It seemed that Dunya had used the same grave-walking Rune back at the White Bear base to get here.

Malik no longer doubted that his little sister had caught on to who he was early on, back when they first met in that destroyed city.

But, most surprisingly, she had said nothing.

Perhaps she understood that he wanted his identity hidden for reasons of his own.

But, even if she did, that didn’t mean that she was going to stay by his side any less.

Now, back before him, standing in the burning shadow of the heart farm, she cried and hugged him.

Her small arms wrapped tightly around his waist, and her body shook with sobs that had been building for days.

Malik hugged her back awkwardly, patting her shoulder like he was comforting a stranger’s child.

That awkwardness made her try to giggle, though, of course, only dry heaves left her scarred throat.

"You’ve suspected me since the beginning, haven’t you?"

He looked down at the top of her messy black hair.

"You placed a tracker the moment you touched my hand."

Dunya nodded against his chest and pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist.

She pointed at the ground, and words appeared in the sand, written in the same way as before.

[I don’t need to take someone’s hand to teleport them. But I’d need to do so if I wished to input some of my Death into them. Oh, and while I know you wouldn’t worry about that, you should know that the Death I input is too minuscule matter.]

Malik patted her head, combing her hair somewhat.

’Then she probably didn’t find me until now because these guys had some sort of Holy Relic that masked my location.’

It made sense; the slavers appeared to have been operating for a while now, and they definitely would have taken precautions against being tracked by powerful enemies.

That also explained how they survived the sandworms and their sand waves.

Glancing at the burning buildings, he sighed.

"What was this place? What were they doing here?"

Dunya’s expression grew serious, and she pointed at the ground again.

[Not all factions here want us dead. Or at least, they don’t come here to kill us. Many, knowing their weakness, simply come to get the hearts of the Demons.]

A fact that Malik knew firsthand.

[Though useless to mortals, or even most Magi for that matter, the hearts can be useful as a source of concentrated energy. They obtain that energy by converting the Corruption inside them into Rukh.]

Malik nodded at her words, finding that quite interesting.

He vaguely remembered something close to what she had described.

His position on Earth hadn’t been all that high-ranking, so he had never been privy to mind-bending secrets. But he had heard about Aether, the energy that connected this universe.

Once, it was dismissed as mere fiction, but then, one day...

Well, all knew it as an undeniable fact.

Rukh and Aether were the same, so Malik wasn’t about to deny either.

Especially not while it was what he used to end his enemies in the past week.

Still, the story remained incomplete.

Malik looked at the slaves who were stumbling about, their hollow eyes blinking in the sunlight, and thought about the way his memory had been wiped clean again and again.

’Why make us forget? That bastard thought that I had Fallen when I didn’t respond. So is it because of the Corruption? Is it a way to prolong our lives?...’ 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

That was the conclusion Malik reached, but he did not ask to confirm it.

’Truly heinous.’

He knew better than to seem unknowledgeable before Dunya.

Sure, he did not doubt her loyalty to him—she had proven that by tracking him across the desert and showing up at the worst possible moment—but this and that were different things that should not be conflated.

Or so was his opinion.

However, there was a question he could ask, one that would not reveal his ignorance too clearly:

"Why come here when their own planets are being overwhelmed by Demons as well? Perhaps the hearts of our Demons form something more? Runes?"

Dunya’s expression shifted to one of deep admiration.

[Yes... You are absolutely correct. I’m surprised you know of that already. Or perhaps you expected it way back when. The consequences of your war against Hell.]

’No, little lady.’

Malik barely kept his face neutral.

’I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’

Though that was what he thought, he nodded his head once more, as if her words had confirmed something he had already suspected.

In actuality, he only had an idea due to what his soldiers had mentioned some time back, but he did not wish to guess too much.

He would be better off letting Dunya fill in the gaps whenever possible.

"Hee."

Dunya pointed at the ground again, clearly wanting to explain further.

[It’s way more than just surplus Rukh manufacturing. Runes form quite commonly on our land. Again, we don’t know whether it’s because of what you did in Hell—]

’Just what did I do in Hell?’

[—or because of the Abyss in our planet—]

’What is that?’

[—or because of your rise to Angelhood.]

Malik inwardly sighed.

’...we’ve come full circle.’