Sylas’ visualization had never been good at looking through barriers. Even when he was in the ocean, it was highly limited by the waters alone. In this situation, even with how porous the sand was, he couldn’t see more than a meter or so underground.
However, that was enough for him to realize something.
The world around him was basically being held up by a large root system. The sparse trees might as well have been on an organic system, connected with one another, sharing resources and water. And it was because of this thick, continuous connection that the sand had anywhere to rest. But if one wasn’t careful, it was easy to accidentally slip and fall into this endless network of roots.
The shocking part was that before the improvement to his Luck, Sylas wouldn’t have been able to see far enough to realize this at all. He would have thought it was normal sandy ground and likely slipped down by accident, finding himself assaulted by a large number of poisonous creatures.
The roots were practically a den for populations of scorpions that seemed to be in the tens of thousands. It was hard to look anywhere and not find a scorpion territory in some situation.
If he agitated the roots without thought, he would easily become public enemy number one.
‘Where did the street sign come from?’
This random thought made Sylas pause.
When he first got to the battlefield, a spiraling street sign had almost taken his head off his shoulders if not for the fact he caught it before it could.
But there didn’t seem to be any cities or civilization nearby at all.
There seemed to only be two potential explanations.
Either it was a remnant from Ragnar’s own village, or there was an underground city here somewhere.
The portal in the distance looked to be buried into the ground, and Sylas felt the odds that a small village like Ragnar’s needed street signs were unlikely. In that case, there really was a network down below.
‘Are they trying to lure me to the city? Or do they want to take me down with these poisonous beasts?’
Sylas thought hard, trying to see if he could remember anything about the Africor Continent having an underground city. But he couldn’t recall such a thing.
However, he couldn’t dismiss it outright either. Unless…
‘There’s no obvious entrance from what I can see. If this city was created by the Africor government, there’s no way it would be so hidden. There would have to be a way to get supplies in and out. They wouldn’t rely on people slipping in and out like this. Which means this city is either a new creation, or it was hidden from the beginning.’
Sylas didn’t know how much of his thoughts would be useful, but even if he was going to jump into a trap, it wouldn’t be carelessly.
There was a reason he had chosen to take this risk. And ironically, that was because he trusted in Lucius’ intelligence somewhat.
If Lucius really wanted to use a borrowed knife to deal with him, he would know that he would have to sacrifice quite a great deal to do so. The more he was willing to sacrifice, the larger chance Sylas would have at gaining something.
In addition, Sylas had to come to the Africor Continent no matter what to complete his Quest. If not, who knew when the next chance would be to step foot here? He had no ability to cross the ocean right now.
However, other than these questions, he still had another on his mind. And that was why they wanted him to enter from the same location they had.
He had seen their pause and look around. They were definitely trying to bait him.
After a long while, Sylas made a decision. He would enter from another location.
What he didn’t notice was that the moment he gingerly landed on the network of roots, there was a slight tremor that followed through them all.
Deep underground, a beast with dozens of eyes opened them all at once, allowing a glimmering crimson to fill the dark space.
…
Lucius frowned when he saw how Sylas entered. This would definitely throw these matters off. However, when he thought of all the contingency plans and failsafes he had in place, he didn’t allow this slight miscalculation to ruin everything.
“Let’s move on to the next phase,” Lucius communicated with Nathan secretly.
“Are you sure? You still have plausible deniability right now,” Nathan replied.
Lucius didn’t reply immediately. He stared off into the distance as his Grimblades began to press into the village.
One way or another, he was going to stamp out this competition.
Contrary to what one might believe, he didn’t make any plans with the Ravenclaws, nor did he communicate with the Sylphs. He was using them both.
It was just that he knew that the likelihood that they would succeed was minimal. However, if he placed his hands on the scale a bit, it was possible that Sylas might really be forced into a corner.
It was exactly this sort of ambiguity that made the plan viable. That was because right about now, if Sylas had sniffed anything out, he was probably thinking that he was in collusion with the Ravenclaws, whereas in reality… Ragnar was still under the impression that he was working on his own.
Funny enough, he and Ragnar both had the same thoughts. Ragnar was about to sacrifice his village for the sake of taking out Sylas, believing he could turn the situation around so long as he wasn’t around.
As for Lucius, he was willing to sacrifice even more than that.
He was now standing at a crossroads once more and staring down two options.
Nathan was right. If he backed out now, if Sylas somehow survived, there was still plausible deniability. But if he did this… there was no going back.
“I’ve made my decision,” he replied, his gaze calm. “Get Bloom here.”
