Something Ominous

Mephisto directed Nine to a little alcove in the rocks near the water. Nine raised a brow before casting a levitate spell on herself, walking across the water. It was a simple spell, but the effects it had when Nine used it was remarkable. She looked like a deity descending from the heavens, walking on the water casually.

The sight of it caused Nocturne and the rest to go into a daze before snapping out of it. Nine's Vampiric charms were just too strong! Even Seyton himself had a hard time resisting, let alone the two other fledgling Vampires.

Nine walked for ten minutes at a normal human's walking speed. Her frown grew more and more pronounced as she walked further in.

This place…

Nine slowly walked around the empty space, getting a feel for it. This place had been created by someone. It wasn't natural at all even though it did a passable job for it. Although it looked like it was letting natural light in, there were actually subtle enchantments at the top to give a soft glow of light that would follow the current weather and sun's intensity.

The alcove was laid with many spells and runes to make the people who entered it overlook these things.

Mephisto prodded at her, lifting a little leg to point at a crack in the wall. Nine's eyes focused on the crack, realizing that there were many dark elements in the wall. She frowned and expanded her sensing range, realizing that the entire place was built as some sort of gathering facility.

There were magic circles built into the wall, speeding up and multiplying the darkness elements that were being gathered.

Who did this? What exactly were they trying to do by creating something like this?

Behind her, Nocturne frowned as he touched the walls. "These look like the type of things that High Elves like to use in their magic," he said, tracing the way a rune was written. "Look, you can see from the way they wrote the runes. The elves like to elongate some, making it look more elegant even though it's only for aesthetic purposes."

Nine silently imprinted the sight into her memory.

There was something afoot here.

Mephisto did a little gesture, communicating with her. [Master, this is where I was born.]

Nine sunk into her thoughts. "Mephisto, are there any more like you inside here?"

Mephisto gave an affirmative, darting into a crack in the wall.

A few minutes later, a mass of black seemed to surge out from the walls. Upon a second look, it was evident that the mass of darkness was actually a large number of Black Phantoms.

Deltan swallowed and resisted the urge to flee from the alcove, whilst Seyton twitched slightly, trying to resist the urge to blast them with magic.

Nine raised a brow, realizing that the numerous Black Phantoms were all under Mephisto's control. She supposed that was why Mephisto had the title of Puppet Master.

She scanned the sight in front of her, picking out three that seemed stronger than the rest. She twitched her finger, causing them to fly out and land on Nocturne, Seyton and Deltan respectively.

Deltan's body involuntarily underwent a shudder as he tried very hard not to breathe. Was this a bad time to tell his younger that he had arachnophobia? Because he did. He felt like crying. What was up with his luck? First Cinders, now this spider? Ah, he could just tell that his younger brother wanted him to contract it even without him saying anything!

He wanted to refuse, but one look at his younger brother's face made him cave in. Maybe he would get used to it? The Black Phantom's leg scraped across his skin, causing goosebumps to appear instantly at the creepy feeling.

Deltan quickly contracted the spider, naming it before moving it onto a patch on his clothes out of his sight.

Seyton and Nocturne had no problem with contracting a Black Phantom as a familiar. In fact, no one had ever done so before. If Nine wasn't the one with them, telling Mephisto to control them, then before they knew it, they would probably have been writhing on the ground under the effects of the toxins.

Deltan felt like crying when he realized that the Black Phantom was also a higher tier than himself. Cinders, and now this spider…

"There's something very wrong with this cave," Nine said slowly. "Something like this is going against nature. It's forcibly breeding and controlling the darkness elements. If I think about it like this, then the scene outside is almost most likely manmade and not natural. That would explain why Seyton has no memory of this place existing."

Nine instructed around ten Toxic Spiders to stay behind and monitor this place, releasing the rest. She instructed the other hundreds of spiders to spread out in different directions and gather information.

In the end, out of hundreds of Toxic Spiders, only four had been mutated, which was why she spread them out instead. They were not to kill randomly, but to expand her information gathering group. These spiders would be able to get into places where a spy wouldn't usually and was loyal only to Mephisto. They would reject any other person trying to lay claim on them.

Nine was getting an ominous feeling after having discovered this place. It looked like something sinister was brewing.

Along the way, she had discovered that the monsters were acting somewhat strangely, but since the Magic Beasts were acting as per normal, she hadn't thought much of it. Now, however, she couldn't help but feel like this was the prelude to something that would affect the entire world.

Was it strange that she felt this way all according to intuition? Had it been before she bought the skill from the System, she would have thought so, but now…

The moment she spoke something out loud, it felt like she would be able to glean the truth just from that. It was a strange feeling. She had to experiment more on this, and she wouldn't make a hasty conclusion, but her instincts were screaming at her that something was coming.

Something that would affect the entire world and put lives in danger.

If that was the case, then Nine Destan would put her everything on the line to fight against whoever was trying to chain her down.

She only lived on her own rules. Not by anyone else's.