The wing consisted of simple sleeping quarters , a large kitchen , an indoor greenhouse , and two offices . There were some ledgers in the larger office , but Zac frowned as he picked one up . It was filled to the brim with notes , but Zac couldn’t make heads or tails of it . Either it was written in code , or someone had just written random words for thousands and thousands of pages .
Had the office owner become a Hero Soul and continued writing reports without understanding what he was doing?
Look at this , - Kruta said .
The tome Kruta held looked much older and wasn’t filled with random gibberish like the others . Instead , it contained detailed reports of operation . Most of it wasn’t useful , such as detailing the expenditure to procure foodstuffs , cleaning schedules , and notes on the garden and greenhouse .
This Saeward lived pretty good for someone staying in a battlefield fortress , - Kruta commented as he flipped through the pages .
Looks that way , - Zac said . - Doesn’t really mesh with someone having a desperate final stand . -
All kinds of weirdoes out there , - Kruta shrugged . - There’s a war chief of a rival tribe back home who always brings his wives to fight alongside him , even those multiple grades lower than him . He’s already held over a thousand marriages to replace those he lost . We’ve accepted hundreds of beautiful refugees—young flowers afraid they’ll get selected next . -
Pretty messed up , but it doesn’t look like you’re complaining , - Zac said , noticing the grin tugging at Kruta’s lips . - Did some of those beauties find the great Kruta a better match? -
Who wouldn’t! - Kruta laughed . - I already have six fiancés , though they have to become Late Hegemons before marrying me , and I a Monarch . -
Zac smiled as he kept turning pages of the tally when he found something odd .
Hey , so how’s things going with that black-eyed lass of yours? - Kruta grinned . - Not my style , but I can see the—what? -
Look at this , - Zac said , and Kruta leaned over . - It mentions Saeward’s disappearance . Not even the staff knows what happened . - Master has disappeared at stretches before , but never at a time like this . I fear . . . ’ -
Last entry two weeks later , - Kruta muttered . - The steward tried using his procurement channel to source medicines and supplies . They must have succumbed soon after? -
Or perhaps abandoned this fortress , - Zac offered . - This castle doesn’t look like it’s withstood a siege . -
It’s odd , - Kruta agreed . - Hey , look at this . -
Zac looked at a procurement tally from one week before Saeward’s disappearance . At a cursory glance , it didn’t feel special—just six lines with simple annotations of quality . But looking closer , it was very different from the previous entries , both the products and the quantities .
What the hell , - Zac muttered . - What’s this? Do you recognize any of these materials? -
Two , - Kruta said . - Tasstir Lichen . We call it Ancestral Moss , and our shamans use it for spirit journeys . The other is the Damchi Glass . It’s a type of glass made from Damchi Sand . . . Odd . -
What? - Zac asked .
Damchi Glass has many uses , but seeing the Ancestral Moss . . . The glass can be used to create various soul-stabilizing items . Such as a Soul Mirror . -
A what? - Zac asked .
Possessing a body is full of risks . One of them is remnant soul rejection . Shards of the previous owner’s soul can be trapped in the body , and it’ll make the body reject its new owner . A Soul Mirror can help fuse the two and minimize the side effects . -
You said your shamans use that moss to take a spirit walk . Do you think it can be used to drive a soul , or pieces of one , out of the body? -
That’s what I’m thinking , - Kruta nodded .
Someone possessed Saeward and had his people procure the materials to stabilize the takeover . When he’d stabilized , he left , leaving Saeward’s army to fend for itself? - Zac muttered . - Ruthless . . . -
Let’s hope that’s not the case , - Kruta sighed .
Why? -
Because then - Saeward’ is long gone , and there’s no trove to retrieve . -
Oh , - Zac grimaced .
It wouldn’t explain why the energy is rising , though . It also wouldn’t explain the war outside , - Kruta offered . - Let’s keep investigating . That lass is still some ways off . -
Sure , - Zac agreed . - But let’s look for good spots for an ambush . -
Kruta nodded , and they left the servant’s quarters . The rest of the castle was quite sparse . There were just endless corridors and stairs , with walls covered in lines and patterns . It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on .
This is an array , - Zac said .
Sure , - Kruta agreed . - Battlefield fortresses usually are . Communication , protection , offensive . They can have all sorts of functions . From what I gathered , Saeward controlled a War Array to empower his soldiers from here . -
Hmm , - Zac hummed as he looked around .
What? - Kruta asked .
Don’t these patterns feel odd to you? - Zac said .
No . Then again , I have no talent for stuff like this , - Kruta shrugged . - What are you thinking? -
I don’t know yet . . . - Zac muttered . - Let’s keep going . -
After skulking through the castle for another ten minutes , they’d almost made a full circle around the whole thing . Still , not a Hero Soul in sight . Or a treasury , for that matter . The castle was essentially mirrored , with two gardens and quarters to the sides . However , while one wing was meant for the servants , stewards , and chefs , the other was reserved for officers .
They found a set of reports in those rooms , but they didn’t add much they didn’t already know . The generals were shocked at their commander’s disappearance and the loss of the War Array’s boost . They desperately tried to keep morale up and turn the tides , but the reports grew increasingly bleak .
The soldiers are tired , exhausted . Our blood has turned the earth red . Yet they stand . Yet they fight . Honorable men and women , not breaking under the impossible pressure . A general couldn’t ask for better fighters . Better brothers and sisters .
WHERE IS HE?’
It was the final notation in the report , written two days before the steward’s last entry . The papers bled fury and despair , and it permeated the whole room . They soon left , afraid the intense resentment would conjure the fallen general . Someone like that would have to be the equivalent of a Golden Champion . Definitely not something they wanted to deal with when an unhinged princess was on her way .
The rest of the outer section was essentially bare . They’d tried to locate Saeward’s living quarters or cultivation chambers , but they’d come up with nothing . As far as they could tell , the castle was a four-storied circular complex almost entirely comprised of these array corridors .
A third area held a courtyard leading into a main hallway . Thick array lines covered the tiled pathway , leading from the castle’s sealed-off innards to the courtyard and beyond . They hadn’t dared enter that particular hallway . For one , it contained dense enough energies that the floor was mostly covered by a haze that felt even scarier than the metallic water .
Secondly , they’d finally spotted some Hero Souls . The courtyard outside seemed to be a spawning point , and an almost constant stream of warriors were conjured there . They only waited until a full company had been formed , after which they set out through the outer gates . Endlessly .
It was possibly a good location to ambush Valsa , but he and Kruta had misgivings . Valsa still hadn’t reached them , but she seemed to be somewhere in the middle of the battlefield . As far as they could figure , that only had two explanations . Either she was invisible or had something which allowed her to control the Hero Souls .