It is wrong to assume a negative consequence of an action is a bad result. Fate is fickle, and the outcome might be the best possible alternative. Claiming you’d make different choices if you could do it over again just means you didn’t learn a damn thing.

~Morrigan, The Mysterious Goddess of Fate

“So, did you decide?” Zoe asked while they were creeping through the forest surrounding another vault.

“Yeah, I’ve decided I need more male friends,” Crow muttered, causing Minnie to laugh and cover her mouth before she ruined their stealthy infiltration.

“While I agree with that sentiment,” Zoe claimed while fighting giggles. “You should really decide on the big target. Even I want to know what’s down there.”

Crow knew he’d have to decide, eventually. It’s just that robbing the vaults of various branches was one thing, but taking on the Unhulde Stacks… even I’m not that confident. The sect might decide to kill everyone afterward. The type of interrogation that would follow might blow his cover, and he was sure the coven would end up implicated if he left.

*You know, your Soulverse has become quite diverse. You have the power to move them inside.*

“Let’s talk about it later,” Crow said, addressing both comments. Lily understood, and her presence faded back.

“Alright, but if we hit a few more of these vaults, they will increase the security of the Stacks,” Zoe said.

“Probably not as much as you think,” Minnie piped in. “The Stacks are way more sensitive, especially the lowest floors where they hide the biggest sect secrets. I’m not sure they’ll let anyone mess around down there until the sect leaders return.”

“Why haven’t they returned? I get the mists are dangerous, but nothing on this floor should be that powerful.”

“That’s a flawed understanding,” Zoe said. “You understand beasts can also cultivate and gain higher intelligence. Nothing is stopping them from hiding on lower floors when that happens. The misconception you have is that the tower will restrict them but not enough to prevent them from becoming a threat. My grandma said that the mists are from a type of guardian that lives in the Python Temple, to which you have the key. Every time the mists arrive, they try to find the origin because it signifies someone stumbled their way inside.”

“Without the key?”

“The key opens up a deeper portion of the temple, but there are still legacies and treasures in the other areas. The people who discovered them don’t know how they arrived, and after exiting, they are nowhere near where they believed they were.”

“Interesting, but we are getting sidetracked,” Crow said, but based on his knowledge, he felt that information was off. The mists were likely triggered because of his presence on the floor, which meant they might not dissipate. The other worry was the mist—it might be part of a formation to confuse and teleport anyone inside it. Crow was glad he hadn’t left the sect because he was growing increasingly agitated at the thought of entering the mist. His instincts were screaming at him to avoid them at all costs.

“Hello?” Minnie waved her hand in front of his face.

“Sorry. Back to the goal—are you two sure you want to get involved?” Crow felt obliged to ask one more time. “Before you could claim innocence, saying you didn’t know what I was up to. If we do this, you may end up harmed.”

“Stop being a sissy,” Minnie grumbled. “You said your other wives are in danger, right? This is a brilliant strategy, and we know you are just looking out for us, but trust us. When it comes to schemes, you aren’t our match. In all of Unhulde, the witches are probably the least worried about schemes. And… we have abilities that prevent people from prying into our thoughts. We’ll be fine.”

Crow thought about it, and since they wanted to be part of it, it wasn’t his place to control their lives. Protecting them was fine, but inhibiting them from experiencing life’s tribulations was something he wouldn’t do.

“Wait here,” he ordered them. “If it is safe, I’ll come back for you after I’ve scouted the vault. Don’t worry; I won’t loot anything until you are there.” Crow flicked Minnie on the forehead, knowing what she was thinking just by the set of her mouth.

Both women nodded their assent. Using his Spectral Camouflage, he practically disappeared in front of them. Since they were watching, they could still sense and feel his presence, but that soon faded as Crow ran into the vault’s wall. There weren’t any guards patrolling the outer building because they put too much faith in their defenses.

Entering the Mana Wall felt like jumping into cold water, and he felt like there should be a ripple like a boulder dropped into a still lake. However, the Mana Wall was still a wall, and nothing magical happened when he stepped in. He didn’t immediately exit the other side. Crow didn’t immediately exit the other side but used the wall like a set of hidden passageways and navigated throughout the building without being detected. Mostly, he just wanted to scout changes. If it wasn’t for the girls, he would immediately start looting, but since they wanted to play, he felt it was best to secure the location and find escape routes if things went wrong.

On the upper floors, he found the living quarters of the custodians. Three blue-skinned men crowded around a table, but that wasn’t the biggest surprise the Hex Vodun had for him. One of the three was someone Crow recognized and was currently pointing at a map of the vault below.

“Kondo (c. 287 - Leader of Hex Vodun within Unhulde) confirmed our plan. Are these locations trapped?” Kafe asked, and the other two nodded. Crow only needed a single glance to memorize the map. His eyes remained fixed on the young Spiritualist, who suddenly turned to look around the room. Crow averted his gaze, knowing Kafe had turned around because of his hostile intent.

“Something wrong?” the oldest of the three asked. Crow felt he might be an elder or probably the principal custodian of the vault.

“No,” Kafe claimed while shaking his head. Since he couldn’t be considered a Hex Vodun cultivator anymore, he felt like the Unhulde Sect had an underlying hostility toward him. It made him paranoid, but Kafe knew that if he was honest, betraying Crow and his wives was the main reason for his guilt and nervousness.

Inside the wall, Crow clenched his teeth, knowing that Kafe’s presence confirmed his previous doubts. His most prominent emotion wasn’t anger but disappointment or disillusionment. Saving Kafe, he hoped the man would become a better person. Hearing he’d become a Spiritualist, forgetting all his previous cultivation, it looked like he would become someone worthy of respect.

It was all for naught because he knew now why his wives were at risk—it was because of this jerk. Since Nadia wasn’t here, he made a few quick assumptions. She had no friends or family but had grown close to Crow’s wives, especially Mara. Not only that, but Nadia and Crow had talked a lot during his days in Rosdoe. He sincerely hoped that Kafe wasn’t using that friendship against her. If he was, he doubted she was knowingly involved in putting his wives at risk. Crow knew that if Kafe did that, all hope of redemption was gone. Nadia’s physique made her a target of lustful men, so she already had trust issues. He didn’t know all the details about what happened, but he knew the girl was caught between feeling love and loathing for this man.

Fuck you. Crow growled in his heart and resisted the urge to charge out of the wall and slay the fucking bastard. In his heart, Crow already knew that Kafe had turned. His ability to sense connections already told him this man was at the crux of it all.

*You can’t kill him, but you can make his clan suffer.* Lily offered.

*Am I stupid? I knew he was an evil cultivator. Do you think Chirich (trickster god from the Clocktower event) was right and that my mercy was foolish?*

*You know you aren’t, so why bother asking? Mercy isn’t weakness—it takes courage. Forgiveness takes courage.*

*What if my mercy hurts my family? Kills one of my lovers?*

*They’d accept it without blame. Mercy, no mercy, kindness, no kindness—life is unpredictable. Can you say for certain your actions, merciful or not, would kill or save your family? What if you didn’t spare Kafe, and that brought about the death of Faelan? Nin? Mara? All of us? No one can predict that, but you can control your actions and beliefs. It wasn’t wrong to show him mercy; what happens next is on him, not you. Accepting your mercy had even granted him the opportunity to become a Spiritualist—a cultivation method thought to be lost. Since he wants to spit in the face of karma, that’s on him. If you sacrifice a part of yourself because of a fucking bastard like him, he won, and your unbendable will is broken. You are stronger than that. You are a better man than him. He could have become legendary alongside you but chose to fall in the shadow of your passing—that’s on him. Even if one of us dies because of your mercy, we find that acceptable.*

*But I DON’T.*

*Then become stronger to make sure we don’t suffer.* Lily laughed at Crow, teasing him to calm his anger. *Go. Vent some of that anger by stealing all their stuff.*

*You little bandit, you just want treasures. Don’t think I don’t know about your stash in the Soulverse.* Crow mentally chuckled. Lily was right; all actions have consequences. It was better to stay true to himself and his beliefs and deal with the aftermath. It is easy to claim that his mercy might kill a loved one, but it is equally likely that his lack of mercy could lead to more death. Since he chose to bet on Kafe’s better nature, Crow should have faith that his actions would bear fruit.

Leaving Kafe behind, he scanned the rest of the building and found no one else present. The vault’s interior had a singular main hall that went the length of the building, with six intersecting hallways. The last one was against the back wall where he first entered. Each block had three rooms except the one closest to the entry—it only had one room on each side.

That meant there were twenty-six interconnected chambers, some of which were specially built to preserve specific types of goods like herbs, books, and other things that might degrade quickly. In other words, there were thirteen rooms on each side with archways connecting them to the central and side hallways. Additionally, each chamber’s interior had open passages between them, giving it a museum-like feel.

The layout didn’t surprise Crow since it was like Durex’s vault that he’d already looted. The only difference was the décor and treasures present. Durex had a lot of weird, unusable items—well, things Crow wouldn’t use. Many of them were related to dual cultivation that left him more disturbed than excited.

Crow chose this vault as the next target because out of all the branches of Unhulde, Hex Vodun left the biggest impression on him. Within the sect, they rarely acted out, but anyone that pissed them off disappeared. They had a strange solidarity that didn’t exist in the other clans. They were also the branch Crow considered the most cunning and evil—he ranked them higher than the Aztlan–the lineage that performed blood rituals. The clan also gave rise to the Blood Ember Sect until Gideon, his maternal grandfather, took over. The longer Crow stayed in Unhulde, the more connections he discovered, which bothered him. A powerful Witch founded Unhulde, and he was seriously wondering if she was related to his maternal grandmother.

Shuddering, he shook off those thoughts, hoping it wasn’t true. Oddly, out of the six major branches and even the minor ones, Ghost Eaters was probably the tamest. Crow wasn’t disillusioned enough to say they did no evil, but most practitioners targeted lost Souls because they usually gathered together in places with high concentrations of Ghost Mana. Targeting powerful cultivators for assassination to steal their Souls involved a lot of risks. A freshly killed Soul hadn’t lost their memories yet, retained some residual power, and had a hefty amount of resentment. These traits made it dangerous to convert them into mana for cultivation. This is where their evil side came into play because they had plenty of techniques to erode a Soul’s will, and none of them were pleasant. On the other side, it was simpler to coax lost Souls without sinister means because they forgot about their existence and roamed without purpose.

Discarding those thoughts, he popped outside the wall and waved the girls over. It was time to loot.