Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"Hahaha. These bastards from the Edinburgh army will never be able to catch us."

One of the cultists who was running away from the hideout couldn't help but gloat at his recent attackers. He was running with seven other Adept-ranked cultists. They were all heading to a particular node within the gorge network which they knew wasn't rigged or affected by the dynamic change of the terrain.

"Stop blabbering your mouth and keep running. We don't know what lies ahead of us."

The man who was speaking loudly in the escape was silenced by another cultist. She preferred running away from the hideout in silence. There was something about the incident that bugged her.

First, their hideout had received a valid tip from a stranger that the base would be attacked by the Edinburgh army in a few days. Two Expert-ranked entities were running the hideout. They took this information with a grain of salt at first. However, they couldn't just ignore the threat to their lives.

The kingdom of Layos was their benefactor. It supplied them with the right resources, artifacts, and alchemy items to conduct their activities. It also shared various information about the kingdom of Edinburgh which they could use against it.

The Expert-ranked entities running the guild assumed that the stranger belonged to the kingdom of Layos. Only their benefactor would give them such kind of information. Why would anybody try to save them from the reaches of Edinburgh's army otherwise?

Thus, they grilled the stranger some more and paid him a bunch of Extols to give them more information on his grim prediction. The stranger didn't know the day when they would be attacked. It could be any day of the week. They were given information about the nodes that would be rigged by the army beforehand, however. So that they could avoid these nodes when they escape.

Everything was business as usual in the hideout after the stranger was gone. But the two Expert ranked entities made these nodes common knowledge to all the rankers working for them. So that they could use this information to escape in case the hideout was raided by the army.

The stranger's tip was right on the mark. They were attacked on this day when they were in the process of shifting their hideout to somewhere else within the Delva Gorge. The Edinburgh army had left no stone unturned in launching this raid. Following the initial confrontation and failed attempts to escape the location, all the cultists involved in the incident realized the stranger's information was much more valuable than they had originally thought.

The escaping cultists started using the stranger's tip to escape and find their way within the gorge network. They avoided a lot of traps and units of rankers stationed at the nodes which were marked as dead-end nodes by the stranger in his information.

Escape was easy from the northeast direction of the hideout. It held minimal dead ends and there was almost no army unit assigned to a particular node.

According to the stranger's information, there would only be a team of three Adept-ranked soldiers present at the scene. It had been a while since the raid started. Those three rankers would have been a done deal by now.

At least that's what every team of cultists who came Eren's way thought before running towards him.

These eight Adept-ranked cultists soon found themselves running towards a small source of light that looked like someone had lit a bonfire.

Lighting a fire source like this in this situation is like giving them a flare signal to gather there.

"No. Wait. Something's wrong here."

The lady cultist who had spoken earlier became the group's de facto leader. She stopped the other members of her party from advancing any further because a strong stench of blood had hit her nose.

A bit of skirmish at the node was expected. Those who had been ahead of her must have fought with the three rankers in the army. So she wasn't worried about the possibility of dead bodies at the node's mouth.

However, there was something about the place that made her instincts scream "you better get the fuck away from this place." and she wanted to find out why before proceeding any further.

The lady cultist spread her mana sense and found out that two Adept-ranked entities were sitting cross-legged near the bonfire, having casual chats with each other. The guy was eating something whereas the Gothic-looking girl was talking to him about something she was interested in.

Others behind the lady ranker didn't understand why they were stopping there. They also used their mana sense to find out about the scene unfolding ahead of them. Rather than pondering the oddity of the event, they preferred to bulldoze over their insignificant-looking obstacles and flee as quickly as possible.

"Tista, why are we stopping here? There's no telling when the main force of Edinburgh's army will catch up with us. We should just…"

Tista had stress lines on her forehead from listening to the loudmouth's voice. She was about to reprimand him once again. The man suddenly stopped rambling all of a sudden without her intervention.

Tista looked back to see the loudmouth's chopped head dropping to the ground. It took her a moment to realize that the enemy had already made their move. Meanwhile, two other cultists had fatal sword slashes on their torsos, splitting their bodies vertically.

Mayhem and madness ensued on the battlefield when three out of eight cultists died as effortlessly as someone cutting up leafy vegetables. Screams of pain and shouts of intimidation were heard as the remaining cultists prepared themselves to fight their enemy.

Tista controlled her emotions and kept her mouth shut. She used her movement spell to create distance from her previous position. Then she took out her set of daggers and assumed a defensive stance. The other rankers did the same as they encircled their sword-user enemy.

The cultists lost all colors on their faces when they realized that they were about to fight an Expert-ranked entity.

Meera Medinah had been employed to take care of the cultists while her summoner enjoyed his dinner by the bonfire in peace.