Chapter 3597: Last Resort (part 2)

Supreme Magus

The problem was finding the hideout, and to do that, Nalrond needed to find enough marked stones to triangulate its underground position.

Swimming in blind would have taken time, a luxury they lacked.

"He's been here." Protector said after Nalrond Warped him inside the underground cave. "Luckily, there's no blood. Unluckily, Salman's smell is so faint I doubt he stayed here for more than a day. Whoever was chasing him got close real fast."

Lith marked the second mana geyser as well, and they left once a full sweep of the Eyes failed to detect anything useful.

When they reached the third mana geyser, there was no need to search for the hideout. A powerful spell had opened a deep hole into the ground that had been roughly patched up. The soil was uneven and there was barely any grass covering it.

"Rushed light magic applied on vegetation." Protector examined the sealed entrance of the tunnel while Nalrond estimated the quickest route to the safe house. "This is not the work of a plant folk or even a talented mage. An apprentice was left here for the clean-up."

Nalrond wasted no time swimming through the ground and reopened the passage with earth magic. The tunnel was quite long, but whoever had dug it the first time had taken care to stabilize it by placing stone pillars at the right intervals.

"Gods-dammit, this is the work of a very competent mage, instead!" The last layer of hardened ground opened in front of the Agni, revealing the ruins of the Rezar's safe house.

Part of the rock was molten by intense heat, pools of water were all was left of ice blocks at least the size of a man, and several perfect holes with blackened edges were the telltale sign of heat rays.

Light Mastery was prevalently known for its holograms and hard-light constructs, respectively tier zero and four spells. Everything in between was a mystery to the general public, but that only until one fought their first Light Master.

"Good gods, that's a lot of blood." Friya looked around the artificial cave. "It covers most of the walls to the point I can hardly see the stone beneath."

"I have good news." Protector sniffed the air. "Most of the blood doesn't belong to Salman. I can count at least four different new scents."

"That's to be expected." Lith nodded. "Heat rays are a form of magic unique to Light Mastery. The problem is that they are not as good as constructs in a fight. Once you understand how heat rays work, they are too predictable and easy to deal with."

"I know." Nalrond sighed as he remembered his first meeting with Lith. "Did Salman manage to escape?"

"Most likely." Ryman replied. "Had he been captured, the Awakened wouldn't have done such a sloppy job in covering their tracks. They were in a rush to continue the chase. They did the bare minimum to keep their competition from finding the signs of the fight by chance."

"Do you think Salman killed a few of his pursuers?" Solus imprinted the mana geyser, using the brief stop to restore her strength.

"I don't think so." Lith checked the amount of blood and its patterns. "Awakened are hard to kill. They can heal from any wound with one breath. On top of that, you've seen the pillars. That's something only a mage old enough to learn engineering can do.

"The apprentices must have called their master, and he's now leading the hunt."

"If you're right, I know where to go next." Nalrond said. "There's only one place where Salman would go after escaping the clutches of a powerful mage."

He sealed the hole in the ground even more sloppily than the Awaekned before him and charged forward as fast as his flight spell allowed him to. The Agni stopped from time to time, but never for more than a couple of seconds.

He resumed his flight as soon as he oriented himself without giving so much of a word of explanation to his companions.

'We just passed a mana geyser.' Friya asked him via a mind link. 'What if Salman is down there, fighting for his life?'

She could see the massive pillar of world energy erupting from the ground with Life Vision, yet Nalrond hadn't even gotten close to it.

'He's not.' The Agni replied. 'At this point, I bet Salman gave up on hiding and is going straight for our Fringe. Yet no Rezar could cover that distance in one go. He is severely wounded, and people are chasing him.

'He has only one option. One that my tribe prepared before our first pilgrimage into the outer world.'

Nalrond crossed his fingers and prayed to the gods for mercy. Mana geysers were no common occurrence and in the best case scenario hundreds of kilometers separated them.

'We've crossed thousands of kilometers in a day, but we are Awakened and have a flying Divine Beast on our side.' He thought. 'The chase must have lasted for days, or Salman would have already been captured after running out of mana.

'Please, you insufferable bastard, hold on for one more day, no, one hour!'

Tiamat-speed flight and Warp Steps allowed the group to travel another thousand kilometers in less than an hour.

'Here we are.' Nalrond breathed heavily, with just enough strength to point at a small hill. 'We found it.'

'What's here and what have we found, exactly?' Friya looked around with Life Vision and saw nothing but trees and grass.

'No one is here.' Protector smelled several aromatic plants and wild beasts but nothing relevant to their chase.

'This a mana geyser.'Lith pointed at the small hill.

Or rather, way below the small hill.

'A powerful one.' He made the Eyes of Menadion appear on his nose. 'There are plenty of protective and cloaking arrays in place. I wouldn't have noticed the geyser either if not for the Eyes.'

'And that's why I believe Salman is here.' Nalrond used his Invigoration technique to recover his strength. 'This is not just a mana geyser like the others. There is a rich Adamant mine down there.

'The veins of mystical metal run deep into the ground, and the local Awakened Lord has worked hard to protect his treasure.'

'Then how did Salman get in without getting obliterated by the arrays?' Friya asked.

'The same way we did when we found Glemos' children inside Ajatar's mine.' He replied. 'By digging through the ground and passing between the arrays without triggering them.

'Rezars can perceive magical formations even without Life Vision, and our bloodline ability doesn't trigger them. This is why my forefathers placed our safe house here. The mana geyser is cloaked, making it even harder to spot our safe house built right outside the arrays' area of effect.

'On top of that, anyone who wants to access the tunnels must either explain themselves to the owner of the mines or face his wrath. My ancestors assumed that normal humans would have died without being given a chance to talk.

'If that's not the case, the cloaking arrays are supposed to hide a runway Rezar like Salman from magical means of detection until he regains his strength.'

'Yeah, but what if the local Awakened Lord agrees on splitting the Rezar's bloodline legacy? Even worse, what if the one chasing Salman is the local Awakened Lord?' Protector asked.

'Then we need to make even more haste.' Nalrond replied.