The servant led Red to a large bedroom. Leon was there, waiting for him.

“Are you prepared, Master Viran?”

Unlike their previous encounters, Leon’s getup was quite different. He was wearing an all black martial outfit, resembling a rogue more than a noble. The pouch by his waist also blended with his clothing, almost impossible to detect if one was not paying attention.

What really stood out, however, was a dark wooden flute strapped to the other side of his waist. There was an undisguised spiritual energy aura emitting from the instrument.

“You’re going to sing?” Red asked.

Leon smiled. “It’s a spiritual artifact. Don’t worry, it doesn’t make noise. Are you prepared, then?”

Red nodded.

“Step close to me.” Leon said. “And make sure to stay within two meters at all times.”

He did as instructed, though he didn’t get any closer than two meters.

The young master chuckled at this before fiddling with his pouch. He pulled out a round plain iron insignia, inserting a dark green energy into it.

The item glowed, and a faint aura spread around it. Leon disappeared from view in an instant.

Red’s eyes twitched, but he didn’t panic. He could still feel the man right in front of him. The aura stopped expanding around the two meter mark, covering him in its domain.

Red felt an electrifying sensation touching his skin. He looked down at his hands, noting that they had gone invisible, too.

“The item can turn everyone I want within two meters invisible. As long as they don’t resist it, that is.” Leon said. “Come on, we will go out through the balcony.”

The window was already half open, so they didn’t need to touch anything. They stopped at the edge of the balcony, looking down at the garden below.

Leon’s room was on the second floor, so they would need to jump down. Not a problem for cultivators of their level, but they still needed to coordinate to not be farther than 2 meters apart.

The young master looked over at him - or at least that’s what he did as far as Red could tell.

“I’ll count us down. I haven’t informed the guards about my plan, but the formation won’t be alerted to our presence.”

Red only nodded. A few seconds of silence went by before he caught himself. “I understand.”

That seemed to be enough for Leon.

“One, two, and… Jump!”

They jumped in sync, landing at the middle of the ground without making a single sound. As soon as Red’s feet touched the ground, though, he felt a gaze on his back.

In a panic, he turned around and looked at its source. There, on the third floor of the house, a silhouette was staring directly at him from behind a curtain. With his crimson sense, Red could immediately tell it belonged to that same Greater Ring Realm cultivator he felt earlier.

‘He can sense us.’

Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise.

As if detecting his alarm, Leon spoke up.

“Don’t worry. My father knows what we are doing.”

‘He seems quite willing to see his son take such risks.’

Red kept this thought to himself. “Let’s go.”

Like Leon said, the way out of the manor was smooth. They avoided any patrols and were able to jump the fence with no issues.

Red also used his crimson sense to scout the way, and he felt quite a few presences on the rooftops of neighbouring buildings - hidden just out of sight. The spies, he presumed.

Thankfully, none of their attention seemed to be directed at the invisible duo, which meant their escape plan was a success.

“There’s a long way to go to reach the sewer entrance.” Leon said. “Tell me if you ever need to stop. I won’t rush my steps.”

Red grunted in agreement.

As Leon explained earlier, they secured an entrance to the sewers in another section of the city. It would be a good way to avoid bringing any attention to their operation.

The way over was mostly smooth. With their invisibility, they didn’t need to hide away from prying eyes, though they still found it wise to stick to alleys and out of sight. Sometimes Red would feel they were headed to a direction where multiple Lesser Ring Realm cultivators lived, but before he could even give Leon a warning, the young master stopped.

“We’ll make a detour here. There're some cultivators ahead, and I don’t want to risk detection.”

This surprised Red. Either the young noble had some means of detection, or he had very detailed information about the cultivators in the city.

With Leon’s guidance, Red had little to do other than follow. All he focused on was making sure they were not being stalked by anyone.

Almost an hour later, they reached the outskirts of town. Then, after scouting around with some landmarks, Leon finally arrived in front of a shoddy wooden house hidden away in a small alley.

“It’s here.” he said. “We arrived just on time, too. I think the artifact only has some ten minutes.”

‘So close?’

Red held back his annoyance.

“There’s no one inside.” he said.

“That’s by design. We didn’t want anyone to spot our men.”

Leon walked forward and pushed against the door.

“Come on, let’s go inside before anyone passes by.”

Red followed behind him and closed the door. The inside of the house didn’t look any better, with half-rotten wooden furniture and webs all around.

Once they were inside, Leon deactivated the invisibility. He looked over at Red and smiled.

“I told you it would go smoothly, didn’t I?”

“If I didn’t believe you, I wouldn’t have taken the job.” Red said.

“Well… Either way, the entrance should be over here.”

Leon walked to a corner of the room where a large dirty rug laid. He pulled it off, revealing a locked wooden hatch beneath it.

“This is how you hid a secret entrance?” Red asked.

Leon smiled. “Until yesterday, we didn’t consider the entrance to the sewers to be a particularly important secret to keep. Still, we have other means of telling if the space was tampered with.”

As he said that, he took out a small slab from his pouch.

‘A formation plated.’

Red was quick to recognize it.

Leon looked over the plate before nodding and stowing it away.

“We are safe. Let’s go.”

He unlocked the hatch and threw it open, revealing a ladder passage that led straight down to the underground. They both climbed down before landing in a small stone room. An iron door stood on the other side, and already foul odors reached their nostrils.

Leon looked over at Red, his expression hardening. “From here on out, we are entering unknown territory. My family has limited control of these sewers, and over the years, many factions in the city have expanded these tunnels to conduct underground activities. It’s not just the cult territory we need to beware of.”

Red nodded. “This is what I’m here for. Let me scout the way and we’ll be fine.”

The young master nodded back. “I’ll be relying on you, then.”

Leon walked over to the iron door and unlocked it before swinging it open. On the other side, they were greeted by the grisly sight of the sewer tunnels.

It was a large arched pathway reaching about five meters tall and ten meters long, paved with crude stone blocks. A wide stream of foul water ran through the middle of the passage, surrounded on both sides by narrow sidewalks where one could tread. The air was damp and fetid, and it caused Red to hesitate to even draw breath.

It was common for cultivators, with their enhanced senses, to be more affected by things like smells. Still, this was why it was all the more important for them to control their bodily reactions.

It took Red a few seconds to shut the smell away and focus on his surroundings.

Leon, however, wasn’t faring very well, as he held his nose with a disgusted expression. Still, as he looked over at his companion standing unbothered, he tried to compose himself.

“I have the map memorized in my head.” he said. “There might be additional passages along the way, but unless they blocked off the main tunnels, the path will remain the same.”

“Wouldn’t that make it easier for them to ambush us, then?”

“That… Is something I didn’t consider.”

Red shook his head. “There’s no need to worry about it now. It’s still a preferable option than taking unknown routes to our destiny.”

The sewers spanned almost the entire city underground. Even if the enemy expected them, it would be hard to pinpoint where they would come from. Or at least, so Red hoped.

“Just stay behind me and be ready to act.” he said.

“Right.” Leon nodded. “We need to meet Emeric as soon as possible.”

“No point in rushing, if it means we lower our guard.”

With that, Red walked down the sidewalk with Leon as a guide. The tunnels were long, and they often diverged at many intersections, but the young noble seemed to have a good handle on their path.

“This way.”

Leon pointed to the left.

The tunnels were mostly dark, but there were some dim lamps hanging on the walls every ten meters - most likely to help light the path for people who worked down there. This meant they didn’t need any tool to light their path - not that it was an issue for Red.

For his part, he kept a close eye on every surface of the tunnel, in search of marks or symbols that seemed out of place. The only thing he found, though, was the usual sewer access leading above or signs of human activity in almost every crevice they came across. It seemed quite a few people lived in these tunnels, though they were nowhere to be found at the moment.

In fact, even using his crimson sense, Red had yet to detect any human being or monster in these tunnels. This started to bother him very quickly.

“These tunnels are supposed to be quite active, right?” he asked.

Leon nodded, his expression also showing puzzlement. “At least underneath the slums, this is supposed to be a very active place, but...”

“There’s no one here.”

Red considered the possibility that they might be hiding in some of these poorly dug side-tunnels, but his crimson sense told him otherwise. He could sense up to three hundred meters around him, even farther if he focused in one direction - and he had yet to sense any sign of life.

Something was strange.

“There are no signs of combat or struggle.” Leon said. “Everyone seems to have just… Left.”

“Perhaps they were told to leave.” Red said. “And from the looks of it, they were quite compliant.”

The young master frowned. “The city guard, perhaps? But they don’t mess with matters of the sewers unless it’s something extremely important.”

“Who did it doesn’t matter. What matters is why they did it.”

What was the point of evacuating the entire sewer system when the area the cult was acting under was rather isolated?

Leon shook his head. “It’s hard to tell, but I doubt they would go to such lengths just to prepare for us.”

“You may be right, but it’s best to be prepared for confrontation sooner rather than later.”

They continued to make their way through the tunnels. Leon judged it would take them no more than half an hour to reach the meeting place where Emeric waited, but midway through, something happened.

‘A fluctuation!’

Red felt it, roughly in the direction they were walking towards. As he took another step, another one appeared, followed by almost a dozen more. The number continued to increase until it almost reached the hundreds.

This gave Red pause.

“What’s the matter?” Leon asked as he stopped walking.

“Something is happening up ahead.”

“Huh?” The young master frowned. “How can you… No, that doesn’t matter. What is it you felt?”

“A gathering. Dozens of mortals, up ahead.”

“Dozens? What are they doing?”

“I can’t tell.” Red shook his head. “Be prepared for combat.”

He had a bad feeling about the situation.

Leon nodded and unstrapped his flute from his waist.

Red continued to lead the way, and their path brought them closer to this gathering. As they approached, a faint whispering sound reached their ears.

‘What is this?’

Red tensed, and his hand went to his sword. It wasn’t just a single voice, but rather dozens of them. Each one was too faint to hear individually, but together they formed a chorus that echoed through the tunnel.

Once the duo turned a bend, the source of this sound was revealed to them.

Dozens of ragged human figures knelt around an altar, their figured prostrated to the ground and hidden by shadows. This altar was built on a platform raised over the sewer stream, and a single object stood atop it.

A statuette of a snake.

As soon as Red gazed at it, he felt his body freeze involuntarily. Then, at the next second, the whispering noises stopped.

The heads of the kneeling figures whipped around, staring at the unwelcome visitors. Their eyes were all glowing red, with dark slits for pupils.

The eyes of dozens of serpents.