Chapter 221: A Chance Reunion
In the days that followed, Evan made another trip to the library and exchanged two of his books, though this time he brought back one from an entirely different school of magic. He hadn't run any experiments lately; his mind was entirely occupied with cultivation. To him, one treasure after another was revealing its wondrous face to him, and he thought it best to absorb what he could first.
Fortunately it was winter, or he might have been tempted to tinker with Bug Enslavement. Lately, though, he'd noticed that within dozens of forearms' length around him, even with his eyes closed, everything registered clearly in his mind. It wasn't quite a form of sight, whatever it was. He sensed, vaguely, that his cultivation had climbed to a new plateau. He'd even made a special trip to the library over it, but no one there could explain it to him.
The term was nearly about to start again when an owl arrived bearing an urgent letter — a plea for help from Leonardo. Tina was in trouble. She and ten knights of the Tulip Guard had traveled to Hattusa in Cappadocia, in the eastern part of Taerxi Continent, to escort a bishop of the New Church named Oliver on a diplomatic visit. They had lost contact somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains. Both the New Church and the Old Church had already dispatched rescue forces, but Leonardo, at a loss, had thought of Evan and sent the letter asking for help.
The instant he read the letter, Evan's mind went into disarray. Only then did he realize that, without his noticing, that small woman named Tina had quietly put down roots in his heart. He read through the letter quickly, then forced himself to calm down. It was long, packed with information, much of it conveyed through magical means. Evan worked through the details one by one in his mind; some of it seemed to be pure noise meant to interfere, and he set that aside, eventually piecing together a rough picture of what had happened.
He rose, sorted through the contents of his ring, and set aside anything he wouldn't need for now. His eye fell on the Ptolemaic Planetary Ring. He'd done extensive research into it and had finally worked out its principle and its function — he probably understood its use even better than Schulman did by now. That was the benefit of having a great organization behind him.
At the moment the ring detonated at its center, it maintained a balanced pressure — something an ordinary person could never withstand — but under the protection of a certain incantation, one would come through unharmed, while within dozens of forearms around it, space would descend into chaos, forming what looked like a void zone. Evan slid the ring onto his left arm. It would serve as a secret weapon.
He also put on the other legendary item — the string of eighteen beads Heathermere had given him that day, which had no name of its own; Evan had simply given it a name from his previous life, calling it a mala — and wore it on his right wrist. On his finger he wore the legendary ring, a protective ring good for only two more uses. He selected a few more magical items to place in his storage ring, including the crescent blade named Dark Moon, along with some gold coins, and took up, as always, his staff.
He left instructions with Shuang and Scarlett. This time, he wouldn't be bringing Shuang along — he intended to go alone. He headed straight for Hollingburton's teleportation array, bound for the Caucasus Mountains. His heart was racing, but he knew rushing would accomplish nothing.
He left his quarters to see Ortlando, who had already heard the news and asked with concern, "Should the school send someone to go with you?"
"Thank you for the thought, but there's no need. Both the New Church and the Old Church have already sent people. More hands won't necessarily help much. I'd appreciate it if you'd cover my classes, though," Evan said.
"Don't worry, I'll see to your classes. I wish you all the best. You'll be taking the teleportation array, I take it — but since this is personal business, the cost will be on you," Ortlando said.
Evan nodded. "That much I can afford. I'll be off, then."
Evan made his way to the school's teleportation hall, paid ten gold coins, and stepped into the array. After a wave of dizziness, he found himself in a well-hidden sinkhole along a small spur of the northern Caucasus range. He emerged from the cave, exchanged a greeting with the Hollingburton personnel stationed there, and without stopping to rest, used a levitation spell to rise straight up out of the sinkhole to the mountain peak above.
This was the northern reaches of Taerxi Continent, barely into January, still locked beneath endless ice, snow blanketing everything white in every direction, though the weather was clear. The sun had already begun to slant westward. He took out his map, and a topographical projection formed before him. Checking his position, he found he was roughly four hundred kilometers from where the group had vanished, in a direction to the southeast.
Studying the map, Evan noticed the region on the magical chart looked unusually chaotic, and his brow furrowed. This was a zone of spatial interlacing — normally quite stable — but the map showed red and blue shifting erratically across that area, in obvious disorder. Could the planes themselves be crossing there? At some point, within a roughly two-hundred-kilometer radius of the Caucasus range, people had begun vanishing. Yet unlike the Gael Mountains, where large-scale battles between mages had thrown space into disarray, the Caucasus region showed no such cause — it seemed to be a naturally occurring phenomenon, which was why the area had later been designated a restricted zone.
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Tina and her party had apparently been lured astray into this region, though exactly how or why, Evan didn't know. What was clear was that ever since their disappearance, the area had shown obvious spatial anomalies. Both the Curia and Leonardo believed they were most likely somewhere within that stretch of mountains, though there was no way to know their exact condition.
Evan put away the map and set off toward the southeast — not at a walking pace, but covering several forearms' distance with every stride, moving like a galloping centaur, racing across the snow with only the faintest footprints left behind.
Night was drawing close, the sun already down, but Evan had already covered more than three hundred kilometers. Thanks to his Great Knight's physique and his lich's body, he felt no fatigue at all. As he pressed on, he sensed movement ahead and stopped abruptly, his gaze drawn instinctively in that direction. His line of sight was blocked by trees, and yet, oddly, he could still see. He realized he possessed a kind of ability — when he focused his mind, everything around him registered directly in his awareness. It was a strange sense, with no blind spots at all; obstacles like trees had some effect, but only a minor one. He couldn't help but think of the immortal-cultivation novels of his previous life — was this what they called Divine Sense?
He didn't know the answer, though calling it Divine Sense wasn't wrong, either — it was simply his primordial spirit at work, extending its reach within a certain range around his body, making everything within it vivid and clear. The clarity of it, though, depended on the state of his primordial spirit; if he couldn't keep his mind still, the effect would weaken or vanish entirely, while if he could keep his heart perfectly unmoved at all times, it would illuminate everything without exception. Evan had no idea of any of this — his path of cultivation had simply led him, without his intending it, onto this road.
What he sensed was a bald man wielding a greatsword, a case slung across his back, its surface draped in black cloth. Something stirred in Evan's mind, and at once the black cloth seemed to turn transparent to his perception — it was a sword case, containing eight blades of every description, some rapiers, some sidearms, differing in shape and length, which together with the greatsword in the man's hand made nine in all.
Facing him stood four opponents: two wielding curved sabers, one carrying a scythe — an unusual weapon to see — and the last wielding a greatsword of his own.
The man with the greatsword bellowed furiously, "Ronaldo! Will you hand over the Saint's Skull or not? Hand it over, and we'll let you go."
The moment he spoke, Evan recognized the name at once — that bald man was Ronaldo, the one he'd met before, outside Port Rotterdam, Old Lady Elise's nephew. He hadn't expected to run into him here.
Since it was someone he knew, Evan wasn't about to stand by and watch. He took a step forward, appearing within their line of sight, and called out with a smile, "Ronaldo, of all places to run into you. What's going on with these four? Would you like me to clear them out?"
All five men startled. Ronaldo turned, delighted. "It's you! No need — stand back and watch, I'll deal with these four myself, and we can talk properly after."
With that, he gripped his sword in both hands and let out a great shout. White light rose along the blade, and he stepped forward, the sword sweeping low with his body's motion, carving an arc straight toward the midsections of the four opposing men.
Light burst from their weapons in answer as they closed in. A series of ringing clashes sounded, and the four fell back several steps. Ronaldo shouted again and released his sword from his grip, sending it flying straight at the man wielding the greatsword; the man swung and knocked the flying blade aside.
At that moment, a dazzling flash of swordlight rose, and Evan watched Ronaldo, the sword case still on his back, leap suddenly into the air and come plunging back down. Before he even touched the ground, he had already sprung forward again, drawing a rapier with his left hand while his right hand drew out a broad, thin-bladed greatsword, both descending in a blur, faster than the eye could follow. His left-hand rapier split into what seemed like several blades of sword-energy, driving into the belly of the man with the curved saber. In the space of a single flicker, he had already reappeared before the other saber-wielder, his right-hand blade flashing out to pin the man's saber in place while the rapier in his left hand drove into his stomach.
Only then did the sword case, standing upright, finally settle into the snow. In that single blink of time, both opponents were already dead. Evan felt something oddly familiar about that left-hand blade technique; a moment's thought, and he placed it — elven swordsmanship, though executed with even greater mastery than the elves themselves managed.
The man with the greatsword let out a cry of alarm. "The Reverse-Grip Cross Sword — that's the Reverse-Grip Cross Sword!"
Evan understood then — so that was the Reverse-Grip Cross Sword. Looking again at the wounds on the two fallen men, he saw it wasn't a single cut but two, one horizontal and one vertical, forming a cross — delivered with such speed that a single strike had carried the force of two blades at once, perfectly perpendicular to each other.
The two men finally collapsed. But at that moment, the man with the scythe let out a sudden savage roar, his body beginning to warp — muscles bulging, his head shifting into that of a wolf, his fingernails lengthening grotesquely, black fur sprouting from his skin. A werewolf. He lunged forward. The last man began to transform as well — bat wings unfurling from his back, fangs extending from his mouth. A vampire — no, one only recently turned.
Evan's brow furrowed. He waved a hand, and a coil of black mist shot out like an octopus's tentacle. The vampire had barely spread his wings before the mist twisted into a rope and bound him fast, dropping him to the ground.
The werewolf caught Ronaldo's right-hand blade on his scythe, his breath rank and foul, and lunged forward with jaws wide to bite — his speed a match for Ronaldo's own, though his fighting style was crude and primitive, clearly the mark of someone who hadn't been transformed for long.
The rapier in Ronaldo's left hand flashed. A howl rose from the werewolf and cut off abruptly — the blade had already driven through his chest, leaving a cross-shaped wound punched clean through.