Their camp made Hadjar feel nostalgic for the times when he’d worn the General’s medallion. There were several tents set up in the middle of a small clearing. On the outside, they looked quite small, but they could’ve actually accommodated about forty or fifty soldiers. They’d cost them ten drops in a border city of the Strange Lands.

In the center, surrounded by the four tents, a bonfire was burning. The heat of it would’ve been able to melt the soul of a mortal or even leave burns on a weak initial-stage Spirit Knight. And although there were hares of such a high Stage of cultivation in the area that they could break the spine of a bull from the region of mortals with one blow of their paw, there was no real difference between camping in the Strange Lands and camping in Lidus. Both of them were soothing to Hadjar.

“Damn it, stranger,” Itia smiled. She often smiled at Hadjar. “I still can’t get used to your new appearance.”

Hadjar looked at his clothes/armor sewn for him by Queen Mab. With a slight effort of will, he forced them to turn into the simple clothes made by his wife: a linen shirt, some canvas pants, and a plain cape. They were nothing special, but they warmed both his heart and soul.

“That’s better,” Itia nodded and returned to her previous task.

Slowly, expertly, she ran a burning stick over some bare heels. She was torturing a beaten merchant. He was tied up and lying next to the fire. He was wearing a leather hunting suit, had a strong jaw, short hair, and had wielded a spear at the level of an Imperial artifact.

Well, the overall level of power in the Strange Lands was higher than in any other region of the mortal Nameless World, as all the strongest cultivators would flock here, looking for opponents of equal power and more serious dangers that could help them advance along the path of cultivation. As a result, it was difficult to say what the true root of the dangers posed by the Strange Lands was: the local atmosphere, or the cultivators who, eventually, over many epochs, had possibly created such a local atmosphere. But would they have congregated here in the first place if the area hadn’t been dangerous to begin with? It was truly a mystery.

Hadjar had a whole list of things he didn’t like. In first place, of course, were schemes, and a little lower than that were merchants, as schemes and trade usually went hand in hand. Hadjar had immediately identified the man’s unpleasant personality thanks to his greasy, moist, shifty eyes.

“By the demons of the underworld!” The cultivator, who was an initial-stage Lord, screamed. “What do you want from me?”

“How long do you think she’ll have to spend on breaking him?” Leaning on his bow, Gustaf watched what was happening with great interest.

“I don’t know, honorless thief,” Alba-udun, as always, was eating apples and constantly reminding Abraham’s squad that they were smugglers and thieves. Thus, by the Uduns’ standards, they were devoid of honor and masculinity. Itia’s very presence made his insults and logic a bit odd, but the dwarf didn’t care. “But I think long enough. Itia is in a good mood today.”

“She’s in a good mood? Take her away, please! Aaaahhhh! Get her away from me! Ah-ah-ah!”

“Death is near,” Guy confirmed philosophically. The dancing flames that were caressing the prisoner’s heels were somewhat comically reflected on the surface of his mask.

Hadjar massaged the bridge of his nose tiredly. Abraham, clearing his throat, approached Itia.

“Honey-”

“Abraham, do you want me to kick you in the balls?”

“Ahem,” Abraham cleared his throat again and straightened up a little to maintain his authority at least a bit, not in the eyes of the squad, but at least in the prisoner’s eyes. “Have you even asked him a question?”

“I haven’t. But I saw him talking to the mercenary Glets the Grumpy, who, in turn, had just come from Khlesten City, which is seventeen days away from here.” When Itia mentioned distances, she meant the speed at which the local horses of incredibly high Stages of cultivation could move. “And as we already know, there is a headquarters of the Raven Sect in Khlesten and-”

Before interrupting her, Abraham took a prudent step back, out of Itia’s direct reach.

“Itia, my dear, have you told all of this to our... guest?” Abraham smiled slightly at the prisoner, who shouted even louder at that. He seemed to be expressing his legitimate doubts about his status as a guest.

“Hmm,” Itia said, “Do you think I should have done that?”

“It seems to me that it was worth hinting at, at least.”

“But he must know whom he’s dealing with.”

“Oh, I have no doubt, my dear, that he certainly knows whom he is dealing with now.”

Itia sighed, shook her head sadly, cursed, got up, and headed toward Hadjar, passing the burning stick to Abraham along the way. When their ‘guest’ could no longer see her face, she laughed quietly into her palm and winked at Hadjar.

There was nothing more frightening about torture than the realization that you were being tortured just for fun or out of sheer madness. You could say anything, but the suffering would never stop. Such a realization, filled with the horror of endless pain and eventual death, was the most terrible thing a prisoner could feel. Abraham’s squad knew that all too well. Their little ‘performance’ was meant to speed up and simplify their work.

“I apologize for this mistake, honorable...” Abraham let a very eloquent pause linger.

The prisoner, who was breathing heavily, started crying even harder. After all, his skin had been charred black and some bones had even broken through the weakened flesh. This was the sort of pain that an average cultivator simply couldn’t withstand.

“Alf. I’m... a free merchant... named Alf.”

“So, honorable free merchant Alf,” Abraham squatted down and toyed with the flaming stick in his long, thin fingers. He did so dangerously close to the man’s charred heels, which prevented them from healing and caused even more pain, albeit to a lesser extent than before. “Can you tell us why you met with the mercenary Glets, whom the local government suspects is assisting the criminal Raven Sect?”

“I...” Alf had apparently wanted to try and invent some sort of excuse, but then he noticed Abraham’s calm gaze. The smuggler knew how to be convincing when the situation demanded it. “He needed medicine.”

“Very interesting. Go on, honorable Alf. What kind of medicine and why did the mercenary need it? Is he ill?”

“He isn’t. It isn’t for him.”

“Who needs it, then?”

“He didn’t say.”

The stick came dangerously close to the merchant’s heel.

“It’s true! He just asked me to get him some Darkness of the Last Nights.”

“What is the Darkness of the Last Nights?” Gustaf muttered.

“It’s very rare stuff,” Alba-udun spat. “It’s made from a rotten lotus mixed with the blood of a virgin that was collected at the death of said virgin during the last ten nights of the lunar month. Well, that and a few other, no less disgusting ingredients. It’s very rare and very dark stuff.”

Sometimes, the Udun was very useful.

“What is it used for?”

Albadurt glared at Abraham, “In rituals related to the dark energy of the World River.”

The dark energy of the World River… Hadjar hadn’t heard that term in a long time. It was a kind of legend. It was attributed to demons, but as Hadjar already knew from experience, these creatures used chaos, not darkness. The only one who definitely utilized the dark energy was the Black General.

“Well, that’s a good lead,” Abraham nodded. “Tell me, honorable Alf, what plans did you make?”

“I agreed to meet him in the square in three days. I’m supposed to give him-”

He didn’t have time to finish speaking. Abraham’s dagger suddenly went through the merchant’s neck, and he was silenced for all eternity. No one protested. The Nameless World was simply too ruthless, and leaving someone alive who knew your plans was akin to courting death.

“How’s your disguise Technique, Guy?” Abraham asked, wiping his dagger clean on the dead man’s clothes.

Guy was already reaching for his mask when the various shouts sounded:

“No!”

“Not right now!”

“Damn it! I’m going to throw up!”

The axeman just shrugged his shoulders and remarked in his familiar manner:

“Death is near.”

Hadjar looked at the corpse of the merchant. He wasn’t wrong.