After Nero and Eleanor had waited for about two days, during which the cracks on Nero's arm had almost completely closed, they buried the bodies of the two mages at a safe distance.
As it had turned out, a large number of symbols had been engraved onto their bodies. Nero, therefore, ordered Eleanor to erase the symbols before they buried the corpses. Eleanor did so without protest, although he had to admit that it made him uneasy to strip the bodies of the two. They had been kind to them, but they had been in the way.
Eleanor let out a heavy sigh as he thought back on it. What had he become? He had once been a human with a pure heart, someone who had done everything he could to save people. But a long and brutal war, along with many more deaths in his life, all the way up to his planned execution, had hardened him. He was no longer the kind of person who believed in the good in people. That did not mean he enjoyed killing, but he firmly believed in Nero's mission. It was a necessary evil.
Nero, on the other hand, was completely calm. He had not always been a monster either, but that time was so long ago that all evidence of it had long been lost. Only the memories remained within him, and even those faded more with each passing year. Killing had become like a second nature to him because he had done it for so long that the time before felt like nothing more than a blink of an eye.
He did not kill because he enjoyed it. He did it because it was usually the simplest method to obtain what he wanted. If love and compassion were enough, he would give everything he owned to the poor. But that was not how the universe worked. Power was all that mattered. It did not matter whether you were kind or not, because as long as you were powerful enough, you could do whatever you wanted.
Eleanor tried several times to start a conversation with Nero, but he barely responded, and when he did, only briefly. Nero had not recruited Eleanor to gain a friend, but because he would be a useful weapon in the coming wars.
After some time, Eleanor gave up. Instead, he began to play with his aura. He let the prismar star above him spin, then expand, then slow again. Nero sensed this small game of Eleanor, who played with it like a child with a newly discovered toy, but he ignored it. Instead, he examined the items he had taken from Tark and Isabella.
One of them was a small journal that Tark had written. It had actually been protected by a symbol, which Nero assumed would have immediately destroyed its contents if someone other than an authorized person had opened it. But Eleanor once again proved his usefulness by effortlessly destroying the symbol on the journal.
As it turned out, this book was quite a valuable piece of information, because in it Tark described almost everything he did. As Fril had already explained, Tark had been the leader of his unit.
Apparently, they were all required to keep a journal in which they recorded their daily activities. Each year, they had to submit it, which would be checked for accuracy. This strict control showed Nero how important these special units were.
He assumed that Tark was already near the upper limit of the average power level in this world, which was good, but one could never know what kind of monsters might still be hiding. This world was in a constant power struggle between the three races. A weakness in one of them, and the other two would tear it apart. Therefore, it was almost certain that each faction possessed hidden weapons within its arsenal.
They could even be far stronger than Nero and Xersies, but fortunately, Nero never intended to confront them directly. Instead, he wanted to let them tear each other apart and only step in at the very end to reap the benefits.
If he were to start an all-out war against the world now, the probability of failure would be enormous. If he were unlucky, the three races might even unite against him for the first time in centuries due to the external threat.
That would be truly fatal.
In any case, Tark described in this journal how they had been investigating an underground organization of the Reils, which had supposedly settled in one of the border cities. But after long and exhausting investigations, during which they had explored one of the most corrupt and dangerous cities on the continent, they had found no trace of it.
Accordingly, Tark concluded that the information had been false. He then searched for the source of the information, which turned out to be a Lizzian who had infiltrated human society. According to Tark's assumption, he had intended to provoke a conflict between humans and Reils, but Tark managed to catch him. Unfortunately, the creature killed itself before Tark could place it in chains.
Tark described in detail his thoughts, believing that this had only been one of many Lizzians spreading rumors. He believed that the Lizzians were preparing for a war and were simply waiting for the perfect moment. Shortly after, they received the order to follow rumors about an unknown creature, which was assumed to be a Reil.
At first, Tark thought it was just another trick by the Lizzians, but then he heard more and more rumors. About a shadow, a creature that roamed across rooftops at night, so fast that people believed they had imagined it. These rumors were incredibly scattered and rare, yet they existed. Tark briefly considered whether it was an elaborate plan or merely coincidence, until he encountered the creature for the first time. Then there was a pause of four days before he wrote in the journal again. He described how they had found no rest, because they had finally encountered the Reil, but also described heavy losses. He described it as an extremely dangerous Reil, unlike anything he had ever seen before.
He described how the Reil moved on all fours, possessing pitch-black fur and two glowing yellow eyes. Although it was only a body mage, as he apparently called the magic of the black Polykenas, it was incredibly powerful. In fact, it refrained from using magic for most of the fight, which made its movements unpredictable. But whenever it managed to get close enough to someone, it activated its aura. Every one of its attacks was a fatal blow. Isabella tried to track it using wind reading, but the creature waited precisely for the moment when Isabella became too exhausted and inattentive before striking.
In the end, however, Tark managed to drive the creature away at the cost of his hand.
They immediately chased after it, since they had inflicted severe injuries on it, but the Reil had apparently been waiting for that moment, as it attacked them again when they set up camp at night.
Once again, Tark wrote of heavy losses. This time, Isabella was struck as well, yet they did not give up. The next time they encountered the Reil, which of course was not a real Reil but Fril, only four of them remained. In this fight, two more members of their group died, leaving only Isabella and Tark.
In return, however, they managed to sever one of the creature's paws. Once again, it fled, but this time it did not return even after a week. Isabella and Tark searched for the creature every day, without success. Tark's final entry described how they had once again found no trace in the forest, and how strange it was that the blood trail simply ended at one point, as if the creature had vanished.
Nero closed the journal. He thought for some time about what he had read. The fact that suspicions were already forming that the Lizzians wanted war suited Nero perfectly. If he believed in a god, he would have considered it a gift. They simply had to play into that fear to provoke a war. He took out the second item he had found in Tark's bag.
"What is that?" Eleanor asked with interest.
"A map," Nero replied, spreading it out on the ground. "This here is the continent Huma. As the name suggests, this is where humans live. This here is Rita, the continent of the Lizzians, and this must be Okrie, the continent of the Reils," Nero recalled from Fril's stories.
He pointed to a spot. "This is called Krisalis, or the 'three races triangle.' It is the only place where the three continents meet. Otherwise, they are separated by seas." Eleanor nodded. He looked at the map with interest, trying to memorize the details.
"We should be around here," he said, pointing to a small forest area far in the north of Huma. Just below it, in small letters, was written 'Tissling.'
That would be their destination tomorrow.