Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"Where are the rest of you guys?"

Oslo looked at the two men who came to meet him at the designated rendezvous point. His aura told the two men Oslo wasn't happy with their performance.

The two men were severely battered and in terrible shape. It was apparent that something had happened to them.

Yet, Oslo didn't care about their well-being because that was not his job. His duty was to deal a heavy blow to White Raven team members as a warning.

Oslo belonged to Demonmir's faction. He was sent here by Nico Chains, the condor-owning demon beast tamer to oversee the Escalon guild's activities. The beast tamer didn't completely trust the Escalon guild. So he had sent one of his men to handle the situation on-site.

Oslo was a man of medium height and build. His age couldn't be discerned because he was wearing an iron mask. His choice of clothes was odd– plate armor over loose-fitting clothes with tacky colors. His iron mask gave him a mysterious vibe.

"They… they all got killed. We were the only two that survived."

One of the men replied to Oslo. He looked terrified when he started remembering the hell that was unleashed on the entire Escalon guild's team by the Orcs warriors out of the blue.

The other man gritted his teeth and clenched his fists before describing the events that had taken place ever since the team's pursuit of White Raven members began. When he was done, Oslo seemed even more annoyed. He looked at them with his narrowed eyes that were visible through the metal mask and asked to confirm.

"So you're telling me that your entire team was basically wiped out before you could even properly deal with the White Ravens? And this was not even your first attempt, right?"

Oslo seemed shocked. He looked at them one more time from head to toe before speaking further.

"Wow. It wasn't what I expected from the members of the guild who have the Paladin of Pain in their midst. I guess some unique rankers don't define the guild they are part of."

Oslo said in a disappointed voice. He had also assumed that the White Raven had its card in its sleeves to keep its members safe. However, since it was the third attempt by the Escalon guild, he assumed its members would be able to overcome the obstacles. After all, no sane person or organization would make the same mistake twice.

It also meant that an attack on White Ravens was not something Demonmir's faction could launch without directly getting themselves involved in some form. Oslo frowned before asking the two rankers to hand over the array disk he had given the Escalon guild beforehand.

One of the two men had managed to secure the array disk amid the tragedy that struck them. He retrieved it from his storage before handing it over to Oslo.

This was a spying and intelligence-gathering artifact made using ether runes. It would show the current activities of the person whose aura it had received upon activation. The person needed to be in a certain range for the array disk to work.

Plus, the ether-element runes would burn themselves as the array disk is getting used. That meant there was only a limited window of time the array would be active before it gets destroyed.

However, for the time it was active, the artifact would show the real-time activities of the person whose aura had been recorded on it. The artifact was very expensive even with the limitations placed on it. So it couldn't be used casually by anyone.

Oslo placed the array disk on his right palm and activated it. In the next moment, a spectral screen was displayed over it that displayed the real-time activity of the person whose aura had been recorded into the artifact at the time of the activation.

The Escalon guild had messed up once again. It was supposed to record Drin's presence so that they could keep an eye on him. But the artifact was activated at the wrong time because the White Ravens split up during the chaos. So it ended up recording Bianka Bluedust's aura.

Oso watched as Bianka and her teammates fought the Ogres that seemed to be of a different squad than Hiram's. But the monsters belonged to Bigam's tribe nonetheless.

***

Bianka's spell scattered the azure dust particles around her. She was battling a bunch of Ogre Leaders with the rest of her team.

The scattered White Ravens eventually got together. Drin was the only one from the team absent from the scene. However, he managed to contact Katalina a few minutes ago. According to him, the tribe purge mission was over. They were free to continue with the rest of the challenges they had taken on simultaneously in Monster Canyon.

Binaka Bluedust, William Shanks, Kataline Reich, Lily Geist, Wayne Wilder, Ketsu Hasu, Ray Rinehart, and Silver Rehrook. The ex-Titus tournament contestants and current White Raven members were each engaged in their fights with the Ogres.

All of them wanted to go to a different place since killing Ogres of Bigua's tribe was not part of their missions anymore. The most they could do from dealing with them was sell the monsters' bodies after killing them. Which was less lucrative than taking on missions with multi-layered rewards.

However, the Ogres had their own form of communication. They had come to know that Hiram had been killed because of the humans that were currently trying to retreat from their territory. The Ogres were fighting for vengeance at this point.

The azure dust scattered by Bianka didn't look harmful at first. As she fought with her dagger, she held the lamp that she used to scatter her azure dust.

Bianka was very skilled in dagger arts as well as her movement spell. She was also a capable leader. She gave optimal directions to her team to ensure that the Ogres would be at a disadvantage fighting against them.

When sufficient time had passed, Bianka smiled and created a safe distance from her opponent. For an extended period, she kited him across the entire battlefield. Now it was time to reap the fruits of her labor.

"Muddled Memories!"

Bianka executed her next spell which was part of the combo. In the next moment, the enemies that were battling White Ravens stopped their battle with the humans and looked at the other Ogres with vicious glares.

Bianka's spell was about to start infighting among the Ogres.