"I haven't been to this secret passage for several years now."
The last time he came here was eight years ago when Damien needed to be guided to the last trial ground. He wasn't pure-blooded, but he was a dragonkin. On top of that, he was the descendant of a Water Celestial and could be counted as not only Yulran's descendant but also the descendant of his close friend. Thus, he was granted entry to the Dragon's Pond.
At that time, this secret passage was free of danger.
"But I know some things about it. I am willing to share everything I know if it means dispelling the doubts in your heart."
Tevenlor gave them the most honest look he could muster, scaring them even further. He was 4 meters tall, and his solemn expression just made him look like a nasty, psychopathic thug.
"Who put up the paintings of corpses on the wall and why?"
Roy was the first one to question him.
Honestly, no matter how much he knacked his brain, he couldn't understand why someone would use such aesthetically unpleasant paintings to decorate their walls. Were they bat-shit crazy?
"The paintings you saw were set up on the walls in a way to generate a magic formation, one that wards off evil spirits and makes it impossible for anomalies to infest the hallway. This was supposed to be a place with none of that. So I don't know what the heck they are or where they came from." Tevenlor answered him.
Basically, Tevenlor was trying to say that the corpses in the paintings weren't supposed to gain consciousness, much less know how to fight or launch an assassination attempt for someone's life and that their only purpose was to scare off evil spirits or trap them.
"Someone breathed life into them along with vileness and hatred for us," Tevenlor added, making a statement, not an assumption.
"That someone is?"
The Formless Siren stuck closer to Roy.
She was afraid of ghosts and wanted to hug him, but she decided against it as it would hinder his movements. And in a place like this, where ghosts could step out of the walls at any time, something like that would harm him. She didn't want that. She didn't want to see her Fated hurt!
Roy's eyes narrowed, a thoughtful look appearing on his face.
"I have a hunch as to who it might be," he said after connecting the dots.
"Me too," Tevenlor met eyes with his across the hallway.
"Who?" The Formless Siren asked them. She felt like the only one in the dark.
"The Spirit of the Dragon's Pond," Tevenlor said. "But that doesn't make sense. He isn't a true being. How can he create familiars so dreadful?"
It was better known as the Elder Spirit. It was a rank-5 spirit specializing in occultist magic. But Tevenlor knew for a fact that it wasn't strong enough to create Red Mist Walkers by using evil spirits as materials. It needed something else, like the help of someone extremely evil. But where could that someone come from? This was a secret passage for a reason. He was quite confident that it would go unnoticed by even an Evil God like Voss.
Roy stared at Tevenlor warily. 'So he doesn't know... or maybe he is acting like he doesn't know. I can't see through him. Otherwise, I wouldn't be having this much trouble trusting him.'
He couldn't see Tevenlor's past. He was able to put his trust in the twins easily because they were like open books to him, but not Tevenlor.
He didn't know if he wasn't like other spirits who had betrayed their creator and joined hands with Voss. If he was, they were fucked. And even if he wasn't, Roy couldn't help but be wary of him.
After all, he might not be Voss's servant, but who is to say that he hasn't given into Chaos like the Elder Spirit?
"It accepted chaos and used Chaotic energy and Yulran's True Blood to create them," Roy suddenly revealed to the ignorant ones, carefully inspecting Tevenlor's face, looking out for any changes in his iron face.
The Female Siren's head snapped towards him. Roy had no doubt that her neck would have flown out of her shoulders if she had been any faster. She was looking at him with eyes as wide as saucers. It wasn't just her but Tevenlor, who was looking at him in shock. Roy's wariness against him lessened.
'Either he is a good actor, or he is really shocked to know that.' Roy still kept his guard up against him.
The Female Siren: "Eh?"
Tevenlor: "What?!"
Because of what Roy said, both of them were confused. They gawked at him.
"This isn't a place where just anyone can sneak in." Tevenlor tried to refute his idea, calling him crazy in his mind.
Roy scoffed, "But Chaos isn't a nobody. I once saw it blessing its minions from God knows how far away. How hard would it be for it to get to Elder Spirit?"
"That's something debatable."
Then, he shot him down, "What if, hypothetically, it might have despaired for some reason or be desperate for something? Such people are the ones it preys on. The greater the despair in one's heart or the more desperate a person is, the higher the chance that he will garner the attention of Chaos."
That's the kind of being Chaos was. It was a coward and didn't have it in it to try and corrupt a mentally and physically stable man. It only went after the weak of the heart, transforming them into its minions. Roy knew what it was like and its hunting tactics because he had read the novels. But honestly, even he didn't know what it truly looked like or where it originated from.
"I believe you."
The Female Siren sided with her hubby.
"It is possible for it to sneak into this place. It might have. But we haven't seen any sign of its presence in the Ancestral Land. So how did you notice it? Are you just guessing, or do you have proof?" Tevenlor asked, coming off as rather offensive.
"I will explain it to you."
Roy proceeded to make the situation clear to them.
