Roughly fifty soldiers were with us walking into the dark forest and up the mountain without a path to follow. The forest was eerily quiet, quieter than a cemetery. No sound of animals or insects could be heard, only the rustling of the leaves on top of the trees.
"This does not look like a forest." The Brouette prince whispered to the young Salvatore.
"It's too quiet." Athy spoke beside me.
"Hmmm." I nodded. "This is why I did not bring the other one."
Uriel had always been afraid of ghosts since we were young back on Earth so bringing her to such a place is more trouble than help.
"I still don't understand why she is afraid of ghosts when she is strong enough to kill my summons." Athy frowned.
Her ability basically summons spirits which are ghosts but Uriel does not have any problems with them saying they are 'Friendly' ghosts.
"Is it me or is it getting darker?" I asked, looking around to make sure the light balls are still around.
"It's not getting darker, but the smoke is getting thicker." Felix Salvatore answered me from behind.
"Can the light ability users create more light balls?" I asked him since the only light ability user with us is from his knights.
Felix glanced at the knight who nodded and created more light balls. There were some flame ability users among us but fire and forest are not a good combination so we can only rely on the single light ability user.
"Everybody, stay close together and shout if you see or sense something off." I shouted.
We continued to move forward, unlike the ones who went to hunt, we were all on foot so moving was slower. Bringing horses or other mounts at this time would also be useless due to all these fallen trees and large boulders and rocks.
We were walking for two hours just following Athy's lead as to where father and our other knights are. Though her ability was able to tell her if they were still alive or not, she cannot trace where they are exactly and could only tell the way by how close her spirits feels. If we end up blindly moving forward and ending up on a cliff and the feeling of her spirit was actually below, we would have to go around again.
Hopefully, it won't happen.
"This!" Athy suddenly snapped her head and dashed forward.
"Athy!" I shouted and dashed behind to follow her knowing that the knights would also follow behind us.
I cannot leave my youngest sister alone for even a moment.
After a few minutes of running, I was able to catch up to her. She was standing with her back facing me, staring at whatever was in front of her.
"Athy, why did you run?" I asked as soon as I reached her and saw what she was staring at.
Corpses.
Corpses were piled atop each other like stone towers. Corpses of humans, male, female, young and old, they were piled up.
"This.." I did not know what to say.
The knights also caught up to us and halted when they saw the carnage before us. Some were not able to take the smell and vomited.
"This.." A trembling voice spoke. "Why?..Why is this h-here?"
I turned around.
"You know this?" I asked the speaker who was trembling. "What is this?"
He was trembling, his eyes were wide open and his hands were curled into fists. He did not look fearful of the scene in front of us, instead, he looked angry.
"Loki?" I asked again. "What is this?"
Loki bowed his head and in a voice as if he was trying to swallow his anger, he replied:
"This is a sacrificial tower, my lady."
A sacrificial tower?
"What is that?" Athy asked, as confused as I am.
"As the name implies, it is a tower made on sacrificed bodies." Loki answered.
"But, who would do a sacrificial rite here?" I asked, then a thought came to my mind. "The king?"
Hearing what I said, the other knights gasped.
"I have no idea my lady." Loki answered, his head still down. "But, it is not the one who summoned that I am worried about but what they did that would need this much sacrifice."
"You know something, don't you?" I spoke forwardly. "Speak, what is it?"
"I am not sure, my lady, but it is the same sight I saw when we attacked the human traffickers hideout that was kidnapping our kind." Loki answered.
"You mean the ones who were supplying bodies to the necromancer?" I blurted out before realizing. "A necromancer is here?"
"I am not sure, my lady." Loki waved his hands around. "But it definitely looks the same."
A necromancer! If a necromancer is really here, father and the others are in grave danger!
"Athy, how far are we from them?" I asked my sister.
"I'm not sure, but it does not seem like they are in immediate danger as my ability is still lying low." Athy answered.
As long as the spirits have not come out, that means that there is no immediate danger on father's side. But we do not know how long that would last, or how long till the necromancer finds them.
"We need to hurry." I looked at the others. "If there is indeed a necromancer here, we need to hurry and find the others first before it does."