Chapter 529: Echoes of Death

Henry was walking along the edge of the Spore Forest. It had been days since his sister, Dolores, had last sent word. She had personally accepted the mission, leading a group of alchemists through the forest swallowed by poisonous mist to seize the oni temple. But the days passed, and she never returned.

He had wanted to go after her sooner, but the confrontation with Cassandra was imminent. Both armies were already positioned, and little by little soldiers from the kingdom were entering the rift. Blindly, yes, but they were still pouring in to support Cassandra and Peter.

Near the alchemists’ forward base by the forest, Henry found bodies scattered around a cave entrance. He stepped inside, moving past corpses already rotting, most of them decapitated.

What the hell happened here?

A noise echoed deeper inside. When Henry reached the source, he saw a monstrous boar tearing into a corpse. He drew his deck and flicked his wrist, cards flying like blades. The boar dropped. He pressed on, killing several more beasts as he advanced through the cave.

At the far end, he found the body he had been dreading to see. The alchemists were between levels thirty and forty. Strong. Numerous. They wouldn’t have fallen easily. At least there was one piece of good news. His sister’s body wasn’t among them. Henry glanced at one of the dead boars, an ugly thought crossing his mind. What if it had devoured her body?

“She’s alive,” he muttered. “Dolores wouldn’t die like this.”

He activated his rank skill.

[Echoes of Death (Rank F)]: A power forged from regret, bitterness, hatred, and ambition. While near a corpse, you may activate this skill to create an illusion showing the victim’s final moments. Useful for extracting information or uncovering truths only the dead can reveal.

Something rose from the corpse. Not flesh, but an image, as if the body itself were standing up. A translucent echo formed, and the scene rewound like a reversed recording. Objects snapped back into place, the illusion reconstructing the final moments in perfect detail.

Henry saw what had killed the alchemist. A blonde woman in black armor, a bat at her side.

“You wretch! Ardan’s wrath will fall upon you!” the alchemist screamed as a sword was driven into his abdomen.

“This is for Master Luke!”

After confirming once again that Dolores was not among the dead, Henry moved from corpse to corpse, from the cave entrance all the way to the back. He watched every step of the attackers, every exchange, every scream near the end. Two women. From the echoes, he pieced together the truth.

The assault on this cave had been retaliation for an attack on the temple.

So it wasn’t Dolores who claimed the fourth treasure.

The rift mission notice had said declared that all four treasures had been found. Henry had assumed it was his sister and the alchemists. Even Miles had been excited by that possibility. But clearly, it wasn’t them.

While checking the bodies, Henry collected several antidotes. Weeks ago, they had repeatedly failed to cross the forest, forced to wait until the alchemists developed something potent enough to counter the mist. He drank one and entered the forest.

Henry pushed through the green fog, then the purple. Whenever he felt the effects weakening, he reinforced the antidote. He had to be careful. He needed enough not only to advance, but also to escape later, or he could end up trapped near the temple. When he finally reached the village, the sight made him stop cold. Dozens of wooden stakes lined the area, each topped with a severed head.

“For your own sake,” Henry muttered, his jaw tightening, “I really hope nothing happened to Dolores.”

Henry moved past the severed heads, quickening his pace as his fingers tightened around his cards, ready to throw them the instant something crossed his path. He stopped in front of one of the heads and focused.

A Rank Skill was always more than its written description. Only through repeated use could its true limits be understood, the hidden angles uncovered, the full potential drawn out. His skill didn’t require an intact body. A head was enough. As long as he maintained physical contact and activated the ability, the illusion known as [Echoes of Death] would respond. He kept his hand pressed against the cold surface, pushing the vision as far back as it would allow. The woman appeared again.

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He saw her surrounded by alchemists. They hurled acid, burning oil, and a metal net at her. She screamed as the flames consumed her, her body failing, one arm already gone, the other barely holding together. She was dying and then—

“What the hell…” he whispered.

Her wounds began to close at an impossible speed. Flesh restored itself, skin knitting together as if time itself were being reversed. She rose and fell upon the alchemists, reclaiming even the arm that had been torn from her moments earlier. That level of regeneration was absurd. Rank D, at least.

Henry followed her trail through the final moments stored within the corpses, until something else struck him cold. Wings.

Another body fell, killed by a second woman descending from above, a spear thrown with lethal precision. So that’s why some of them died in their final moments, struck by a lance that seemed to come from nowhere. She was attacking from the sky. Piece by piece, he began to understand their skills.

As he climbed the steps, his breath caught. On the temple rooftop stood several stakes crowned with severed heads. And among them—