STM 82

Unlike me, who was satisfied, Haas glared at me again seemingly blaming me for what had happened to their Grand Duke.

Well, he was right. But he looked like he wanted to ask many things, but he managed to keep his mouth shut.

However, when Tairok turned around and reached his hand toward me, Haas’s mouth gaped.

“Grand, Grand Duke, what are you doing…?”

Good question. What was he doing? Haas and I, who followed behind him, froze without understanding. Why the hand? When I looked at him in confusion, he moved his fingers.

“Hold it.”

Why though?

“Grand Duke, do you have something to receive from him? You don’t need to dirty your hands…”

“Lu, what are you doing?”

When Tairok called my name and urged me, I couldn’t help looking at Haas. His jaw was about to drop.

“It’s fine. There’s no danger.”

“I’m in danger.”

Was he joking? Did he really want to tease me right now?

“There’s no time for this. We need to reach the underground tomb before Zav arrives…?!”

While I was getting irritated, he suddenly pulled my hand and wrapped an arm around me. And before I could react, he jumped through the portal. I really did hear a ‘Huh?’ sound. It came from Haas behind us, not me.

“Ugh?! Why did you—”

But he trailed off as he saw where we had arrived beyond the portal.

The place Haas said he had saved for an ambush looked like a rest area.

The problem was that the six or seven people resting inside all looked like soldiers.

“Did its use change…?”

I heard Haas muttering in shock behind me. That was enough for me to guess. This was supposed to be an empty place.

He must have kept that secret route for so long that he hadn’t checked its condition for a while.

It didn’t matter. I stepped forward first.

“I’ll handle it.”

Tairok didn’t stop me. I was already raising my club high.

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What on earth was happening?

Yan couldn’t hide his anxiety over the sudden rush of events in the past two days. The biggest problem of all stood right before him now.

“Gran-Grand Duke. Why did you come so suddenly without a message…?”

When he heard Zav had returned, Yan hurried to greet him, but he couldn’t even finish his words.

Zav’s face said everything. His bloodshot eyes looked crazed, something must had gone terribly wrong.

That wasn’t all. His long hair, which he always kept tied, looked messy as if he had just woken up.

He had come through the portal to the castle looking like that and had immediately started running somewhere in panic. He didn’t seem to hear anyone around him.

“Grand Duke, if you tell me where you’re going…”

“Where’s Dorgo? Find him now.”

The color drained from Yan’s face. They had just sent men to the lake to catch the intruder, and the lake was the place Dorgo cared about the most. He had planned to finish the task and report quickly.

“Lor, Lord Dorgo must be in his quarters. He always prays at this hour…”

“Tell him to come to the underground tomb at once. Hurry!”

Zav’s voice trembled as he shouted. Yan stepped back in shock.

He had never seen Zav so disordered before. He knew Zav’s violent nature well enough to know that staying nearby could get him hit for no reason. But even after stepping back under the pretext of fetching Dorgo, his anxiety only grew worse.

What in the world happened? Could it be that he found out about the intruder? No, impossible.

Yan shook his head. Zav wouldn’t lose his mind over some thief. He clenched his trembling hands and tried to pull himself together.

I just need to settle it quickly and cover it up. The soldiers at the lake must have caught the intruder by now.

But a moment later, a subordinate came running in a panic, and his report made his anxiety morph into dread.

“There’s an intruder in the castle.”

…What?! What kind of people this time?!

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I didn’t want to leave any trace on the way back to Borhumi Castle’s underground tomb. But it was difficult because someone was even more ‘quick, quick’ than me.

Tairok moved without hesitation, knocking down anyone who tried to block his way as if he didn’t care whether anyone noticed the intrusion.

Thanks to that, we reached the relic chamber in no time, though the soldiers started chasing us.

But I didn’t need to worry about how to stop them.

“Haas.”

When Tairok called his name, Haas took out a jewel-embedded artifact and placed it in the corner of the floor.

Soon, thick fog formed at the entrance of the corridor. Then Haas drew a magic circle toward the fog with his wand. I immediately realized it was a smaller version of the magic that had covered the lake.

He was setting an illusion spell to throw off the pursuers. What confused me was that I could still see the fog clearly.

“Dark magic?”

Haas glanced at me and explained.

“It’s an artifact with a black magic stone… yes.”

Ah, then I wouldn’t be affected by the black magic stone. I had heard that people usually used black magic stones in artifacts to cancel the side effects.

“But the effect lasts only half a day at most.”

“That’s enough.”

I could say that confidently because I had already seen Zav acting like a child. He couldn’t endure even the slight weakening of the divine beast’s power and had to come to the tomb while whining.

Now that the power was completely gone, he must be running here out of his mind. And he would bring Dorgo with him, just as we hoped. I wasn’t the only one sure of that.

“Grand Duke, what exactly are you planning to do?”

Haas, who had been hesitating while watching Tairok’s reaction, finally asked. He had countless doubts about why Tairok had invaded the Borhumi main castle, why he was moving together with me, his enemy, and so on. But this was the only question he chose to ask. Tairok gave a short answer.

“Hunt.”

Leaving the startled Haas behind, he stepped forward.

“I’ll catch the dark mage who cursed Kun. Get ready.”

The look in Tairok’s eyes as he gave the command burned fiercely.

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Zav remembered vividly the first moment he felt the divine beast’s power. The strong force filled his whole body.

The Borhumi divine beast mainly used water, and that made the power feel refreshing.

When it became known not only that he had gained power but also that he had been chosen by the divine beast, everyone’s attitude toward him changed overnight.

Because of that, he sometimes feared as a child that this power might disappear. His mother always soothed him.

‘We are special beings loved by the divine beast. That love is vast, generous, and warm beyond our understanding. We will never be abandoned.’

The divine beast will not abandon me. That belief let him use his power without fear. But he should have listened more carefully to the condition his mother had added afterward.

‘To keep that love, you must train. It’s the only way to show the divine beast that you value its gift.’

He hadn’t taken those words seriously to heart in life. He had heard them so often that he eventually grew tired of them.

Yet as he ran toward the tomb in panic, only those words echoed in Zav’s head.

Could that be why the divine beast left me? No, impossible. The divine beast can’t leave me. The divine beast is sealed.

The first thing he had to do was check if the shield worked properly. Dorgo hadn’t arrived yet, but Zav, who reached the underground first, moved exactly as his body remembered. Dorgo had once used magic to create the shield and had given him these instructions.

‘Remember this stone on the floor. When you stand there and reach out your hand, you’ll feel something. Then the shield will appear before you, and you’ll see the hidden lake inside it.’

He had also warned that touching any other spot would burn him to death. Zav lifted his trembling hand and grasped the air. For years, he had checked the shield the same way hundreds of times.

He caught it again this time. The flickering black net appeared, and within it, he saw the vast underground lake.

His mother had said when she first showed it to him as a child that the lake was the resting place where the divine beast descended for a while.

The lake greeted him in the same deep blue that hid its depth, but it looked different now. That blue looked terrifyingly cold.

“Lord Zav, why did you damage the tomb…?”

He heard Dorgo’s confused voice behind him, but Zav, hollow as a corpse, couldn’t turn around. He was so lost that he didn’t even notice the traces of intrusion Dorgo pointed out.

Only then did Dorgo realize something was wrong with him.

“What happened? Why do you look like that…?”

Zav had always been obsessed with his appearance. Even if the world collapsed, he would be the man still grooming himself to the end. Yet now he looked like a beggar, his mind completely gone.