Supreme Magus

Chapter 2525  Rogue Soul (Part 1)

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Lith made sure one more time that no one was around and that his arrival had triggered no silent alarm that might have escaped the Eyes of Menadion from the outside.

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He waited in a nearby alley for a few minutes, but no sound nor person came.

At that point, Lith used Gravity Fusion to quickly climb the nearest wall and reach a vantage point on the top of the tallest building he found.

As he looked at the landscape, he noticed that just like Reghia, the city of the children of Glemos was a patchwork of different city blocks, each built to help members of different species to cope with their semi-fallen state.

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The buildings that reached all the way up to the ceiling were inhabited by goblins who needed space to house enough of them to practice high-level magic despite their individually weak cores.

Entire city blocks were comprised of lush green areas that were too thick with trees and wild to be a park.

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Even though light spread evenly from the arrays, several city blocks were pitch black from a darkness of magical origin. Some houses were as luxurious as mansions while others were little more than burrows, their entrances marked by circular holes in the ground.

ʼMy bet is that reverted ogres live in the green, Balors and Fomors in the Mansions, trolls in the darkened areas, while Hati and wargs live in the burrows.ʼ Lith thought. ʼWhich leaves out where the reverted orcs live.

ʼThey descend from the elves just like the goblins so they should like trees and stuff.ʼ Yet looking at what he had already assumed was the goblinsʼ nest, he found the idea ridiculous himself.

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ʼIʼll worry about this later. My first priority is to find Solus. Letʼs check why earlier she cut the mind link without a word.ʼ Lith opened the connection again, noticing a very long blue strand that extended from him and moved past the horizon.

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ʼFuck me sideways, thatʼs why!ʼ He thought while shutting the link down before it was even fully formed. ʼAside from orc shamans, fallen races canʼt Awaken, but many of them have outstanding mana perception.

ʼIf any of them is close enough, they would not only uncover my position, but even Solusʼ!ʼ

Cursing his bad luck, Lith returned to the alley and summoned Valia, Varegrave, Trion, and Locrias. With the Demons on the lookout, he could afford to enter a meditative state to try and use his bond with the tower to locate Solus.

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While sitting down on the ground with his eyes closed, he sensed her presence somewhere on the east side of the city, but he had no idea how far and deep she was. Then, he put inside Soluspedia a scroll reading: ”Where are you?”.

The answer came out of the pocket dimension in the form of a piece of paper that said: ”City Hall”.

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ʼAny idea which building might be the city hall?ʼ Lith asked and the four Demons shrugged in confusion.

descend from humans so we have to search for a human-ish settling.ʼ

ʼYou are the one who interacts with Emperor Beasts on a daily basis.ʼ Locrias said. ʼYou are the one who should know.ʼ

ʼThatʼs assuming that the leader is a beast.ʼ Valia countered pointedly. ʼDuring both Neʼsraʼs raids, a Balor was in charge. Balors descend from humans so we have to search for a human-ish settling.ʼ

ʼIt makes more sense if the leader is an orc.ʼ Varegrave tutted. ʼThanks to their ability to control mana crystals, they are the only kind of monster that can cast tier four and five spells even in their fallen state.

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ʼItʼs likely that the reason they didnʼt take part in the raids is that shamans are rarely born among orcs whereas the members of the other fallen races all have the same abilities from birth.ʼ

ʼAnd there it is.ʼ Trion sighed, drawing attention to himself. ʼDefinitive proof that too many cooks spoil the broth. What do you want us to do?ʼ

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ʼKeep guard while I conjure reinforcements.ʼ Lith replied while pondering the Demonsʼ respective arguments and finding them all valid. ʼEven by restricting the search to the east side, it would take days to search it by ourselves.

ʼAnd thatʼs assuming we are on the right level. The only silver lining is that the collected energy of the mana geyser is available to everyone in the city, including me. I need just a short rest to conjure as many Demons as I can without the need for Invigoration.ʼ

Black chains darted out of Lithʼs chest and the Demons, each one finding a different soul willing to join his cause that in turn conjured more. Lith gave one eye each, preferring quantity over quality since it was a scout mission.

ʼThe greater our numbers, the faster weʼll scour the city and find Solus. Also, giving the Demons little energy means making them harder to detect.ʼ His train of thought derailed when he noticed that instead of spreading forward, the chains were amassing all around him.

Now that the Abyss was open, Lith could feel countless hands grasping at him, begging him for a second chance. There were so many souls and so many voices in his head that for a moment he lost control over the Call of the Void.

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ʼHow is this possible?ʼ Lith thought while the pain and misery of every Demon that took form flooded through his head, making their lives and deaths flash in front of his eyes. ʼThere are more souls here than in Kolga and the place was a slaughterhouse.

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ʼEven there most had died for long enough to forget everything about themselves but their resentment. Here, instead, they canʼt be older than a few decades. What did Glemos do?ʼ

Pain, hunger, grief, and death.

Each soul belonged to a different individual but they had undergone the same path in a life as short as brutal. As each newborn Demon sent new waves of misery crashing against Lithʼs mind, the chains kept spreading unchecked.

During his short twenty years of life, Lith had killed thousands of people belonging to all races. He had slaughtered hundreds that very same day. Among the souls that followed him, there were those of his fallen enemies whose grudge kept them from moving on.

Usually, it wasnʼt an issue since the chains ignored them, cutting them off from Lithʼs bloodline ability in favor of supplicant souls willing to help him. A Demon of the Darkness would be conjured solely on the condition that both Lith and the soul agreed.

This time, however, a few of the souls haunting him exploited his distress to get ahold of the chains and forcefully drain the energy they needed to gain a physical form.

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The intrusion sent a jolt through Lithʼs mana core, snapping him out of the seizure. He recalled the chains back and ordered the Demons to terminate the anomalies before they could fully turn into Abominations.

ʼWe meet again, murderer.ʼ Even without the chain, Lith could still hear the thoughts coming from a one-eyed puddle comprised of darkness magic and a spark of his stolen life force. ʼAfter all this time, I was starting to lose hope.ʼ

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ʼYozmogh?ʼ Despite his stupor, the Tiamat recognized the voice of Zolgrishʼs slave, a Balor who he had killed during his tour as a Ranger.

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