Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Walter of the Bloody Flame was nothing more than an expendable piece in Marquis Eurys’s plans. Walter himself remained in ignorance, unaware that he was acting as a puppet destined for ultimate disposal.

“The leader who heads the Sixth Division belonging to the Order of the Black Flame…”

Dale’s words emerged in a faint murmur, causing Sepia to observe him with evident bewilderment.

“How do you know that designation?”

It was impossible for him to reveal that that memory came from a previous existence.

“On this day, the Bloody Duke himself appeared at the academy’s facilities.”

“…”

Thus, Dale proceeded to detail the situation. He exposed the particulars that the Bloody Duke had uncovered regarding the Order of the Black Flame, as well as the imperial sovereign’s determination to silence anyone who possessed such information.

However, he chose to omit the details about the Bloody Duke’s existential perspective and the offer he had made to him to forge a “new alliance of the Black Flame.”

“Certainly, it represents knowledge that would cause great discomfort in the spheres of the Empire,” Sepia ruled with total serenity.

“They planned to use us to execute an indirect elimination maneuver… A truly vile action.”

“Considering that you are by my side, Sepia, they took for granted that we possessed the capacity to subjugate Walter of the Bloody Flame.”

That man would never have been able to overcome Sepia’s power. He simply walked straight into the ambush set by the Bloody Duke, which meant that, indirectly, both Dale and Sepia ended up acting in accordance with the latter’s expectations.

“That individual possesses indisputable dangerousness,” Sepia stated.

“I agree completely,” Dale seconded, while scanning the surroundings with his gaze.

The Crystal Wasteland. The mystical domain of Sepia, the magic expert belonging to the line of snow elves.

A sorcerer’s territorial manifestation acts as an impenetrable restrictive zone against any external disturbance. It is the corporeal projection of their own mental plane. Therefore, the deliberate activation of this environment by a mage responds only to two specific scenarios:

The first, finding oneself before an adversary that demands the deployment of one’s full potential to be eradicated.

The second, finding oneself in the company of an individual before whom one allows oneself to reveal one’s most intimate essence.

On this particular occasion, both motivations converged.

“I thank you for having protected me, Sepia,” Dale expressed.

Within that confined place where only Dale and Sepia were, the elf postponed her reply for an instant. She limited herself to offering an expression of warmth and sweetness, true to her custom.

“This site possesses a sublime beauty,” Dale declared, contemplating the immaculate surface that formed the Crystal Wasteland.

“In my role as mentor and colleague in the magical arts, the day I managed to perceive the glimmers of your own internal environment, I understood the deep sense of isolation and emptiness that accompanies you…”

She spoke with the benevolence and empathy that had always characterized her.

“I found immense similarities with my own experience.”

Dale held his breath at Sepia’s assertion. Her words held absolute precision. Sepia’s mystical space was reduced to an infinite plain made purely of crystal. A mental structure forged by a being who abandoned her native home as an exile, forced to traverse the mundane realms carrying the heritage of the snow elves.

It was at that precise instant that Dale reached total understanding. She shared his same condition.

Two souls linked by a desolate and icy isolation. Faced with that reality, Dale’s young age and the longevity inherent to Sepia’s elven nature lost any relevance as an impediment.

The mental dimension constitutes, ultimately, the faithful reflection of internal sensitivity, and at that moment both managed to decipher the other’s feelings.

For that reason, Dale shortened the distance and held the accomplished sixth-circle sorceress in his arms. He no longer found himself helpless against the rigorous desolation that the Crystal Wasteland evoked.

“I profess a great affection for you, teacher,” Dale uttered.

“Therefore, I ask you to wait an additional span.”

Rising slightly on the balls of his feet, he deposited a subtle kiss on the elf’s cheek.

“…!”

“Until the moment I consolidate myself as a man of your stature.”

After that gesture, he held his gaze toward Sepia’s countenance.

“I-it shall be so…”

Sepia, with her ears on alert and cheeks aflame, seemed to lose the notion that the child before her barely counted eleven years of age.

Having concluded the contact, Dale proceeded to take a prudent distance.

“Perhaps,” he questioned after establishing the separation between both.

“Did no requirement exist for such a wait?”

The blush gained greater intensity in Sepia’s features, extending even to the tips of her pointed elven ears.

—Be silent —she managed to articulate with evident embarrassment.

Dale dedicated an affable smile to her upon perceiving the state of agitation in which she found herself.

“Sepia,” he enunciated to himself, as if analyzing the conduct of a third party.

“You possess a sumptuously wide threshold of emotional vulnerability.”

The pair of sorcerers, one representing the crimson hue and the other the blue spectrum, remained face to face while they gave shape to their respective mental dimensions. The conceptual environment projected by mages of such high status and elder hierarchy possessed the quality of operating as an absolute confinement.

An improvised combat surface, shielded against exogenous factors.

In other words, unless the creator of such a dimension decided to dissolve it voluntarily, it was impracticable to access it from the exterior.

To break said barrier by force, the action of a mystic who held equal or superior dominion became indispensable.

And the number of individuals with such capacity did not exceed a hundred in the entirety of the continental territory.

Due to this, during the span in which Walter of the Bloody Flame and Sepia, both exponents of the sixth circle, held their dispute, Sir Bale of Baskerville was left with no option but to remain in anticipation.

Before long, Dale and Sepia made their appearance at the site. Fortunately, they were without any harm.

Walter, the bearer of the Bloody Flame, had perished under the action of the Shadow Stalker, any material vestige of his existence being extinguished.

“My young master Dale, are you free of wounds?”

“I have not suffered any damage, Sir Bale,” Dale ruled, while Sepia remained lagging behind with her face still inflamed.

“What is the condition of our knight escort?”

“We registered some members with contusions and wounds, but fortunately no one lost their life.”

“It is excellent news,” Dale corroborated in a serene manner.

“It is unheard of that a member of high hierarchy belonging to the Red Tower would perpetrate such an aggression…”

To lure the successor of the Black Tower toward the domains of the Imperial Academy with the sole purpose of ambushing him.

A fact of extreme gravity had been consummated, with the potential to destabilize the relations between the various mystical edifices and sow chaos in the entirety of the Empire. Had it not been for Sepia’s intervention, Dale himself would lack the tools to prevail against an elder-rank mystic. That was, at least, the appreciation that Sir Bale held.

In an environment devoid of witnesses or public scrutiny, no one possessed the certainty of the real reaches that Dale could demonstrate upon employing the totality of his faculties in combat.

“Given that the warriors under Saxon’s command are safe, I will assume personal management of the events that occurred today,” Dale determined.

“Until the moment I emit distinct directives, I demand from you and the rest of the knights the strictest hermeticism regarding what happened.”

“However, my young master!”

“Sir Bale. It is a direct ruling by the successor of House Saxon.”

“… It shall be executed according to your wishes.”

Dale nullified in a cutting manner any attempt at reply by Sir Bale.

“My carelessness could well have dragged Saxon’s combatants toward a fatal destiny.”

Dale showed his discontent by means of a slight clicking of his tongue and diverted his gaze.

Despite everything, not even he anticipated an offensive perpetrated with such audacity, fundamentally in a period characterized by so much instability.

“…”

He recalled the representation of the “earthly region” that in the past was taught to him by Marquis Eurys. Under what logic did such geographic manifestation take form in the Bloody Duke’s mental environment? And what course did events take in said site after his own dismissal?

For any mystic, exposing his internal dimension represented an act of extreme delicacy.

That mental environment reflected the configuration of a sorcerer’s internal being, his very psyche, equivalent to granting direct access for a third party to inspect the depths of his soul.

Under that same premise Sepia had conducted herself previously before Dale.

An absolute validation or a cutting rejection toward the peer. Intermediate postures were discarded. Concessions had no place.

“Will there be a possibility that you know who I really am…?”

He evaluated internally, only to then discard the idea with a wave of his head.

“It is entirely improbable.”

If the Bloody Duke truly possessed certainty about Dale’s origins, his maneuvers would have taken a much more drastic course. Dale conserved a sharp memory about the interactions that the Bloody Duke maintained with him in his previous era.

And in that temporal cycle, he never exposed his “mental dimension” before his past entity, just as he made no allusion to the land of the Earth.

Could it be that the Bloody Duke, who systematically refused to manifest his internal forum before his former self, had modified his posture after Dale’s consolidation as the continuator of House Saxon?

“It results inconceivable.”

The Bloody Duke remained oblivious to Dale’s authentic identity. He maintained a full conviction on that point.

In clear terms, his genuine intention resided in consolidating a common front together with the “Black Prince.”

Upon evidencing his real purposes and fully validating the position of Dale, who would eventually assume control as Master of the Black Tower, he pretended to establish an “unprecedented link between the black and red factions.”

However, what constituted the real outcome that the Bloody Duke pursued by promoting this new coalition? In what did that “primordial power and revelation” consist that he mentioned in his discourses? And what maneuvers did the imperial sovereign develop in a covert manner?

The panorama presented itself as a complex labyrinth of questions.

After a rigorous examination, he opted to set those dilemmas apart from his mind. None of those affairs demanded his immediate attention in the current conjuncture. His indisputable priority consisted of abandoning the oppressive capital city to undertake the return toward the lands of the Saxon duchy.

His formative cycle at the academy had reached its final point.

Simultaneously, in the domains of the Saxon duchy.

In the precise interval in which Dale, the continuator of the Black Tower, had moved to the capital city on the occasion of the interaction between the black and red factions, the continuator of the Red Tower… the scion of Marquis Eurys, known as the Bloody Duke, made his presence in the place.

Specifically, in the office belonging to the Duke of Saxon.

Ray Eurys.

To be exact, he did not share a blood tie with Marquis Eurys. He held the condition of adopted descendant, incorporated into the family dynamic due to “particular motivations.” And the Black Duke figured among the reduced group of individuals aware of such particulars.

The Bloody Duke had dedicated himself to congregating tens of children who showed aptitudes for the mystical arts, Ray being the only element who managed to preserve existence after overcoming the challenges through the elimination of the other aspirants.

Having prevailed in that survival test, he managed to position himself before society under the shelter of House Eurys.

Despite not enjoying a public notoriety as extended in the empire as that of Dale, he executed tasks from the clandestinity, giving fulfillment to the dictates of the Crimson Duke.

Due to these antecedents, the countenance of the Black Duke upon observing Ray showed itself completely devoid of warmth or empathy.

Beyond the confines that delimit the empire, crossing the extension of the Sea of Death, is found a toxic component denominated “Gu” in the regions of the oriental continent.

This lethal element is concocted by confining multiple poisonous beings within a container, propitiating that they attack and devour each other until only the specimen of greatest resistance survives, resulting in the substance of greatest lethality known.

Ray Eurys kept a perfect analogy with that highly poisonous remnant. Despite being a minor whose ages coincided with those of Dale, said circumstance did not alter the dangerousness of his nature.

—Your Excellency, the Black Duke —Ray started.

“It is of your full knowledge that both my progenitor and His Majesty the Emperor pursue an identical end to that which you maintain.”

That which constituted their common objective.

—Expose your points —ruled the Black Duke coldly, employing the tone characteristic of the most prominent practitioner of the dark arts on the continent.

“I dispose of the list that identifies the members of the radical faction of the Black Tower who find themselves offering support to our Red Tower.”

“……”

Before the revelation made by Ray, a rictus of tension modified the Black Duke’s features.

“What is the compensation that you require?”

Prolonging the verbal exchanges in a sterile manner did not correspond with the Black Duke’s habitual methods.

—The demonic combat force, the Red Black Brigade —Ray sentenced.

“The sovereign demands the absolute suppression of all record referring to the maneuvers of the Red Black Brigade during the period of the armed conflict.”

“……”

“And, by twists of destiny, diverse ringleaders belonging to the Red Black Brigade count themselves currently among the ranks of the radical faction of the Black Tower.”

“Proceed with the delivery of the list corresponding to the radicals who sustain alliance with the Red Tower.”

“It is a motive of satisfaction to note that we managed to reach a resolution with such celerity,” Ray manifested exhibiting a smile while he performed a subtle bow with his head.

Those radicals who showed opposition in a systematic manner before the administration imposed by the Black Duke, upon having pactized with the Red Tower, had their destiny sealed toward disappearance. The circumstance that certain elements of the group guarded confidential data related to the antecedents of the Black-Red Brigade did not alter in the slightest the outcome that awaited them.