Ramukhan nodded and asked the boy:
“Are you ready?”
“I am,” the young man nodded, glancing smugly at Hadjar and Einen. They only sighed sadly. The boy was clearly destined to die.
Chapter 380
They decided to go to the lake in the morning. Everyone spent the rest of the night preparing. Tilis and Karissa created talismans. First, they took small pieces of red cloth and paper. Then, placing the future talismans in front of themselves, they whispered something. Energy lit up on the tips of their index fingers, and they used it to draw various hieroglyphs and symbols on the paper they’d prepared.
Hadjar felt flows of energy appear in the simple pieces of paper and cloth with every new word and gesture they made. Unlike everything else that surrounded Hadjar, these flows appeared to be... frozen. Everything under the sun had energy. It was vivid and quite noticeable. However, within the talismans, it was frozen, as if they’d submerged it in very thick ice.
Shaking his head in frustration at his own lack of knowledge, Hadjar returned to his training. After his dream, his mind knew every minute detail of the ‘Rustle in the Treetops’ Technique, but his body didn’t. After finding a convenient site, Hadjar began to practice the Technique. Without using any energy or his knowledge of the Sword Spirit, he performed the same stance and strikes over and over, aiming to make his muscles ‘remember’ how and in what sequence they needed to move. This wasn’t overly complicated work, but it took hours.
The squad set off at dawn. They walked, leading the camels by their bridles. Einen was at the forefront. Using a long cleaver, he cut a road through the jungle.
They were delayed a couple of times. The first time, a gray panther attacked them. The beast was the size of a horse, and at the Alpha Stage. It strongly resembled its namesake, apart from its chitinous carapace. Glen quickly dealt with it. Hadjar and Einen didn’t interfere. They were certain that the Baliumian would be able to handle one Alpha. Glen cut out the animal’s core so eagerly that it was clear he didn’t want anyone else claiming his prey.
The second time, the squad almost lost its trump card — the boy. He’d managed to mistake a venomous snake for a root. Fortunately, Hadjar’s reaction time was excellent, and the snake had been within seventy steps of him. Hadjar waved his hand just in time, sending a ghostly blade flying. It killed the snake just a couple of inches from the boy’s palm. Karissa took the snake’s decapitated head with her, explaining that she needed its venom for a potion. No one else knew anything about alchemy, so they didn’t argue.
After three hours, they reached the lake. Hadjar had no doubts that this was exactly what they were looking for. It was almost the same as in his dream. The only difference was that, instead of a coniferous forest, a jungle spread out along the shore, and there was no fire or log lying near it.
“What is this anomaly like?” Hadjar asked.
“See for yourself.”
Tilis picked up a dry branch from the ground and threw it into the lake. It didn’t encounter any resistance at first. However, as soon as it was above the water, a sand cloud suddenly appeared in the air. Several tendrils of sand shot out from it and wrapped themselves around the branch for a moment, leaving behind... a void. The branch had simply disappeared. Hadjar felt such powerful flows of energy in the sand cloud that he suspected even Traves himself wouldn’t be able to withstand its pressure.
“By the Evening Stars,” Hadjar whispered.
Einen, after hearing him use the locals’ curse, glanced at his friend, but said nothing. Hadjar had wanted to say ‘demons and gods’, but after remembering his Master’s words, had decided that he would never again mention them unless it was absolutely necessary.
“Well,” Ramukhan began issuing orders, “everyone knows their duties. Let’s start. We don’t have much time.”
While Karissa was pinning all sorts of talismans on the boy, the others were also busy. Hadjar, Einen, and Glen stood in a triangle formation around the rest of the squad. Tilis placed amulets and talismans at their positions, creating a rather powerful veil. Salif was sitting with his eyes half-closed, rummaging through his bottomless memory.
“Don’t take any unnecessary risks,” Ramukhan instructed the boy. “Dive into the lake and see what’s down there. If you don’t find anything, immediately swim back up. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Got it,” the boy nodded.
Hadjar watched the boy who didn’t like him going to his death. Despite the fact that the feeling was mutual, Hadjar still felt like what was happening was wrong. The young boy shouldn’t have been risking his life in place of adult warriors.
“May the Great Turtle cover him with its carapace,” Einen whispered.
Once he stepped outside the veil’s boundaries, the boy stopped. He probably wanted to turn around, but didn’t. Instead, he took the same ladle from before in his hands. He probably thought that Hadjar hadn’t seen him watching his training and mimicking the sword’s movements with the ladle.
As the boy approached the edge of the lake, everyone’s breathing quieted. Tilis bit her lip. She wasn’t overly worried about the boy, but rather, about the outcome of their journey. What was Mage City’s library to a witch or sorcerer, after all? An immensely vast source of coveted knowledge and skills.
The boy walked up to the lake. Hadjar felt like he was practically the same as the branch the witch had thrown. He moved slowly, step by step. No sand cloud appeared over the lake. The boy stopped half a step from the water. Squeezing his ladle, he hesitantly looked at the water’s surface. Then, exhaling sharply, he took a bold step forward. As he did so, a sand cloud formed over the lake.
“Demons!” Glen roared and was about to rush over to the boy, but he was stopped by Ramukhan:
“Everyone, stay right where you are!”
The boy, unable to hear what was happening behind the veil, turned pale. Terrified, he froze in place and instinctively lifted the ladle in front of him. The seconds stretched out. They seemed so long that entire empires could’ve risen and fallen during them.
“Son of a bitch,” Salif smiled.
The boy opened his eyes, saw that the sand cloud wasn’t moving, and took a step forward. Then another, and another, and then, insolently waving his hand at the squad, he ducked beneath the water.
The wait was agonizing.
“Why didn’t we check if there’s anything under the water?” Glen asked.
This time, they didn’t tell him to shut up. The squad members looked at each other and almost sighed in unison. They hadn’t really thought to check if there was anything dangerous inside the lake... The sand cloud above the surface was inactive, but nobody knew what monsters might be lurking beneath the water.
“In any case, now we know how to get around the anomaly.”
Hadjar looked at Tilis and said nothing. He didn’t agree with her... He was convinced that the anomaly was just a trap.
“We need to decide who’s going in next,” Ramukhan had already turned to Hadjar when a splash sounded from the lake. The boy, with that same insolent smile still on his face, emerged from the lake and walked over to them. Once he was back under the veil, he sat down on the ground and stretched out his legs.