean.

There was only one thing that could be seen, and it was a large house by the edge of a cliff that overlooked the ocean. There were a few lights turned on that could be seen from where we were, but we couldn’t see the entrance of the place as we were just looking at the side to a tall wall that had a few wires running on top of it.

“Electrified,” Salrak said. “But such a feeble thing shouldn’t be a problem for any of you.”

“Can you see inside the place?” James asked, turning his head from one side to another.

“I can, but there’s hardly anything for me to see. There’s not a lot of cameras, besides the ones at the entrance and the handful of others there are inside. But as for where the important people should be, I can only see their phones, and sadly, most of them have them in their pockets,” Salrak replied.

“Then we’ll just burst through with pure force,” James said as he placed the spear on his shoulder.

I turned to look at him. “We won’t be killing everyone in there.”

“Why not? They’re all kidnappers, torturers, and murderers. I don’t see a reason to show them any mercy,” he said with a shrug.

I couldn’t help a frown from creeping on my face as I shook my head. “We can’t do that. There might be innocent people that we might harm if we do it like that…”

“Come on…! How innocent can anyone in there be when they’re complicit with such heinous acts of evil?” James replied, taking hold of the spear properly once more as his head turned to look at the building. “We’re doing the world a favor.”

“Why are you so dead set on killing everyone in there? Is that something that the Holy Knights taught you or something?” Nicole asked, placing a hand on her hips.

James scoffed. “No way. A lot of those crazy people would rather ditch Leyfall and join these cults—No, I just think that if you go around kidnapping innocent people, and causing suffering for your own benefits or whatever, then you should be dealt with permanently. The world doesn’t need to waste resources keeping people like this around.”

“Huh…” was all I replied.

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I had the same worry as Nicole regarding James’ aggressiveness, but it seems like it doesn’t come from the Holy Gods… which I’m not sure if it’s better or worse… but as long as he doesn’t go around killing everyone he doesn’t like, then I can put up with it.

“We’re going to go with what Salrak says regarding the people inside. We’ll identify them and then deal with them accordingly, understood?” I said with a serious look at James.

He wasn’t looking at me, but after a moment, he just sighed and nodded his head. “Alright… you’re the Hero of the Holy Gods here…”

I kept my eyes on him for a moment longer, but we couldn’t waste any more time just arguing, so I turned my attention back to the base.

It looked not too different from a large manor, with a few floors high, and white walls. According to the information that Salrak showed us, the place was supposed to be some sort of exclusive vacation house for wealthy people, but the reality was that it was just a front for Followers of Leyfall operations.

I tilted my head to the side. “Is it safe for us to simply jump over the wall?”

“You don’t need to lean into the microphone to speak with me,” Salrak said. “But, as far as I know, there aren’t any magical barriers or defenses in place, so you should be able to get across without causing any commotion—as long as there aren’t any patrols on the other side, that is.”

“Okay. I’ll go first,” James said, and without waiting for me to give him the go ahead, he took a quick jump over the wall.

“Let's go, quickly,” I said to Nicole, who nodded and moved with me.

But as soon as we jumped over the wall, I heard James’ acting on the other side. He had his spear placed on the back of the neck of a man who was dressed in a white armored suit. I worried that perhaps he was going to kill him, but he was just looking this way.

“Well?” he asked, the spear threatening to pierce the man, who just grunted but refused to struggle.

“Let me have a look,” Salrak said.

Immediately, James slapped the man on the side, and the body tossed to be closer to us, with the man’s face landing in front of me. I leaned in closer so Salrak could have a better look from the camera I had strapped on my shoulder.

“He’s clean. Nothing but a security guard who found a job in this place. He’s done nothing but from odd job to odd job most of his life and—”

“Tch,” James interrupted Salrak, who appeared to want to go on a full report of the man. “Just knock him out then.”

With a flick of my finger, a dart of darkness flew into the man’s head, causing his eyes to go just as black, and his body to stop moving. He was going to be out cold for a while; at least until morning.

“Man, that spell is terrifying,” James said, moving over to look at the general place we had landed.

“I can always teach it to you,” I said, as I also moved to take in my surroundings.

We were behind another building that wasn’t quite as tall as the one we were supposed to go into. This one was just one floor, and wasn’t quite as wide. It was likely some sort of storage or something like that, but it proved to be good enough for cover.

“Nah, I don’t need it. Though, if people were to learn that thing, it’d be so easy to kidnap people, or worse,” he said and moved over to the edge of the wall of the building. “Nevermind that. We should do what we came here to do.”

“Can you see something, Salrak?” I asked, peeking slightly over the edge of the building.

“There’s a security camera in the way that you’re looking,” he said, humming for a moment. “I’ve taken control of them so they’re going to show nothing now. As for people, there’s only five of them patrolling the zone, including the one you just took out.”

“Are they assholes? Or should we just let them be like the last one?” James asked, quietly moving to the other side to have a look from there. “I see a couple of them standing by the entrance of that manor.”

“Most of them are no different from the one sleeping… save for… the one standing on the left side of the door you’re looking at.”

“My left side or their left side?” James asked.

“Yours,” Salrak responded. “That man killed a couple of goblin families at the nearest town, which is why there aren’t that many Tenebreians living there anymore.”

“I see…” James said with a raspy tone. “Althea, you take out the guys that you see on that side, and I’ll handle these guys.”

“What about me?” Nicole whispered, standing right behind me.

“You’ll be on the lookout for anything strange,” I said, and with a nod towards James, I turned and readied myself to go after the couple of men working by the large gates that led outside.

“Okay then…” James whispered, and I felt a gathering of magic on his side. An empowering holy spell. “Go!”

As soon as he said that, he rushed towards the door of the large building, while I burst ahead on my side to the gates of this estate. In less than the blink of an eye, I was already standing right behind the couple of men working there, and with a swift swipe of my hand, a wave of darkness washed over them, causing them to drop down to the floor unconscious. I turned to look at how it had gone with James and saw that one of them was being pinned down by James with his hand on the man’s mouth, while the other one had his head missing, with a large pool of blood already forming under him.

I quickly made my way there, and Nicole followed soon after. James turned his eyes on me and gestured with his head to the man under him. I used the same dark spell from before and knocked out the man as I frowned while looking at the headless body.

“Did you get the right one?”

James stood up from the now passed out man and looked at the headless body. “Did I?”

“Yes.” Salrak said. “You should move. It won’t be long before the ones inside realize that something’s wrong.”

Nicole appeared soon after, and held her mouth when she saw the dead one. I feared that she might not be able to withstand seeing such a thing, but she quickly acted by creating a bright fiery beam from her finger, igniting the body and turning it to ashes in an instant.

“Phew, I nearly puked there…” she whispered, then turning a glare to James. “Why did you leave such a mess?”

James remained quiet as he looked at the ashes on the floor, nodding his head after a couple of seconds. “You’re right. I should evaporate them as well.”

I was surprised to see him agree with Nicole, almost as much as I was to see her deal with this death so easily, but right now wasn’t the moment to be pondering those things, so I walked past them to place a hand on the door. I closed my eyes and tried to get a sense of magic inside the building. There were a few magic signals, all of them spread across the building, but the most important one was at a lower level, where I could feel something blocking magic.

“What should we do about the ones inside?” I asked, opening my eyes and looking at the door.

“The ones inside are mostly people who have killed to get here; at least the ones that I can see. There’s only a couple of them that have yet to do anything particularly wrong to another being, but I’ll point them out when you’re close to them. As for the ones that are closer to you on the first and second floor, you’re free to do as you see fit,” Salrak replied.

James quietly chuckled, reading his spear as he pointed it to the door. “Then, let us not waste any time!”

He charged the tip of the spear with Holy Magic, and a second later, a wave of holy magic burst forward, blowing away the door and sending splinters of it everywhere. Inside, the few people reacted by jumping from their spots and turning a surprised look this way. Without a word, James burst inside and split in half the first man that was standing close to the door, then took a couple of steps forward as he pointed the weapon to the other ones that were already taking out their guns and weapons.

“Get ready to die, assholes!”