If his financial situation permitted, Zalanir would always choose to come to a concert instead of putting on the headphones at home. It was weird coming from an amateur composer like him, but the theater provided a single element that being at home could never replicate: the anticipation before the show began.

  It was when everyone — no matter what they were doing, no matter what seat they booked, and no matter what their taste or preference for the music were — stopped making any sound and left everything to the conductor to give them the best feats of music for the night.

  A second ago, Zalanir was still dreading the silent sensation encompassing the chamber, but then after seeing the fireworks of dazzling light carried by the four kunai, that same emotion had turned 180 to remind him of his love for the anticipation before the main performance taking place.

  Adrenaline rushed to his heart, turning it into the drum in every semester opening ceremony during his university life. Thud! Thud! He leaned his trembling body forward, his hands gripped firmly onto the warm bars.

  They are here.

  A rain of flashing arrows graced the center of the chamber from above. Each arrow exploded upon making contact with something — anything — leaving some cultists scrambling for the wall.

  Then, a mound the size of a log cabin entered the chamber from the entrance. A mound? It was like an earth snake slithering underground and splattering dirt on its trail. It headed straight toward the summoning altar, bulldozing everything that dared to stand in its path. A tall, buffed cultist standing near the front got knocked away, with quite a sum of blood spurted out as the prize after trying to stop the advance.

  Zalanir’s eyes were on the stag and the boss man. Despite all the cultists had all scurried away from their spots in an everyman-for-himself style, both of them hadn’t made any move just yet. What was the man’s name again? Hatalup? No, Hatillup. That was right.

  This was only the second time Zalanir had seen the man, but as a counterpart to Eiselen, there was no way he would be a weakass. Not to mention the fact that he was now a C-grade, so his calmness right now had to mean that the man was still confident that everything was under their control.

  And with no surprise, the man moved. After a roaring shout, he jumped to the air and slammed the big spiky ball on the ground, creating a small crater and shock wave that headed straight toward the moving mound. It was small and weak in comparison to the trampling pile of earth and dirt, but when the two collided, the mound was pushed to the side and slammed into the wall like it got slapped in the face. A poor cultist with slow feet was squashed under the force.

  Then, from inside the mound, a squad of blue armor emerged. So that was where they were hiding. Nine. Some familiar faces there, but none of Hiina, the captain, or the archer that Zalanir was sure was the conductor of the opening attack.

  A roar of cheers erupted from the prisoners. With that also came some curses as well.

  “Haha, now who’s talking?”

  “Kill them!”

  “Apologize. That might save you from suffering a bad death.”

  “Dunzhia. I love you!”

  Where did that last one come from? A female warrior holding two blue short swords lifted her face toward the prison. Oh, she was mad. Whoever just called that better prayed that the cage could protect him.

  The Blazethatch Stag howled. Its sound dwarfed all the laughs and chants. Then, it rushed toward the enforcers. Its antlers shimmering with small fire vortexes.

  In a fluid motion, two male enforcers moved out to intercept the beast, while the rest also sought out their own targets. The female warrior, whose name was probably Dunzhia, ran side by side with a senile man with a patchy, scruffy beard. Their target was none other than Hatillup, who once again slammed his massive flail to the ground. Another shock wave, but this time, the old enforcer blocked it with a thrust of his spear. You go, old man!

  The stag was really a force of its own. Its blazing charge and occasional fire explosion attacks with its antlers forced the two enforcers to be on the defense all the time. Even though both of them were also peak D-grade, they could barely hang on with the beast.

  As for Hatillup, despite being the only C-grade here, he didn’t create that much of a difference on the battle himself. The old man with the spear was just too damn sturdy with his precise and timely block. Were all the spear wielders that good with precision? Lithma was the same with his thrusts. Perhaps it was the trait of their mastery? Though this old man’s attack was a bit lacking on the eye test.

  But it didn’t matter. His partner — the female warrior — supplied that perfectly. Zalanir knew that she was quick from the training back then, but the way she danced around the flail man with her irregular bursts of speed was such an amazing sight to behold. Unless there was a moment of carelessness or a wild change of speed, there was no way that flail could hit her.

  As for the rest of the battle, even though the cultists had the number advantage, they couldn’t handle the assault of the enforcers. It was nine versus five, but they were constantly on the back foot. All of them were level 40+, slightly lower compared to the enforcers, but it wasn’t the main reason. As if two or three levels would be enough to overthrow that big of an advantage in number.

  One major reason was the difference in coordination. The cultists were fighting and protecting themselves, while the enforcers guarded others and performed some joint-attack from time to time. It was as expected from a group serving as the “police” of a city versus a bunch of cultists. Not to dismiss their strength, as Zalanir knew how good they were from his previous battles with them, but the way the cultists fought spoke to their mediocrity in teamwork.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  As for the other reason, well, the enforcers just had a hidden cannon in terms of the archer. The man still didn’t reveal himself yet, but homing and explosive arrows kept flying through the entrance onto the battlefield, timely controlling the flow of the battle and greatly increased the enforcers’ power.

  Still, the reason the cultists hadn’t fallen apart just yet was because the majority of the arrows were targeting the stag, leaving only several arrows on their head. If the archer was focusing on them, well, the result would be rather simple. Just how overpowered was that class?

  While watching the battle unfolded, his thoughts trailed off to the timing of this rescue. Wasn’t it a bit convenient? He had been in the valley for over a week and trapped here for three or four days, more or less, so why hadn’t this raid happened sooner? He had hoped that he could stay outside of this conflict by going for level-farming, but somehow he still found himself in the middle of this. Had the enforcers known this lair of the cultists already, but was waiting for the right moment to strike? But if so, why now? The summoning? Or perhaps they just managed to arrive at this precise moment?

  Even though something was still bugging him that he had no way to answer at the moment, alas, the enforcers had come. At least he could get out of this place now. The prisoners seemed to share this sentiment as well, as all of them kept on gifting out curses and chants generously.

  The battle continued, and then, the inevitable finally came. Two cultists were taken out in quick succession by a combined attack of ice and slash. An ice mage inside the enforcers managed to temporarily freeze the lower half of one cultist, resulting in another enforcer cutting off the cultist’s head in a 180-turn-and-slash. The second one suffered a quicker death by an explosive arrow blowing up half of his belly and the area below.

  With this turn of events, the stag and Hatillup slowly retreated back to the other path and ran off with all other cultists. With the stag erecting a massive firewall to block, none of the enforcers was able to pursue.

  It was rather … easy? Besides the two gassed out enforcers who took on the stag, the rest of the enforcers looked good to go. But then, Zalanir understood that this wasn’t over.

  “All of you! Come with us. This cult is a pimple that has to be cured. Wagenner has to pay for all of his sins. Justice will prevail.” The old man with the spear turned toward Zalanir’s direction, or rather, the jail’s direction.

  Hiina had made her way into the chamber during the old man’s talk, but her condition startled Zalanir. She didn’t participate in the recent fight, so why was she that bad? Half of her light blue breastplate was ravaged and burned into broken charcoal, while the other half, though still functional, barely held onto her body. Even the corset piece of soft cloth underneath was decently affected as well. There was also dried blood remaining on the tips of her fingers and circled around her neck like half of a necklace.

  “You didn’t even look this bad back at the cave. What happened?” Zalanir asked when Hiina came over and studied the jail, or rather, the ward over these prisons.

  “Ambush,” she replied with just a single word.

  “Well … happy to see you again. Thanks for coming here.”

  Well, all he got back was a nod, and that was it. Except for the time after the assassin died, she had just been cold as fuck.

  Took her a while to deconstruct and get rid of the warding scheme, which thanks to that, a kick was all it took for him to break the bars. This only reinforced his desire to study formation later. If it could fortify these simple jails into indestructible containers like this, imagine its potential if Zalanir could incorporate it into a battle. Wouldn’t that make him invincible by having a fortress to retreat to? What if he used it to strengthen his body? Would anyone even be able to hurt him? Yeah, though, why didn’t the cultists do this?

  He wanted to ask Hiina, but decided to let it go. He would look this up later when he got to Yebin.

  He didn’t want to attract attention, so he wandered around randomly, staying here and there until he got to the middle of the chamber, where the summoning altar and the previous summoning ritual took place. Maybe there was something left for him here.

  Inside some of the smaller crates were the corpses of dead maggots, cicadas, and surprisingly, deer. There was only half of its body left, but definitely a deer. There were also some brown nuts inside these crates as well. But overall, most of those crates were already emptied, so looked like something had already consumed the majority of their content. Likely the stag. The yeasty odor and rotten scene still hung inside and on the edge of those crates.

  As for the three bigger crates in the center that he saw earlier during the ritual, one was empty, while the other two preserved an orange oversized rabbit and a four-eyes black monkey. Both of them were still in perfect condition, with no wounds whatsoever.

  Then he placed his hand onto the summoning altar. An action that woke up the soul sister again and made her seething inside the cage. Similar to the one inside the bat cave, there was still a piece of soul left lingering here.

  With all the experience, Zalanir got the soul to come to him in a couple of minutes, but then he hesitated as to what to do next. With the sister acting like that, probably she would just devour the newcomer. Should he really let it happen?

  No, too dangerous. It was right here inside his mind, after all. But now he had two toddlers and a summoning altar. Even if he lost both of them, the bigger soul was still inside his mind, so the risk was kinda acceptable.

  Thus, he tested it outside of his mind by letting both of the toddlers out in the open on top of the altar. It was still close enough that he could guide them back if nothing happened, but also safe enough for his mind to not be destroyed by his curiosity.

  Right after he released the first one, the newer soul pounced upon it immediately. It was the same behavior when he was attacked by the soul jelly back when the ritual started. So they indeed sought out the others.

  The result came faster than he thought. The new one, despite being the aggressor, ended up losing out to his own toddler. There you go; show them who’s the senior.

  After the whole thing, the toddler got a bit fatter, which scared him that the cage might not fit. But alas, the last time when he did the switcheroo, he ended up making a bigger cage in a rush, so now it was still enough to host this belly-was-full toddler.

  Oh, why do I even need to do this close to a summoning altar? The soul can surely survive on its own, right?

  He jumped to this test immediately by releasing the toddler out again and soon mentally clapped his hands when the soul was hovering in the air on its own without the need for the summoning altar. That was it. Why did he even think the soul needed those structures to begin with? It was just a place for him to catch any leftovers. Nothing more, nothing less.

  He ended the experiment here. Still couldn’t bring himself to test having these souls battling inside his mind just yet. Perhaps at a later time. Now he still had a battle to fight.