NOVPUB
Chapter 64: Another Discovery
In another room, Sylphia sat alone, her eyes wandering over the room’s interior. She was quite anxious about what might have happened to the others, but after a few minutes, no one had yet come to see her. Each of them had been separated and placed in their own private interrogation room. Aldrian had told them to wait for his move, assuring them that they would not need to resort to violence.
She trusted Aldrian, so she waited. After all their time together, she had learned not to underestimate his judgment or assume his thinking was simple. Every time he spoke, it was as if everything was under his control. In her 150 years of life, a relatively short span for a cultivator, she found Aldrian’s existence to be an anomaly, something beyond her ability to describe.
When she first met Aldrian, she had seen him as a young boy with incredible talent, performing miracles that no one else had ever achieved. She had considered him a little brother, seeing some similarities between them. But over time, she realized how wrong she had been in her thinking. His speech, wisdom, mannerisms, and gaze were not those of a typical 12-year-old boy.
Talking to Aldrian felt like conversing with a mature, experienced man, full of knowledge, making it impossible for her to see him as just a child or little brother. The only thing that reminded her of his youth was his height, still shorter than hers, but even that would not last much longer, given his rapid development and cultivation.
Despite all the oddities surrounding Aldrian, she found herself intrigued by his origins. Who were his parents? Where did he come from? What was his secret? She felt irresistibly drawn to the mysteries surrounding him. As she reminisced about the past, she heard a sound from outside the room. Moments later, the door opened, revealing the young man who kept her so captivated. He smiled at her.
"Let’s go, we need to pick up the others."
Sylphia returned his smile and walked outside, only to see the guards already lying on the ground. They didn’t seem to have any external injuries and appeared to have simply fainted.
"I just put them to sleep. When they wake up, they’ll have forgotten all about us," Aldrian said.
Sylphia nodded and followed Aldrian to the other rooms. As they walked, she occasionally glanced at his back. He had grown much taller since the first time she met him, and the confident, relaxed way he moved made her feel more at ease, dispelling her anxiety.
"Hey, who are—ugh." A guard bumped into them on their way, but with lightning-fast reflexes, Aldrian slapped them, causing them to faint instantly. He reached another room where two guards were stationed in front of the door, which he swiftly dealt with. After he opened the door, Eleine stepped out, and they headed towards Xin Haotian’s room when they finally were all able to regroup.
"So, what’s your plan now? Once they wake up, we’ll be fugitives if we just leave them like this," Xin Haotian said.
"Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen. They’ll forget about us when they wake up. Also, we need to change our plan, there’s a devil in this city," Aldrian replied.
"What? How do you know? Even I couldn’t sense any devils since we arrived," Xin Haotian asked, puzzled.
"He’s wearing some kind of artifact to hide his devil energy, which is why you couldn’t detect even the slightest trace of devils characteristics, even though we’ve already met him."
"Already met him? Don’t tell me it’s one of the people we killed?"
"No, he’s still alive—and he’s the one who brought us here."
Xin Haotian and the others were stunned.
"He’s the battalion commander—Commander Jin Tae-Yang."
When they heard that, they gasped.
"Are you sure? It would be big news and could cause chaos if a devil holds a strategic position here," Xin Haotian asked.
"100% sure, and it seems the devils’ plan isn’t so simple. Some of the demon cultivators are already on their side."
"If what you’re saying is true, we need to warn the city’s authorities, or even higher!" Sylphia said.
Aldrian sighed. "If only we could depend on those demon authorities, but the ones we need to be wary of are those very authorities."
"So, are you saying the demons of the demonic cult have already betrayed the continent?" Xin Haotian asked.
"I don’t have a definite answer, and I’m not entirely sure, but some of the authorities in this city have already defected to the devils."
"Is that so? How did you find this out?" Xin Haotian asked.
"From Commander Jin himself, of course," Aldrian replied.
The other three were puzzled but decided to trust Aldrian. They realized that the commander must have met Aldrian first, but the encounter didn’t end well for him.
"So, why are we heading deeper into the building?" Eleine asked.
"To save some people."
They arrived at the front of a long aisle lined with cells on either side. Inside those cells were several occupants, all of them children. Bruises and wounds marred their small bodies. Eleine and Sylphia gasped at the sight, struggling to comprehend how so many children could be kept in such a pitiful condition.
"These are children from unfortunate circumstances. They were desperate and needed shelter, and the Skull of Dual Horns exploited that for their own purposes," Aldrian explained as he walked. He then controlled the surrounding energy, unlocking all the seals on the cells. As the cell doors swung open, Eleine and Sylphia rushed to help the children, using potions and healing techniques to tend to their wounds.
Aldrian walked towards one of the cells and noticed a boy who looked at him with a terrified expression.
"No, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to sell you out," the boy said, backing away as Aldrian entered his cell. He feared Aldrian had been imprisoned with him and was now seeking revenge. The boy covered his head with his arms, but what he saw next stunned him. Aldrian stretched out his hand, and a blanket of golden energy enveloped him. The warm sensation made him feel comfortable, and he watched in amazement as his wounds healed rapidly.
"You don’t have to worry anymore. Come with me; you’re free now." Aldrian said.
"Wh...What do you mean?" the boy asked, confused. Wasn’t Aldrian supposed to be a prisoner like him? But then he noticed the other man standing casually behind Aldrian, with no guards in sight. He heard noises from the surrounding cells, cries, then sounds of rejoicing. Suddenly, the boy felt himself being lifted off using energy without his consent, and before he knew it, he was standing in front of Aldrian.
"Let’s go now. We don’t need to stay here any longer." Aldrian said, leading the way out of the cell. The boy followed and looking around at the other children who had also been freed. A total of 20 children had gathered, and Aldrian addressed them.
"I’m going to teleport all of you outside the headquarters. You can follow these older sisters and brother here. Don’t worry about any repercussions from the authorities," Aldrian assured them. They were confused, but before they knew it, they were outside the headquarters’ walls.
Eleine, Sylphia, and Xin Haotian were also confused by what Aldrian had just said. What did he mean by letting the kids follow them first? However, seeing the lost expressions on the children’s faces, they felt the need to move them to safety first and wait for Aldrian, so they quietly led the children away from the area.
Meanwhile, Aldrian remained inside the building, searching for something in Commander Jin’s room. He followed a strange flow of energy emanating from one part of the room and eventually discovered a secret door hidden behind a giant painting. Without hesitation, he opened it. Inside, he found an illusion formation and another formation designed to block energy from escaping the room.
After deactivating the formations, what he found no longer surprised him.
"The devils’ teleportation artifact," he murmured as he looked at a circular artifact placed on the floor. It was the same type of artifact he had seen many times in the Ivory Empire. Now, in the Ivory Empire, only Balin City and Evergreen City were free from these artifacts. With this discovery, he confirmed that the devils had infiltrated demon territory in the same way they had in the Ivory Empire, and worse, they had even joined the demons’ ranks.
He contemplated for a moment but decided to leave the situation as it was for now. He knew he would need a more detailed plan to uncover just how deeply the devils had infiltrated the demon cult.
"Some of the guards have already seen our faces. Well, let’s make sure they forget us."
Aldrian exited the secret room, restoring it to its original state before disappearing from the commander’s quarters. Shortly after, a series of thuds echoed through various parts of the headquarters. Not long after that, Aldrian reappeared outside the city guard headquarters, casually brushing off his hands.
Eleine, Sylphia, and Xin Haotian had already moved further away to find a place where the children could rest. Aldrian knew that some people would find it strange to see them with so many children in their group, and the guards would likely notice too. But that was okay, he had already prepared for it.
