Two days later, Erik and June were in front of a door. They knew it all too well.
"We are finally here."
"Yes, master."
He sighed, approached the door, and knocked. Erik expected the guards to open the door as soon as he knocked, but they were strangely taking a lot of ti.
A minute went by without anyone replying or opening the door.
"I'm starting to get worried," Erik said. June shared the sentint. It was weird for no one to open the door.
"Should we just break-"
Ethan stumbled through the door, his face devoid of color, looking ghostly.
He was a patchwork of hastily applied gauzes, each one telling the tale of battles recently fought.
Dark patches of dried blood marred his clothes, and he moved with the pained attention of soone well aware of the sting of his wounds.
The sight sent a jolt through Erik, causing the guild master to start having thoughts.
"Ethan?"
"Erik?" A smile bead on his face.
"Why are you injured? What did you do?"
Ethan looked at himself. "Ah... that... Co inside; I will explain on the way."
But Erik and June already had so ideas about what happened.
The tunnel leading to the underground city was darker than usual, and there weren't many guards around. The far end of the tunnel housed most of the guards.
"Why are there so few guards at the entrance? It's not safe."
Ethan paused for a second. "We are having trouble with the number of soldiers right now."
"Why?! Did you...?"
Ethan seed to have understood what was going on in Erik's mind.
"Ah, sorry! We didn't join Noah in his quest to save your father. He said clearly that you told him not to involve us. For that, I and the others would like to thank you."
Erik sighed. "But then, why are you wounded?"
"It's simple, really," Ethan said. "Soon after Noah and the rest of your people left for Fasard, sothing weird happened. The thaids... they... started behaving weirdly."
This news was annoying. The last ti sothing like that happened, it didn't end well for New Alexandria.
"What do you an?" Of course, the first thing Erik thought about was the Heniate. Did the Blackguards unleash another one? It was clear they were able to nurture them-a feat quite incredible, to be honest, but strangely possible.
Ethan paused again. "The Thaids living close to the Eldraith mountain range, you know, those vile and powerful beasts, started heading southwest, and... they started flooding this area."
"Ah."
Everything clicked. What Shade said wasn't random. All of this, one way or another, was again due to the blackguards.
They were doing sothing in Mur that pushed powerful thaids to travel on Mannard, stealing the local thaids' habitat and pushing them away from their territories.
It appeared that more and more thaids arrived in Mannard and affected the local monster population.
Liberty Watch's villages stretched before Erik. Their colossal fras were still sustaining the vast ceiling hundreds of ters away, dug from the hard rocks from which the cave housing the underground city was made.
However, compared to a couple of months ago, when Erik left the place, there were many fewer people.
"I guess you had to fight a lot, right?"
"We had, and we lost many people in the process."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Erik said.
"Thanks. But hey, let's stop talking about this. Noah arrived here a week ago, along with your father. Everyone told not to tell you anything about his situation because I would say sothing that made you worry... but..."
"You just did that..."
"Yeah... I just realized..."
"Nevermind, I had two weeks to calm myself down. I can manage to learn a couple of the things that happened while I was away."
"Yeah. I was also told to bring you to where your father is being kept. While you all were away, we built a sort of hospital. I must say, your n know how to do stuff."
"Yeah. I chose them for this reason."
They finally reached a magnificent building, but its imposing presence was overshadowed by the scaffolding that wrapped around it like ivy.
The structure was extensive, with steel girder bones forming the skeleton of what promised to be a state-of-the-art hospital.
Half-finished walls and exposed beams spoke of a 'work in progress', and the air was filled with the buzz of saws and the clatter of hamrs.
Around the site, workers in hard hats moved with purpose, dodging between trucks unloading materials and cranes hoisting panels into place.
"Where did you get those vehicles?"
Ethan smiled. "We built them with your people."
Darius could really build stuff.
Dust hung heavy in the air, mingling with the sharp scent of fresh cent and the earthy sll of disturbed soil.
A small portion of the hospital had already undergone construction. It was a side building that joined the rest of the hospital that was still under construction but that the city was forced to use because of the great number of wounded that ca back from Fasard.
"How many people are in that building?"
"Thousands," Ethan said. Both June and Erik grimaced.
"It's not like your soldiers. Even our people have a lot of wounded." He then asked. "Didn't
you say you could steal people's brain crystal powers?"
Erik looked at him with a startled expression.
"I can, why?"
"Then you should consider stealing one or two, because we really need them. On another
note, why didn't you get one already?"
It was simple. "I have to kill the healer to get it. I have principles and never found soone worthy enough to be killed."
It was weird for him to say this since, in the past, he considered killing a school healer just to get that power. But of course, a thought was a thought; one couldn't be judged for having had
one.
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