Yuria looked at Tezariah who was inscribing something on the floor. Tezariah's inscription was fast but not hurried, with each symbol written with care. Yuria sent out her aura to check what Tezariah was doing. Each symbol inscribed was exuding a mysterious power she didn't understand. Her body instinctively trembled the same way a prey would feel when stared at by a predator. This was even under the premise that whatever Tezariah was doing wasn't targeting her.
Finally after a minute finishing a whole circle of symbols, all the symbols lit up. Next, Tezariah proceeded to inscribe at the outer area of his first inscriptions. This continued until Tezariah finished four layers of inscriptions. After finishing the final symbol, all four lit up and a low hum started to resound. Tezariah sat with a solemn face and once again took a small blade from his spatial storage. He cut hand and drip blood in four directions.
When the blood dried, a blood-colored tendril started to come out and under the power of the inscriptions, it grew both in size and length. These tendrils slowly spread out and divided like the roots of a tree. As each root spread and divided, a visible stop point seem to appear. At the end of each stop point where large dark spots that began to morph into faces. One by one the dark spots became faces.
"Yuji!" Yuria exclaimed. Yuji was the name of his colleague which went missing. Yuria then began to identify faces. All of the missing people's faces where here but...
There were at least a hundred faces here...
Yuria thought of it and came to the conclusion. Wouldn't that mean that all these faces where the victims of that shadow figure.
On the other hand, Tezariah who was watching from inside the circle frowned as more faces appeared. But what made both Yuria and Tezariah disturbed is that within the multitude of faces, there were children and not only that but even a baby's face appeared among the faces. Anger started to well up from within Yuria while Tezariah's frown became deeper.
"What the fuck is this!" Yuria couldn't help but curse. Even a baby wasn't given a chance to survive.
"One of the divisions of the Ruinous Army, the Baleforce army. Or as we call them, Et'ria the worst of the shadows." Tezariah replied. Yuria looked at Tezariah surprised. She indeed had a conjecture that Tezariah knew what they were dealing with from his reaction. This also alarmed her, because if Tezariah would call something "worst" and frowned, it probably meant it was not a good thing.
"If they indeed have spread their influence in this world, this means that the war is coming and they have started to make preparations." Tezariah continued. Tezariah has read about the great wars in the past especially about the war with the Ruinous Ones. The records left were minimal but they all had one thing in common, mass destruction and ruination. In fact his world has managed to survive three invasions with the recent one from a very very long time. It was so long ago that all the survivors from that war has either died or ascended.
Although there were multiple random cases of beings of the Ruinous Army being seen and killed, it was sparse. Sadly though, if Tezariah's memory was right, this was not that kind of scenario. In his memory, he has read of Bale Shadows before. What alarmed him was not the fact that they discovered a Bale Shadow but the implications of meeting one meant...
A Bale Shaman... or a Bale Apostle...
According to the records he has read, Bale Shadows can only appear if there was a Bale Shaman or a Bale Apostle. If it was only a Bale Shaman, it was indeed easier to deal with and Tezariah can hunt it down with confidence. On the other end, a Bale Apostle was different, aside from Bale Shadows they had multiple followers and worse, they had divinity. Tezariah was not confident to fight considering he was alone.
Thus he decided first to determine the nature and extent of their influence. If it was a Bale Shaman, he would hunt it down immediately before it became stronger but if it was a Bale Apostle, he would need to prepare a lot of things before hunting it down.
...
Finally the low hum and the symbol's light died down. Yuria and Tezariah began counting and the finally tally ended at 280. One has to note that the tendril continued even outside the room and into the other rooms.
In fact, the whole floor was littered with faces!
Tezariah then began chanting and all the shadow faces began to seemingly be pulled out of the wall coalescing into a dark ball in front of Tezariah. It took a few minutes to finish forming. Tezariah then placed the hand which he bled a while ago inside. The darkness began to enter through the would into Tezariah's bloodstream.
This was a very dangerous method. Even for Tezariah it was a big risk but he would rather risk now while he could still control it than later when things become more complex. After all the risk later might kill him if he wasn't prepared. After absorbing the whole dark ball, Tezariah's eyes turned pitch dark.
In his head, he could hear the voices of not only the people that were consumed, but of the source of all this. He slowly approached it. There he saw it... and it saw him too.
A Bale Acolyte!
Immediately he cut his connection and purified himself. He sat down due to both exhaustion and the rush of adrenaline. A cold sweat appeared in his back as he felt that encounter was too close. A second later and the Acolyte would have attacked him. One should note that on a fight Tezariah and the Acolyte might be the same, but it was a different scenario if it was in that darkness. Firstly, that was still the domain of the Acolyte and secondly, the Acolyte's specialty was mind attacks. If Tezariah wasn't cautious and decisive, the Acolyte would definitely beat him.
Lastly, if he didn't leave immediately, the Acolyte might have followed him through the link and started to corrupt him with his magic. Although this one he could resist, he would have to take special attention to it. He didn't want to fight the Acolyte while being restricted by corruption.
Meanwhile, Yuria watched the whole ordeal with concern. She felt particularly useless. Over such an important event in front of her, she couldn't do anything aside from watch. This fueled her passion to get stronger even more.
After an hour, Tezariah recovered. Yuria looked at her time... It was actually still just noontime. The whole thing felt like a whole day to her. She approached Tezariah and asked about a few more things about...
"How about the missing people? Can they be recovered?" Yuria finally asked the most important question.
"Yes and No." Tezariah replied. "Yes, we can recover their souls and set them free before they can become offerings. At most they can reincarnate and their life energy won't dissipate. No, because we cannot make a body, unless you would use special treasures which I doubt you have would you?" Tezariah continued to explain. He didn't forget to add a little sarcasm to ease the situation.
Yuria gave a slight smile but she was still sad and angry about the things she witnessed. Especially when she saw the faces of the children and the baby. It has awoken an instinctual fury inside her. Maybe because she was a woman, or maybe because she worked as a police. Whatever the reason, she was infuriated inside. If fact, as she asked questions about the Bale Shadows and the Bale Acolyte, she noted them all. To her, these vile creatures must be eliminated for the safety of the people.
They exited the building and left the area. Yuria went back their headquarters, although she really didn't know how to report such things to her chief. Who would believe her! Therefore she racked her brain and decided to make a report that was logical.
Meanwhile Tezariah went to the market on the way towards home. He also bought food along the way by the request of Yuria. Arriving at an inconspicuous corner of the market, he saw an antique shop. What peeked Tezariah's curiosity was the leaking mana coming from the shop. He decided to enter the shop and in front of him a familiar figure was standing at the counter. He warily looked at the man at the counter.
"What are you doing here old man!?" Tezariah said with a cold voice. This man in front of him was exactly the old man he met at he void. He was particularly the reason he was thrown into this place...
"Nice to meet you again." The old man laughed as though he was unbothered by Tezariah's hostility.
"So you have met them huh." The old said solemnly. Tezariah looked at the old man with questioning eyes.
"The Baleforce Division" The old man mumbled. Tezariah was slightly shocked and nodded.
"Oh well. We might as well talk." With a wave of the old man's had, they both disappeared. What replaced the old man in the counter was a young kid that looked like a craftsman's apprentice. It was like no one entered the shop. In the eyes of the Young kid, a knowing glint appears.
His master has finally started to move...