Chapter 1121: Writing On The Wall
Saturnina was not soone who could be called a heavy sleeper, in fact, calling her a light sleeper would be an underestimation, the slightest of noises could wake her no matter what.
That problem usually did not matter as she had taken care of soundproofing her room so that no sounds could go in and disturb her slumber, but it wasn’t a noise that caused her to wake this ti, but a slight tremor, so faint that most wouldn’t have even noticed it.
But even that was enough for the apprentice mage to stand up in a jolt.
She groggily looked around with eye bags that had sohow gotten even darker whilst she was sleeping face-first into her pillow.
‘Oh… I forgot to change out of my robes…’ now they were all wrinkled, and her body felt uncomfortably hot.
Saturnina did not question the tremor since she had no clue what had even caused her to suddenly wake up, but she felt parched, and thus decided to go fetch herself a cup of water from one of the castle’s kitchens, she knew exactly where the nearest one was since she would always go get food from there to eat by herself whilst working.
So she stepped out of the room, and in the dark of the hallway, before she even got the occasion to cast a luminous spell to illuminate her step, she noticed light peering from the bottom of the experint room.
The mage apprentice narrowed her eyes.
She never locked the experint hall’s door since the entire wing she was in was supposed to be heavily guarded, but now, it seems like soone was inside.
The young woman didn’t doubt for even a second that she had indeed shut the mana lights on her way out, it was basically muscle mory to her, and she distinctively rember sensing the mana in the crystal stop circulating as well…
‘Could it be Master Vilitomus?’ it would make a bit of sense for him to co check on her progress at an odd hour, but she was not sensing the usual residual energy he left when walking around.
Vilitomus was far from discreet in that regard, anyone capable of sensing residual mana could probably know exactly where he went during a day.
As such, Saturnina knew that whoever was inside of there had no business with the experint room, so she stepped forward, walked up to the door, and flung it open.
Beholding the destruction that had already taken place inside, many of the preserved dirt-blood remains had been damaged, sa for the corpses currently on operation tables, and just about everything else as well, the experint hall looked like a war zone!
And instantly, her gaze fell on two figures, one clearly a human man she had never seen before, the other, a dark-clad figure wearing a mask.
The two had frozen in place when the door had been opened like misbehaving children caught in the act of performing mischief.
Griar could converse with the undead seemingly without problem presumably because the corpse carried an item imbued with the blessing of comprehension, but if it ca to conversing with Saturnina, he would probably struggle to get his point across…
Though there was no need for him to worry about that part since the undead was much quicker than him to take advantage of the situation, and not by stabbing the living whilst distracted.
“I am an agent of-” for so reason he mid horns on his head using his hands “-I was rely keeping guard when this scoundrel broke into the experint room!”
“What the hell?!” of all things that could have happened, Griar was having the bla pinned on him? Who was this guy an agent of anyway? Why mi horns? Who had horns apart from so dirt-bloods? And why would Saturnina be supposedly convinced by that fact anyway?
The apprentice mage stayed silent with her eyes squinted, she kept throwing glances at the destructive all over the room.
“Get out of my experint hall”
And thus, both the living and undead disappeared from view, one used the winds to turn invisible, the other simply retreated into the darkness.
“Actually, the one with the mask, co back here and help clean this ss! If you are an agent of his, then surely you won’t mind lending a hand, right?”
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Griar eventually reappeared in the clearing where Fallael liked to spend his ti, recounting what had just happened to him.
Of course, the fact that an undead had ambushed him was the highlight as he had not discovered anything strange about the thod with which Saturnina created those dirt-blooded soldiers using corpses as the basis.
In fact, from reading her notes, the thod was one that felt very undead-like as it involved sparking life again within the subject, but the fact that an undead had been keeping watch did make the whole thing suspicious.
Though one could wonder if Saturnina knew that she was working with an undead, as it was likely that the supposed person with horns was one if they were using an undead as an agent.
The masked watcher had not ntioned any nas, and Saturnina hadn’t acknowledged his undeath in any way…
Still, it proved that the undeads had their hands in the human domain, and probably the elven domain as well.
Griar sighed.
“I guess I’ll have to check what is going on in the elven domain as well now?”
“That could be useful indeed, I am afraid that the lack of information is our greatest weakness… The undeads make simultaneous moves both in the light and in the shadows, their influence might be deeper than we can even imagine…” Fallael’s face grew pensive, or so Griar thought, he still had trouble getting a read on the sowhat-humanoid-faced serpent.
“So I am afraid that you’ll have to spend so more ti within the realm soon enough, you are the only one who can remain without issues”
“Yes, I know”
Griar believed that it was due to the accident that had landed him in the Stagnant Realm when he was still a child, but it seed crossing from realm to realm was exceptionally simple for him.
Fallael’s thod of connecting realms was impressive, but imperfect, so when one used it to appear in another realm, they wouldn’t be able to stay for too long, and the more they exerted their powers, the quicker they would be sent back to where they ca from.
This was why it wasn’t possible for the fighting spirits summoned by Antieeld to be too strong of scale tipper against the dirt-bloods and their undead backers.
Summoning them counted as Antieeld exerting her powers, so she would rapidly be sent back and the spirits would vanish alongside their commandant, and although Fallael would send her back in the realm quickly, this could not be done too many tis in succession, eventually, there would be a need for a lengthy break.
Everyone was bound by these rules, except for Griar.
He could remain within the realm and cast as many spells as he wanted without risking being sent back, this made him the primary information gatherer since he could employ in invisibility and stealth spells without restraint, but the problem was that although not exactly a weakling, Griar was far from being a truly powerful fighter.
He had good instincts, but he was just lacking at the mont.
He was certain that if Lizi had been in his place against that undead, that she would have been able to outskill him in swordsmanship and end the fight before he could have even revealed his strange, word activated spells.
“But do take a break” the serpent hissed.
“Your wife will miss you if you leave for too long”
Griar had no objections, he hadn’t seen Flor in only ten hours, and he was already missing her.
Fallael watched as Griar left, and then turned his attention elsewhere, the sight before his eyes fractured, revealing the realm the young man had just been in.
The old serpent was worrying for the future of this realm, they had beco entangled in war for several months now, and this constant bloodshed was not showing any signs of coming to an end anyti soon.
Unfortunately, Fallael himself could not cross to another realm, he could only manifest for a brief instant, and only to help soone in need, so there was nothing he could do about the apparent leader of the invasion.
He could only observe and assist those who could actually act.
But things were looking grim, the more ti passed, the more battlefields and fronts ford all over the place, the dirt-bloods kept on churning out entire armies.
And the more the reach of the war expanded, the less effective sending out armies of fighting spirits would beco as the amount of ti Antieeld could be sent into, and ejected from the realm remained the exact sa.
Fallael could only hope that the leaders of both domains could see the writing on the wall and would reveal their hidden cards at the right ti…
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