The uneasy feeling within Raze was growing stronger. The fact that he could sense magic before even coming into the building was unsettling for him.
Now that he was in the building itself, the feeling of magic in the air grew even stronger.
'Is there a mage in here? Are they friend or foe? For most that I meet, I have to treat them as foe. They could be one of the kidnappers for all I know.'
'But if they use magic, will I be able to best them just using my warrior skills.'
At the moment, the group was doing a simple inspection of the ground floor of the manor. The warriors didn't spread out far from each other but would alert the others if they saw anyone.
This was all on the order of Ivor, of course. So far, no one had found anything yet.
'Anna is a member of Alter, and she might be extremely strict about the use of magic in certain situations. I also don't know her strength just yet. From what I've seen, she will be a difficult one to deal with if I have to fight her.'
Out of all of these worries though, these weren't the ones that were giving him the biggest problem. The large unsettling feeling was coming from his core.
It was running slightly wild with the ring on his finger pulsating. It felt like a pair of eyes were hovering over his shoulder.
Whenever he would turn, there was no one there though. Yet it felt like someone was always with him.
'This feels different from the blooded woman as well, but it could easily just be that her strength has increased in this place, which is why I can sense her more, right?'
Raze thought, expecting some type of answer, but there wasn't an answer at all.
The other reason why he felt like it was unlikely to be the blooded woman was because the eyes felt like they were looking at him from afar rather than close, like the woman felt at times.
In the middle of all these thoughts, Raze heard words from Bargo that had startled him.
"It appears that we have been followed," Bargo said.
Everyone turned to see where he was looking, it was from the door they had entered from. It had only slightly been left open, but they couldn't see anyone.
Then the door was pulled open, and two figures were standing there.
"You have good senses," a man with a large trench coat said, walking through the doors with his hands up. "We mean you no harm."
Ivor quickly came over along with the rest and drew his weapon, pointing it toward the two.
"How many of you are there in this place? Where is the hostage that you took!" Ivor commanded.
Anna and Raze noticed the two straight away, as of course they were from Alter, Himmy and Charlotte.
"Do they look like the kidnappers to you?" Anna commented. "These two came from the door we entered from and don't even have any weapons on them. Besides, they don't even look like martial artists."
"You never know, the Lethal Bite Clan is a clan that specializes in fist techniques in the first place, and it could be the same!"
Himmy let out a big sigh hearing this.
"I don't even have Qi, so even if I was to hit you with full force, I bet I would be the one with a broken hand. As for who we are, we are the ones that made the request to rescue our ally that is stuck here in the first place."
Himmy's explanation was twofold. One, it was to tell those pointing their swords at him why he was here, and it was to inform the others from Alter as to why they were here.
"It appears that a group of our friends we were searching for, one of them survived and was linked back to this place. We made the report and the clan said they were sending some people over to aid us… I didn't expect them to kill us."
The new members were quite embarrassed after hearing that, they were even holding their weapons weakly after.
"Alright, say we believe you," Ivor states. "You guys need to stay at the back and report that we've done a good job; the last thing we would want is the clients themselves getting killed."
With the two intruders that were following them out of the way, Ivor was quick to continue his search, and just as he was about to ask everyone about what they had found, Raze had pointed at the top of the staircase.
"Up there… they're on the second floor," Raze answered.
"And how would you know that? Can you see through walls as well suddenly?" Ivor asked.
"Just… trust me on this one," Raze said.
Since the group hadn't found anything on the first floor anyway, Ivor went to travel up. Raze stayed close to the group at the back; it looked like an excuse as they were focused on protecting Himmy and Charlotte.
When they looked back at the others, they had smiled at each other while Himmy gave Raze an awkward wink.
'I guess things are working out in the end, so the one that's been kidnapped is a person from Alter… could that be the magic that I felt from before? That explains that, but what about this huge lingering feeling.'
Since Raze was the one that told them to head upstairs, constantly Ivor was turning back to look at him for direction.
Raze continued to point as they were now in a large hallway with a number of doors. As they continued to go through, Raze had led them to another large double door.
When they reached it, all of the warriors, Ivor, and Bargo were on high alert. Because seeping through the bottom of the door, they could see it, there was blood, and there was a whole pool of it as well.
'What's happening on that side of the door!' Raze thought.
