Chapter 145

Sakavi waited for two full months in the rear stronghold of the Silent Barrens.

He remembered every day, because every evening, he would walk into the shed built of discarded wooden boards and old canvas on the edge of the camp, sit on the only chair that hadn't fallen apart, and listen to the wind outside making the canvas flap and snap.

He didn't go out during the day. It wasn't because he was afraid of being recognized; in this land crushed by war, a guy with a hood covering his face was too common. He was afraid of being remembered.

The stronghold in the Silent Barrens was a mixed bag: regular imperial troops, priests of various sects, freelance mercenaries, bounty hunters, remnants retreating from the Abyssal battlefield, and those ambiguous characters who had crawled out from who knows which rift.

He didn't want to be remembered by any side.

At night, he occasionally went to the Dark Feather Tavern to sit for a while.

The tavern was built on the ruins of a bombed-out bunker on the edge of the stronghold, using recycled military tent canvas as a roof and discarded ammunition crates as tables.

The owner was a dwarf with a missing left hand; it was said that in his youth, he had been a blacksmith in the dwarven kingdom of Morian, later expelled from the sect for selling enchanted weapons privately. His left hand wasn't a war wound; it was smashed by the Dragon-Breaking Hammer he had forged himself. As for why, he wouldn't say.

Every time Sakavi went, he sat in the same spot: the corner of the tavern against the wall, back to the wall, facing the door. A glass of dark red wine was always on the table, which he never drank.

The first time he went, the owner asked him what he wanted to drink, and he said whatever. The owner poured him this glass of dark red wine, and when he pushed it over, his thumb wiped the rim of the glass. It was very light, very fast, but Sakavi saw it.

That movement was too deliberate, like some kind of secret code. He didn't know what this glass of wine meant, so he never drank it. Every time, he waited for the wine to cool, and when he got up to leave, he poured it on the ground.

The owner would look at him every time. It wasn't a warning; it was the look an old dealer who had spent too long in casinos gives a gambler: he knows you will lose, but he won't say it.

He had read the parchment given by the Phantom Laugh Circus hundreds of times; the parchment was already frayed at the edges, and the creases were about to tear, so he had to use magic to reinforce it with a layer of transparent film to protect it.

The terrain of the Bone-Weeping Mountains, the location of the prison—that was all. What the circus gave was indeed true; he had the Shadow Intelligence Agency secretly verify it, and the topography marked on the map basically matched the imperial military's survey records, but that was all.

The map ended at the prison entrance. No one had ever drawn the path after going inside.

It wasn't that they didn't want to draw it; it was that it was useless even if they did. The internal structure of the Soul Prison was constantly changing. The Shadow Intelligence Agency had obtained a long-dusty file from the Imperial Military Intelligence, which mentioned that the empire had once sent an elite squad to infiltrate the prison, and only two people came back alive.

The testimonies of those two people contradicted each other. One said he walked through three corridors and made seven turns to reach the first-tier cell area; the other said he only walked through two corridors and made three turns. Both insisted their memory was not wrong.

The conclusion of the Imperial Military Intelligence analysis was only one sentence: The spatial structure of this area is unstable and cannot be mapped.

It wasn't that the Phantom Laugh Circus didn't want to help him; they couldn't. What they gave was never a complete solution, just a direction. He had to walk the rest of the road himself.

But he didn't intend to walk it alone.

Hidden beneath the smiling face drawn by the circus leader was not goodwill, but an overdue debt. In the multiverse, no one is ever good to you for no reason. He needed his own bargaining chips. So he was waiting, waiting for a pawn of his own that could break this unequal situation.

One evening two months later, that pawn arrived.

A human wearing gold-trimmed white robes walked into the Dark Feather Tavern. His robes were exquisitely crafted, and a golden holy emblem was pinned to the collar—crossed dragon wings holding up a sun. The Jin Hui Temple, the Metallic Dragon faction of the Bailong Sect.

On the surface, they were lawful good believers who served metallic dragons and spread the glory of the Dragon God. In the strongholds of the Aethos Empire, their identities were legal and their actions compliant; no one could say anything.

But Sakavi noticed a detail. When the human walked into the tavern, his left hand remained tucked in his robe, with his thumb exposed. There was a very fine, vertical scratch on the thumbnail; it wasn't a decoration, it was a mark.

The secret code of the Ember Brotherhood. The Chromatic Dragon faction.

Sakavi picked up the glass of wine he hadn't drunk, walked to the human's table, and sat down.

The human looked up. A sharp-featured face, gray-blue eyes, golden-brown short hair. He looked to be in his early thirties, but in this world, appearances are never reliable. His left hand was still tucked in his robe, his right hand on the table, fingers slightly curled, as if ready to grab something at any moment.

"This seat is taken." The human's voice was steady, carrying a kind of deliberate politeness, but his gray-blue eyes lingered on Sakavi's hood for half a second—too long, long enough for Sakavi to be certain he was sizing him up.

"It is now." Sakavi placed the wine glass on the table, his slit pupils beneath the hood staring straight at the other party. "I am Sakavi. The Black Dragon Duke of the Red Moon Plane."

The human's expression didn't change at all. But his left hand was pulled out from his robe—empty.

"Sakavi." He repeated the name, the corners of his mouth moving slightly—not a smile, but the kind of expression that said, "I've heard of you." "Outside Kanason City, you killed quite a few of my men."

"I killed them." Sakavi did not deny it, nor did he even offer an excuse. "But you know better than I do how it started."

He leaned forward slightly, his slit pupils narrowing into thin lines.

"You asked me to kill the priest of the Light Church, I killed him, and I also got the necromancy book you promised me.

Then you turned around and sold the news to the Light Church. I was wanted, hunted, and fled like a stray dog on the Kadoven plane. Those few years, your 'reputation' really helped me a lot."

The human's smile didn't change, but there was an extra layer in his gray-blue eyes. It wasn't guilt; it was the cold, icy scrutiny of someone whose sore spot had been poked. His right-hand fingers stopped curling and lay completely flat on the table.

"So you killed my men outside Kanason City to collect a debt?"

"It's collecting a debt, and it's also a reminder," Sakavi said. "A reminder to you that a Black Dragon's memory is not bad."

The noise in the tavern seemed to grow distant at this moment. The mercenaries at the next table were still playing finger-guessing games, and the dwarf owner was still wiping a glass, but Sakavi could feel that more than one pair of eyes was looking this way. It wasn't curiosity; it was alertness. There were people from the Ember Brotherhood in the tavern, and not just this one.

The human was silent for a few breaths.

Then he let out a short, bone-snapping laugh. "Good memory? Fine, then let's settle the account."

He placed his left hand on the table as well, hands folded, leaning forward slightly.

"Your Black Dragon reputation is famous in the multiverse. The promises you make are worth the same as toilet paper. You sign a contract with someone today, and you can tear it up in front of us tomorrow. Haven't you done this kind of thing enough?"

Sakavi's slit pupils narrowed slightly. He did not refute it. Because what the other party said was the truth.

"We Black Dragons at least sign contracts," he said. "What about you Ember Brotherhood? You even skip the contracts. Who in the whole multiverse doesn't know your methods? Digging pits for people, waiting for them to jump in, and then with a 'the dead don't have debts,' you default on the principal and interest. Dead people won't come to collect debts from you, right?"

The human's folded fingers stopped.

"That's the way of the Black Curtain Guild." His voice dropped, low enough that only Sakavi could hear. "We are the Rust Branch, it's different."

"What's different?" Sakavi stared at him, word for word. "Five branches of the Ember Brotherhood. Black Curtain, Rust, Ash, Dark Flame, Bone-Wither. Which one isn't the same stuff? You just burn paper of different colors; what you burn is all the same."

A trace of genuine, undisguised chill flashed in the human's gray-blue eyes.

The temperature in the tavern seemed to drop a few degrees. The mercenaries at the next table had become quiet at some point, and the dwarf owner's glass-wiping motion had also stopped. The entire tavern fell into a strange, solidified silence.

Then the human laughed. It wasn't that short, bone-snapping laugh; it was a genuine laugh squeezed from the depths of his throat.

"Fine," he said. "Since we're all not exactly good people, let's skip the nonsense."

He took out a black badge with no markings from his bosom and placed it on the table. The edges of the badge were heavily worn, like an old object that had been rubbed constantly for years.

"Ember Brotherhood, Rust Branch, Vice President, Herak."

Sakavi looked at the badge but didn't take it. He noticed that when Herak said the words "Vice President," his eyelids twitched—not from nervousness, but from something deeper that he didn't want others to notice.

"Rust Branch." Sakavi repeated. "Outside Kanason City, I killed people from the Black Curtain Guild. I haven't touched anyone from your Rust Branch."

"So you came to us, not the Black Curtain?"

"The people from the Black Curtain wouldn't sit down and talk when they saw me," Sakavi said. "You at least would sit down."

Herak took the badge back into his bosom and leaned back in his chair. His gray-blue eyes looked exceptionally deep in the dim light, like two bottomless wells.

"Fine. You came to the Rust Branch, what do you want?"

"The Soul Prison."

Herak's hand stopped. It wasn't a deliberate pause; it was a genuine, subconscious stiffness. Sakavi noticed his hand tapping twice under the table, then stopping completely. That was a physical reaction that only occurred during extreme tension.

"Do you know what you're saying?" Herak's voice was a degree lower than before, carrying a clear, undisguised wariness.

"I do."

"Do you know what's locked inside?"

"I don't," Sakavi said, "but I know that you know."

Herak stared at him for several breaths. Long enough for Sakavi to hear his own heartbeat, long enough for the wick in the oil lamp in the corner of the tavern to pop.

"The Ember Brotherhood has spent tens of thousands of years," Herak finally spoke, his voice so low it sounded like it was squeezed from the depths of his throat, every word as if polished by sandpaper. "We've sent thousands of people to infiltrate that prison. Those who came out alive can be counted on one hand."

He paused, a light flashing in his gray-blue eyes—not ferocity, but the near-mad obsession that only those who have walked on the edge of the Abyss for too long possess.

"And, of those who came out alive, none dared to mention the name of that prison. It's not that they didn't want to; they didn't dare. There is something in there; once you say its name, it can find you. No matter which corner of the multiverse you are in."

Sakavi's scales stood up slightly. It wasn't fear, but a deeper, instinctive alertness. There had been similar warnings in his dragon heritage; some existences cannot be named. Naming is summoning.

"You don't even dare to mention the name, yet you still want to go in?"

"I do," Herak said, "because Moruzi is in there."

He leaned forward slightly, his voice pressing even lower, so low that Sakavi had to focus all his attention to hear clearly.

"Moruzi was the former president of our Rust Branch. When he was in office, he held the research results accumulated by the branch over tens of thousands of years... and the wealth. Enough to buy half the Aethos Empire."

He stopped, as if weighing whether he should say what came next.

"Later, he was defeated by demons and locked in that place. We don't care if he lives or dies. But we must get back those things in his head."

Sakavi's slit pupils narrowed slightly.

"So you came to me, not to save him, but to get his soul?"

"That has nothing to do with you."

"And the conditions?"

Herak took a yellowed roll of parchment from his bosom and placed it on the table. The edges of the paper were charred, and the handwriting in some places was blurred by water, but it was overall preserved quite completely.

There were no place names marked on the paper, only dense lines and symbols: corridors, rooms, traps, patrol routes. It was much more detailed than the one the Phantom Laugh Circus gave, but also much more tattered.

"This is the terrain map of the prison's interior," Herak said. "The Ember Brotherhood spent tens of thousands of years and hundreds of lives to draw this map.

Those who came out alive drew every path and every corner they remembered in their heads. Those who died used their corpses to help us verify which paths were wrong."

Sakavi didn't reach out immediately. He stared at the parchment, smelling the old, rotten scent of the base paper, like opening a grave that had been sealed for too long.

"This map is incomplete," Herak said. "The internal structure of the prison is constantly changing. What was drawn today might be useless tomorrow. But the location of the core area...

Moruzi is locked in the deepest part of the prison; what that place is called, what's inside, and how to get in—it's not on the map, and those who came out alive didn't dare to say."

He took a thin silver chain from his neck. A black gemstone the size of a fingernail hung from the chain; the surface of the gemstone had no luster, like a black hole that had sucked in all light.

Sakavi stared at the gemstone for a few seconds, feeling a faint, indescribable dizziness—not an attack, but a deeper disturbance acting on the soul level.

"Dark-Speak Necklace," Herak placed the necklace on the table. "It can shield all soul-level detection magic. Wear it, and the guards in the prison specifically searching for souls won't see you. But there's no guarantee it can fool the Warden."

Sakavi looked at the parchment and the necklace on the table. Both items represented tens of thousands of years of blood debt from the Ember Brotherhood.

"Are these lent to me, or given to me?"

"Lent," Herak said. "Return them when you're done. If you don't return them, we will come to get them ourselves."

"Are those the only conditions?"

"Moruzi's soul. Bring it back intact," Herak said word for word, his gray-blue eyes leaving no room for negotiation. "Not even a fingernail missing."

Sakavi was silent for a few breaths. He picked up the parchment, rolled it up, and stuffed it into his bosom. He put the necklace around his neck, the gemstone resting against his scales, cold like a small stone fished out of the deep sea.

"What if I don't come back?"

Herak stood up and looked down at him. There was no emotion in his gray-blue eyes—no sympathy, no worry, not even expectation.

"Then you will owe the Rust Branch a debt forever," he said. "The debts of the Ember Brotherhood are never wiped away just because someone dies."

He turned and walked away. The hem of his white robe was lifted by the wind the moment the door curtain fell, revealing the dark gray, scratch-covered leather armor underneath. Beneath the robes of the Jin Hui Temple, there were always the bones of the Ember Brotherhood.

Sakavi sat in the empty tavern and took out the parchment from his bosom to read it again. The lines and symbols on the paper looked like a spider web in the dim light—complex, fragile, and untouched for who knows how many years.

He had waited for two months, and he had waited.

But what he waited for wasn't a pawn. It was another dark river whose depth he couldn't see. The Ember Brotherhood, the Phantom Laugh Circus, the True Word Guild—three forces, three purposes, three completely different ropes tied to the same knife. And the person holding the hilt was him.

He stood up and pushed the door open.

The night wind poured in, scattering the turbid air in the tavern. In the direction of the imperial camp in the distance, the sound of war drums was still ringing; a million-strong army was fighting demons in the depths of the Silent Barrens, day after day, never stopping. But he wasn't going there. The direction he was going was the opposite direction.

The Ember Brotherhood provided a piece of intelligence.

In places far from the battlefield of the Silent Barrens, in corners the Aethos Empire couldn't reach, all kinds of people were hiding.

Fugitives, traitors, exiles, regulars on the Pantheon's wanted list—they hid in the shadows of the Rust Canyon like a group of rusted blades forgotten at the bottom of a drawer, yet still sharp enough to cut a finger.

Sakavi took a black beacon from his space ring. Given by the Ember Brotherhood. The other end of the beacon pointed to the Rust Canyon, a place whose name had been erased from the map by the empire.

He activated the beacon and walked into the darkness.