In the deep forest, Karius stood inside a certain cave, staring at a pool of blood—roughly five liters of it—beneath his feet, with strands of slightly long white hair scattered around it... and nothing else.

"Didn’t you say Ravian killed two orcs, and that you left him when he had nearly finished off the third?" Karius said, his eyes fixed and his expression still, devoid of any emotion.

"Y-yes, my lord," Antonius answered in a trembling voice, feeling a cold gnawing at his body as he stood beside Karius in that state, even though it should have been impossible for a body like his to feel cold at all.

"Then why do I see only my disciple’s blood and hair here, without a single trace of the orcs?" Karius asked, turning to look at Antonius with that same still, emotionless gaze.

Antonius’s heart nearly stopped beating when he met Karius’s eyes.

"My lord, I swear to you, I don’t know. He was perfectly fine when I left him, and I’m certain I scanned the entire area around him after leaving. There was nothing there that could have posed any danger to him," Antonius said, his voice unsteady and his body shaking without pause.

Karius’s gaze lingered on him longer than it should have, and Antonius lowered his eyes to the ground.

"Antonius, look at me," Karius said, taking a step closer to him.

"Y-yes," Antonius replied, suppressing the terror inside him as he looked into Karius’s currently emotionless eyes.

"Do you know what happened to my disciple?" Karius asked in a calm voice—terrifyingly calm, given the situation.

But that was not the only thing that set Karius apart in that moment before Antonius. There was something else, something that nearly made Antonius lose consciousness from the shock.

Karius was looking at him with that grave stare and expressionless face, but there was one more thing—something that might seem simple at first glance, yet was, in truth, anything but.

In the very moment Karius asked him that question, the thing that stunned Antonius happened.

Karius’s pupils turned a blazing white, as though he were staring into the depths of his soul. Karius’s eyes looked as if they were... blind.

He seemed to have lost his sight entirely as his eyes began to glow, and Antonius nearly lost the ability to speak.

"M-my lord, that... you..." Antonius said, wide-eyed, pointing at Karius’s eyes.

"Answer me!" Karius roared, his voice shaking every corner of the cave and Antonius’s entire being along with it, and Antonius felt in that instant that he would truly lose his life if he did not answer.

"No! I swear I don’t know what happened to Lord Ravian, my lord!" Antonius shouted quickly in reply.

In that moment, Karius’s eyes flared even brighter, and Antonius’s eyes widened as he became certain of what he had guessed.

The next instant, the glow began to fade little by little, and the indifferent look on Karius’s face began to shift.

The wrinkles around his eyes creased as he narrowed them in vexation, pressing his hands to his face.

"My lord?" Antonius called.

"Go, Antonius. Assign teams to search every nearby, reachable corner of the deep forest. Try to find any signs or traces that lead to my disciple, even if... even if he’s no longer alive," Karius said, having turned his back to Antonius.

Antonius stared at Karius’s broad back in disbelief for a moment, then remembered everything that had happened earlier.

Then he shook his head and nodded, understanding his master’s decision.

"Very well, my lord. As you command," Antonius said, then vanished from the cave.

Karius remained in the cave, staring at the blood beneath his feet with an unreadable expression, yet one carrying an unmistakable, sorrowful frown.

...

In a faraway place beyond the borders of the deep forest, far removed from both the Viera Empire and the Twilight Empire.

In a place drowned in white in every direction sat a magnificent golden throne, covered in endless gleaming golden engravings, its armrests tall and golden. But they were not empty—resting upon them were two arms white as porcelain, carrying an air of refinement and grandeur, and over those arms, white silk slid at a graceful slant, adorning them elegantly.

Those two silken ribbons were woven into a lustrous white robe that fell to cover every private part and slid enchantingly over the rest of the impossibly beautiful, white-haired feminine figure seated upon the golden throne.

But there was something else that set apart this woman who seemed almost unreal.

There were no guards around her, no servants, and no visible sign of protection, and yet the throne did not seem lacking in power for even a moment. The silence around her was strangely heavy, as though the place itself did not dare make a sound without her permission, and even the white light spread in every direction did not seem to fall upon her, but rather to flow from her existence before bending back toward her.

A ribbon of silk wound beautifully around her eyes, covering them, and despite all that beauty, majesty, and splendor, it seemed this woman was blind.

Then, suddenly, one corner of the woman’s lips curved upward enchantingly, and she opened her mouth to release a voice that rang through the strange place like the beautiful call of a blue whale through the ocean, its echo reverberating through the place and the world as though it were a law being engraved upon a tablet.

"The first piece has been set in place successfully," the majestic woman said, and two points that looked like her eyes glinted strikingly from behind the silken ribbon covering them.

...

At the gates of the fort on the border of the Viera Empire, after passing through the camp.

The supply cart arrived after a journey of roughly two hours spent crossing the entire camp.

’Damn, this body really is no joke. All this time has passed and I still haven’t felt the slightest numbness in my arms,’ Ravian thought, still hanging beneath the cart.

’The Sovereign Pride Physique isn’t some lizard physique, now is it?’

[No, host. And please refrain from thinking of yourself in such terms. It diminishes your dignity and the dignity of the entity that you are.]

The System’s reply came automatically upon hearing Ravian’s indirect question.

’I do what I want, when I want, System,’ Ravian said to himself, calmly and simply.

[Yes. That is exactly how it should be.]

’Tch. Boring,’ Ravian thought as the cart finally stopped moving, having arrived before the guards stationed on the outer side of the fort’s gates.

"I am Captain Michael Horen, leader of this small group. We’ve come with supplies and wish to deliver them to the storehouse officials, if you please," the group leader said to one of the guards standing at the fort’s gates.

The guard looked at them for a few moments before whispering an order to the guard standing beside him.

Then the guard nodded, raised his hand, and said—

"Veil of Darkness," said the other guard, who wore light armor unlike the rest.

In that same instant, dark energy poured out from his hands, and in a moment, it enveloped the group along with the City Guard soldiers responsible for guarding the gates.

’A City Guard soldier and a mage? That seems dangerous,’ Ravian thought, glancing left and right from beneath the cart as he noticed the pitch-black darkness that had surrounded them. It was the first time he had seen a mage other than Evelyne—and even her, he had never seen use that magic of hers before.

Then the guards searched the cart once more, and suddenly, Ravian felt a wave of energy sweep over him.

Ravian’s body tensed with alarm, and just as he was about to leap out from beneath the cart, he heard the mage’s voice speak.

"Safe. They may pass," the dark mage said to the guard beside him, and the other nodded.

"Open the gate for them," the guard captain said.

’Huh?’ Ravian did not understand what had just happened.

At least, that was the case until he heard the System’s notification.

[Ding!]

[The host’s energy signature has been shielded from detection by the passive ability: Shadow of the Void.]

And just as Ravian was about to celebrate inwardly, he noticed something else.

The guards did not open the great doors as they should have. Instead, one of the guards walked over to the wall beside the gate, placed his hand on the stone surface, and then—

Screeeech.

A grinding sound rang out as the stones that should never have budged from their place separated from one another, forming a doorway roughly two meters wide that led directly into the fort.

’Whoa, I had no idea about this secret door.’

’But now that I think about it, I haven’t seen any doors leading into the fort itself so far. They all pass through the city toward the border, or the other way around,’ Ravian thought, watching as the group around the cart showed no notable reaction to what had just happened.

Then he began to be pulled along with the cart into the darkness within.