Chapter 460

"Nick?" Devon asked, noticing his brother's sudden stillness. "Are you all right? You look pale.”Not wanting to reveal his true emotions, Nick leaned on his unusually high Charisma to mask his expression.

At its advanced levels, the stat was far more than a tool for haggling or diplomacy. Thanks to it, he forced his racing heartbeat to slow, painting his aura with a veneer of steadfast calm that completely smothered his internal dread.

"I am fine," Nick lied smoothly, offering a reassuring, entirely convincing smile. “It’s just a lot to learn about what was done to our family, all because of superstition. If a mere rumor like that was enough to incur the Crown’s enmity, we have a heavy burden to inherit.”

"It is," Elena agreed, reaching across the table to briefly squeeze his hand, sensing nothing but his projected serenity. "But you are strong enough to carry it. Both of you are. I only ask that you remain vigilant.”

“We have little reason to clash with them, but should they test us, they will find steel beneath the veneer,” Nick promised.

"Good," Elena sighed. She gave them a moment to compose themselves, warned them never to speak of this to anyone outside the family, then turned the dial on the door. The hermetic seal hissed as it equalized the pressure, and the runic arrays deactivated.

As they stepped back into the brightly lit corridors, Devon seemed caught up in a strange, productive energy, muttering about increasing guard patrols and securing the supply lines against potential sabotage by spies.

Given that they’d just recently overcome one such plot, it was not far-fetched to believe others might test them.

Nick walked silently beside him for a few moments before stopping at the intersection of the main hall.

“I need to clear my head," he told his brother with a rueful shake of his head, as if he were merely pensieve. “I’ll go check on the wards and ensure the new guardian is settling into the eastern woods.”

"Take a squad with you," Devon suggested distractedly, though his mind was already on the new training plan he’d been developing for the recruits.

"I will be fine on my own. I can move far faster than any of our soldiers anyway, in case something happens,” Nick replied, offering his mother a final nod before turning toward the side exit.

He stepped out into the cool night air, letting out a long, shaky breath now that he was free of their notice. The existential weight of his lineage was a problem for another day. Right now, he needed to ground himself in something tangible, something he could control and understand. Solving the lingering mystery of the spirit he had just bound would do just fine.

A soft thud sounded on the cobblestones beside him as Talbot fell into step beside him, wearing his unassuming feline form.

“I must say, old boy,” Talbot’s voice echoed directly into Nick’s mind, always drawing an amused smile for its aristocratic cadence. “That Valerius fellow was dreadfully uncouth. One hardly knows what passes for manners in the capital these days.”

Nick offered a faint smile, grateful for the Guardian Beast's grounding presence. "Merchants are greedy beasts, Talbot. Manners are usually reserved for those they can't afford to buy from, and Cassius was sure he had us dead to rights.”

“Quite so,” Talbot agreed, his tail flicking dismissively. “Though I dare say your brother handled the rabble with commendable aplomb. Still, a quick mauling would have saved everyone a great deal of breath.”

"We still aren’t strong enough to make an enemy of Valerius, at least not the kind of enemy who would reach deep into their pockets to fight us,” Nick reminded him as they bypassed the sleeping town and headed toward the eastern palisade. "Speaking of maulings, how do you feel about our new addition to the territory?”

“The hound?” Talbot sniffed delicately. “A bit rough around the edges, perhaps. Lacks a certain pedigree. But I suppose every estate needs a reliable watchdog to keep the riffraff from trampling the gardens.”

Under the cover of night, they flew over the wall, unseen by the guards, and sped through the logging camps, gaining altitude above the treeline and accelerating.

A mere hour later, the luminescent quartz of the Crystal Forest rose from the earth, casting an ethereal glow over the surrounding forest.

Nick flew down into the clearing, expanding his senses.

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The air here was thick with ambient mana, a natural byproduct of the crystals growing everywhere around him, which drew power from the ether and pooled it. It was a treasure trove, but it was also a beacon that would inevitably draw powerful, wandering predators, as it already had.

A deep growl echoed from the shadows beneath the tallest tree as a violet mastiff stepped into the light.

The Ghost Hound was an imposing entity, forged entirely of dark, shifting spirit, standing nearly as tall as a warhorse. Its head swung toward Nick as the binding runes burned into its core.

The hound took a heavy step forward, instinctively posturing to defend its newly claimed territory.

Talbot did not transform to meet the challenge, though his true form would have made it trivial. He simply sat on the dirt, wrapped his fluffy tail neatly around his front paws, and leveled an unimpressed glare at the colossal beast.

After all, the hierarchy of the ether was an absolute law, dictated by conceptual weight and purity of purpose. Size had very little to do with it, even though most powerhouses preferred larger bodies.

The vast mastiff froze as it realized who stood before it. A high-pitched, entirely undignified whine slipped from its mouth, and it immediately lowered its head, tucked its tail between its legs, and sank to its belly in a posture of total submission.

“Honestly,” Talbot sighed, lifting a paw to groom his ear. “No decorum whatsoever.”

Nick chuckled, stepping past the Guardian Beast and approaching the trembling hound.

"Easy," he murmured, crouching beside the spirit, projecting calm. "You are safe here.”

He placed his hand firmly on the hound's head, giving it a scratch as he considered his options.

He needed to ensure the spirit remained incorruptible. A guardian was useless if a rival mage could simply hijack its mind or twist its nature. To that end, Nick needed to fundamentally adjust the familiar bond, integrating the hound into the Crystal Forest's ecosystem.

The process had already begun with the binding and would complete itself over time as Akas came to see guardianship as its purpose, but there was no need to wait that long when he could speed things up.

Closing his eyes, he visualized the anchors he had forged during the impromptu binding. They materialized at his prodding, and he saw they were already tied to the land, if only superficially.

With some effort, those fiery spiritual chains were extended even deeper, weaving them directly into the root system that bound every quartz tree.

"You will not feed on flesh but on our enemies' flesh, and you will not hunt for sport," Nick instructed, altering the binding with little effort, given the hound’s lack of resistance. "You will skim the excess and grow from it.”

Essentially, he was turning it into a living filter. The excess mana radiating from the crystals—the power they could not absorb all at once—naturally pooled, forming a beacon that drew monsters.

Nick tied the hound's hunger to that specific frequency. By constantly breathing in the forest's excess mana from the top layer, the hound would slowly but steadily grow stronger while simultaneously dampening the magical signature.

It was a self-sustaining loop. The hound hid the treasure, and the treasure sustained the hound.

Again, nature would have run its course, and this would have happened anyway, but it might have taken longer than they had.

As Nick wove the final connections into place, he felt a strange resistance deep within the creature's core. It wasn't malice but a scar, a spiritual wound that had never properly healed, one he hadn’t noticed amid the excess power thrown around during the initial forging of the two Remnants.

Nick frowned. He had wondered why the Remnant of Akas had been drifting aimlessly along Floria’s outskirts and why it had accepted the terrestrial binding so readily. Feral spirits usually fought to the bitter end, prioritizing their freedom over structure. While intimidation and the binding he’d already cast on the dagger accounted for something, it wasn’t the whole story.

Using the familiar bond as a guide, Nick pushed his awareness deeper, slipping past the hound's mind and plunging directly into the soul.

The physical world faded, replaced by a swirling vortex of deep violet and bruised black. Nick navigated the chaotic currents of the spirit's essence, searching for the scar’s anchor point.

A spirit’s soul was at once more complex than a human’s and yet simpler, so while he had some trouble navigating at first, he eventually found it wrapped in a memory.

A vision materialized around him.

It was the Green Ocean, but it was an older, wilder portion, much deeper than he’d dared venture, and untouched by the axes of men. The trees were thicker, and the canopy blocked out the sun entirely.

Standing in the center of a muddy clearing was a young man. He was dressed in the finery of a high noble, yet he looked exhausted, his face pale and drawn, his eyes burning with a familiar defiance.

It didn’t take long for Nick to recognize the jaw’s shape and the proud set of the shoulders. This was Aleister Crowley, the fleeing scion.

The Ghost Hound was pacing around Aleister, but it was not the spirit beast Nick knew. This was a magnificent creature of solid shadow and silver armor, a true, perfected familiar, three times the size of its current incarnation and several times more powerful.

Yet something was horribly wrong with it.

The shadows clinging to the hound were tainted with a sickly, cloying sweetness. Nick could taste it through the sympathetic link, a parasitic rot that smelled of both blooming flowers and decaying meat.

It was the unmistakable signature of the fae.

He knew the old forest had been infested with them. Even long before the dungeon's formation, the entities despised the intrusion of mortal magic and had done their best to purge humans, destroying Floria several times.

Aleister fell to his knees, clutching a wound on his side that Nick hadn’t noticed. The armored hound whined, pressing its great head against the young man's chest, but as it did, the sickly-sweet rot flared. The fae corruption surged, attempting to leap from the familiar to the master.

The hound jerked away violently, snarling at its own shadow, fighting a losing battle against the parasitic influence rewriting its nature.

"I know, Akas," Aleister whispered, his voice cracking with profound sorrow. "I know you cannot hold it back much longer.”

He reached out, trembling as he rested his hand on the hound's armored snout. Akas leaned into the touch, pleading with its eyes for release before the corruption could force it to slaughter the boy it had sworn to protect.

"You are the reason I am still alive today," Aleister wept quietly, even as he summoned a sphere of crimson magic into his free hand. "I will not let them turn you into a monster. They won’t take you, too.”

The hound let out a low, accepting hum, and Aleister drove the sphere directly into the familiar's chest.

The vision shattered in a blinding flash.