Alnea followed Zain’s gaze to look into the fog. He did not see anything. At least not anything that would warrant Zain’s solemn warning. But he believed in his teammate. So, he unfurled his Spirit and looked once again. This time, through the senses that his naked eyes could never match. Yet, once again, all he saw was the roiling fog, shimmering with the—

  “Get ready,” Alnea said, urging his Aspects, as he reached towards the sword hanging by his waist, while tugging on the ‘Path of Stars’, alerting the rest about his predicament. The fog… How could he have missed it? Was he being too confident in himself? Or was he just too distracted? Fortunately, Zain was sharp enough to pick up the shimmer. Still, he should have known. He should have been prepared.

  Be it for the Oren Beasts, or Wanderers, the fog had always been the perfect place to hide. Even back when it did not used to be so restless. Its recent changes only made it even more suitable for hiding. No one would care about the disturbance they made in the fog. Especially since the entire forest seemed to have come alive. They just had to use some superficial means to bend light, and they would go completely unnoticed. Like they had been for the past few hours.

  Thankfully, for some reason, they had not attacked his team yet. But he did not know for how long they would continue to just observe his team from a distance. What were they waiting for anyway? To see how effective his new plan was in exploring the forest? Or just a perfect opportunity to attack? Regardless, one thing was certain. They would not let him finish his Trial.

  As if to prove his thoughts, the moment that Alnea moved his left leg forward, and bent his knees, shifting into a defensive stance, the shimmer in the fog became even brighter, and unmistakably noticeable even with his naked eyes, before shattering into tiny shards of yellowish white lights, that drifted with the faint winds, fading away into the fog, revealing the group of Wanderers lurking around him.

  About seventy to eighty people strong, clad in robes of all shades and patterns, the Wanderers had surrounded him from all sides, and had their weapons bared, all pointing at him and Zain. And that was just the number of Wanderers that had shown themselves. He did not know how many more were still hiding around him, and how many were lurking around his teammates.

  No, not lurking, Alnea noted, as he received similar distress signals from the rest of the ‘Stars’ in his ‘Path of Stars’. The Star Seekers were being ambushed at the same time. All of them. The only difference was in the number of enemies they had to face.

  “I can see thirty of them,” Cecilia said. And strangely enough, she did not have any sense of dread or despair in her voice. As if it was not thirty Wanderers she was facing, but three.

  “It is forty on my side,” Vestia added, taking things a bit further by adding a hint of smugness to her voice, as if bragging about the number of enemies laying siege to her. And somehow, despite being surrounded by enemies fifteen times her number, Cecilia was still leisurely enough to respond to her taunts.

  “That’s because those people are blind,” Cecilia said. “Besides, if we go by ratio, then it is still me who is facing the greater disadvantage.”

  “But they sent ten more Wanderers to ambush me.”

  “…Don’t be so smug. I—

  “Stop!” Yuri said, acting as the only voice of reason amongst the girls. “This is not the time to play around. Focus. Or we will all have to pay the price of your overconfidence.”

  The two girls paused for a moment, quickly reigning in their Hearts, and taking on a more solemn tone, before reaching out to the ‘Path of Stars’ once again.

  “…We will be careful.”

  “Good,” Alnea said, as he glanced at the enemies around him. Despite outnumbering him by more than thirty times, they were not showing any signs of overconfidence. Some of them even had the strange daggers, the kind that Amira had stabbed him with, out in the open. Almost as if they were trying to tell him that they could hurt him, and even kill him, if they so wished. But Alnea was not fooled.

  The Lotus clan’s plan to ambush him was not designed by those stupid, arrogant pricks in the Lost City. It was made by their Great Elder. A Mystic Wanderer who had lived for hundreds of years. The man would not make such an obvious mistake. No one with a sane mind would. Laying out their only means to hurt him for him to see before they could even begin their battle…

  No, given how cunning the Great Elder was, laying out the daggers in the beginning should also be a part of his plan. On second thought, making Amira stab him should also not be just to test the dagger, but to etch its dangers into his mind. Maybe, even the dagger he found on the Heterodox Wanderers was also deliberately released by the Lotus clan, just to make him even more aware of its dangers. All, so that when he faced tens of such daggers at once, they would occupy all his attention, making him ignore the other weapons flying in at him…

  “How many of them are on your side, Yuri?”

  “Thirty five. What about you?”

  “Seventy eight.”

  “A hundred and eighty three in total.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “A hundred and eighty four, if I count the Wanderer I met in that other world.”

  “That still does not add up,” Vestia said. “There should be at least six more of them.”

  “If they came in teams of ten, that is,” Yuri said. “Though, statistically, teams of ten have a greater chance of entering the inner city, and even making it to the core city, the city itself does not put a restriction on how many people a team can have. Not to mention their goal was never to enter the inner city in the first place.”

  “…They just want to stop us from entering the inner city.”

  “And capture Alnea, if possible.”

  “Besides, we also have to account for any possible casualties they might have suffered in the past month. Especially with how large their number is, I do not think they would have come out unscathed from the Spatial Storm.”

  “…So, is this all their numbers? Or there still more of them lurking around us?”

  “…For now, let us assume that there are still a few of them, hiding behind just in case their first wave of attacks fails. Hopefully…”

  While Alnea was observing his enemies, and sharing his insights with the girls, his enemies were also observing him in return. And after a few moments, when they did not see him making any moves, one of them, one of the rare few Wanderers to have not taken out any weapons, walked out of the crowd, making his way towards him and Zain, stopping only when he was just about some ten metres away.

  “It looks like you are not as impulsive as the rumours make you out to be,” the man said, flashing a smile on his face. An ugly smile, that jolted quite a few memories for Alnea. Enough for him to recognise which clan and family the man was from without even looking at his white robe, or the lotus carved on his chest. “But that should make things easier for me, so I am in position to complain.”

  “…What do you want, Whitebud?”

  “What I want?” the Whitebud man said, with his hypocritic smile growing even wider, as he glanced at the forest around them. “Why not take a guess, Alnea Tresting?”

  “Do you think you can scare me with your numbers?”

  “Scare you? No, no. Do not get me wrong. We are not here to scare you. On the contrary, we are here to welcome you. To invite you to enjoy the hospitality of our clan.”

  “Is this how you usually show your hospitality?” Alnea said, glancing at the weapons pointed at him.

  “Of course not,” the man said, with his hypocritic smile growing even wider. “This is just a show of our sincerity.”

  “…Your sincerity is quite forceful.”

  “You are quite hard to convince, after all.”

  “Really? I think I am quite easy to convince. Like the time I agreed to the ridiculous demands of your clan.”

  “Ridiculous? Hardly. They were just some reasonable conditions, made with your best interest in mind.”

  “Like forcing me to join your clan?”

  “It is in your best interest… and of your teammates.”

  “That’s enough nonsense for a day, Whitebud. Get to the point.”

  “Do you still need me to tell you what I—what we want?” the man said, motioning towards the Wanderers around them. “Give up, Alnea Tresting. You have lost.”

  “…Have you had your fun?”

  “…You seem to be sure that I have some hidden motives…”

  “You outnumber me by close to forty times, and you have weapons that can easily tear through the defences of my robe. If you just wanted to stop me from finishing the Trial, you could have done so by attacking me the moment I found you. Or even before that, when were still trying to understand what was happening around us. Maybe even back when we were separated. That would have been a perfect ambush.

  “But you did not. Instead, you waited for me to spot you, before you showed yourself. And even then, you did not attack directly but decided to talk. Either you are a little too confident of yourselves, which from the way your clansmen and allies still have their weapons pointed at me, does not seem to be the case, or you have something to talk with me about. Something so important, that you would even dare to risk your mission for.”

  “Such clear thought and deduction… As Vaniya said, you truly have attained your Clarity.”

  “Did she also say how powerful I am?”

  “She did. Which is why I have brought so many people to ‘invite’ you.”

  “Who are you trying to fool? You would have brought just as many people regardless of what she said.”

  “…You seem to know me quite well.”

  “No, I just know how hypocrites like you think,” Alnea said, narrowing his eyes at the white robed man. “Like right now, you should be burning in jealousy, cursing me in your head for attaining my Clarity before you. But there is no need for you to be jealous. I will make sure that you will not have to search for your Clarity after today.”

  “…You sure are courageous for threatening someone who can decide your life and death with just a thought.”

  “Let’s not get too ahead of yourself, Whitebud, or you will not even know how you died,” Alnea said, tightening his grip on his sword. “Now, can we get to the point?”

  “…Indeed, it is time that we made a few things clear,” the Whitebud man said, and glanced at the ground below them, before turning back to Alnea. “As you guessed, we did come to the Final Trial with aim of stopping you from finishing your Trial, but everything changed once we entered the Final World and discovered its secret. The secret of this forest… Do you want to see a miracle, Alnea Tresting?”

  “…What?”

  “There are few things in the world that can be considered as miracles. Especially after the Gods left our world. But there have been records of certain things… of certain beings, long lost in the Tides of Time, which, under some special circumstances, are said to be able to create miracles no less impressive than what Gods could make. Do you want to see such a miracle, Alnea Tresting?”

  “…The only miracle I want to see right now is one that could make all of you disappear.”

  “…I thought you would understand…”

  “Understand what? That you have gone crazy?”

  “…It does not matter. We have already done all the preparations. The only thing missing is you. And now that you are here…”

  “…You truly have become lunatics.”

  “Witness the descent of the miracle, Alnea Tresting. And become a part of it. Become the miracle that we have been waiting for!”