Soryntha stared at Nosphaleen’s corpse for a long time. She couldn’t believe that she had actually lucked into such a thing, but at the same time, she knew the sort of risk she had just taken. If she had told her mother in advance, she might not have taken the steps either.
The problem with what she had done was obvious. Nosphaleen was now an official member of the Petals of the Seeing Thorn.
Killing any random member was fine. Killing a member that had the mark of a True Chosen on them was a different matter entirely.
Technically speaking, both were issues. It was against the rules to do such a thing no matter what, and it could especially put her mother in a poor position, considering the fact she was the current head.
But it was a risk that Soryntha had to take no matter what.
At first, she hadn’t even trusted her own senses. But as she began to put things together, it was like she could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Soryntha took a deep breath.
Get rid of the corpse, handle the fallout, contact her mother and explain what happened.
The thoughts came in steady streams, and she calmed herself. When the time came, all of the petty little details would be blown over by the results. In the end, that was all that would matter.
Soryntha made a move toward the exit and opened the door. She had already planned all of this out.
But her new Luck almost instantly flashed warnings in her mind. Her head snapped back just as she opened the doors, and a large black mass pushed her out of the way, rushing out in a stream.
Soryntha’s eyes widened. What was that?
“Stop!” she reached out, her strength surging. Aether with a particularly strong life character bloomed, but there was nothing to latch onto. Instead, vines surged out from her arm, reaching forward and grasping the tail of the creature before her.
Chi. Chi. Chi.
It snapped to pieces, shredded apart by an intent that was almost beyond Soryntha’s understanding. It felt like a Will heavy enough to make her fall to a knee.
Emerald lightning flashed, and her Aether was suppressed down to its very core.
It was at that moment Soryntha finally saw enough of the black mass to understand what she was seeing.
A snake.
A snake so large she questioned how it had even managed to make it past the door. Somehow, it had been in an amorphous, shadowy shape just a moment ago, but now it was solid and whole, worming its way down the hallways with such a swaying abdominal strength that the underground passageways were swaying along with it.
It was so fast that Soryntha couldn’t keep up at all. A part of her wondered why it wasn’t attacking her, but when she remembered Nosphaleen and her head snapped back into the room, she widened her eyes in horror.
Nosphaleen was gone.
That creature wasn’t here to attack her, and it was smart enough to know this wasn’t the time for revenge. It was here to escape with Nosphaleen and give her a chance to survive.
Soryntha had been sure that Nosphaleen was dead—she shattered her heart. But Soryntha also knew enough about this world that she wasn’t confident enough to say that that was definitely enough to end it all.
Even on Earth, the lines blurred between life and death were variable. Was a person dead when their brain waves stopped? Was it when their heart stopped pumping? When they stopped breathing, maybe? Maybe when their organs shut down?
But sometimes brain waves continued even after a body was long dead. Sometimes people could live so long as a health professional pumped their hearts for them. Sometimes breathing was obstructed by something, and someone could gasp for breath moments later.
In the wider universe, the lines were even more blurry than they were on Earth—and that was especially the case for someone with a strong Will like Nosphaleen.
‘Dammit!’
Soryntha didn’t chase. She knew it would be a waste of energy. In this case, she couldn’t have the perfectly curated plan play out the way she expected. She had to contact her mother now. Only she would have the strength to ensure that things didn’t leak.
No one knew the way out of this place. The maze wasn’t locked down, but it would shut down one’s thoughts, presence, and memories.
But there was another state the maze could enter—one that could be triggered by the Matriarch to stop all attempts at leaving completely.
Would that blow up this matter? Yes. But so long as no one knew the exact reasons, that much would be fine.
Soryntha was sure that it wouldn’t even get that far. But she needed her mother to do this out of an abundance of caution anyway.
This location was deep within Petals of the Seeing Thorn territory. Before Nosphaleen’s corpse could even make it to the maze, she would have to exit this underground tunnel system, and even if she managed to do that, there would already be a large number of experts waiting.
Matriarch Valeria wasn’t the only D-Grade in this organization, but using them would be a problem. There were constantly people vying for position in the organization and hoping for a moment of weakness to pounce.
But the Valeria Clan had their own extensive supporters. Among them, there were other D-Grades as well, along with a large number of E-Grades.
Just one of them should be enough to deal with the snake. It was powerful, but Soryntha knew an F-Grade when she saw it.
However, caution was also the name of the game.
“Mother. I need your help.”
There was silence on the other line. Soryntha already knew that her mother was enraged, but she likewise knew that she was waiting for the rest of the explanation.
Soryntha didn’t hesitate to spill everything.
“They’ll be on their way.”