Chapter 495 - 488. The End of The Tunnel
"Urk--"
Dheera clasped her hands over her mouth, even though it was already covered by a mask. The shrieking sound filling the chamber was unearthly and inhumane, made of the stuff coming out of the worst nightmare.
A pair of hands took off her goggles then, blessing her with the darkness that protected her mind from the horrifying scenery that almost made her feel pity toward a miasmic beast.
"Better close your eyes, Missy," Gus whispered gently. "Protect your sight."
And your mind--the esper muttered inwardly. Even among the espers, the use of hex had never been seen favorably. It was rather hard for a black magician like Hari to find a place in a prominent guild, but fortunately, their Guildmaster favored functionality over image.
And that decision had proven right countless times, including this moment.
The shriek of the hobgoblin they chose to be ’interrogated’ continued as the creature was mind-bent by the hex and started to scribble on the hard floor with bloody fingers. It was hard to discern; apart from the wobbly squiggly lines inevitable by the pain, they had to look at the dark blood against the dark floor. Thankfully, Kei had better vision than most esper and managed to replicate the scribble--or rather, drawing--in her commlink.
"Here," Kei pointed at a square with many circles inside. A line was drawn on the top side, with a diamond-shaped thing on its edge. It almost looked like a box birthday cake, and they would laugh if it wasn’t for the implications of the drawing. "I think this is referring to the base."
And the ’diamond’ was definitely the shard.
Beneath the square, the hobgoblin had drawn what they thought was a path--a complicated one, which represented the Stone Eater’s path perfectly. And then, at the bottom of that path were indecipherable lines that they couldn’t read. However, from how much the creature’s hand shook while making those lines, they concluded that the lines referred to the Specter.
"So it seems like our conjecture is true," Zhan said after stabbing the creature to its much-wished death. He dragged the dead body and threw it to a path they wouldn’t take. "So? We will pursue them, right?"