Bro, I'm not an Undead!

"Evolution, huh? That's it? That's the reason? How do I believe this?" Skullius asked with drooping layers of his kin on his forehead depicting how he thought this made no sense whatsoever.

Ashema had just explained that because there was no sun in the Under, his kind had developed a peculiar affinity towards the absence of the natural light they were denied as a result of being in what was essentially the bowels of Aigas. It was as simple as that.

"I don't know what to tell you. For me, manipulating anything that is clearly darkness is a natural thing. I may not be the best at it, but what's stranger is seeing someone from up here with control over darkness that's better than mine. I'm currently just chalking it up to the fact that I know next to nothing about the powers you use here. I mean, I've seen…"

Skullius tuned the dark creature out as he began rambling about the kinds of unique powers he had been pitted against while battling the experts in Feinheath.

'Odd. How can [Evil Darkness] be affected by such a thing? Isn't that the same as a mere mutation that beasts here on Aigas have? Besides that, [Evil Darkness] is an element specifically made for the Insurgent Magnus. Is he lying? Is it perhaps true that Boron's hand is evident in this as well? A powerful Deific influence could contend against my current progress as an Insurgent Magnus, right?' Skullius thought.

It was a bit disturbing.

So far everything Ashema was able to do went against the norms, the Rules. Well, that was fitting. That was what Boron was to the systems of his fellow Deities. A foil. An enemy. A rebel.

'Alright. Let's look at the bright side. Just like how I was able to learn to enhance [Just Light] by analyzing the properties of the Luminant kind of light, I might be able to enhance the proficiency of darkness by learning how these creatures did it. Come to think of it…'

"What do you call yourselves?" Skullius asked.

Ashema scoffed.

"Finally interested?" he said. "We are the Carven."

Skullius sized Ashema with his extraneous senses. To some degree, that did make sense. Aside from looking like he was dragged out of a volcanic mountain, Ashema had stone qualities to him. Maybe that's why the name seemed so fitting.

"I see. Good to know. I want to see how your manipulation of darkness wor—"

The Hybrid Luman was suddenly interrupted by a voice that called inside his head.

"Lord Luminant. Lord Luminant!"

Skullius perked up.

"Viccil," he responded to the mental call in the same fashion.

Hearing the masculine voice that called him, Skullius immediately remembered that it was Viccil who was inhabiting the body of a male Incandescent Stage Maqian.

Skullius had told her and Sevill to speak into the golden marks below their necks and he would hear them.

"Lord Luminant, we've been doing as you said, and we've liberated a decent number of our people thanks to you and your forethought!" Sevill's voice came.

Skullius nodded.

"Good to hear. Anything else?" Skullius said.

"Yes, Lord Luminant. We've noticed something. It doesn't seem like the enemy is that concerned with attacking the Auroras. It isn't their main goal. Some of them are taking their time, and from the more free-spirited ones, we've managed to gather that they intend to pressure their Royal Highnesses into submission."

"Hmm. How do they intend to do that?" Skullius frowned as he asked.

"We are not sure about that. It seems the majority of the Maqians, the common soldiers, and even the Incandescent Stagers, don't know about the details. They only know something about a signal and some technique they will need to use immediately after. Other than that, they seem to be in the dark. We think perhaps only the Ode knows anything more than that. And Lord Luminant…" Viccil hesitated. "Whatever they want to do… they are about to do it now."

Skullius leaned forward from his seat while gesturing for Ashema to stop asking him what he was doing.

'I see. So, there's a broader plan after all,' he thought before standing up. Of course, Maqi's plan couldn't have been so simple and brutish. The warriors from that place were usually smitten with an aggressive stereotype that identified them as nothing more than impulsive brutes, but Skullius knew… more than anyone alive… that that wasn't true.

Quickly, his vision shifted.

By tapping into the broad sensory range of the Preeminent Attegoth, he searched first for the Ode and the old woman who had been with him.

He sensed them. They were walking lackadaisically through a great forest where many of the creatures within fled from them. They didn't seem to be preparing for something. They were chatting casually.

As for their destination.

'I see…' They were headed to a massive Aurora, where he sensed the Queen's and Darwel's presence vibrantly. 'That can't be a coincidence, right? But what about this scheme Sevill and Viccil mentioned?'

Skullius wondered and his focus turned towards all the invaders. The rampaging Maqians that were causing havoc everywhere they went and…

'Hold on. There was that other bunch that disembarked from the ships…' he thought.

Indeed. There was.

There were those individuals with shields and staves, like some kind of armored Mages. What had they been doing? He hadn't encountered a single one of them. They were experts from Emeradis, right? Their getup gave it away. No Maqian would be caught dead wearing that.

Quick-searching from the route they would taken from the shore, the Hybrid Luman…discovered one standing all by himself, frozen like a statue in a secluded river with his staff raised to the sky.

Skullius frowned.

His sight zipping elsewhere, tens of kilometers from this individual, he saw another adorned in the same attire also standing with his staff raised. Then there was another and forty more forming a great, irregular oval around a rather insignificant portion of Opungale.

'What are they doing?' Skullius thought. His first instinct was to release Demion's Dance so that it could decapitate all of them, but… 'The hell?'

A torrent of mana gushed from each of the forty and some experts, towering with a kind of flair that was… that was very unsettling for the Hybrid Luman.

Emeradis was the first nation to delve into the mystics of Magecraft, so he had thought that these armored individuals armed with staves were Mages. However, when he felt their mana, he thought differently.

They seemed to be Energy Formers judging by the flavor of their mana, not to mention the control, but they couldn't be Mages.

They weren't Tamers, Skullius had met his fair share of them.

The fragrance and the weaving of their mana were familiar, Skullius had met and fought only one other person with this kind of presence in their mana; a kind of foreign influence to it that suggested.

'Damn it…' the Hybrid Luman scowled deeply.

This… might be very bad.