After leaving those four words, Lucian didn't waste any time. He retrieved two items from the Fire Wolf's remains that were still intact despite being affected by divine arts, heretical arts, and other supernatural forces.
One was a dark red bracelet, seemingly woven from fine crimson grass, emitting a faint flame-like glow. Although it looked like an ordinary, low-quality piece of jewelry, the moment Lucian probed it with his spiritual power, he could feel illusory flames burning fiercely within—flames that contained terrifying destructive power and appeared to form several complex spell models combined in ingenious ways.
The other item was an iron-black dagger, sharp and ice-cold.
"This bracelet feels even stronger than my 'Ice Avenger'—at least a second-level high-grade magic item." Lucian stored the dark red bracelet and the other two items inside his magic robes, turned and trailed an afterimage as he circled through the black forest, running toward the opposite bank of the Marsol River.
Although there were still many corpses within five hundred meters of the Guardian's cabin—corpses that likely still bore some divine arts, arcane magic, and heretical arts items—Lucian really couldn't afford to delay. At this moment, greed was tantamount to seeking death. Besides, those divine arts and heretical arts items might still carry tracking seals; picking them up would only bring trouble upon himself.
After crossing the Marsol River and entering the black forest on the opposite bank, he ran for a long while. Only when he was thoroughly swallowed by the darkness did Lucian finally stop, recovering his not-yet-fully-healed injuries and replenishing his depleted stamina.
Then Lucian used his spiritual power to forcibly probe into the "dark red bracelet," "flail," and "iron-black dagger," leveraging the backlash of their supernatural power to imprint their internal structural models into the Library of the Soul, intending to analyze them slowly upon his return.
After finishing this, Lucian used the positions of the stars and the silver moon to determine his ground coordinates. He buried the "flail" and "fragments" near a distinctive black spruce tree, then walked a considerable distance before finding a large boulder and hiding both the "dark red bracelet" and the "iron-black dagger" beneath the soil.
Without first analyzing them to confirm they carried no tracking or positioning seals, Lucian wouldn't dare bring them back.
……
In a dark corner of "Larnaca Canyon."
High Priest Angla—whose bald head was covered in bizarre magic markings—was being gripped by the throat with one hand, suspended in midair.
He stared at the person before him with shock and terror, forcing out the words: "Why do you want to kill me?"
As a seventh-level High Priest, Angla found that the moment this slender, pale hand seized his throat, he lost all power, unable to cast any of his terrifying heretical arts.
"I didn't expect you to escape from the encirclement of Camille, Amorton, and Gosset using a black shadow puppet. But having exhausted every last item, it'll be very difficult for you to shake off Amorton's tracking. Though she's nominally a Cardinal, she's actually a major figure overseeing the Vorlite Tribunal—one of the top three tracking experts in the Principality." A pleasant, gentle voice answered with a smile. "If she catches you, all your schemes will be exposed. So I'm 'cleaning you up' on Ilya's behalf."
Angla hadn't expected such a reason. Outrageous, barely able to believe it, he said: "You could have rescued me! And your goals should be aligned with ours—we simply wanted to use this opportunity to locate that person as well."
The gentle voice laughed with a hint of disgust: "I hate you devil-worshippers the most. Your blood reeks of sulfur—utterly unbearable. So I'd rather just kill you. Besides, regarding this matter, I've changed my mind. I don't want to participate anymore. Though it's become quite interesting and amusing, so I'll enjoy watching from the sidelines."
"Are you insane?" Angla wanted to roar, but only a sliver of sound escaped. "How can you change your mind at the last moment? Why would you do this? Aren't you afraid those big shots will punish you?"
"Because I feel like it." The pleasant, gentle voice ended the conversation with a brief reply.
Angla, gripped by those slender fingers, began to visibly wither away.
Soon, Angla—who already looked aged to the point of dying at any moment—became a desiccated corpse drained of all life force and moisture. Then he silently burst apart, turning into tiny yellowish flecks of powder that drifted through the canyon.
"As a freebie since you're already dead—a piece of intel: Hathaway is about to return from the extraplanar space."
As the voice faded, the slender, pale hand melted into the darkness.
Less than two minutes later, a mature woman wearing bright red cardinal's robes materialized bizarrely from midair, her cold, sharp gaze sweeping the surroundings.
"The Silver White Horn High Priest's trail has completely vanished?" After a moment, she murmured with faint puzzlement.
……
Deep in the vast black forest, Lucian followed his original route back toward Phyllis's manor at top speed, the afterimages he trailed keeping even the fiercest creatures at bay.
After more than twenty minutes, Lucian spotted Phyllis's manor. The surrounding darkness made the brightly lit main hall stand out all the more.
"The ball hasn't ended yet? It's almost midnight." Lucian stopped in the black forest outside, then quietly crept toward the heretical cultist who had been tracking and monitoring him over the past few days.
Phyllis's manor sat far from the underground ruins, with several undulating mountain ridges in between—making it impossible for anyone here to detect the commotion from the battle outside the ruins. Moreover, the "Silver White Horn" had retreated in a panic and in great haste, so this cultist had simply been forgotten. No one had bothered to notify him at all. Perhaps only after the "Silver White Horn" settled down again would they re-establish contact.