“There’s a secret inheritance here!”

Drake paused. His bloodlust disappeared and he looked at them curiously, indicating for him to continue.

The dark mage sighed. “There’s actually a secret inheritance here that isn’t located within any ruin or building but is in the middle of the plains itself. We found out about it when we were researching this inheritance. That’s when we discovered this map.” The dark mage reached into his storage pouch and pulled out a scroll. He unravelled it to the size of an A3 paper, revealing detailed drawings of a landscape.

The drawing was remarkably similar to the inheritance grounds. One edge of it contained a black circle, and there were numerous dots spread around it in a semi-circle, which Drake imagined would be the various village ruins. Key locations like the herb garden were marked with a separate colour.

‘It’s probably not extremely accurate though,’ he thought. Despite their resources, there was no way for the Hidden Venom Cult to get a detailed map of the exact locations of all village ruins in the entire inheritance grounds before it even opened.

What caught Drake’s eyes was a particular point on the map which was marked with a distinctive ‘X’.

“There!” the dark mage explained, pointing to the ‘X’. “That’s the location of the secret inheritance. All of us dark mages were instructed to meet there. It’s not too far from here. If you two go, you will be able to make it very soon!”

Drake grabbed the map from the dark mage and studied it, before passing it to Sylvia.

‘It seems he’s telling the truth,’ thought Drake. There’s no way they’d be carrying a fake map of the inheritance grounds around to trick them is there? It was worth checking out anyway. And if there was no secret inheritance there, they could always just leave, regroup with the others, and continue moving forward.

Thinking so, Drake sheathed his sword and smiled lightly. “Very well, in that case, thank you for answering my questions and sharing this information with us.”

The dark mages beamed with joy and smiled at each other. “Then, are you actually letting us go now?”

Drake smirked. “When did I say I’ll let you go?’

The dark mages gasped. “You! You promised!”

“What I promised, was that I wouldn’t kill you, but…” Drake stepped to the side, revealing Sylvia, “I never said she won’t.”

The dark mages felt like someone had poured a bucket of cold water over their heads and brought them back from a dream.

Sylvia looked at Drake surprised before breaking into a grin.

‘Maybe I’ll like this new Drake,’ she thought to herself. She smiled and happily equipped two arrows into her bow.

“No! No! Wait!” the dark mages began begging them.

“Please! I beg you!”

“I’ll do anything! I’ll switch to your side!”

“I’ll become your servant forever. Pleas- ahh!”

They were both silenced by an arrow that shot cleanly through their throats. The dark mages gasped and choked as blood spewed out. Life quickly faded from their eyes and they fell limply to the floor.

Drake watched their bodies fall and add to the pair of corpses on the ground.

Seeing them die almost felt soothing to Drake. He didn’t feel like he had done something wrong. In fact, he felt like he had done something right.

A red-haired woman appeared in his mind.

‘Does this… help you rest?’ Drake wondered. He wasn’t sure, but he certainly felt better knowing that at least some of the people responsible, not only for the death of his friend but also for the destruction of his entire village, were now gone from this world.

Drake recollected seeing his image from the mirror world, or rather, his fear. According to whatever magic was behind the mirror maze anyway, Drake’s fear was that he’d become a cold, ruthless, uncaring monster if he gave up his old way of life.

But he wasn’t sure if that was true anymore.

He had just killed four people, but he didn’t feel like a monster. Sure, he had nothing but apathy towards their deaths. There was no guilt or remorse in his heart, and, if he was given the same choice once more, he knew that he’d do the same thing again.

‘Is that normal? Does that make me evil?’ Drake wondered.

Even back on Earth, killing was accepted under specific circumstances, like in cases of self-defence if you had no other choice, or on the battlefield during a righteous war. Hell, it was praised! Soldiers who killed many people were hailed as veterans and given honours and respect in society. ‘Why is that? Were they also not killing people?’

Of course, Drake knew the answer to that, everyone did. That’s because when you were on the battlefield, you were fighting for something greater. You were not fighting to kill people in cold blood, but rather, to defend – to defend your country, your people and their freedoms, your values, culture, history, and your way of life. When someone tried to take those things away from you, then it was acceptable to fight them to the death. For those were things which people valued over their own life, and the lives of anyone trying to take them away.

‘In that case, there are things more valuable than a human life? What are all the things more valuable than life? Who decides what’s more valuable and what isn’t?’

‘Or rather, what is the value of a life?’

Drake wasn’t sure. He had never had to think about these questions before. But he did know one thing.

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He didn’t feel like a monster.

Although his qualms about killing were now gone, not much else about who he was had changed. He still cared about his friends and the people around him, and he wanted to help and protect them as much as possible for him.

In fact, now, he felt that more strongly than ever before!

Whereas before, he never wanted to kill anyone, now he was sure of one thing.

If anyone crossed his path, if anyone tried to hurt him or anyone that he cared about, he would not think twice about putting them out of their misery.

Drake gathered his thoughts and took a deep breath. He slowly exhaled and opened his eyes.

Standing in front of him was Sylvia who collected the dark mages’ storage pouches. She chucked two of the pouches towards Drake and kept two for herself. After Drake caught and put them away, she spoke softly.

“Let’s go find this secret inheritance.”

…

The blazing hot sun was covered by a veil of dust. Harsh winds blew the dust around the inheritance grounds, forming a gigantic dust storm covering the entire landscape. Despite this, the sun’s rays managed to penetrate through the storm and land on a duo.

A young man with red hair and a woman dressed in purple were inside a village ruin. They were standing in front of a building with a locked door. On the side was a metallic plate in which the following words were inscribed:

“A silent scream across the sky,

A fleeting spark, a blinding eye.

Born in darkness, swift and bright,

It vanishes, as quick as light.”

“Lightning! The answer is lightning!” gasped Farisa. However, nothing happened.

“Maybe it’s something else?” Blaze wondered out loud.

However, Farisa had a different idea. She took out a dagger artifact and poured mana into it. Immediately, it began buzzing with lightning.

She then took the lightning dagger and dragged it across the door, its handle, and then its lock. The moment lightning touched the lock, it began to glow. Loud, metallic clangs echoed across the village as the door creaked open.

‘This is it!’ Farisa rejoiced. However, that joy didn’t last.

Once the door opened, the two were not met with a treasure chest. Rather, they saw a large box lying alone in the middle of an empty room. Walking up to it, they noticed the box contained some strange mechanism.

‘Another puzzle!?’ Farisa sighed.

…

Meanwhile, in another location.

A young man dressed in black and white leather armour with swords strapped on either side of his waist, was standing in front of a black vortex which was located close to the village gates. He was emitting peak steel body cultivation and late stage warrior mage cultivation aura. Next to him stood a man dressed in white emitting early stage steel body and warrior mage cultivation aura.

They were naturally Corvus Fang and Alistair Lockwood of the Myriad Sword Palace.

Standing around them were three lone cultivators, two steel body martial artists and one warrior mage.

The vortex began glowing with a dark light, and something began rising from it. However, the party’s attention was not on the vortex, but at a point in the distance.

A figure was slowly walking towards them. Wearing a dark robe, its appearance was in direct contrast to the bright daylight. Following closely, a red-haired young man dressed in dark red leather armour with a light red overcoat, wielding a sword in one hand and the other wrapped in chains, appeared next. However, his armour had a medium-sized hole just under his chest. Behind him, three more figures wearing dark hooded robes appeared shoulder to shoulder in a straight line and walked forward.

The moment they appeared, Corvus and the others became wary.

‘Dark mages!’

Corvus unsheathed his swords and faced the dark mages warily. He first noticed the red-haired young man who exuded a dangerous aura.

‘He’s strong,’ thought Corvus. However, his attention was caught by the figure in the front. No matter what he did, he couldn’t detect any aura from him. ‘Is he using some artifact to hide his strength?’ Corvus wasn’t sure, but he got a bad feeling from this group.

At this moment, a two-headed axe, and a bronze goblet finished rising from the black vortex, each radiating the aura of a rank three artifact. However, no one moved to take it, causing them to fall to the floor.

“Well, well, well,” said the figure in the front. It reached for the sides of its hood and pulled it back, revealing the face of a man in his late twenties. “What do we have here? The first and fifth ranked disciples of the Myriad Sword Palace?” He ignored mentioning the lone cultivators as if they were nothing, causing them to become annoyed. However, they chose to control their anger and not make a move.

‘How does he know about us?’ thought Corvus, and then asked a question of his own.

“Yeah, and who might you be?”

“No one important,” the dark grand mage chuckled. “Just hand over the treasures and we can go our separate ways.”

“Ha! You’re funny,” Corvus laughed.

The dark grand mage smiled. Dust behind the village gates shifted, and a rank two vulture spirit flew forward and floated above him.

‘Hmph! Is that all yo-’ before Corvus could finish his train of thought, he froze.

The dust shifted once more and this time, five rank two vulture spirits flew out, followed by another five, and another! They kept flying forward in groups of five till over sixty, rank two vulture spirits floated above the dark grand mage.

Just when Corvus thought that would be the worst of it, the dust suddenly shifted once again. The disturbance this time was far more than when the vultures appeared.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The group felt the ground vibrate as loud thuds echoed through the air. Then, the village gates broke and flew open as a massive figure entered from the outside.

A large rhino beetle, the size of a double-decker bus, penetrated through the dust storm on the outside and entered. The first thing they saw was its massive black horn, followed by its huge head and legs. Then, its body appeared, protected by a large, thick, purple shell covered in black spots.

The rhino beetle walked through the gates and stood behind the dark mage. Soon, two more, equally massive rhino beetles also appeared and stood on either side of the first. After they all stood in their spots, they each emitted the aura of a powerful, rank three spirit.

Corvus and the others watched this, open-mouthed. Seeing their shock made the dark grand mage smile even more.

“Am I still funny?”

While Corvus Fang and his party began to face off against the dark grand mage and his subordinates, other cultivators were slowly getting closer to the black structure as well.

Some distance away from Blaze and Farisa, and where the dark mages were fighting Corvus’s group, a group of three finished clearing a village and jumped out just as it collapsed. A boy with emerald hair and ocean-blue eyes, along with a young man and woman were revealed. They discussed something for a few minutes before dashing off into the distance.

Zooming out, the Blackthorne family, Ironheart family, Silver Crane Sect, and various lone cultivators were also clearing numerous inheritances while making their way towards the black structure.

While everyone was busy trying to find new village ruins and collect the inheritances, two peculiar individuals were running through the plains, seemingly uninterested in any of it. After running for almost half an hour, Drake and Sylvia came to a stop in a location not too far away from where the dark mages had started fighting Corvus and the others.

“It’s supposed to be here,” said Drake, confused. Looking at the map, the ‘X’ was unmistakably marking their current location, however, there was nothing here. Wherever he turned, all he could see was nothing but the same, empty plains.

“Hm…” Sylvia furrowed her brows and thought deeply. She closed her eyes and focused on her pixie spirits which scouted the surroundings. A few seconds later, she opened her eyes.

“Wait a minute!”

Sylvia walked diagonally at a brisk pace. Drake followed, curious about what she had figured out. She raised her hand and hesitated, but then lowered it back. Then, she closed her eyes again, and, after a few seconds, opened them. This time, her confusion was gone.

Taking a deep breath, Sylvia raised her hand and used her index finger to gently touch a particular point in the air before her.

Immediately, the air changed. Waves of vibrations suddenly appeared and flowed horizontally across the air in front of them.

Drake and Sylvia stepped back, marvelling at this sight. The waves of vibrations continued flowing and forming a large rectangle.

As they flowed, the air transformed and a huge gate slowly began appearing with loud echoes.