Legacy of the Dark Sage

Zephyr watched in silence while Kyran studied the temple's defensive array.

At the moment, Kyran was sitting cross-legged at the center of a miniature array formation.

Most array formation were circular, but this one was a myriad of shape on top of another. The base formation was a square, and on top of it was four layers of triangle shape with each of point pointing at one of the four cardinal directions. A circle shape was the one keeping these four layers in place. Then hovering outside the square were several small shape-shifting orbs. They dance around turning into a diamond, then into a lotus which would tranform into a tear-shape crystal and many others.

Kyran had his eyes closed as he moved his hands around the formation filling every empty spots with array formulas.

Zephyr could more of less follow what he was doing, which was recreating the temple's defensive array.

However, he did not expect that Kyran would literally recreate a visible array he could also see. Apart from this, he could sense that Kyran was not simply recreating the array. Because every time he completed one empty portion of the array, the whole temple would tremble. Unfortunately, with his limited Array knowledge, he failed to understand the full extent of what Kyran was doing.

Zephyr's intuition was correct.

Kyran was not simply recreating the array but removing it to bring the whole array with him!

The reason Kyran decided to take the array was because of what he discovered after studying it with his magic sense almost an hour ago.

As he expected, the whole array had a consciousness. And it was not only one but multiple consciousness!

Kyran already had an idea who these consciousness belonged to and why they were within the temple's array formation. The thought made his heart sank. Because it was related to the disappearance of Zephyr's brethren.

Beats of sweat trickled down Kyran's face as he carefully transfer the one formula after another into the miniature array. If this was any normal array, it would only take him a few minutes. But because of the array's delicate nature, he has to be extra careful in dealing with it.

After a couple of hours, Kyran was finally at the last phase of extracting the temple's array. He only needed to complete the extraction of all the shape-shifting orbs, and it was the most delicate part of the whole formation. Because it was in these orbs that those several consciousness resides.

By now, Zephyr had already sensed a big change in the temple and his guess as to why that was, made his scalp go numb.

His new master had a canny way of shredding more years off his life!

Another hour passed before Kyran's movement stopped. A blinding gold light filled the whole room that forced Zephyr to close his eyes.

When he opened then again, the miniature array around Kyran was gone and the latter was already looking at him.

Kyran's expression was too solemn that Zephyr's heart began to beat nervously.

"W-What is wrong master? Why do you have a scary expression?"

"When you reinforced the array, did you sense anything familiar about it?" Kyran replied with a question.

Zephyr furrowed his brows at the question. Somehow, his master seemed to ask questions he could not fully follow through.

"I am not sure what you want to know master. But if you meant if the array itself is familiar then no. It is my first time seeing such advance array. If you meant if the energy in the array is familiar then yes, it is familiar. I guessed the few of my brethren who were the first ones to guard the Shaiha set it up while the rest of us went into deep sleep."

"How many are a 'few'?"

Zephyr pondered for a moment before answering, "Four or five."

Kyran fell silent. His initial guess had now been confirmed.

The painting he had seen outside that depicted the quilins who receieved the decree to guard the Shaiha amounted to 100. That included Zephyr.

And the consciousness he had sense within the array numbered... 99.

That was right. The temple's defensive array had been created by the sacrifice of all 99 brethren of Zephyr.

The reason Zephyr did not realize it, was due to his lack of experience in dealing with Transcendent-tier arrays. He was the youngest among the quilins. Most likely, his brethren planned to teach him slowly when it was time for him to wake up.

Unfortunately, something happened which forced all of them to make a sacrifice and create a defensive array around the temple.

Then they chose to let Zephyr be the last guardian, for the same reason.

Zephyr had barely experienced living and his brethren felt it was too cruel to have him sacrifice his life along them.

The sacrifice of all 99 quilins left a deep impression in Kyran's heart.

For them to willingly give their life to ensure the Shaiha was safe made him feel unworthy of taking it with him.

Though it was possible that they had been willing to do that was they were hoping he would come one day and take it away.

Taking a deep breath, Kyran contemplated how to tell this to Zephyr. He might only have a theory for now, but he had to tell Zephyr his thoughts before delving deeper into the array. Because he believed, with the right method, he would be able to extract all 99 souls of Zephyr's brethren in the array. Once he did, then they could ask them what had happened.

Unfortunately, extracting souls was a hard task, and since Kyran had too little knowledge in soul magic, his chances of success was less than 10%. If he was more knowledgeable in soul magic, his chances might increase to at least 50.

There was Cyneah. But Kyran doubted she understood soul magic than he did. As far as he could tell, she was unaware of the fact she possessed soul magic, albeit, she did not possess a magic core, which was very strange.

Nevertheless, Kyran felt the need to get Zephyr's consent before he did anything. They were talking about his brethren, after all.

"Zephyr, what I am about to say is only a theory. But I am 99% positive that I am on the right track here," Kyran started after a short pause.

Hearing the sincerity in Kyran's voice, Zephyr realized that he was about to hear something grave. His heart sank as he thought of one possible subject that would make his master act this way and even appeared hesitant to tell him.

It had something to do with what might have happened before he woke up alone in the ruins.

'M-Master must have seen something or sense something from how the temple's defensive array was arranged...' He thought, his heart sinking every second.

"I want you to keep an open mind, and if you trust me enough, I give you my word that I will get to the bottom of this."

Kyran continued, his eyes reflected determination.

Zephyr did not answer at once. He was unsure whether he wanted to hear what Kyran wanted to say. But at the same time, he had to hear him. Especially if it really had something to do with his brethren.

Finally, Zephyr took a deep breath and nodded.

"I understand."

Hearing Zephyr's consent, made Kyran sighed in relief. He actually feared he already had an idea what he was about to say and would be too afraid to hear.

"Alright..."

For the next half hour, Kyran told him his theory.

Zephyr's expression remained calm as he listened to Kyran. But his eyes had already turned red and even on the verge of tears by the time Kyran said he felt 99 consciousness in the temple's defensive array.

When Kyran finally told Zephyr his plan on extracting his brethren's souls in the array, the latter's expression became hopeful. But then his face fell when the former admitted his chance of success was low.

In the end, Kyran told Zephyr to think about it well. No matter what his decision might be, he would respect it.

"Thank you for telling me, master," Zephyr said, lowering his head toward Kyran.

Kyran shook his head, "No matter what, you are my Sigil, apart from this, the Shaiha that your brethren had been willing to protect at the cost of their life is already inside me. I will definitely make sure their sacrifice was not put to waste."

"T-Thank you."

Zephyr's voice broke slightly because of the emotions he had been holding in.

Sensing how low Zephyr's mood had become, Kyran pondered how to divert it.

Then he recalled he had yet to deal with 'someone' and an idea popped in his mind.

"Right," he started. "I have taken a couple of new Sigils, and since all of you will work together one of these days," Kyran said and waved his hand.

The space beside him distorted and a man with long blonde hair and blue eyes wearing a somewhat disheveled golden armor appeared in thin air.

His face was also bloody but it did not deter the regal air he had. Kneeling with one knee, he bowed respectfully toward Kyran and said, "Master."

The man was none other than Tritus.

"I think its high time that all of you meet each other," Kyran said.

Zephyr's expression changed from looking forlorn to shock as he sensed the newcomer's magic level. It was the second time he had met a mage with such profound magic level, with the first time being Nolan.

Once again, his master had shredded some years off his life span!