Chapter 209: Soul Search!

The illusion shimmered faintly across the bathroom door, sealing the world away behind a veil of soft distortion. No sound would escape and no one would be able to enter. For a short while, this cramped stone restroom, soaked in lantern-red shadow, existed outside the rest of the city.

Albedo exhaled lightly and turned toward the slumped mercenary.

The man breathed shallowly, his head dipped forward, chin resting weakly against his chest. Without his mana, he looked deceptively normal, just another hired blade, tired from whatever jobs the night before had demanded of him.

But Albedo’s tracking marks thrummed across his senses like tiny pulses of starlight.

One down and Eight more remained in the Restricted Zone… but this one had left and it made him the easiest to pry open.

Albedo raised his hand.

SLAP!

The man jerked awake with a choking gasp, eyes snapping open wide. Shock, confusion, disorientation. Then panic. His hands twitched reflexively for his belt dagger, but his limbs barely moved, sluggish as if submerged in tar.

“Wh—who…?” the man croaked, voice breaking.

Albedo stood before him, still wearing the obsidian mask. The cloak draped behind him like a corpse’s shadow. He did not answer the question.

Instead, he tilted his head, studying the man with detached curiosity.

“You left the Restricted Zone this morning.”

The mercenary stiffened.

His eyes widened further, not in innocence, but in recognition that the man standing before him knew more than he should.

Albedo continued, voice smooth and leveled, “You’ve been tracking me and since yesterday.”

The man swallowed but said nothing, sweat trickled down his temple as he tried to feign ignorance.

“Who sent you?”

Silence as Albedo’s response, as he let the quiet stretch, drawing it tight across the walls like a garrote. He could feel the man’s heartbeat drumming faster, slamming into his ribs with desperate force.

“Speak,” Albedo said.

The man kept his jaw locked, muscles twitching with an almost admirable stubbornness.

“You can’t run,” Albedo said calmly, stepping closer, “Your mana is sealed. Your circuits are disconnected. And the illusion outside this door ensures no one hears you scream.”

That made the man flinch, but still, he said nothing, and that made Albedo sign in annoyance. The stubborn ones were always more trained than the rest. Always more dangerous.

Albedo raised a single hand and lightly pressed two fingers against the man’s forehead. The mercenary recoiled as far as his limp body allowed, eyes widening.

“M—my mind is protected,” he rasped, voice strained. “You won’t get anything.”

Albedo blinked slowly behind the mask.

“I never said anything about your mind.”

For a heartbeat, the room grew still.

Then, the man’s skin paled.

“NO!! ”

Albedo’s fingers glowed faintly purple as Soul Magic coiled around them like a whisper of ice.

“Your soul,” he finished softly, “is far more talkative.”

The man’s panic exploded into raw terror.

“No, no, STOP—! You don’t understand!!”

The sudden shift told Albedo everything he needed. He knows exactly what soul magic can do, and he fears it more than death. That alone was interesting.

Albedo pressed his fingertips harder, and the man convulsed with a strangled breath. His eyes rolled back as a faint outline peeled away from his physical form.

A translucent silhouette—a flicker of the soul, shivered into the air between Albedo’s fingers.

“I’ll ask only once more,” Albedo said, voice lowering. “Who sent you?”

The soul flickered. It trembled. But the lips of the physical body remained tight and sealed.

“I—I can’t…” The voice that emanated from the soul was airy, broken, like someone speaking through a tunnel of ice. “He’ll-kill us.”

Albedo’s brows lowered slightly.

He? Not ’they.’ Singular. Someone important enough that loyalty continues even underneath soul extraction.

“We’ll see,” Albedo murmured.

He tightened his grip, not physically, but spiritually. The soul leaked memories like strained smoke. Images flickered behind Albedo’s eyes, rapid, scattered snapshots he could feel more than see.

A dim office.

A tall, broad-shouldered man with jet-black hair and cold iron-green eyes.

A crest pinned to his coat—three jagged antlers interwoven around a single emerald.

A voice deeper than a cavern, sharp as a blade.

“Follow them.

Do not engage.

Observe only.”

Albedo’s fingers froze.

That crest…

Another image burst out, Lilian sitting across a long banquet table, expression blank, stiff, uncomfortable.

And beside her…

That same man.

That same unforgiving gaze.

Albedo remembered him instantly.

Magnus Everglade.

The same dude he’d seen when he was with Lilian, the Young Vampire Noble from the important Everglade Family.

The soul image sharpened as the memory continued:

Magnus placing a stack of sealed documents on his desk.

“Watch the outsiders,” he said. “Especially the blond one.”

Albedo’s eyes narrowed behind his mask.

So Magnus had begun investigating him the moment Lilian returned? How… predictable. He dug deeper. He needed more, why, for what purpose, what orders had Magnus given beyond simple observation?

But the soul shuddered violently, flickering like a candle about to die.

“No,no,no,” the mercenary’s spiritual voice whimpered. “No more, I can’t, there’s a lock, inside!”

Albedo’s brows drew down.

A lock?

Then he felt it. A foreign rune burning at the deepest part of the soul was a lattice of jagged markings shaped like thorns and chains.

A soul-kill curse rune.

A built-in failsafe. If anyone tried to pull too deep The soul shattered.

“Oh,” Albedo whispered. “Annoying.”

The rune flared.

A bright crimson crack split across the soul, jagged like lightning.

“No!” the mercenary screamed as Albedo pulled away.

CRACK!!

The soul exploded. The sound was silent, but the sensation was horrific, the spiritual equivalent of glass shattering underwater. Fragments of soul flickered into motes of red dust, dissolving instantly as the kill-rune completed its purpose.

The man’s physical body spasmed once, arms jerking, breath hitching,

Then slumped forward.

Dead.

Not physically killed by Albedo, but spiritually annihilated by the implanted curse the moment he attempted to share protected information.

Albedo slowly withdrew his hand as Silence filled the room.

The corpse remained seated on the toilet, head drooped forward, lifeless eyes staring at the floor.

Albedo straightened, adjusting the sleeve of his cloak.

“…Magnus Everglade.”

The name rolled off his tongue like a note of interest, not anger.

Not yet.

“He placed a soul-kill rune on his subordinates,” Albedo murmured. “Which means he expected they might face interrogation.”

Cautious. Paranoid and Dangerous.

Exactly the kind of noble who had survived political warfare in the Northern Region.

But the man had still slipped.

Before the soul shattered, Albedo had seen another piece, faint, blurry, but unmistakable:

A map.

The Restricted Zone.

A specific mansion encircled in glowing sigils.

Magnus’s territory.

So that’s where the rest of them are hiding.

Albedo knelt down and placed a hand over the mercenary’s forehead—this time simply closing the man’s eyes.

“You were loyal,” he said quietly. “Unfortunately, to the wrong person.”

His voice wasn’t mocking.

Just honest.

He stood and dispelled the illusion over the door. The enchantment fell apart like dissolving smoke.

No one in the bar noticed a thing.

No sound escaped.

No trace of soul magic remained.

Albedo brushed a speck of dust from his cloak and stepped out, leaving the corpse arranged like a fainting drunk who’d passed out in the restroom.

No one would question it for at least an hour. Maybe more.

And by then, Albedo would be long gone.

He exited the bathroom, walked down the lantern-lit hallway, and stepped back into the bar proper. Patrons were still drinking. The escorts were still smiling. The bartender didn’t even look up as Albedo returned to the counter.

“Leaving?” the bartender asked without interest.

“For now,” Albedo answered.

He placed a single silver coin on the scarred wood.

A generous tip.

He turned to leave,

But paused.

For just a moment, his blue eyes behind the mask glowed faintly purple.

Magnus Everglade.

Observing him.

Targeting him.

A small, thin smile touched Albedo’s lips.

“Let’s see how far your curiosity goes.”

His form dissolved into shadow,

And vanished.

Tonight, he would hunt another signature.

***

Magnus Everglade sat alone in his study, the only light coming from a single cold-blue lantern flickering above stacks of neatly arranged documents. The mansion was silent, the kind of silence only money, influence, and fear could buy.

He signed another sealed order, dipped his pen again, and froze. A thin crack shivered through the air behind him.

Not physically, but spiritually.

Magnus slowly raised his gaze. One of the nine binding runes etched across the inner wall of his soul-link circle… dimmed. Faded. Then snapped out entirely, leaving a dead, empty gap in its place.

For a long, heavy moment, Magnus didn’t move.

Then his jaw tightened.

“So… one is gone.”

He set his pen down with perfect calm. No fear. No surprise. Only a cold irritation sharpening his every breath. Someone had not only found his man, but pushed deep enough to trigger the soul-kill rune.

That narrowed the list of suspects to one.

“The blond outsider,” Magnus murmured.

His eyes hardened, reflecting the lantern flame like polished steel.

“Very well. If you wish to play in the dark… I’ll oblige.”

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