But by the time Orphen had asked the question, the lord had already jumped for the lake. He fell for a mere half a second before disappearing without a splash, just like he’d said. Orphen saw a few specks of sand and dirt leave ripples on the water’s surface. They must have fallen when the lord jumped.
Orphen took a breath and then jumped after him. This wasn’t the pseudo-teleportation he himself utilized. He’d experienced genuine dragon teleportation a few times in the past, but it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. It didn’t take long, though. With a sensation like some unknown organ rising from his gut to his throat, the teleportation completed.
When he became aware of his surroundings again, he didn’t see the two colors of the outside, darkness and flame, but a single shade coloring everything around him—white. A white floor, white walls, and a white hallway, extending endlessly before him. He felt extraordinarily out of place with his combat gear covered in dirt and blood. A sense of guilt surfaced in his mind, like even the air he was exhaling was dirty.
This must have been the sanctuary. He looked up and found the lord, unmoving, before him. He had his arms confidently folded and began to speak when Orphen looked at him.
“From here on, you’ll need my guidance or you won’t be able to get anywhere. The hallways and rooms of the sanctuary are all divided from one another, connected by teleportation devices. You won’t be able to figure out how they all connect to one another as you go, will you? Normally, it would be almost impossible to evade the surveillance of the rulers of the sanctuary and proceed all the way to its center.”
“But right now...?”
“Those who have long ruled the sanctuary have lost their authority over it.”
“And who took that authority?” He repeated the question he didn’t get an answer to earlier. He worried that the lord would dodge the question again, but Almagest was forthcoming this time.
“Yuis. He obtained the Second World-Seeing Tower for himself with Lottecia’s assistance. The authority of the Second World-Seeing Tower’s summoning device has taken precedence over the connections between the passageways now. I’m sure the sanctuary is trying to take back control, but I have little doubt they’ll fail.”
“So Colgon’s basically calling all the shots here...” Orphen murmured anxiously, though even he didn’t know why the thought didn’t sit right with him.
He’d seen an image of the man in the wasteland. Orphen thought about his voice at the time, and what he’d said.
He thought about what he hadn’t said.
As he thought, he only got more confused.
Eventually, the lord interrupted him. “There is a slight chance we could evade Yuis’s sight, of course.”
“Evade his sight and do what? What’s your game plan here?” Orphen asked sharply.
The lord shook his head, a slight smile on his face. “I’m not the one who will decide that.”
Yeah, I figured, Orphen thought bitterly, looking down the passageway before them. The white halls seemed to go on forever. The clean tone was so uniform it almost made him sick.
He would only dirty it, he was sure. There was no place for him in the sanctuary. No matter how he struck the dust from his body, his very presence polluted this space.
Claiomh comes first, he confirmed to himself as he set off for the end of the hallway.
The lord followed him silently.
As he walked straight down the hall, he could understand what the lord had said if he paid close attention—it wasn’t a normal hallway extending through physical space; instead, he was being forcefully teleported through it here and there. He didn’t sense the presence of individual spells likely because the sanctuary as a whole was one huge device. No one else was here in the halls and there was no trace of battle like he’d seen outside.
There were no guideposts and the visuals of the hall never changed, so Orphen was struck by anxiety after walking down it for a bit. He grimaced. He wasn’t even sure where he was going.
In the end, he and the Thirteen Apostles both were probably just winging it in here.
See? Orphen started running when he finally noticed something strange after several teleports. Around a corner far in the distance, there was an explosion and a burst of white, sorcerous flames.
While he was waiting ahead of the turn for the flames to die down, the lord caught up with him. He looked around the corner cautiously to find a wide-open space, very different from the corridors he’d been moving through until then. It looked like a large conference room, with seats arranged neatly around a single platform. There were a few people standing at a slight distance from each other throughout the room—
No, they weren’t necessarily people, Orphen reminded himself.
A small group on the platform looked like Celestials to him. They resembled what he’d heard described in myths or seen in paintings a few times. However...
“Those are the priestesses. They’re humans pretending to be Celestials. They’re the descendants of humans brought here long ago to be slaves. They’ve long ruled the sanctuary, but now...well, see for yourself.”
The lord refused to describe their situation in more detail than that, but Orphen naturally came up with a comparison himself looking at them—huddled together on that small platform, they looked like rats crowding together on a ship they knew was sinking.
Around them, among the chairs, were the Thirteen Apostles. Of course, they weren’t just sitting around leisurely; they were standing on the chairs and tables. If these were all who still remained alive of the hundred plus elite black sorcerers of the continent, they had been reduced to less than a tenth of their original number. Observing them from behind, Orphen put a number and a name to their faces. Closest to the priestesses, looming over them imperiously, was the Demon of the Capital, Pluto. Next to him, being cautious of their surroundings, was Maria Huwon. He saw Isabella a bit behind her as well; she must have caught up to them. She was the only young sorcerer among them, the rest being court sorcerers highly ranked enough to be part of the Numbers. No, there was one other young sorcerer.