Suspicion

Whoosh. Whoosh.

A group of silhouettes flitted past a road in a hurry. Scattered rocks and debris were all over the place and even parts of the wall were missing. Some had broken down while others had been covered up by collapsed regions of the ceiling. Unbeknownst to these shadows, a little figure was hidden behind a few rocks in an opening in the wall.

'That's the third group already.' Asher grimaced.

It had been over an hour since he got separated from Luther and Aaron, and with both the branch tunnel and the exit from the main path cut off, Asher could only proceed forward. During this time, he encountered three groups of those strange creatures wandering the area. Logically, they should have spotted him, but Asher had managed to get some information about these creatures from his memories.

The monsters were called 'shadow fiends', or better yet, 'Hije'[1]. They could only see in the dark. They were strange creatures formed from dark energy and feed on human blood and energy. For this reason, they had a high sensitivity towards blood and aura, and they depended more on this ability to hunt down their targets than they did with their eyes. Accurately speaking, what their eyes saw was not the same as what humans would see but simply a cloud of aura and blood representing their targets.

After recalling this information, Asher was pleased about his decision to spray the torn clothing with blood back then as this was a pivotal decision that led to them tricking those creatures and defeating them.

With this knowledge in hand, Asher was able to hide from most of the creatures by fixing himself in broke parts of the wall, dark spots and similar areas, then cloaking his aura by making it mimic that of his surroundings. Since the strength of these creatures was around the peak first stage of the Guardian rank and Asher's psychic ability was in between the second and third stage, he was able to pull this off with ease as long as he did so ahead of time.

'I hope they will be okay.' Asher thought.

The source of the explosion earlier that caused the collapse was unknown, but it had damaged the integrity of the tunnel. It should be understood that the tunnels in the unexplored region were naturally made and had no supporting structures like the mining area of tunnel number 5. For this reason, the area was easily susceptible to collapse and the explosion from earlier made things worse. Getting out now would be tons of times difficult. One might suggest drilling a new tunnel but with the state of the current tunnel being unstable, any random drilling action taken might make things worse and bring down the entire ceiling, killing everyone within. It was for this reason that during the run, Luther had not tried to blast any of the rocks that blocked their path as it could make things worse.

What scared Asher most was the possible actions of those on the surface.

Over three hours had gone since they entered the mine and this excursion, or inspection, was meant to take not more than four hours. That means that once the time was up, a search party would be sent down here. This was highly possible as Asher suspected that they had not overheard the explosion, considering that the incident happened quite deep underground. If the designated search party reached any of the blocked areas, they would have to commence a drilling operation to find them as Darius would not take a simple 'MIA'[2] description for Asher's disappearance. Even if he was dead, a body would still have to be provided to the duke.

In the process of their drilling, they might not know how fragile the tunnel was and could cause another collapse that could pose great harm or could even cause the death of any of them inside, meaning Asher and any possible other survivors. For this reason, Asher had to find a way out of here within an hour or his death could be close.

'Luther and Aaron should both be fine. They have the strength of fourth-stage Guardian mages[3] and the hijes are only as strong as peak first-stage Guardians; at best second stage Guardian mage. Those two should be fine on their own. I doubt even a horde of 30 hijes would faze them.'

Asher thought as he took down the rocks that covered him and exited his hiding spot.

Shadow fiends, unlike human mages, could not use magic spells and could only attack with their arms, teeth or legs. The strength ranking was only based on their physical abilities. So, the hijes the group faced were only physically strong, but this strength was equivalent to a first-stage Human mage.

"Hmm?"

Ever since he had been separated from his two personal guards, Asher had kept his psychic senses on high alert even though this would consume his stamina more than usual. Just as he left his hiding place, he sensed a figure close approaching him. According to his senses, this person was not a hije but a human being. However, their stature and aura didn't match that of Luther or Aaron and there was only one person. The only explanation Asher could think of was one person, the guide.

Even after identifying the person, Asher still didn't approach them. For one, the guide had abandoned the trio back when the tunnel was collapsing. If Asher did not notice that in time, he would have failed to inform Luther and Aaron about it and might be stuck wherever they were right now. What irritated Asher the most was that if the guide had spoken sooner instead, all four of them would still be together.

Truthfully, Asher was suspicious about the man, after all, he was assigned to him by Randel and did not come from any of the guards originally stationed in the mine's region. On the contrary, he was one of Randel's men. There was a chance that Randel had informed him, if possible, to prevent Asher from leaving this place. This might sound absurd but if one recalled that Randel was most likely under Elijah's camp, everything would be self-explanatory.

If Asher died then the next-in-line would be Dylan, Elijah's son and Asher's cousin. As a member of team Elijah, there would be nothing more favourable for Randel than having Dylan take over the family which would greatly benefit him.

The guide might not have made his thoughts obvious, but his actions of leaving Asher and his two guards behind to escape could be termed as treason once news got out. Who knows, maybe even the explosion was somewhat connected to Raven?

"Wait!" Asher's eyes widened in shock, but he eventually calmed down.

Sadly, even if he wanted to continue with that thought, he needed enough proof and even before that, he still had to handle this matter.

One other reason Asher didn't want to approach the guide was that everything was just fishy.

The hijes had an average strength of peak first-stage Guardian mage and what's more, apart from the very first one they met, the hijes moved in groups. The guide, on the other hand, was only a second-stage Guardian mage. Facing one hije wouldn't be much of a task for the guide, and he might even be able to handle three of them at once. Taking on four would be a miracle, but he could do no more than that, and this was considering that he had undergone the Arnhaunt's special training which would help him in escaping the assault. However, facing five or more was a pipe-dream that would only end with his death, and the hijes moved in numbers of at least six or above.

Asher had gone past three groups of hijes, so he could say that the guide should have at least encountered two groups, but he was somehow still alive. Asher was only able to hide from them because he knew how the hijes hunted, but the guide knew nothing. This made Asher begin questioning how he had survived for so long. Even if the guide were to copy the method from before, it could only stall the hijes but not prevent them from finding him. They only won last time because Aaron had reacted quickly to hold the hijes down while Luther attacked almost at the same time. Without a similar formation and plan such as that, the guide would be found by the creatures. This made Asher begin to question what was going on.