Every time Scar had connected with his inner realm, the creature had been there. It was roughly human in size, held in place by chains that were massive and deliberately oversized. This time its space was empty. The chains were gone. The creature with them.

The questions came fast. He’d never managed to get close enough to see the creature clearly. He couldn’t put a name or identity to it. But one thing he was certain of: it wasn’t Morningstar.

His inner realm was a space inside his own consciousness. The bridge between himself and his Inheritance, the place where the two met. What he saw there could be rationalized away. They were illusions.

His mind constructed images around something it couldn’t fully comprehend. It was a reasonable argument.

But it didn’t dismiss the underlying fact that he was interacting with his Inheritance in there, and the things that happened in that space had consequences that followed him out.

He had a few theories about what the creature might be. One of them was that it had something to do with how Morningstar finally escaped the eternal flames, but that line of thinking came with its own complications.

Even with a third of the heavens having fallen with him, most of those had turned against Morningstar over time. A selected few hadn’t.

But no one would have left those free to roam. They were almost certainly imprisoned somewhere in the underworld.

"What’s most strange is that Hades gave his Inheritance to a human. No one hated humans more than Hades... yet the Will of the Underworld ended up with V."

Morning had come, and Scar’s gloomy state had done what it always did when Amber was nearby. It had gotten her attention.

He had no real choice but to talk through it while they moved through the forest in search of more bugs.

"Something is missing... isn’t it? It might be connected to the cause of the Red Day."

"I believe so. What Morningstar did wasn’t enough to trigger the Red Day, but who knows, the heavens were filled with a lot of crybabies, after all."

Scar and Amber kept talking, sharing ideas about what might have caused the Red Day. But Scar still had eyes at the back of his head. Solus wouldn’t stop staring at him. It was almost like she wanted his soul.

"We should go that way... I think we’ll find something interesting. Don’t you think so, Scar?"

"Huh?"

"You feel it too? I can’t shake this strange sensation coming from that place." Luccy said.

They went with Solus’s lead, though Scar still couldn’t make sense of it. It wasn’t the first time she’d done this... ignored the people walking beside her and aimed something at him instead, distance and all.

Being on good terms with her suited his long-term plans well enough. That part he appreciated. The staring was another matter. That was just creepy.

Two days had passed since he’d met her, and she hadn’t stopped staring once. He’d given her the opportunity to say whatever it was. She’d said there was nothing.

The stares continued regardless, following him through Area 9 like something persistent and unwelcome. They felt like death threats.

"Solus was right... I can sense a swarm of creatures in that direction."

Amber’s words were enough. They picked up their pace, and in the distance, countless spider-like creatures were heading their way.

They attacked without hesitation. Luccy’s range was hampered by the bugs throughout the area, but that cut both ways.

The Scarlet Kins were just as restricted, most of them walking into the webs and getting cut to pieces before they could do much. It didn’t matter. There was no end to them.

The three most effective in the fight were Storm with her arrows, Luccy with her lightning, and Solus with whatever she was doing.

But of the three, Solus was the one Scar kept coming back to.

Her Inheritance looked almost identical to Adisa’s Breath of Hell: wind controlled in slashes.

More effective than Adisa had managed, more efficient too. What made it strange was that the wind burned. Same as the Breath of Hell. Same quality entirely.

The thought wouldn’t leave him alone. He’d killed Adisa, which meant Breath of Hell was eventually going to someone else. But unless Adisa had specifically chosen a successor before dying, the Inheritance would take its time.

If Solus truly wielded the Breath of Hell, the staring suddenly made an uncomfortable kind of sense. Adisa had carried a strange affection toward him, and if that had passed through the Inheritance into Solus, that was its own problem to deal with.

But the more immediate issue was more pressing. He’d have to report her to the Supreme Council.

After defeating Adisa, he’d received two punishments. Ten gold for damages to the residential area and an obligation to bring whoever came to possess Breath of Hell before the council.

’Even if she is, I’ll decide whether to report her based on whether she’s useful to me.’

"There’s no end to them."

"Hey, you. Since you were flying yesterday, can’t you deal with these bugs so we can move on?"

It was obvious Walker was talking to Amber, but she didn’t bother to look in his direction.

The expectation was the usual outcome: Walker would grumble and go quiet like he always did. This time, Amber’s silence landed differently on him. It got under his skin.

He approached Amber and pulled her by the shoulder. Things escalated faster than anyone could have predicted, Walker included. If he hadn’t moved quickly enough to block her attack, he would have lost his head.

"Who do you think you are? I don’t know what’s going on with your family, but just because Chica let you stay with us doesn’t mean you’re one of us."

Walker groaned, but Amber didn’t mind him this time either.

Scar smiled.

He could have asked Amber to calm down, but he just couldn’t help it. Walker was annoying, that much was settled, but Scar cared less about that. He wanted to see if Walker could keep up with Amber’s sword arts. Turns out, Walker wasn’t ranked 94th for nothing.

"Can you guys focus? There aren’t many left... let’s finish this and find the source of this bizarreness."

Luccy’s words carried the weight of a command, and no one questioned it. About a hundred creatures were slaughtered in short order, and then they moved, following the direction the Scarlet Kins had come from.

At the edge of Area 9, something finally gave them what they’d been looking for. A mansion, old and haunted, by all appearances. Its walls were broken and thick with moss, the kind of deterioration that didn’t happen overnight. This was the hint.

The atmosphere around the mansion was despondent enough on its own, but what confirmed it for Scar was the dark energy. The same one he’d been picking up all along. It was coming from here.