Chapter 380: 380

Michelle proceeded to train under Lucas’ tutelage for a while.

In the meantime, Alexander made a short trip to the heavenly realm to summon a clone of Living Shadow there to research what was going on with Michelle’s cultivation; why she didn’t experience a bottleneck.

He was back within a matter of minutes, so not a single soul noticed.

Naturally, that was except Noctis and Unlucien who were constantly around.

Well, not constantly if it was also taken into consideration that they had their own responsibilities to take care of.

But they were around both when Alexander left and returned.

After Alexander returned, he knew Michelle was training, so he didn’t go seek her out.

Instead, he turned to his shadow guards to listen to their reports about the upper realm.

He knew about the orders they had been given.

Unlucien worked right under him, so Alexander was the one who ordered him to investigate the traces of the newly rising force.

As for Noctis, Alexander didn’t have to think much to know he would go to the facility under his command.

So, Alexander wanted to hear all the details the two found out.

And the reports he got weren’t all that pleasing.

The first one to give his report was Noctis.

He got to the city quite fast and went to the facility of the Dark Palace there.

There, a subordinate, a young boy, quickly reported to him the recent happenings in the area.

“Executive Noctis, the situation is getting out of hand. At first, someone just attacked a carriage carrying our trades, making us assume it was bandits, but attacks like that got more and more frequent. And the wounds on the transporters got more serious. We quickly reacted and had more people stationed around the trade routes and with the carriages, but that didn’t help. First dead quickly appeared.”

The boy’s explanation made Noctis frown, but he let him continue.

“Though many thought it was a waste of manpower, we stationed our most powerful warriors at the routes and carriages. That stopped the deaths, but they all still got beaten. They stood no chance against the attackers.”

Noctis’ frown deepened the more he listened.

Finally, he spoke.

“Did you gather some clues about who the attackers were?” he asked.

The boy nodded and reached into his pocket, taking out a pendant.

“It seems they call themselves the Night Dwellers. That was carved into a pendant one of our men managed to get his hands on.”

Noctis took the pendant and examined it.

It was made of fine material, and didn’t break even when he gripped it, though not with full strength.

That wasn’t made in the upper realm.

Otherwise the pendant would have shattered to dust.

So, the group that attacked the trading routes of the facility was from the heavenly realm.

What a terrible coincidence that at the same time as a newly rising group in all four realms was targeting the Dark Palace, another group, clearly from the heavenly realm, attacked one of the Dark Palace’s facilities.

Even a fool could tell that something like that couldn’t be a coincidence.

He was dealing with the newly rising force, and they set their sights on the facility he was in charge of.

Noctis wouldn’t let them off for that.

All those who had risen against the Dark Palace in the past ended terribly, and it didn’t matter whether they rose against the Dark Palace within the heavenly realm, or against its facilities and branches scattered across other realms.

But one thing bothered him.

The boy told him that they had stationed their best men at the trading routes and carriages.

Those men were at the brink of being able to go to the heavenly realm.

They needed just a bit more training to go higher.

So, who was it that had the power within the upper realm to beat them up?

Well, it could only be someone of the power that already could travel to and from the heavenly realm.

Noctis wasn’t worried that he wouldn’t be able to take care of it, but he still didn’t like the situation.

The Night Dwellers, or how they called themselves, had to know that if they caused such an uproar, an executive shadow guard would come to deal with them.

So, did that mean they were trying to attract attention to them on purpose?

Still, Noctis decided to deal with them.

The next time a carriage was to move out of the facility, because the facility Noctis was in charge of was the upper realm’s trading facility, Noctis was sitting within the carriage.

After a while, the carriage came to a sudden stop, and Noctis knew it was time to act.

In an instant, his spirit energy surged out of his body, pulsing harshly around him.

Noctis shot out of the carriage and lunged at the attackers.

They had already killed the coachman and hurt a few guards, but the moment Noctis stepped in, they stood no chance.

Even if they were from the heavenly realm, they were weaklings compared to an executive shadow guard like Noctis, trained to overpower, torture, or annihilate.

So, within a matter of seconds, all the attackers were subdued, lying on the ground barely conscious.

“Speak! What’s your purpose in provoking the Dark Palace?” Noctis directed his gaze at the last man he left standing.

He created a barrier around the surroundings to make sure the man didn’t run away.

But the man, refusing to answer, actually condensed his spirit energy within his body.

Normally, one’s own spirit energy couldn’t harm them even if it exploded upon condensation, but when it happened within one’s body, the story was different.

The force of the explosion couldn’t be contained by the body and it would get torn apart.

It was quite the nasty way to die, and it didn’t even guarantee death.

And when the user failed to kill himself, he would be unable to use his spirit energy again, so he wouldn’t even be able to end his own suffering.

And if he ever recovered, he would end up a cultivation cripple, naturally also with physical disabilities.

A nasty end that made most people grab a knife or a rope to end themselves.

But the man Noctis cornered didn’t end up like that.

So it seemed the Night Dwellers had trained their people where exactly in their bodies to condense the spirit energy to really die.

So his whole body exploded and not a sign of life remained in him.

Because he turned into a puddle of blood, gore, and pieces of flesh.

Something like that could never hold life.

Seeing that, Noctis clicked his tongue and turned around to look at the barely conscious men scattered around.

He wouldn’t be surprised if they did the same thing the moment he tried to interrogate them.

Luckily, barely conscious, at the moment they couldn’t control their spirit energy, so he could take precaution.

So, Noctis proceeded to make sure both his wounded men and the barely conscious Night Dwellers men were transported to his facility.

In the facility, his men were treated, while the Night Dwellers men were brought to the interrogation rooms under the facility.

Those rooms were covered by a barrier that prevented anyone from using spirit energy unless they had on them a spirit stone paired to the barrier.

And only Noctis and a few others had spirit stones like that.

Not even subordinates of the facility had it to prevent betrayals.

The facility definitely didn’t want its prisoners and captives to escape.

After making sure the prisoners were in place, Noctis knew it was already time to go back to the Academy, so he left them in the care of the facility.

Specifically in the care of the boy who gave him the report.

Because though he looked like an ordinary boy, he was on the same rank as the facility’s caretaker (who was right under Noctis in rank).

The boy was of such a rank because he was the facility’s top informant.

He had been trained up in the heavenly realm, and sent to the upper realm when the newly emerging force, probably the Night Dwellers, appeared.

Once they were taken care of, he would probably return to the heavenly realm.

While Noctis was doing all that in the facility, Unlucien was exploring the forest, and the things he found out were similarly displeasing to what Noctis found out.

The traces of the newly rising force also had within them the pendants with the words Night Dwellers engraved on them.

Another thing were the spirit remnants.

They were highly chaotic, as if an extremely unstable spell had been used in the place.

And that spell had to be quite big because the spirit remnants were chaotic like that in a wide area.

Also, the area where the spirit remnants were chaotic was infested with monsters and beasts, all tearing at each other like there was no tomorrow.

Something was driving them crazy.

Seeing that, Unlucien was a bit cautious as he moved around the place.

He never knew when the thing that made the monsters and beasts go into a frenzy would reappear, and considering he was dealing with an unknown force, he didn’t want to get swept up in it.

He was also a monster, so there was the probability that he would end up going crazy like the beasts and monsters too.

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