29th of Season of Water, 57th year of the 32nd cycle

While deciding that Newstar's safety was paramount was well and good, Flameax still had choices to make. Important choices. A nearby city had a library, and a library was an imperial outpost, technically. Each library had a senior librarian at the fourth realm or higher to evaluate the worth of knowledge shared, and that senior librarian was also the representative of the empire. Kind of.

If I fly over there and back, I'll return in fifteen minutes.

Flameax bit his lip. Fifteen minutes were a blink. Fifteen minutes were thousands of exchanged blows for awakened at his realm.

If a fight between sixth realmers breaks out, this whole town will disappear in the exchange, let alone Newstar. And that's not even considering whether I can win against a sixth realm blood cultist with a whole town's worth of blood at their disposal.

Flameax would have preferred to take Newstar with him, but that could be ruinous for his experience. Knowing such a high-realm figure was protecting him would remove all sense of danger from this and future missions.

The boy started burning the bodies on the ground below.

The longer I delay, the greater the odds of a potential danger arriving here.

Seconds trickled by, and Flameax finally decided to rush off to whatever the local city was called. He gave one last glance at the trouble magnet.

The energy ripples of their fight were so minor that any master within range of detecting it would have arrived already.

With that thought, he was off. Farmland flashed beneath him, no mana signatures worth noting anywhere. Minutes later, Flameax hovered above the library, flaring mana to get the librarian's attention.

An elderly man at the sixth realm flew to meet him, air-attributed mana swirling around him.

"Honored librarian, pardon my rudeness." Flameax respectfully inclined his head, despite being at the same realm. "I'm in a hurry, on a secret mission for my order, but I must report something. My order's students have slain a group of Blood Cult initiates in the town of Harthow, near the Dragon's Rest volcano. Please inform the authorities."

The man's stern features switched from annoyance to shock.

"Thank you for notifying me, champion of the Explorer's Gate, I will pass the word. How many did your students encounter?"

"Five, one a step away from the fourth realm, the rest at high layers of the third." Flameax cupped his fists. "I really need to go. Even this brief trip is a grave breach of my mission. Once more, pardon my rudeness."

Flameax shot back towards the site of the carnage, dearly hoping nothing bad had happened, but ignoring his duty towards the empire could have had grave consequences for the Explorer's Gate.

He could only hope Newstar and his team could survive without getting into trouble for a quarter of an hour. As soon as he had that thought, he sped up and hoped extra hard.

***

Newt burned the cultists' bodies, hopefully stopping them from coming back to life, transforming into blood, possessing someone else's body, or whatever else they could do with their heretical powers. He had a feeling that he had to destroy every trace of blood to be safe from them.

And once he was done, his teammates stared at him in horror. Paranoia died down. His regular train of thought continued, and most of it turned to controlling his stomach. He covered his mouth and nose with the inner side of his elbow.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

What do I do? Why? How? How the hell did my clan get involved in this mess? Suddenly, his murderous glare turned towards the mansion. Those fucking morons! Borrow money from the Blood Cult? I'm gonna kill them.

"Wait for me here, guys. I'll explain everything later." Newt leaped over the gate without waiting for a response and landed in an ornate courtyard. It had not changed a bit in the five years since he had last seen it. The garden with an artificial pond was abandoned, the ornamental yellow and red fish swimming lazily the only sign of movement.

Newt ignored the lack of people and stomped towards the mansion, leaving cracks and shallow dents in the stone-paved path with each step.

"Where are you hiding, you degenerates? Was nearly ruining the clan not enough for you, but you needed to take one last piss at what your ancestors have built?" Newt roared with fury, disgust, and pain he felt.

His mind failed to comprehend how or why someone would go to such lengths to destroy everything their parents and grandparents had built.

"I'll hunt you down if I have to," he shouted, walls shaking as mana leaked into his voice. "And if you force me to go searching for you, I promise you'll regret the day you were born."

Newt's threats yielded no effect. The courtyard was dead silent; even the colorful carp had fled to the bottom of the pond.

"Fine," he growled. Granite Crust covered his skin, Magmin Scales lit up beneath it.

Earth rumbled as he moved towards the main mansion, a haze dancing above his head as the air surrounding him grew scalding hot. Hotheads were notorious for their temper, extreme emotions fueling the element, and Newt was seething. Literally.

He reached the door and grabbed the knob, but it twisted like dough, then melted in his hand. Newt shook the molten brass off his hand like mud and smashed the door in with a kick.

"Disgrace of the Salamandra clan, where are you hiding?" Newt stepped onto the lacquered floor tiles and they burst into flame.

"Lord mageknight, please calm your anger." Newt's unfated father-in-law cowered, kowtowing on the ground. "They are chained up in the basement."

Newt was neither shocked nor angered when he heard about how his clansmen were treated. In fact, he thought they had received just treatment.

"Take me to them." He snuffed out the surrounding flames with a thought and dismissed his defensive techniques.

Newt followed the balding merchant, who was in his late forties. The man trembled with each step and didn't dare lift his gaze to meet Newt's glare.

With a trembling hand, Newt's guide opened the door, and the reek of blood washed over them. The merchant gagged and fell, but Newt walked on. Down the stairs, a flame fueled by mana glowed atop his finger like a candle.

The chamber was vast. Based on the shelves lining the walls, Newt concluded it was a wine cellar or something similar. He pressed deeper into the darkness, beyond the countless bottles, and into the next room.

Beyond the threshold, the atmosphere changed. The mana danced strangely in Newt's perception, twisting and twirling as if struggling to escape a current it was caught in. Soon, the glow of runes caught the attention of Newt's mindcore. At first, they were merely solitary smears on the wall and floor, at least to his regular eyes, but something unnatural lurked beyond the stains, and the glow of mana informed him they would soon grow into large patterns.

Newt itched with the desire to burn the whole thing, but with the immediate threat gone, he was certain a heresy hunter would appreciate it if he left as much evidence as he could in one piece. So, despite his unease, Newt pressed on, into the thicker cluster of runes and towards the second door.

The door had a thick sigil painted in blood, not a true runic seal, but something of a similar nature. Newt examined it, considering the design and the layout. He was fairly certain it was an unknown branch of seal scribing, an ominous rune never before seen, sealing whatever was behind the door.

Newt reached a logical conclusion about what he would seal. Prisoners. He opened the door a crack, and ankle-high water flooded out of the chamber, pushing the door open further. The coppery stench grew overpowering, so much so that Newt needed several moments to realize that the water soaking his feet was red and sticky, over-saturated with mana.

Under normal circumstances, he would have been terrified, but he hardly noticed what was beneath his feet when before him stood a heap of nude, disfigured bodies.

"Help," a voice croaked, and Newt nearly screamed in terror.

He tore his gaze away from the mound of mutilated things that were once human and looked towards the wall. The walls of the room were lined with people, still-living people. One of those people was the former member of the Salamandra clan, Brave.

The once haughty man was withered, an abominable rune carved across his torso, slowly, unnaturally seeping blood towards the ceiling. Newt recognized another two clansmen, shackled to the wall with barbed chains biting into their flesh.

All three seemed to be unconscious. The one whispering for Newt's help was a young woman, much younger than his clansmen. She barely clung to life as her blood left her and climbed towards the ceiling where a giant demonic diagram devoured light. Most runes and runic arrays gave off some level of light due to minor imperfections and wasted mana, but the thing above was different.

It was voracious. Craving blood, mana, life itself. Newt's vision swam, and he tore his gaze away from the thing.

He did not know what it was. He had no clue what it did. But he knew one thing.

It's alive.

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