“What happened? Where is your vulture?” The Clan’s Elder questioned with a frown. Nikolai tried to gather his breath and put up his best act of lifting himself to sit.

“I… it was a disaster… we wanted to ambush the outlander, but he seemed to have foreseen our trap and brought in a group of pirates with him. They surrounded us and shot down our vultures. The chief risked his life so that I made it back to call for reinforcement. Please, hurry, the chief is…”

Nikolai acted emotionally, and the Elder seemed to buy it. He stood up and flicked his sleeve to command the guards beside him.

“Gather fifty clansperson and follow me. Treat this disciple and make sure that his wounds heal. We leave immediately.”  The Elder made his decisions swiftly and moved to execute them like the wind.

In a matter of a few minutes, Nikolai could see fifty vultures soar through the skies. He immediately used his stealth and disappeared, running away from the eyes of the Riders.

Luckily for him, no one took off his hood or goggles. Otherwise, forget about his identity, he would have been attacked immediately. The Riders were too alarmed about his warning and wounds to care about these things.

Nikolai darted across the Clan and went straight toward Alias’s location. He noticed that although he could see everything in the real world, his stealth placed him in a separate dimension—a dark one, where he felt at home.

He crossed dimensions to hide at a spot a distance away from Alias. Another thing he noticed is that while in the stealth dimension, his perception was limited.

‘Three guards and two vultures.’

Nikolai’s crimson eyes scanned the surrounding, picking up the tiniest of clues to facilitate his escape. It might be easy to use stealth on himself, but just that cost him half of his mana until now.

He would never be able to take away Sergio and Alias without being seen. The sheer size of it would leave him stranded.

‘Oh, there’s also that mute.’

Nikolai inwardly grimaced as he remembered the nuisance of an archer. He should have handled her the moment she snuck up on him, but she was too damn similar to his friend from the orphanage.

‘Not that I care what happens to her anymore.’ 

Nikolai slid into his stealth again and ran past the guards without being noticed. Alias was chained to a giant rock to prevent it from flying away. As for Sergio and the mute, Ruxi, they were in a cage that hung from a towering tree.

‘Wait, these are?’ Nikolai paused next to a cave. He looked inside and found the pirates who attacked them locked inside. It seems this was the reason he was ambushed. ‘Should I finish them off?’

He licked his lips but flinched when he noticed his actions. The Curse of The Banished forced him to devour souls, but the process of eating them was too euphoric that he began to crave it.

Nikolai fought the thoughts away as he kept running. He wasn’t living in denial, but he knew better than becoming an addict to such vile things.

He climbed the tree and jumped to land on the cage’s ceiling. The noise from his landing was absorbed as well, making none of the guards below notice his arrival.

“Sergio,” Nikolai surrounded the cage with darkness to make his voice reach the two inside only.

“Ah? Mama, is that you?” Sergio’s voice was weak, and it seemed the Vultra Clan didn’t feed enough for the past few days.

“It’s me, Nikolai. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Zzz…”

When he heard the snoring, Nikolai craned his neck to look into the cage and found Sergio asleep. As for the mute, she looked at him silently, gesturing as soon as she saw him.

‘Who are you?’ She asked cautiously.

“I just told you. I’m taking Sergio away. Good luck to you.”

‘You sound and smell different…’ Ruxi gestured with a frown, but Nikolai ignored her. As he was about to break the lock, she grabbed the bars of the cage. ‘If they catch me, I won’t stay silent about your identity like before. I know your name.’

“Threatening me is unwise, archer,” Nikolai said coldly. “I won’t be as kind as last time.”

Nikolai reached out his arm, and the darkness locked around her neck and raised her in the air. She began to struggle as the dark mana tightened around her neck, making her face turn blue.

“Guh!” Her voice gave out incomprehensible sounds that made Sergio snap awake. As he saw an unknown entity trying to kill his comrade, Sergio jumped to grab Nikolai and bit on it.

“What are you doing?” Nikolai blinked as his friend tried to bite as hard as he can, but couldn’t even make Nikolai bleed.

“Ah? Boss?” Sergio snapped out of it and looked up at Nikolai. “I knew that you would be back! Oh, wait, what’s happening to Ruxi?” He asked with worry.

“I’m trying to kill her,” Nikolai answered as he wondered how Sergio recognized his voice immediately, although it was so different.

“Oh, I see.” Sergio nodded as he let go of his arm. “Wait, no! Boss, what are you doing? She’s going to die!” Sergio tried to grab the darkness but screamed and as soon as he touched. “What is this thing? Boss, please stop!”

Nikolai hesitated and turned toward the archer, whose eyes were now rolled back. Just a bit more, and she would be dead, but he didn’t think that Sergio would ever forgive him.

Nikolai let go of her and stared at Sergio, who rushed forward to help her. The alchemist was clueless about what to do and settled to using mana on her neck.

The mana helped heal the vessels in her neck, allowing blood flow to be restored, and the archer woke up with a gasp. She began gasping and vomiting while glaring at Nikolai with eyes full of hate.