The black sun hangs high

Chapter 374 Substituting the Beams for the Pillars (2)

As a member of the Dark Abyss Historians Society, Tatiana actually possesses another, unknown identity.

She and Baron Fiorlando shared similar backgrounds, both possessing blood from the royal family of Saint Steel and being relatively unimportant "distant relatives." It was precisely because of this that they had known each other for a very long time. If one were to calculate it precisely, Baron Fiorlando could even be considered Tatiana's cousin.

However, this faint kinship was no longer important to Tatiana.

Since joining the Black Sun Society and personally experiencing that ancient power that "transcends the mundane world of Vain," she has voluntarily abandoned all her past interpersonal relationships. Tatiana believes that the fragile connections used by these inferior beings and species to maintain their relationships have no real meaning, and that individuals should have a purer way of connecting with each other.

At the same time, Tatiana also rejected the titles and corresponding status and power derived from the royal family of Saint Steer. In her view, these things were also meaningless and would only hinder her from seeking the truth and pursuing her faith.

This is precisely why Tatiana has never been very satisfied with Baron Fiorlando.

Although the two share similar backgrounds, Baron Fiorlando is clearly more enthusiastic about "the pursuit of fame and fortune," a tendency that Tatiana views as a lack of sincerity towards his faith and an impure pursuit of his own goals.

However, the Black Sun Society ultimately bound the two together.

Although Tatiana disagreed with some of the Baron's views, she had to admit that the Black Sun Society still needed the help of secular power to achieve its goals and realize its grand vision. Therefore, she ultimately chose to deepen her cooperation with Fiorlando.

But now, the cooperative relationship between the two sides seems to be on the verge of collapse.

The changing situation has increased the importance of Watchtower City, and the failure of the "Great Ascension Ceremony" bestowed by the Dark Abyss Court has made the region even more delicate. Under the current circumstances, any threats and destabilizing factors need to be eliminated immediately. As for those who caused these troubles due to their negligence, they must be held accountable for these consequences.

Tatiana knew that this time, her old partner was able to survive the incident at the mine, but he would probably not be able to escape the Society's guilt, unless he really had the ability to eliminate all the hidden dangers before her archer battalion arrived.

I hope you can do it.

Tatiana, riding the giant bird Asharu, let out a sneer and then steered her mount down in the predetermined direction. Now, she could see the lights in the Rock Lake Mine. From a distance, the crystal spotlights in the mine seemed to be working normally, but the huge ritual field used to cover the mine and its surrounding area had disappeared.

The giant bird Yasharu let out a low hiss, indicating that a killing had just taken place nearby—the giant bird Yasharu was very sensitive to the smell of fresh blood, and for it to react to this extent, the scale of the killing must have been considerable.

At that moment, the people in the mine seemed to have noticed the "visitor" in the sky, so several crystal spotlights turned towards the sky, and huge and bright beams of light swept across quickly, illuminating Asharu's amazing wingspan.

Then, something unexpected happened to Tatiana.

She saw a magical signal rise rapidly from the central area of ​​the Rock Lake Mine, leaving a very conspicuous dark trail in the air. After reaching high altitude, it suddenly exploded, and silver-gray magical lines quickly wove together in the night sky, eventually forming a perfectly standard black sun pattern. At the center of this black sun pattern, more silver lines formed several stable magical symbols.

Tatiana was somewhat surprised when she saw these symbols.

This is a signal used within the Black Sun Society, specifically for transmitting messages to comrades when secret communication is impossible. The meaning of this signal is very clear—the enemy has been eliminated and further support is needed.

The symbol indicating "needs support" was repeated three times, clearly indicating that the person sending the signal wanted to emphasize their message.

And this is indeed one of Fiorentina's habits.

Tatiana was cautious. Despite the warning, she did not rush to land. Instead, she took out her simple communication device and sent a brief message to her two companions who had been temporarily separated from her, asking them to postpone their attack plan.

The troops that were gathering in the distance had obviously also seen the magical signal in the sky, so they quickly responded, indicating that they would temporarily slow down their attack.

After receiving a definite reply, Tatiana began to fly around the Rock Lake Mine, slowly descending the Yasaru Giant Bird, wanting to get a good look at what was going on inside.

……

Meanwhile, Hugh, standing inside the Rock Lake Mine, was ready to "receive guests".

This time, he did not intend to use any violent means against the arriving guest, because according to the reconnaissance results of the magical rat swarm he had sent out, if he launched an attack on those visitors, the entire Rock Lake Mine would become the most conspicuous focus near Watchtower City.

Therefore, Hughes decisively carried out the original plan.

This was the most crucial step for him and his team to fully penetrate the Kingdom of Saint Steel.

Before and after entering the Kingdom of Saint Steel, Hugh used his abilities to conduct an extremely profound study and analysis of the Saint Steel royal family and the Black Sun Society.

All signs and evidence indicate that although the Black Sun Society now controls the entire territory of Saint Steel through its bizarre rituals and its own formidable power, in reality, their methods of managing towns, the army, and even the entire Saint Steel bureaucracy are still very crude and rudimentary, which creates many loopholes that can be exploited.

The most typical problem is the personnel composition. At the current stage, the Kingdom of Saint Steel cannot even accurately count the personnel in its official army, let alone the "temporary workers" recruited by the Black Sun Society from the civilian population.

Most of the soldiers and overseers in the Yanhu mine could be classified as such.

Deserters, refugees, thugs, or ordinary residents who lost their jobs because of the war... these were the main components of these temporary armies. The Black Sun Society had not yet compiled a specific list of these people, nor had it had time to summarize their information within the turbulent bureaucracy.

"It is very dangerous to infiltrate Saint Steel as an ordinary citizen. For the Black Sun Society, ordinary citizens of Saint Steel are basically important targets who 'need to be converted to a new faith.' Under such circumstances, spies and agents who have infiltrated the city are very easy to be detected by their secret rituals."

"Therefore, our first choice is those who have changed their minds or have been identified as 'loyal believers' by the Black Sun Society."

"We need to find a suitable target, completely eliminate it, and then find a way to replace ourselves... proactively create some changes to strengthen the Black Sun Society's trust in us, and create enough space for more plans and actions in the future."

In the mine's lights, Hugh, holding a crystal gun and a grimoire of magic, looked up. A mesmerizing rainbow flashed rapidly in his eyes, followed by a surge of dark, abyssal magic that completely obscured the activities of the Fate Roots race.

The last time he used such a large-scale illusion to deceive his enemies was when Hugh was trapped in the city of Seren, and on that occasion, the target he needed to deceive was the Dark Abyss offspring who had huge intellectual and sensory deficiencies.

Now, he faces a Black Sun Society mage with considerable magical power and a cautious demeanor.

Therefore, this illusion of fate, which covers most of the Yanhu mine, must be perfect in every detail.

Fortunately, the Fate Roots seemed very confident about this mission. They were even extremely happy with the orders given by Hugh. For them, being able to move around in such a place littered with corpses and filled with negative emotions was a real pleasure.

Hughes himself further reinforced his image as Baron Fiorento.

Now, his appearance is completely different from what it was an hour ago.

The "royal air of Saint Steel" that Fiorento had always tried to maintain was now completely gone. He was covered in blood and grime, and there was even a hideous scar on his face—it seemed to be left when a crystal bullet grazed his cheek. His usually clean and gorgeous clothes were now covered in dust and all sorts of grime.

The baron was kneeling on one knee in front of a severely damaged sculpture.

That was the very secret ritual that was of utmost importance to the Black Sun Society. It still retained the aura of the Dark Abyss Court that all members of the Black Sun Society were intimately familiar with. However, now, because the ritual had been severely damaged, this "sacred" aura had become faint and disordered. The sculpture fragments scattered nearby indicated that it had once suffered a direct impact from some kind of extraordinary and destructive magic.

On the other side, in the open space in front of the mine not too far from the Baron, a large number of corpses lay scattered.

The vast majority of these corpses were dressed in the clothes of miners, while a few were dressed in standard Saint Steel uniforms. Now, another group of soldiers was cleaning up the messy battlefield, separating and counting the different corpses. Some miners stood timidly beside the open space, guarded by a group of fully armed soldiers and overseers.

After confirming that there were no other signs of disturbance in the mine, Tatiana finally managed to maneuver the giant bird Azar and slowly landed beside the damaged ritual sculpture. Baron Fiorlando, who was kneeling on one knee, raised his head and his extremely gloomy gaze fell on Tatiana. Some kind of invisible pressure made the sensitive giant bird Azar shrink its neck - it felt a little afraid of the man in front of it.

"Oh, Ms. Tatiana, I thought you were completely unaware of the seriousness of the problem."

Hugh, sporting the baron's face, slowly rose. Following Fiorland's past memories and habits, he first questioned Tatiana, who had just landed: "What, not planning to stay in the sky a couple more times?"

Faced with Fiorlando's familiar tone, Tatiana breathed a slight sigh of relief. Based on the scene before her, she was basically certain that her "partner" had not betrayed the Black Sun Society, and that something unexpected must have happened in the mine.

"Feorlando, you need to explain what happened here properly. The army is already gathering nearby. If you don't want to be blown up by crystal cannonballs, then stop trying to shirk responsibility!"

"Shifting blame?"

Upon hearing this word, the baron's blood-stained face contorted into a hideous grimace. He asked in a hoarse voice, "What responsibility do you think someone who has only been in charge here for less than half a day should shirk? I'd like to ask, how exactly have you been monitoring the surrounding area? Why was someone able to tamper with our secret rituals? Why was my itinerary completely exposed? Why did the workers in this mine choose to riot tonight and successfully acquire a considerable amount of weapons?"

At this point, he seemed to become extremely angry. He pointed his crystal gun at the burning camp on the other side of the mine, and then at the open space full of corpses: "My servants and followers are almost all dead. Those miners not only knew all the arrangements I made, but they even sabotaged the surveillance devices in the mine in advance... Ha, guess whether they did it themselves, or someone helped them?"

"Wait, Fiolando, are you saying that the person who was in charge of this mine has betrayed the Society? That's an accusation!"

"Nonsense, this is obviously an accusation!"

The baron was clearly on the verge of hysteria: "Do you know what it feels like to see our secret device explode from the inside? And look at these corpses! Almost all the miners participated in the mutiny. They had planned it all along, and a considerable number of them had already escaped into the secret passages inside the mine!"

He took a deep breath, his emotions finally seeming to calm down a bit, and then stared at Tatiana and said, "If I were you, madam, I would go and arrest the person who was in charge of this mine right now... I want to confront him, in the presence of the Mystic, and hopefully you can still catch him!"

(End of this chapter)