The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 816: The Grand Opening Celebration Week 12

[In the Sanctum building, after Sam and Einar returned. Einar’s POV.]

Right after Damian took the odd challenger somewhere through the waygate, Einar used her sacrium bracelet and opened a waygate straight to Evrin. She quickly stepped in, and Sam followed after.

The state in which they found Evrin was anything but fine. Her dress was torn into pieces, cuts and bruises everywhere, and she was even bleeding from some areas. Still, she was conscious enough to tell her what had happened as they brought her to the Souldealer’s floor.

Sam scanned the sanctum once again, going floor to floor, as Einar placed the captured beastmen in the sanctum prison, located in the basement. The lined prison cells faced directly towards the enormous emperor rank monster from whom they collected the liquid mana. The prison cells had a full view of the process.

Einar returned to Evrin after throwing the trash into the prison. It was the stupidest thing the unruly elf had done. She could have easily run away at any time, but she didn’t. Einar knew she was a capable mage; they had fought together several times, and she had seen her grow right before her eyes.

But she didn’t need to prove it. Before, Einar felt uncomfortable when Damian made her a sanctum head as well; she was the most deserving of them, no doubt about them. But she was a second-ranker, and knowing her character well, Einar knew the girl would push herself to match them. She already was doing that with her work, and now she had gone so far as to even fight invaders alone.

“Is she alright?” Einar asked Souldealer, tending to Evrin.

“Yes, mostly.” She replied. “She does need to rest, though.”

“Are you out of your mind?!” Einar asked with a serious face. “What if something seriously happened to you? We have so many guards and soldiers – you could have easily left!”

“Can we not do this right now, En? My ribs hurt.” Evrin replied, with not so serious a face.

Souldealer’s eyes widened after hearing the nickname Evrin had for Einar.

Einar’s cheeks reddened slightly – and she was the transcendent one, the person with absolute control over her emotions. But when it came to this ill-mannered elf.. she just could not.

“Do you recognise any of them?” Einar asked.

“No. But it isn’t too hard to guess, is it?” Evrin replied.

“Two of them are in high positions in Shadow Reaver’s group. The descriptions match perfectly. You were lucky to survive an attack from their top fighters.” Einar said.

“Shadow Reaver..” Evrin murmured, her face darkening.

Einar had kept an eye on the rebel group for years; she knew better than anyone how despicable their acts over the years had been. They mainly targeted the Eldoris-controlled region, but at times, they hadn’t spared travellers or even Faerunian royalty, and even some of the Empire’s lords as well.

Mainly their target were travelling nobles, looting, kidnapping for ransom, and sometimes even outright assassinating them for money or who knew what else. Einar had even heard disgusting rumours of beastmen males doing unspeakable acts to human females they captured.

They called it ’raising the seed. Multiple noble ladies had taken their lives out of shame. Commoner females were not spared as well, but they had not taken so drastic a step. The public opinion of half-breeds and beastmen was worsening day by day.

However, ever since Damian had installed waygates, the whole of the mainland had taken a breath of relief. They finally had an option of travelling that wasn’t filled with terror. Still in Eldoris’ land, these atrocious acts had continued. Every month, they hunted hundreds of beastmen and their human supporters and killed them, but the attacks had still continued.

The worst region, however, was the old Ashenvale, excluding Sanctuary, which was now in Eldoris’s control. Even after years, that place was still not as heavily managed as the main Eldoris region. Mainly, the people of Ashenvale still hated the Eldoris rule. Not everyone was like that, but figuring out which was which could only be called impossible.

The slums and underworld are growing day and night because of the lack of Eldoris’ control, and the person at the top of all of the underworld was none other than the man known as Shadow Reaver.

If there was any doubt of how bad his organization was, one could simply see it by the fact that Demon’s had hired them and used them to attack Highsword Island. Ever since then, their powers and reach had only increased with runic devices, dungeon relics, and advanced spells.

Einar had heard Mindseer and other Highsword discussing whether or not to go after the Shadow organization. It wasn’t as easy as taking things back from them. First of all, the top commanders of these organizations were very well hidden; they barely showed their faces while doing the nefarious deeds.

A lot of people would need to be tortured and killed before they could get any reliable information. And to Land-breaker, that was beyond unacceptable. Their enemy was not something out in the open.

To Highswords, it would both be seen as interfering with internal country matters and raising hands against common people associated with the organization in some way or form.

The Sanctuary had just begun to send its agents to infiltrate the shadow organization. Their reach was not as high in the organization as necessary yet. Einar regretted not sending people earlier. She didn’t have enough people to do anything, though, nor did they have funds to support so many agents doing all sorts of covert work.

Just the Malveria, the Empire, and Faerunian had taken up all her attention. Compared to them, the small hidden organization was not as important. Evrin was targeted several times. Einar didn’t have exact proof, but it was clear who wanted her gone.

Half of Ashenvale was filled with these beastmen. But Eldoris was already on the fence with them because of the incident with the beast valley leader. If they just started punishing them left and right or enforced more strict rules than the Eldoris, rebellion from even the simple, relatively innocent citizens would be the result.

And chaos, that’s where the shadow organization thrived the most. So in the end, Eldoris was at a stalemate.