Alnea shook his head as he saw the man descend into a daze, mumbling to himself in confusion, before shifting to the Wanderer next in line.

  “Do you remember why you are on the ground?”

  “…I don’t know…”

  “What is the last thing you remember?”

  “…We were eating our dinner, and then everything went blank…”

  “Who prepared your dinner?”

  “…Raaz. My—Our Captain.”

  Alnea paused for a moment, before quickly shifting to their next prisoner.

  “You, yes you. What is the last thing you remember?”

  “…We were all sitting together… having our dinner…”

  “Is that the same for everyone? This time, just give me a nod.”

  All the prisoners answered Alnea with a nod.

  “…Do you remember what you had for dinner?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “…Alright, next, you. Did your team have some sort of disagreement with your Captain?”

  “…Yes.”

  “What was it?”

  “…He… We…”

  “Do you need my help to refresh your memory?”

  The man flinched at Alnea’s words. Though the way Alnea was playing with his dagger, twirling it between his fingers, also helped scare the man a little. Still, despite his uneasiness, the man refused to budge.

  “…It’s all his fault. If he had not asked for their help… If he had not joined them…”

  “Join whom?”

  “…I cannot say…”

  “Cannot, or will not?”

  “…They will kill me…”

  “And do you think I will let you live if you do not answer me?”

  “…Those… Those monsters… They… No, no, please, save me… I do not want to die… please…”

  “…Yuri.”

  The fog around the Star Seekers churned, as part of it, bending to Yuri’s will, separated from the rest of its kin, before surrounding the hysteric Wanderer, and wrapping around his mouth, just as the rest of his bonds tightened even further. Not enough to strangle the man, but enough to restrict his actions and movements, allowing Alnea to focus on their next prisoner.

  “What about you? What is your answer? Will you tell me what your Captain was planning, and hope that you can escape his collaborators, or will you prefer being chewed alive by Oren Beasts?”

  “…I… I don’t know what he was planning—

  “Yuri—

  “But I know whose help he asked.”

  “Anaz!”

  “Yuri.”

  Yuri answered by manipulating the fog once again, this time, restricting the actions of all but one of their prisoners. The one who was talking to Alnea.

  “Now, let’s continue our conversation,” Alnea said to the man. “Anaz, is it? Tell me, Anaz Witherstone, whom did your Captain seek out to cooperate with?”

  “…The Dark Priests.”

  “Those lunatics from the Tenth Blood Hall?”

  “…It’s them.”

  “Have they not entered the inner city yet?”

  “…They did, but they also challenged you to the Final Trial, so they were allowed to come to the Final World.”

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  “…What kind of help did your Captain seek from them?”

  “…He did not tell us.”

  “That’s not of much help—

  “But I know what the Dark Priests asked him to do.”

  “…What is it?”

  “A statue,” the man said. “They gave him a statue to bring with him to the Final Trial, and hide it somewhere in our Trial area.”

  “…Is that it?”

  “…They also asked him to carve some patterns around it.”

  “What kind of patterns?”

  “…Almost like some Glyph Arrays, but not exactly a Glyph Array…”

  “…Why did your team have a disagreement with your Captain?”

  “…At first, we thought that we just have to hide the statue, so we did not mind helping out the Dark Priests. Later, our Captain asked us to capture some Oren Beasts, and sacrifice them to the statue. At this point, we had already understood that something was wrong with the statues. Still, for the sake of our Captain, we kept our doubts to ourselves. But then he asked us to sacrifice even humans…”

  “What did you say?” Fran said, allowing his Aspects to overflow from his Spirit World to his body, as he stepped towards the hapless man on the ground, causing him to flinch back in response.

  “Fran!”

  “You heard what he said. He—

  “I heard what he said, but it looks like you did not hear him clearly enough,” Alnea said, frowning at Fran. “I have not even said anything about the slip up you made earlier, and you have already made another mistake. Losing yourself just because of a few words… If you cannot control your emotions, then there is no need for you to listen to the rest of what he has to say.”

  “…I am sorry,” Fran said after a few moments of silence, when he had barely managed to reign in his Aspects. “Let me listen. I will not let my emotions overwhelm me again.”

  “…What about the statue?” Alnea said, turning back to the only Witherstone still free enough to talk. “Do you know where it is?”

  “…I do.”

  “Lead us to the statue then,” Alnea said, before turning towards Yuri. “Loosen his restraints enough for him to walk on his own.”

  “No,” the man said, shaking his head, causing Yuri to pause in her actions. “That statue… there is something wrong with it… As if—

  “You do not have to worry about that,” Alnea said, motioning Yuri to loosen the man’s restraints despite his protests. “Just take us to the statue. We will handle the rest.”

  “…I… alright,” the man said, shivering in fear, even as he gathered his courage to push himself off the ground. There was nothing else he could do anyway. So, following the trail in his memories, he led the Star Seekers to a tree some hundred metres away, before digging around its edges. Moments later, the Star Seekers saw the statue that the man was talking about. And at the same time, they also understood why he was so afraid.

  Made in the likeness of a faceless man, with four extra hands sticking out of its back, each wielding a strange weapon, the kind of which Alnea had never seen, the statue was about a quarter of his height tall, and red in shade. But neither its colour, nor its strange shape was enough to scare the Star Seekers. Or any Wanderer for that matter. After all, they had seen even stranger shapes and colours in the murals of the Lost City, or even back at their homes.

  Yet, none of the figures in those murals carried the eerie aura that the statue was emanating. Neither did those figures shed tears of blood. At least not literally. Some of those murals did depict a few figures shedding tears of blood in their stories, but those were just paint. Or dried up blood. The statue in front of them, on the other hand, still had blood leaking from the corner of its eyes. And not the fake kind. He could tell from the smell, or way it felt to touch. A little sticky, but mostly fluid, like water.

  A bleeding statue… That too, one that had just been dug up from the ground… Was it also bleeding when it was in the ground? But that should have left some signs in the soil. So, digging up the statue made it bleed? And how was it bleeding? A hidden mechanism? A separate dimension hidden within the statue, that stored all the blood, and kept leaking it from the eyes? More importantly, why was it bleeding?

  “…Did we just trigger some trap?”

  “…I don’t know,” Ralph said, shaking his head, before turning towards the shivering yellow robed Wanderer. “But I can understand why he was so reluctant to see the statue.”

  “…Should you not be more worried about the trap?” Karl said, glancing at the forest around them. They were quite some distance away from the lake, and the fog had yet to return to its normal state, temporarily increasing the visibility around them, but that was still not enough for Karl. Not when it came to ensuring his life.

  “That’s what our Captain is there for, right?” Ralph said, shrugging his shoulders. “Besides, if there was something to be worried about, you would have been the first one to deploy your shield.”

  “…I don’t know how I should feel about your trust in me,” Karl mumbled, before turning towards Alnea. “What are we going to do about the statue?”

  “…I am thinking,” Alnea said, staring at the statue with a frown. A faceless man with six arms, wielding four strange weapons, and two different kinds of flowers. One that looked like a lotus, with a sharper edge to its petals, and one that had its petals bowing inwards, towards its centre, as if worshiping the lone stamen standing at its base. Or was it a pistil? It did not matter. He did not recognise the flower anyway.

  “Do any of you recognise those weapons and flowers, or what they represent?”

  “…One of those weapons look like a sword.”

  “With such a flimsy blade and two heads?”

  “…That one is surely a mace.”

  “Have you ever seen a mace whose handle is thicker than its head?”

  “A stick then?”

  “No, it is too thick for a stick.”

  “…The on his finger looks like a Glyph Disc.”

  “With blades sticking out of its edge, and a hole in its centre? And where is the Carving Knife?”

  “…On second thought, it looks more like a Chakra.”

  “No,” Vestia said. “Maybe you can call it a variant of a Chakra, but it not exactly a Chakra.”

  “That’s the same thing, right?” Norren said, turning towards Vestia with confusion, only for the latter to shake her head.

  “If you look carefully, you can see the blades sticking out of its inner circle. Though it looks as if the figure is holding the weapon the same way one would hold a Chakra, but its inner blades would make it impossible for it to be used in the same way.”

  “…Can anyone even use such a weapon?”

  “Who knows?” Fran said, glancing at the last of the four weapons. “Unless we can create a lifelike replica…”